The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Danielle Maion

London, British Library, Harley 6258B

Medical Treatises

Date: s. xiiex

Summary:

The manuscript includes material for the practice of medicine: the Old English translation of Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius and Medicina de Quadrupedus, which give, respectively, a list of plants and animals together with their therapeutic qualities, and a collection of remedies, the Peri didaxeon, that illustrates their use and their effectiveness together with their therapeutic applications. Although the earlier foliation suggests that the manuscript originally contained thirty more initial leaves, the quire's medieval signatures run from 'I', indicate that the extant texts were intended as a complete collection of medical treatises. Beccaria does not include this codex in his catalogue I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano, because it is not pre-Salernitan, that is, before the eleventh century (Beccaria 1956).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: Fols 1r/1-44r/26

   Title (B.21.1.1.7.1.EM): Pseudo-Apuleius: Herbarius, Medicina de Quadrupedibus [alphabetical version]

   Incipit: 'ƿið innoðes sar jenim þa ƿirte' [Initial letter no longer visible]

   Explicit: 'bite þæs cancores heo afeormað | '

   Text Language: English

   Other versions of the text:

   • Vitellius C. iii, fols 11v-74v;
   • London, British Library, Harley 585, fols 1r-101v;
   • Hatton 76, fols 68r-124r.

   BL Harley 6258B, unlike the other Old English versions, is shorter and arranges the herbs in alphabetical order according to their Latin names (considering the first letter only). Residues of the previous arrangement are witnessed in the text (see fol. 33v where the last two words coincide with the first two words of the following chapter according to the arrangement of the other versions). Nevertheless, all the witnesses descend, very probably, from a common ancestor (see De Vriend 1984, p. xliii).

   Note: Numerous cures are provided with marginal annotations (circled in black or red) in Latin and, rarely, in Old English provide a brief summary of the content of the remedies. It is unlikely they were copied from the Latin original (see De Vriend 1984, pp. xxix-xxx), and it seems probable that they were added to allow quick retrieval of a specific cure in the text.

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, p. xix.

   Berberich 1901.

   De Vriend 1984, pp. xxviii-xxix, xxxiii-xxxviii, xliv.

   D'Aronco and Cameron 1998, p. 13.

2. Item: Fols 44v/2-51r/23

   Title (B.21.1.1.7.2.EM): Pseudo-Apuleius: Herbarius, Medicina de Quadrupedibus [abbreviated version]

   Incipit: 'Þe egypta king e idpartus wæs hatan'

   Explicit: 'swylas edwæsceþ.'

   Rubric (final): 'explicit de medicinis herbarum. Incipit de singulis feris medicamen tum' (in the top margin, in black. Under the black rubric, singulis medicamentum is added in a much faded shade of red) .

   Text Language: English

   Other versions of the text:

   This Old English version of the Medicina de Quadrupedibus survives in the same manuscript tradition that preserves the Old English Herbarius:

   • Vitellius C. iii, fols 75r-82v
   • London, British Library, Harley 585, fols 101v-114v, imperfect.
   • Hatton 76, fols 124v-130r.

   This version differs from the other witnesses for the abbreviation of its content, although the textual tradition appears to be the same (see De Vriend 1972, p. liv).

   Note: Unlike the Old English Herbarius, only a few remedies are provided with marginal annotations in Latin, and even more rarely in Old English. They are in red or in black (circled in red or black) and they summarise the content of the corresponding remedies.

   Bibliography:

   Delcourt 1914.

   De Vriend 1972, pp. xxvii-xxxi.

3. Item: Fols 51r/24-51v/14

   Title (B.21.5.11.EM): Recipe: Medical recipes for headaches

   Incipit: 'ƿið eafodece pollege'

   Explicit: 'ƿið wæter and beþa mid'

   Text Language: English

   Other versions of the text: The remedies run together as a single text. The second remedy has the red title De beta. The last four remedies duplicate four in Balds Læceboc and two of these (for sinew problems) are translated from the Latin Herbarius; the last remedy is also found in the collection of medical recipes preserved in BL, Add. 43703.

   Note: Seven recipes.

   Bibliography:

   Cockayne 1866, I, pp. 380-82.

   Berberich 1901, p. 138.

   Delcourt 1914, p. 24.

   Meaney 1984, pp. 246-50.

4. Item: Fols 51v/14-23

   Title: Three Latin medical recipes.

   Incipit: 'ad tumorem nervorum.'

   Explicit: 'and statim sedabitur.'

   Text Language: Latin

   Note: These Old English and Latin remedies, that are offset with paragraph marks, seem to have been added to fill a blank space between the two long treatises, the Medicina de Quadrupedibus and the Peri didaxeon. This may have already occurred in the examplar of Harley 6258B, as the remedies begin in the last two lines of the folio.

   Bibliography:

   Cockayne 1866, I, p. 382.

   Berberich 1901, p. 139.

5. Item: Fols 51v/23-66v/23

   Title (B.21.7.EM): Additional Medical Texts: Peri didaxeon

   Incipit: 'Her onginþ þeo boc þa | peri didaxeon gename' [with a two-line red initial].

   Explicit: 'and bynd þa scealfe to þan breostan þane.'

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Löweneck 1896

   Sanborn 1983

   Maion 1999

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Parchment. Not good quality with numerous flaws and repairs. A fragmentary small-format manuscript conceived to be economical to produce rather than a deluxe copy: the manuscript was unbound for a long time and much of the volume seems to have been made of shreds of rejected vellum (see Cockayne 1866, I, p. lxxxiv). Added slips pasted to parchment tags are used to include further material, in particular chapters of the Old English Herbarius that seem to have been first omitted by the scribe (see De Vriend 1984, p. xxxiii). Moreover, the transcription is very inaccurate, but the texts were thoroughly revised, thus confirming the importance of the content rather than physical beauty in production.

Extent: v+66+v leaves; including a number of added slips (fols 4, 9, 16-18, 21-22, 29, 30, 33, 35, 41) written on one side, except fol. 41, and some fragments (fols 11-19); fol. 15 is actually the upper corner of fol. 19; trimmed leaves size:

c. 184 mm x c. 145 mm (dimensions of all, except added slips and fragments - size of leaves)

Foliation and/or Pagination:

The manuscript has been doubly foliated at the top right hand corner of each recto. Modern pencil foliation, followed here, inserted according to the 1870s usage (see Prescott 2006, p. 475), is made of Arabic numerals running without interruption from 1 to 66. The brown-ink foliation is older and runs from 31 to 38 (fols 1-10, excluding the two added slips); it switches to 49 (fol. 19) and then to 54 (fol. 20) and skips from 56 to 98 (fols 23-66), with the repetition of number 71 in two consecutive folios (fols 38 and 39). The last three folios (fols 64-66) have other numbers (55, 56, 57) entered by a hand similar to the older one.

Collation:

Quires: The original gathering composition is lost and the leaves have been mounted on guards in small gatherings of four leaves, bifolia or single leaves (see Doane 1994, pp. 45-46). Considering the surviving signatures and catchwords, the collation is the following: Quire 1: fols 1r-10v (4 and 9 are added slips); Quire 2: fols 11-19 (fragments): quire number and catchword no longer visible; Quire 3: fols 20r-31v (fols 21, 22, 29 and 30 are added slips); Quire 4: fols 32r-42v (fols 33, 35 and 41 are added slips); Quire 5: fols 43r-50v; Quire 6: fols 51r-58v; Quire 7: fols 59r-66v. The first four gatherings start with the hairside out, the others with the fleshside out and the leaves are arranged flesh facing flesh and hair facing hair.

Signatures: Roman numerals which indicate the quires number: Quire 1: 'i.' fol. 10v left; Quire 2: (not visible burnt folios); Quire 3: '.iii.' fol. 31v left; Quire 4: '.iiii.' fol. 42v left; Quire 5: '.v.' fol. 50v centre (8); Quire 6: 'vi' fol. 58v centre (8); Quire 7: 'vii' fol. 66v right (8).

Catchwords: Catchwords consist of a portion of text to appear on the next folio, according to a twelfth-century usage (see Ker 1957, p. xi; Ker 1960, p. 50) written at the bottom on the right side of the leaf: Quire 1 fol. 10v; Quire 2 fol. 31v; Quire 4 fol. 42v; Quire 5 fol. 50v; Quire 6 fol. 58v; Quire 7 fol. 66v.

Diagram: Diagrammatic representation of the quiring structure.

Condition: The manuscript is well-preserved on the whole; there are many holes (fols 25, 34, etc.) and tears (fols 6, 24, etc.), but they do not interfere with the texts; certain tears have been sown up with string (e.g. fol. 10). The manuscript suffered damage and was affected by several losses. Eight leaves (fols 11-19) are burnt fragments: they have been recovered in the material belonging to the Cottonian collection (see Cockayne 1866, I, p. lxxxv) and gaps in foliation indicate that several leaves are missing. The earliest foliation, running from 31 in coincidence with the first folio of the manuscript, suggests the loss of thirty leaves before the present contents. Furthermore, the numbering interruptions between fols 38 (fol. 10) and 49 (fol. 19) and between fol. 49 and fol. 54 (fol. 20) suggest that at least fourteen more leaves are lost and are only partly recovered by the fragments. Finally, the catchword at the end of Quire 7 (fol. 66v) and the abrupt interruption of the text, indicate that the manuscript contained at least one more quire originally.

Layout description:

1. Layout:
• Layout type: LO04
• Columns: 1
• Written Lines: varies from 21 to 31
• Dimensions: 145 / 170 x 95 / 110 mm x 95 / 110 mm; ruled
• Overview: Ruling on flesh side in metal point. Double bounding vertical lines on both sides of the frame, but the scribe does not keep in bounds and the texts often extend beyond the right vertical line and above the ruled line. The writing is always above the first ruled line. No pricks are visible. See diagram.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Summary: Although the script is very irregular and untidy and the hand varies over the course of its campaign, it seems that only one scribe was responsible for the transcription, corrections, additions of titles, initials and marginal annotations.

The manuscript is not described in Wanley's Catalogues while the Catalogue of Harleian Manuscripts (1973, iii, p. 347) merely states that the manuscript is evidently very old. Beccaria 1956 does not include this codex in his catalogue because it is not pre-Salernitan (ante eleventh century).

Ker 1957 described it as a 'small ill-formed script' and dated it after 1200 on the strength of the shape of the biting d before e and o, the tironian nota with an horizontal stroke across its ascender and the 'small ill-formed' nature of the script (p. xix). De Vriend 1984 discounted this suggestion arguing that the features Ker put forward are not exclusively post-1200 features. He points out that there is an unmistakable resemblance between this codex and Harley 55, fols 5-13 (Laws of Cnut) dated mid-twelfth century by Ker (see Ker 1957, no. 226): they show the same kind of 'prickly' script although much neater and more regular in manuscript Harley 55. Thus, De Vriend suggested dating the manuscript to the second half of the twelfth century at the latest (p. xxx). Doane 1994 defined it as a pointed insular minuscule with some Caroline features (p. 44), while Laura Nuvolini, in a private communication, suggests calling it an English vernacular minuscule with some protogothic features.

However, these discussions ought to consider that the manuscript could be written before the thirteenth century, because of the confusion of the letters t and j (for instance on fol. 10r/2 mætan is corrected in mæjan) which is not attested after that time (see Burchfield 1953, pp. 8-17). Moreover, the similarities between Harley 55 and Harley 6258B are not relevant for dating as the letters s, f and r are, in this first manuscript, always of insular type, while the later uses Caroline forms. A late twelfth-century dating seems more appropriate. Many Caroline forms are only slightly compressed, the letters are still well-separated and a consistent use of protogothic elements is lacking, thus suggesting a period not too close to the thirteenth century. On the other hand, the development of serifs and feet points to a late twelfth-century dating.

Hand: main text
• Scope: Major
• Script: Insular minuscule with Caroline fatures
• Ker reference: Ker p. xix
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand: Letters keep a round shape but developed triangular wedges at the top of the ascenders and feet consisting of an upwards turn of the pen. Letters are still well-separated, although the script is a little compressed, probably to save space rather than to respond to a particular scribal habit.
• a: Caroline form with a small lobe, which is always closed; in few instances the top is completely curved to the left, but more often is short and straight.
• c: round-broken stroke.
• d: round loop with a tall sloping ascender.
• e: round-back with a short tongue to the right of the squarish head, longer at the end of a word.
• f: Caroline form sitting on the line with a long ascender and a long leftwards tail.
• g: Caroline form with a closed lower loop used with the insular 5-shaped g with a descender curving towards the left and an open lobe. The head stroke is flat.
• h: Caroline form with a right limb which curls to the left.
• i, m, n and u are traced singularly, irregular in shape and their feet either finish with a small serif or with a sharper angle to the right.
• Tall, wedged ascender l has a shaft finishing on the line with a small foot curling to the right.
• Rounded closed o.
• p and ƿ are mainly distinguishable through meaning. However, p has a descender finishing with a right curl and a closed, squarish lobe which closes past the shaft on the left.
• þ formed with a tailed descender generally curving towards the left at the end and a closed small lobe.
• r has two forms: Caroline form with a straight 45 degree head stroke and a 2-shaped r after o.
• Caroline s and insular form with a head stroke curving to the left.
• t has a straight head.
• x has an exaggerated descender curving left.
• ƿ is used and it is very much like y without a dot; the descender ends with a flick to the left.
• y is always dotted and the descender ends with a flick to the left.
• Ascenders end with a hair tail. Generally, letters keep a round shape but developed triangular wedge at the top of the ascenders.
• Descenders: Feet close with an upwards turn of the pen. Letters are still well-separated, although the script is a little compressed, probably to save space rather than to respond to a particular scribal habit
• Accents: upward slanting stroke above i, rarely above other letters (e.g. above a at fol. 47/22).
• Abbreviations: common marks of abbreviations are used. Characteristic are the crossed tironian nota for and angled slightly rightward; a suprascript virgule that cross the ascender of þ to indicate þat/þæt and whose top goes higher than the top of the ascender. The same type of comma crosses the round-backed ð; a straight stroke usually abbreviates m, n and -er is abbreviated with macrons, apostrophe or a superscript virgule.
• Punctuation: Punctus on the line and the punctus elevatus. In a few instances a colon (fol. 45v/18).
• Litterae Notabiliores: Signs of paragraphs or nota are sometimes used as a signe-de-renvoi for the title (fol. 45v/5) or annotations (fol. 38r/8). The sign of a paragraph is sometimes found in the text to mark the beginning of a remedy (fols 26v/12; fol. 64v72,9,14). A cross is used to sign additions in the text and the place for the insertion (fols 21v/1 and 22r/1). The capital letters A and B are used to sign the inversion (fol. 39v/17-23).
• Ligatures: Ligatures are widely used sl, st, ct and ft, where the headstroke of the first letters curves and forms the shaft of the following; juncture of d and e is also used (fol. 34v/12).
• Language: The scribe uses a greater number of twelfth-century spelling but the language is clearly Late West-Saxon, with some levelling of inflections (see Schiessl 1905; De Vriend 1984, pp. lxxv-lxxviii; Bierbaumer 1976, pp. xi-xii).
• Correcting technique: corrections were carefully made by underdotting (fol. 45r/13), staining (fol. 49v/14) or underlining the letters to be deleted (fol. 44v/5), striking-through a word (fol. 45v/6); the correct word or letter may be interlined above (fol. 47v/18) or a signe-de-renvoi consisting of parallel slanting lines (fol. 10r/26) or a cross (fol. 10r/27) may be added. The parallel slanting lines are also used to indicate inversion of order (fol. 59r/18).

Decoration Description:

There is no decoration and brown ink, that varies from dark to light, is generally used. Red colour occurs in some marginal annotations, that are sometimes framed in brown or red, in the initials (they are accompanied by faint guide letters in margins) that span two lines high, rarely three (fol. 2v/5), and in chapters and texts headings. Red is often very faded and the letters are rewritten in brown ink. Brown majuscules are used to mark the beginning of some chapters. Indexical letters run at the tops of most of the folios, and occasionally besides the text, from A (fol. 1) to X (fol. 44), corresponding to the alphabetical arrangement of the Herbarius in this manuscript.

Additions:

There are only few later additions.

• The title "A Saxon Herball" that appears on fol. 1r has been identified with Thomas Cotton's hand (1594-1662) by C. Tite (information kindly provided by Laura Nuvoloni).
• The word arthemisia in the top margin of fol. 1r and eganne dryb (eye drop?) on the right margin of fol. 10r seem of the same seventeenth-century hand.
• The other additions consist of curatorial interventions. Stamping: the ownership of the manuscript by the British nation is proclaimed by the insertion of bright red stamps throughout. Usually at the beginning and end of the manuscript (see Prescott 2006, p. 473), here on the fifth front flyleaf and fol. 65v probably because the first and last folios are darker than the rest and the stamp would be hardly visible, are large square red stamps, reading 'MUSEUM BRITANNICUM' and dated to the eighteenth century. A smaller stamp with the words 'BRITISH MUSEUM' around a small crown, is placed in the margins throughout the manuscript (e.g. fols 8v, 26v, 32v). Notes on allocation on the top margin of fol. 1r the Harley shelfmarks '6258.b.' in dark brown ink and '2/III A' in pencil, the latter being also found on the endleaf of Harley 585, another medical manuscript because Harleian manuscripts were shelved according to subject classification in Montagu House. On the back of front cover, low left corner, '49.9.' is written in pencil.
• De Vriend (1984, p. 62) suggests a later hand for the addition to torenijen in the top margin of fol. 36r. The hand seems, however, the same but varies slightly in being a little less compressed, as in the annotation of the lower margin of fol. 32r.
• The title of fol. 20r millefolio added in the top margin is very similar to the main hand, but the colour is very black and millefolio is added in the middle of the ninth cure of the chapter, thus suggesting that it may have been added later, perhaps after the loss of Quire 2 which contains the beginning of the chapter.

Binding Description:

Outside leaves, front and back, are darker than the rest, suggesting that the manuscript was unbound for a long period. It has then been bound at least three times.

Cockayne (1866, I, p. lxxxv) mentioned the substitution of an earlier binding just after his publication of the manuscript, in 1866. The nineteenth-century binding is described as a small volume bound in brown leather; on the front and back covers, the coats of arms of the Harley family, gold-tooled; on the spine the title 'DE MEDICINIS HERBARIUM DE FERIS MEDICAMENTIS ETC. ANGLICE, MUS. BRIT. BIBL. HARL. 6258B PLUT.XLIX G.' (De Vriend 1972, p. xxvii).

The shelfmark 'PLUT.XLIX.G' is also recorded on the last front leaf; it relates to the moving of the manuscripts from Montagu House into the Manuscripts Saloon in 1824 (see Prescott 2006, p. 513).

The modern British Library binding is made of 3/4 red leather, the remainder being of textured red cloth with the Harley arms in gilt on the front and back covers. The title 'HERBAL BRIT. MUS. HARL. MS 6258B' is labelled on the spine.

Accompanying Material:

Added modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and end of the manuscript. The last three front leaves and first three endleaves are of slightly different paper and were very probably part of the earlier binding described by De Vriend 1972.

History:

Origin: Unknown.

Provenance: The manuscript belonged to the Harley collection and was probably acquired by Edward Harley (1689-1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, after the death of the librarian of the Harleian Collection Humphrey Wanley (1672-1726). It was in fact catalogued by the librarian William Hocker (see Wright and Wright 1966, I, p. lxxxi; II, pp. 475-515).

Acquisition: The manuscript was sold with the other Harley manuscripts in 1753 to the nation under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described and encoded by Danielle Maion, on 08 April 2010; revised in 2014. Thanks are due to Klaus-Dietrich Fischer for his helpful suggestions and feedback after the description was initially published in 2010.

Surrogates:

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1994), vol. 1: Books of Prayers and Healing

Bibliography:

Beccaria, Augusto, I Codici di Medicina del periodo Presalernitano (Secoli IX, X e XI) (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1956)

Berberich, H., Das Herbarium Apuleii nach einer früh-mittelenglischen Fassung, Anglistische Forschungen, 5 (Heidelberg, 1902; repr. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1966)

Bierbaumer, P., Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen. II Teil: Lacnunga, Herbarium Apulei, Peri Didaxeon, Grazer Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, 2 (Bern/Frankfurt am Main/Mnchen: Lang, 1976)

British Museum, ed., A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1808-12; repr. anas. Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1973)

Brown, Michelle P., A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1990)

Burchfield, L. W., 'A Source of Scribal Error in Early Middle English', Medium Ævum, 22 (1953), 8-17

Cameron, M. L., Anglo-Saxon Medicine, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

Cockayne, Oswald, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Being a Collection of Documents for the Most Part Never before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in this Country before the Norman Conquest, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 35, 3 vols (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1864-66; repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus, 1965)

D'Aronco, M. A., 'Testi medici in inglese antico', in Tradizione e ecdotica dei testi medici tardoantichi e bizantini, Atti del Convegno Internazionale Anacapri 29-31 ottobre 1990, ed. by A. Garzya, (Napoli: D'Auria, 1990), pp. 73-78

D'Aronco, M. A., and M. L. Cameron, The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia. British Library Cotton Vitellius C III., Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 27 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1998)

De Vriend, H. J., The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, EETS, OS 286 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)

---, The Old English Medicina de Quadrupedibus (Tilburg: Gianotten, 1972)

Delcourt, J., Medicina de Quadrupedibus: An Early ME Version, Anglistische Forschungen, 40 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1914)

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, '278. London, British Library, Harley 6258B: "Herbarium Pseudo-Apulei," "Medicina de quadrupedibus," "Peri didaxeon," etc.', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1994), vol. 1: Books of Prayers and Healing, pp. 44-51

Gameson, Richard, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1999)

Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001)

Hoops, J., 'Peri Didaxeon, eine Sammlung von Rezepten in englischer Sprache aus dem 11./12. Jahrhundert. by Max Löweneck', Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie, 20 (1899), 65-72

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), p. xix

---, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest, The Lyell Lectures, 1952-53 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960)

---, 'From Above Top Line to Below Top Line: A Change in Scribal Practice', in Books, Collectors and Libraries, ed. by Andrew G. Watson (London: Hambledon Press, 1985), pp. 71-74

Löweneck, Max, ed., Peri Didaxeon. Eine Sammlung von Rezepten in Englischer Sprache aus dem 11./12. Jahrhundert. Nach einer Handschrift des Britischen Museums, Erlanger Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie und Vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte, 12 (Erlangen: Junge, 1896; repr. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1970)

Maion, D., 'The Fortune of the so-called Practica Petrocelli Salernitani in England: New Evidence and Some Considerations', in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6-8 April 2006, Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 39 (Udine: Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 495-512

---, 'Il lessico tecnico Peri Didaxeon. Elementi di datazione', Il Bianco e Il Nero, 6 (2003), 179-86

---., 'Edizione, traduzione e commento del Peri Didaxeon' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Rome III, 1999)

Meaney, A. L., 'Variant Versions of Old English Medical Remedies and the Compilation of Bald's Leechbook', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), 235-68

Prescott, Andrew, 'What's in a Number? The Physical Organization of the Manuscript Collections of the British Library', in Beatus Vir: Studies in Early English and Norse Manuscripts in Memory of Philip Pulsiano, ed. by A. N. Doane and Kirsten Wolf (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), pp. 471-525

Sanborn, L., 'Anglo-Saxon Medical Practices and the Peri Didaxeon', Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, 55 (1985), 7-13

---, 'An Edition of British Library MS. Harley 6258B: Peri Didaxeon' (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1983)

Schiessl, J., Laut- und Flexionsverhältnisse der frühmittelenglischen Rezeptensammlung Peri Didaxeon (Erlangen: Junge, 1905)

Wanley, Humfrey, Antique literature septentrionalis liber alter (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1705)

Wright, C. E., and R. C. Wright, The Diary of H. Wanley (1715-1726), 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966)