The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Owen Roberson

Durham, Cathedral Library, Hunter 100

Liber de medicina, compoto, et astronomia, including Latin-OE herbal glossary

Date: s. xiiin

Summary:

Made up of four booklets of similar design and script which have been arranged differently at various times. Contains calendars and astrological tables, medical recipes and tracts (Doane and Rollason 2007, pp. 111-20). Fols 82-84v contain a list of the names of herbs in Latin with their Old English equivalents. The only other Old English is on fol. 106v, where the heading 'Ad papulam .i. blegne' occurs in a collection of recipes (Ker 1957).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 82-84

   Title (D.6): Latin-Old English Glossary: Glossary of Herb Names

   Incipit: (fol. 82r) Absinthium.Vermod

   Explicit: (fol. 84v) Zizania. coccel

   Note: Scanned facsimile is too blurred to read. Incipit and explicit taken from Doane and Rollason 2007.

   Bibliography:

   Doane and Rollason 2007

   Ker 1957, item 110

   Mynors 1939, no. 57

   von Lindheim 1941, p. 8

   Cockayne 1864-66, iii, p. 299

2. Item: fol. 106

   Title (B.21.5.10.EM): Recipes: Heading in a Collection of Recipes

   Incipit: (fol. 106v) Ad papulam .i. blege

   Bibliography:

   Doane and Rollason 2007

   Ker 1957, item 110

   Mynors 1939, no. 57

   von Lindheim 1941, p. 8

   Cockayne 1864-66, iii, p. 299

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Parchment

Extent:

170 mm x 120 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

120 mm x 80 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination: The present foliation is in modern pencil. Originally foliated in a different order in fifteenth century. There is some erratic early modern pagination.

Collation: Fols ii + 121 + ii (flyleaves paper). Consists of four individual booklets bound together: fols 1-42, fols 43-84, fols 85-101 and fols 102-121.

Quires: 110, lacks 9 after fol. 8, fols 1-9; 28 wants 6-8 after fol. 14, fols 10-14; 312, 4-510, 610; 710+1? lacks 10 (and 11?) after fol. 61; 7-98; 106+1 one leaf (fol. 84) added after 6; 118, 1210 lacks 10 after fol. 101; 13-1410.

Note:

Ruling is drypoint with double frame rule, pricking in the outer margins. Leaves are arranged HFHF. A leaf is missing after fol. 101 and fol. 15 is mostly cut away.

Hand description:

Number of hands: Multiple

Summary: 'The book is written throughout in early twelfth-century hands of an elegant, small, calligraphic character' (Doane and Rollason 2000, p. 111). The Old English is in one of the main hands and is not distinguished in script from the Latin (Ker 1957). Thompson shows fol. 83 (1903-12, ii, pl. 125).

Hand: glosses, etc.
• Scope: major
• Scribe: Ker 110
• Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
• þ is replaced with th.
• ð is replaced with th.
• v stands for ƿ .

Decoration Description:

• Extensive use of red rubrics and capitals, with the use of green, red, blue and violet in items 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14 and 19 (Doane and Rollason 2000, p. 112).
• Booklet A, fols 2r-7v Illustrations of zodiac signs
• Booklet B, fol. 43r A zoomorphic initial 'C' enclosing a scribe
• Booklet B, fol. 43r the title ' CALCULATORIE ARTIS RUDIMenta ' appears in red and surrounded by green in a band around the letters
• Booklet B, fol. 44r A master beating his pupil by the slogan 'Afflicitur plagis qui non uult discere gratis'
• Booklet C, fols 61v-64v Illustrations of constellations
• Booklet C, fols 66r-67v intricate charts, one of the movements of the planets, and one of the phases of the moon
• fols 119r-120r Illustrations of 'cautery': the use of hot irons on certain designated parts of the body to treat conditions associated with those parts. Other contemporary manuscripts with the same images include: London, BL, Harley 1585, Sloane 1975, Sloane 2839; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS D 2 inf.; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13002; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1462 (The author would like to thank Prof. Monica Green for this information).
• fol. 70v A later medieval hand has added an index figure, a bust of a queen (Philosophia?) pointing
• fol. 72r A pointing hand in the same style as the index figure on fol. 72v has been added

Binding Description:

Restored seventeenth-century binding.

History:

Origin:

According to Ker 1957, the manuscript 'was no doubt written at Durham shortly after 1100'. This is shown by the occurence of the hand identified as belonging to Symeon, cantor and historian of the church of Durham (d. ca. 1129), found in part of the first booklet (Doane and Rollason 2007, p. 111).

Provenance:

'The book presumably remained at Durham, and entered the collection of Dr. Christopher Hunter (1675-1757). An apparently intermediate owner is noted on fol. 121r: 'Roger Gan(d)sar | hys Book 1710.' (Doane and Rollason 2007, p. 111).

Acquisition:

The book was bought from the executors of Dr. Christopher Hunter in 1757 by the Dean and Chapter of Durham. That it received its present arrangement in fairly recent times is shown by the eighteenth-century inscription at the top of fol. 85r: 'Liber Ecclesiæ | Cathedr. Dunelm.' (Doane and Rollason 2007, p. 111).

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Described by Owen Roberson with the assistance of Hollie Morgan and Johanna Green (August 2010; 2013). Thanks are due to Monica H. Green and Klaus-Dietrich Fischer for their helpful suggestions and feedback after the description was initially published in 2010.

Surrogates:

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and David Rollason, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 14: Manuscripts of Durham, Ripon, and York

Bibliography:

Alberto, Paulo F., ed., Eugenii Toletani: Opera Omnia, CCSL (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 114

Baker, Peter S., and Michael Lapidge, eds, Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, EETS, SS 15 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)

Boutemy, André, 'Notes sur des manuscrits classiques de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (Supplément au catalogue de P. Thomas), II: Le manuscrit 2194-5', Latomus, 3 (1939), 128-37

Cockayne, Oswald, ed., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1864-66; repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus, 1965)

Cordoliani, Alfred, 'Contribution à la littérature du comput ecclésiastique au moyen âge', Studi Medievali, 3, no. 6.1 (1961), 169-208

Dekkers, Eligius, and Aemilius Gaar, eds, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, Series Latina, 3 edn (Steenbrug: Brepols, 1995)

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, and David Rollason, '123. Durham Cathedral Library, Hunter 100', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 14: Manuscripts of Durham, Ripon, and York, pp. 111-22

Gullick, Michael, 'The Hand of Symeon of Durham: Further Observations on the Durham Martyrology Scribe', in Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1998), pp. 14-31

Haureau, B., Les mélanges poétiques d'Hildebert de Lavardin (Paris: G. Perdone-Lauriel, 1882)

Jones, Charles W., Bedae Pseudepigrapha: Scientific Writings Falsely Attributed to Bede (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1939)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 110

Krusch, Bruno, Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie: Die Entstehung unserer heutigen Zeitrechnung, Abhandlungen der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 8 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1938)

Lapidge, Michael, and Peter S. Baker, 'More Acrostic Verse by Abbo of Fleury', Journal of Medieval Latin, 7 (1997), 1-27

Levison, Wilhelm, 'Die 'Annales Lindisfarnenses et Dunelmenses' kritisch untersucht und neu herausgegeben', Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 17 (1961), 447-506

Lindsay, W. M., ed., Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive Originum , 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911)

Maass, Ernestus, Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, 2nd edn (Berlin: Weidmann, 1958)

McGurk, Patrick, 'Computus Helperici: Its Transmission in England in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries', Medium Ævum, 43 (1974), 1-5

McGurk, Patrick, and others, An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany: British Library Cotton Tiberius B. V Part I, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 21 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1983)

Meyer, Christian, Mensura Monochordi: La Division du Monocorde (IXe- XVe siècles), Publications de la Société Française de Musicologie, 12, 15 (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1996)

Mynors, R. A. B., Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939)

Rollason, David, ed., Symeon of Durham: Libellus de Exordio atque Procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis Ecclesie, Tract on the Origins and Progress of this the Church of Durham, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Saxl, Fritz, and Hans Meier, Verzeichnis Astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des Lateinischen Mittelalters, Handschriften in Englischen Bibliotheken, 3 (London: Warburg Institute, 1953)

Story, J. E, 'Symeon as Annalist', in Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1998), pp. 202-13

Strecker, Karolus, ed., Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, Monumenta Germaniae Historica 4.2 (Berlin: Weidmann), vol. 4

Thompson, E. M., and others, eds, Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, etc, Series 2, New Palaeographical Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1903-12)

Thorndike, Lynn, and Pearl Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1963)

van de Vyver, A., 'Les œuvres inédites d'Abbon de Fleury', Revue Bénédictine, 47 (1935), 125-69

von Lindheim, Bogislav, Das Durhamer Pflanzenglossar, lateinisch und altenglisch, Beiträge zur englischen Philologie 35 (Bochum-Langendreer: Verlag Heinrich Pöppinghaus, 1941)

Wallis, Faith, Bede: The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999)

Wormald, F, English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, Henry Bradshaw Society (London: Harrison and Sons, 1939), vol. 2

Catalogi Veteres Librorum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Dunelmensis (London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1838), vol. 7