The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Orietta Da Rold and Hollie Morgan

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1431 (7523)

Glosses to Herbarius of Pseudo-Apuleius

Date: s. xii

Summary:

A Latin copy of the herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius Barbarus, s. xiex (Kaufman 1975, p. 57), containing fifty-seven Old English interlinear and marginal glosses of names of herbs and diseases, datable to s. xii. The Old English glosses start on fol. 5r with 'ƿægbrada' for 'plantago' and ends on fol. 42v 'banece' for 'sciaticis' (Ker 1957, p. 350, see also Doane 2001, pp. 85-87).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 5-42v

   Title (C.36): Gloss to Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarius

   Incipit: (fol. 5r) wægbrada

   Explicit: (fol. 42v) banece

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, item 289

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Parchment

Extent:

235 mm x 150 mm (dimensions of fols 3-43 - size of leaves)

174 mm x 105 mm (dimensions of fols 3-32 - size of written space)

180 mm x 110 mm (dimensions of fols 33-42 - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination: viii +1-43+v. Foliated in ink in the top right-hand corner of the written space of the rectos, 1-43.

Collation:

Quires: 12, 28, 38 (wants 2, 3, but stubs remain), 46, 58, 610, 71.

Note:

Single bounding lines, ruled in dry point from 32 (fols 3-32) to 41 (fols 33-42). Prick-marks are visible on the outer margins of most folios.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Summary: One hand glossing the text in Old English

Hand: glosses
• Scope: minor
• Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
• Ker reference: Ker 289 SC1
• Description: Fols 5r-42v. A twelfth-century hand using mainly Caroline form, but adopting occasional insular letters.
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand: According to Ker, spellings are South-Eastern (Ker 1957, p. 350).
• Both insular and Caroline forms of a are used.
• The e component of æ is horned.
• d and ð are similar in shape and size.
• e is horned and sometimes open at the top.
• Caroline g has an open lower lobe and is very angular and upright. The cross-bar of insular g flicks down at the left and up at the right. The end of the tail flicks towards the right.
• minims are usually distinguishable.
• o is sometimes horned.
• p and ƿ are very similar in size and shape.
• The limb of r is wavy.
• Long s is used in all positions.
• t has a long cross-bar.
• þ used.
• The ascender of ð curls to the right at the top. The cross-bar does not transect the ascender.
• y is dotted.
• accents are sometimes used on æ.
• Abbreviations:
• macrons and ˥ are used.

Decoration Description:

Coloured illustrations of plants are included at the beginning of each section, in red, blue green, brown, pink, orange, yellow and white. The illustrations are not completed from the middle of fol. 36v onwards, although space has been left for them by the scribe. Names of plants are in red.

Additions:

• Middle English labels to illustrations by a Middle English annotator.
• Fols 1-2 include a fourteenth-century English breviary.
• On the verso of the flyleaf, a later hand, s. sv, included the title 'Herboralium Apuleii platonis' and the ex libris of St. Augustine's, Canterbury: the pressmark 'D. 14. Ga. 2˚' (Doane 2001, p. 84, and James 1903, n. 1264).

Binding Description:

Leather, s. xviii, with 'ASH. | 1431' on the spine.

History:

Origin:

According to Doane, the manuscript was 'probably produced at St. Augustine's, Canterbury' (2001, p. 84).

Provenance:

Belonged to St. Augustine's, Canterbury (James 1903, no. 1264). Later belonged to Elias Ashmole (1617-92) (Ker 1957, p. 350).

Acquisition:

Ashmole bequeathed the manuscript to the Ashmolean museum at his death (Ovenell 1986, pp. 71-73). Transferred to the Bodleian library in 1860 (Ovenell 1986, p. 217 and Doane 2001, p. 84).

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Orietta Da Rold and Hollie Morgan (2010; 2012).

Surrogates:

Blunt, Wilfrid, and Sandra Raphael, The Illustrated Herbal (London and New York: Thames and Hudson in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979), fol. 27r

Kauffman, C. M., Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), vol. III, pls. 22-25 rep. fols 31r, 34r, 19r, 20r

Gunther, R. T., The Herbal of Apuleius Barbarus (Roxburghe Club, 1925), pl. 2, fols 31r and 34r

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, and Tiffany J. Grade, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 225 (Tempe, AZ: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), vol. 9

Images of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1431

Bibliography:

Black, William Henry, A Descriptive, Analytical, and Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts Bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845; http://archive.org/details/descriptiveanaly00bodl)

Blunt, Wilfrid, and Sandra Raphael, The Illustrated Herbal (London and New York: Thames and Hudson in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979)

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, and Tiffany J. Grade, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 225 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), vol. 9, pp. 84-88

Dodwell, C. R., The Canterbury School of Illumination, 1066-1200 (Cambridge: University Press 1954, 1954)

Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), item 526

Grape-Albers, Heide, Spätantike Bilder aus der Welt des Arztes: Medizinische Bilderhandschriften der Spätantike und ihre mittelalterliche Überlieferung (Wiesbaden: Guido Pressler, 1977)

Gunther, R. T., The Herbal of Apuleius Barbarus (Oxford: Roxburghe Club at the Oxford University Press, 1925)

Howald, Ernestus, and Henricus E. Sigerist, Antonii Musae de herba uettonica liber. Pseudoapulei herbarius. Anonymi de taxone liber. Sexti Placiti medicinae ex animalibus, etc., Corpus Medicorum Latinorum (Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1927)

James, Montague Rhodes, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903)

Kästner, H. F., 'Addenda', Hermes, 32 (1897), 160

---, 'Pseudo-Dioscoridis De herbis femininis', Hermes, 31 (1896), 578- 636

Kauffman, C. M., Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), vol. III

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 289

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

Laing, Margaret, Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1993), p. 124

LUNA (http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet; accessed August 2010)

Ovenell, R. F., The Ashmolean Museum, 1683-1894 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)

Procter, Francis, and Christopher Wordsworth, Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Sarum. Fasc. 1: Kalendarium et Ordo Temporalis siue Proprium de Tempore totius anni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1882; repr. Farnborough, Hants: Gregg, 1970)

Riddle, John M., '"Pseudo-Dioscorides": Ex herbis femininis and Early Medieval Medical Botany', Journal of the History of Biology, 14 (1981), 43-81

Singer, C., 'The Herbal in Antiquity and its Transmission to Later Ages', Journal of Hellenic Studies, 47 (1927), 1-57 (see pp. 35-49)