Layout: 2 columns of 48 lines, pricked, ruled in pale pink ink. Complex arrangement of information across the upper margins of each opening: treatise title in green ink in the center of the top margins on both pages; chapter titles in red ink at top of page aligned above each column. Layout: Treatise number in gold ink centered in the top margin (‘liber” on verso of page, treatise number on facing recto); chapter numbers in blue ink at the top outer corner of each column; leaf number in red ink at the top right corner of each recto. Script: Gothic Decoration: Seven illustrations (or sets of illustrations) of medical tools: ff. 73v, 74r, 79v, 91v, 97v, 156v, 164v. Decoration: Major initials red and blue ink, with jigsaw colors on the initial, and with extensive penwork in the margin in both colors. 3- and 2-line pen-flourished initials in red and blue ink, placed outside the textual block; rubricated throughout. Decoration: Eight major initials for the prologue and the seven books. Decoration: 7- to 9- line initials formed of acanthus leaves or of scrolls, with infilling usually of acanthus leaves, the whole set on gold grounds with full borders made of a gold bar adjacent to a pink or a blue bar; the bar borders are enlivened with colored flowers face-on, with green leaves face-on, with green-tipped leaves and scrolls, with gold dots and gold trefoil leaves. Decoration: The eight initials are on ff. 1 (prologue), 8 (Book 1), 21v (Book 2), 51v (Book 3), 81 (Book 4; the 3 borders crudely cut away), 98v (Book 5), 106 (Book 6; note that this leaf was removed from the volume during the 18th century, and is now London, British Library, Harley 5915, pt. 17, f. 25), and 152v (Book 7). Decoration: The leaf at the British Library is the only one with historiation: a man bent over in half in order to fit within the space of the initial’s infilling, as he crawls across scrolled brown acanthus leaves to abandon the initial. Decoration: Secondary initials, 4- to 2-line, in gold against a white-patterned blue, pink or parti-colored ground, with border formed of a single bar (gold, with either pink or blue); see, for example ff. 1, 8, 10v, 11 and so forth. Decoration: Initials at the third level down: 3-line gold on white-patterned parti-colored grounds. Line fillers, as repeated pen marks, usually in red, but occasionally in blue. Alternating red and blue paragraph marks. Rubrics in red. Within the text, some underlining in red (of people’s names, of phrases in Latin). Binding: Bound, s. XVIex, in English brown calf, gilt scroll design in the center of the panel; the upper clasp is attached to the book, the other clasp is no longer attached but kept with the book; rebacked. Provenance: In the upper margins of 4 leaves that are or are adjacent to the beginnings of Books, the penned-in name “hew herte,” possibly to be identified with the Hugh Herte (d. 1467), a barber-surgeon in London; Provenance: for the name, see ff. 21 (beginning of Book 2 on the verso), 52 (beginning of Book 3 on f. 51v), 97v (beginning of Book 5), 106 (beginning of Book 6, i.e. the leaf now in the British Library). Provenance: On the identification of “hew herte” with the Hugh Herte in London, see Björn Wallner, The Middle English Translation of Guy de Chauliac's Treatise on 'Apostemes', 2 vols (Lund: Sandby Grafiska, 1988), I: Provenance: Text: Book II of the Great Surgery, Edited from MS. New York Academy of Medicine 12 and related MSS, p. 9 and n. 43. [Wallner was born in 1919; this is written 100 years later, in 2020; presumably he did not finish editing Guy de Chauliac.] Provenance: De Ricci, p. 1313, in the provenance on this manuscript, comments that the book is “stated to have belonged to the Coffin family of Portledge,” but does not give the source of his information, although it may have been the article about this manuscript written by E. C. Streeter (see below). Provenance: There is indeed a Richard Coffin (or Coffyn), 1488-1555, of Portledge Manor, Brixton, Devonshire, who may have owned the book: the family name re-occurs in the genealogy of a later owner, Charles Joseph Harford (see below). Provenance: "On f. iii verso: presumably copied in or after 1634 (marriage date of James Clerke and Dorothy Fowler? Or Dorothy Fowler’s birth date?): Provenance: “Mon Ayeul s’appelloit Guilliaume Clerke, sa femme Susan Brookes. Mon Grand Pere estoit Thomas Clerke et sa femme Johanne Churrye. Mon Pere s’appelle Robert Clerke et sa femme est Elizabeth Martell, 1587. Ma Femme est nommeé Dorothie Fowler, 1634. Comme je suis Jacob Clerke.” Provenance: As initially identified by Dr. A. Ian Doyle, one leaf from this manuscript belonged to John Bagford (b. 1650/51, d. 1716), bookseller and antiquary who had projected writing a history of printing Provenance: He owned f. 106 which is now London, British Library, Harley 5915, pt. 17 (= f. 25); see Milton McC. Gatch, 'John Bagford as a Collector and Disseminator of Manuscript Fragments', The Library, Sixth Series, 7 (1985), 95-114, esp. p. 112. Provenance: [For another of Bagford’s collections, see the 217 leaves now in Columbia, University of Missouri, Ellis Library, Special Collections, Fragmenta Manuscripta (digitized and entered into Digital Scriptorium).] Provenance: On the front pastedown is the book label of Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence and later King William IV of England (1765-1837): the book label is of the Order of the Garter (which formally welcomed him as member in 1782) Provenance: The initials W. H. are centered within the looped garter inscribed with the motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense, and the whole is surmounted by a coronet. This book label is annotated (incorrectly) in modern pencil, “? Herbert.” " Provenance: "The book passed, presumably within the Coffin family (?) through inheritance and then marriage, to Charles Joseph Harford (1764-1830) who in 1795 had married Mary, daughter of Nathaniel Coffin. Provenance: On f. ii, his arms, sable two bends argent on a canton azure a bend or (labelled: Johnson fecit), surmount a ribbon with his name and his designation as Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Provenance: Their descendent, the Reverend Frederick R. Kill Harford sold his library in two sales, 24 April and 20 July 1899; this manuscript sold Sotheby’s, 24 April 1899, n. 915 to Harris. Provenance: Glued to a front flyleaf, f. iv verso, is a snippet from a sale catalogue which De Ricci dates to ca. 1810-1815 (it uses the tall s throughout; this letterform was abandoned in England in the early years of the 19th century); this manuscript is quoted and clearly described." Provenance: "The book then belonged to Laurence W. Hodson (1864-1933), whose label was one of those printed at the Kelmscottt Press on 25 February 1898 (William Morris had been dead for somewhat over a year), using the Kelmscott Golden Type Provenance: This label reads (typically, in the same typeface as the other book labels printed that day, and occupying the usual four lines of type), “From the Library of Laurence W. Hodson, Compton Hall, near Wolverhampton”; and like the other book labels printed then, it is glued to the lowermost left front corner of the front pastedown. Hodson sale, London, 1906, no. 110 to Quaritch. Provenance: The manuscript’s next owner was Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864-1958), whose rectangular bookplate is affixed to the front pastedown, and his round book sticker with the number “78” added by hand is attached to the back pastedown Provenance: Although his illuminated manuscripts and some printed books were sold after his death in three major auction sales between 1958 and 1960, this manuscript had left his collection much earlier, in that it was in the collection of Dr. Edward Clark Streeter (1874-1947) who owned the manuscript at least by 1916 (when he published his article on it) Provenance: Streeter sold his collection to the New York Academy of Medicine in 1928. Copied ca. 1420. Gatherings 1-13 of 8 leaves gathering 14 formerly of 8 leaves (leaf 3 now =Harley 5915, f. 25) gatherings 15-23 of 8 leaves; quires signed with letter of the alphabet, a-z, and with arabic numerals 1-4 in the first half of the quires; catchwords in lower right of the page, enclosed within a lightly sketched ink cartouche. Contains 7 surgical treatises (each divided into 2 doctrines or parts): Anatomy; Apostemes (swelling, abscesses, and pustules); Wounds; Ulcers; Fractures and dislocations; Other illnesses; Antidotes. Björn Wallner, ed., The Middle English Translation of Guy de Chauliac’s Treatise (Lund or Stockholm, 1964-1988) in five volumes: Book 1 printed in 1964; Book 2 printed in 1988; Book 3 printed in 1976-79; Book 4 printed in 1982-84; Book 5 printed in 1969; Books 6-7 not done.
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