Layout: 32 long lines Script: Anglicana; rubrics in mixed script of anglicana and secretary. Decoration: Rubrics underlined in red, although the rubric that opens the text on f. 1 is in red ink. Binding: Bound, s. XIX, in brown half morocco over marbleized pasteboard; marbleized endpapers. Provenance: The complete manuscript (including 3 texts; see below) while bound in one volume belonged, ca. 1780, to William Herbert (1718-1795), and then to his friend, the Rev. John Brand (1744-1806), secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, whose publication (in 1813, after Brand’s death) includes five charms from this manuscript Provenance: A note in the hand of John Brand transcribing the charm for childbirth now attached to f. ii, is prefaced by a statement on Herbert’s and Brand’s ownership of the manuscript: “. . . late the property of Mr. Herbert, now in my library . . . is the following charm or rather Charect for a <ly>ing-in woman.” Provenance: The manuscript was sold after Brand’s death: London, [William] Stewart, Wheately & Adlard, 6 May 1807, Cat. 72, p. 347, n. 72, where it is described as containing three texts: “Tractatus de Morborum, &c. Charms, D. Juliana Barnes [today, as Berners] on Fishing, &c., written in 1475”; this lot bought by Uphill. Provenance: Given in 1821 by George Isted (1734-1821), a lawyer and a member of the Middle Temple, as well as an early Roxburghe Club member, to Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833), who seems to be the person who split the book, binding its texts each in its own volume Provenance: The Treatise on Fishing was bound by Charles Lewis in 1823 (and an edition of the text, attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, was published by Haslewood in 1810) Provenance: The present booklet of recipes probably received its present binding at approx. the same date. Present location unknown for the first text in the original volume, a “tractatus de morborum,” [sic] presumably with the date 1475. Provenance: The third text of the original volume, i.e. the Treatise on Fishing, was sold at the Haselwood sale, London, 16 December 1833, n. 462 to J. Bohn, thence to Alfred Denison (1816-1887); sale by his heirs, London, 17 July 1933, n. 63 with plate. Acquired by the dealer, A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952) for David Wagstaff (1882-1951) of Tuxedo Park, New York Provenance: His widow gave the manuscript to the Beinecke Library at Yale in 1954; see the record for Beinecke MS 171 on Digital Scriptorium, but see also the record for the present volumes, as published by S. De Ricci, Census of Manuscripts . . . , vol. 2, p. 1905, n. 18, where the early ownership of the three texts (a treatise; the charms; the booklet on fishing) is described. Provenance: The second portion of the original book that contains the medical recipes (i.e. the present manuscript) was owned by Ernest Baker, FSA (1854-1931) who was nephew and executor of the will of James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, from whom Baker inherited in 1899 approx. one third of the man’s library Provenance: Baker’s armorial bookplate is on the front pastedown. Belonged to Dr. Margaret Barclay Wilson (1863-1945), who donated the manuscript to the New York Academy of Medicine in 1929, as part of her Collection of Books on Foods and Cookery. On f. 1, thick black line between opening rubric and text that covers a line of text, s. XV. The rubrics in this section of the text: Ffor wormis in a manys wombe; Ffor the emeraudys; Ffor the dropsy in the splene; For the morinale [?]; Ffor the gowte in tyme of maye; Ffor meselry; Ffor the kyngys ewel; Ffor the quinsy; Ffor the scabbe; Ffor a postem; <skipped f. 2; f. 3:>for to mak a man to slepe wele; Ffor the bryst when yt ys sore for the cough or stopping; Heere ys a bath for scabbys and routhnesse of body or of skyn and for to mak fayr greyn; Another for sore feet and legges that be raw and scabbed; Ffor brynnyng and schaldyng of water; Ffor dede flessch; A powder to hele all thing brend; Ffor the boon that ys broken; To mak yt so<v?>e to knyt; Ffor senew that ys withdraw; Ffor a wound that remiyth; Ffor rankelyng of worm; Ffor to dystroye the morphn; A salve to hele and draw and to renne<w?> flesche; Item; Ffor to enchue puson of weked metys and drynkes and to holde the fro dronkenesse and casting; To dystroye wormys in the handys and the feet; The making of unguentum album; Ffor to mak poplyon; To make a water to heele red plot other yche yf the skyn be a way where ever yt be; Ffor a weyne that ys swetyn or swellyth or rankelyth after; A sovereyn playster for all maner brosurys old or new rankelyng or nowth; Unguentum <uvorum?>; Onement for brynnyng and scalding; Ffor to mak dyapalnia; Ffor grene tret; Pouder for to staunche blood; Ffor to dyth a brok leek [sic, for leg] or an arme; Ffor the goute and the palsey; Ffor the pylys; Unguentum vocatum tractesoleon per scabys and per ignibus sacris extinguendis; Ffor alle scabbys; Ffor brussyng and brokyn rybbys; A cory syff for to brek a pyle or a perle in the eye; Ffor brennnyng; Ffor brosure and broke bonys; Ffor to make a playster of plum; Item for the same; To make powder to straw on old sorys to renue flessch under the playster; To make yellow treet; <skipped f. 7; f. 8:>//yt shall breke the postem and delyver yt a bove; Ffor al maner of scabbe; Ffor the palsey yf a man be smetyn on the syde; Ffor to make water for eyn; A noble drynk for wondys; A good entret for woundys; A noble salve for woundys; Also ther to an oynement; Ffor to make a playster cleped blak dyacolum; To wete whedyr a man shal leve that ys hurt or nouth; Ffor the felom; To flee the felon; Ffor a rybbe that ys brokyn or a canal boon and no man may set yt; To mak a syred clothe for goutys; An oynement for the goutes; Ffor the stone; To brek the ston; To mak a salve to dystroy deed flessche and the felon; Ffor to rote a boche; Ffor a corne; Ffor the drye con<?>; Ffor the bry<?>; Item; Ffor the stomak that ys ingleymed; For the stone mak yt may not kep mete; Ffor dyverys evelys of mannys body and fryst for the hed; A oynement for the hed; A drynk for the hed; An oynement; Ffor a worm in the ere; Yf the palet befalle; An oynement for the same; Also a playster for the hed; Yf a man have erewyggys in hys ere; Ffor eyn and the mygreyn; To do a wey a we<bbe?>; Ffor to clarify the syth; Ffor eyn that akyn; Also for the syth; Ffor the teth; Ffor the saunsfleme; Ffor the goute; <rubric cut off at top of page>; A oynement for the same; Item for the gowte; Item; Ffor the palsey; Ffor the pylys; Ffor to sere a weyn. The rubrics in this section of the text: <beginning incomplete in a recipe for fish>; A rapem; To broche wele the same service; Chekenys <in mose?>; <Tiy>anude de cypre; Corvet of almayn; Coynes; To dyth a fressche lampray; Alaumneyn; Mortures of fyssch; Blanmanger mole; Blanmanger; Blanmanger gros; To mak good clarre. The charms are: To cure a sick person; for the eyes; for the teeth; to staunch blood (in Latin); to staunch blood (in English); for a fever; to know if someone will live or die from his sickness; for childbirth; to heal wounds (“charme of sent susanna”); that a wound not be painful (4 charms); against “wyked wyts”; against fever; to staunch blood (1 in English and 2 in Latin); to draw out a piece of iron of a crossbow; to staunch blood. Five charms (of the 20 in this manuscript) were printed from this manuscript: John Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar customs, ceremonies and superstitions, with the additions of Sir Henry Ellis (first printing, 1813, but see online version: London: George Bell and Sons, 1875), vol. 2, pp. 67-68, where the printed text is headed “From an ancient 4to MS. formerly in the collection of Herbert, dated 1475, I transcribe the following charm, or more properly charect, to be bound to the thigh of a lying-in woman” (the 8th item listed here); the other charms printed are in Brand’s vol. 3: pp. 53-54 for the charm against a wicked witch (the 14th item listed here); p. 271 for the charm to staunch blood (the 5th item listed here), for a fever (the 6th item listed here) and “to draw out yren de quarrel” (the 17th item listed here). For information on Herbert and Brand, see the section on Provenance.
Do you have more information to share with the Holding Institution about this manuscript or would you like to suggest a correction? Contact information is available for member institutions via our member directory.
