Western Medieval Manuscripts : Medical texts

Western Medieval Manuscripts

It is not unusual to find within the covers of a medieval manuscript that it comprises two or more sections of separate date and place of production. Such a 'composite' book may have been formed by a medieval or post-medieval owner; indeed, in some instances, its precise make-up may have undergone a succession of changes during its lifetime. The choices that readers made in determining the contents of the books they owned or used can shed valuable light on the reception of those texts: 'associated contents' can indicate how someone perceived a particular text, and illuminate the intellectual context in which they read it. A important first step is thus to look for evidence in the manuscript or documentary sources that can inform our understanding of when - and even by whom - a book was assembled. The manuscript shown here - a newly identified book that was owned or used by a 15th-century physician, Roger Marchall - illustrates some possibilities as well as some of the challenges in attempting to reconstruct such a composite manuscript's history. Roger Marchall (d. 1477) was an important benefactor to the libraries of Gonville Hall, King's College and Peterhouse, the three colleges in medieval Cambridge where the study of medicine was supported. A fellow of Peterhouse from 1437, he studied and lectured on medicine, and relocated to London after approximately twenty years in Cambridge. There he continued to pursue his medical career, not least as physician to Edward IV, and fulfilled a number of other duties: for example, serving on a panel in 1468 to determine a case of leprosy in a certain woman, and, four years later, being summoned by the mayor of London, along with another physician and certain apothecaries, to confirm that a merchant's consignment of treacle was unwholesome. Given the evidence of his material wealth, Marchall's time in London was profitable, though this apparently derived as much from his mercantile investments in his family members' trading activities as his services as a physician. Records document Marchall's gift of books to King's and Peterhouse, though only at Peterhouse do some of these remain; some or all of the eighteen manuscripts at Gonville and Caius College that bear evidence of his use or ownership must also have been gifts. In total, more than forty surviving manuscripts may be connected with Marchall, though whether he owned them or simply accessed and annotated them is not always clear. They often bear his name, as well as two characteristic interventions: a prefatory table of contents, and rubrics at the opening of texts, both likewise written in his distinctive handwriting. It is on the basis of such rubrics that Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.2.5 may be identified as another Marchall manuscript. Like many of the books annotated by Marchall, MS Ii.2.5 is a composite, comprising four parts of separate production - and, again similarly, with one exception the texts therein are all incomplete in some way. The first part contains two of the half dozen or so texts that formed the Articella or Ars medicinae: an anthology used for foundational instruction in the study of medicine from the 12th century onwards. Here, they are accompanied by commentaries: Hippocrates' Prognostica, with a commentary by Galen; and Galen's Tegni, with a commentary by ʻAlī ibn Riḍwān (commonly known then, in Latinised form, as 'Haly'). Both texts end imperfectly, though their identical layout and script confirm that they were made by the same scribe. The third text lacks both its beginning and end, and gives very few internal clues as to its authorship; it remains unidentified. The fourth text is also introductory: the Cantica of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), again with a commentary, by Ibn Rushd (Averroës). This has losses both internally and at the end. Only the fifth text is complete: a compilation of medical recipes attributed to Petrus Hispanus, to which later hands have added numerous further remedies in the margins. Last in sequence is the Tacuinum sanitatis of Ibn Buṭlān, from which text has been lost at the end, too. Though many of the manuscripts in which his hand is found are composites, it is often unclear what role Marchall may have played (if any) in their assembly. Without supporting evidence, there remains some doubt as to whether MS Ii.2.5 is in the form in which Marchall himself owned or encountered it. For instance, no Marchall rubric appears at the beginning of the unidentified text (see f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(61);return false;'>25r</a>); could it have been added later? As other manuscripts show, Marchall's tables of contents and rubrics were often selective, and drew attention to particular contents according to criteria that have yet to be fully understood. It is also possible that Marchall recognised this text as medical (it begins '[I]ste egritudines...', 'These illnesses...'), but did not know its author or title. However, what establishes its presence in Marchall's time without doubt are late medieval alphanumeric leaf signatures in Quires 3, 4 and 5+6 ('e', 'f' and 'g' respectively). Unquestionably, these additions post-date the production of the leaves, and are a single sequence that straddles Part 1 ('e') and Part 2 ('f' and 'g'), thus confirming that these had been (or were in the process of being) bound together when the signatures were added. What of the signatures that preceded 'e'? One possibility is that Quires 1 and 2 were 'c' and 'd': thus, the text of the Prognostica was imperfect at the end when Marchall owned it, but some other text on 'a' and 'b' has since been lost from the beginning of the manuscript. This might explain the absence of a Marchall table of contents and name inscription, though these are not always present or they could have been on an endleaf that has been removed when the manuscript was rebound. Another, perhaps more plausible explanation is that Quires 1 and 2 were 'a' and 'b' (though any such signatures have been lost to cropping) and a further two quires ('c' and 'd') contained the rest of the Prognostica - yet the loss of these two quires must have occurred after the point at which this and the Tegni were bound together. Comparison with another copy confirms that the Prognostica and commentary in MS Ii.2.5 break off a little more than half-way through (see <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16960308'>Yale, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Medical Historical Library, MS 29 vault</a>, ff. 194r-227r) and that the putative two quires of eight leaves ('c' and 'd') would have been sufficient to accommodate the rest (see ff. 227r-253r of the aforementioned Yale manuscript). Curiously, a different hand continued the text of Haly's commentary on Galen in an extended footnote, completing the sentence at the end of a section. The unidentified text (on Quire 4/'f') was probably imperfect at the time it was bound with the preceding quires. The signature 'f v' on f. 29r shows that this was a quire of ten leaves when it was added. This is an unusual structure for a manuscript of this period and the imperfect opening of the text suggests that a bifolium had originally enclosed the quire (thus making a more typical gathering of twelve leaves). The signatures ('g') that follow in the next part are certainly not a reliable guide to the structure of those leaves, since they span two quires, though the tight binding means that their structure cannot be determined (Quires 5 and 6). The route by which MS Ii.2.5 came to Cambridge University Library is similarly uncertain. The earliest record of its presence is the printed catalogue entitled Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis, published by Thomas James in 1600, wherein it is noted as no. 149 - though James overlooked the Tegni and made no mention of the unidentified text. The holdings of the University Library expanded substantially between the compilation of a handwritten inventory in 1583 (now <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/16092'>UA CUR 31.1(10)</a>) and the publication of the Ecloga. J.C.T. Oates noted the expenditure in the Vice-Chancellor's accounts of of 10d. in 1584-85 for 'a carte to bring certayne written books from peter howse to the schooles gyven by mr dr perne to the librarye' and 8d. 'for twoe yt did helpe to lade and vnlade the same'. 'mr dr perne' is, of course, Andrew Perne (?1519-1589), Vice-Chancellor of the University and Master of Peterhouse. Comparing the 1583 and 1600 lists, Oates observed that 'since we know of only two manuscripts (James 224, 240) which certainly came from a source other than Perne, we must conclude that the remainder came from him, whether during his lifetime in 1584-85 or after his death in 1589, when his bequests to the Library included "all the old doctors and Histories that I have in written hande in parchment or in paper at Cambridge or at Ely"'. MS Ii.2.5 falls within Oates's suggested group, raising the tantalising possibility that it went from Marchall to Peterhouse and from there to the University Library. However, pen trials among the Tacuinum sanitatis include the words of a legal agreement dated to 37 Henry VIII (i.e. 1545/46), suggesting that - for a period, at least - the manuscript may have been elsewhere. Dr James Freeman Medieval Manuscripts Specialist Cambridge University LibraryReferences<div style='list-style-type: disc;'><div style='display: list-item; margin-left: 20px;'>J.C.T. Oates, Cambridge University Library, a history: from the beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)</div><div style='display: list-item; margin-left: 20px;'>See L. Voigts, 'A doctor and his books: the manuscripts of Roger Marchall (d. 1477)', in R. Beadle and A. J. Piper (eds.), New science out of old books: studies in manuscripts and early printed books in honour of A.I. Doyle (Aldershot, 1995) pp. 249-314</div></div>