MS 388

Summary

Described Thomas James 161; Stanley R. 8; Nasmith 388; James, Corpus 388; Vising, p. 95 (no. 254); Elizabeth Anne Valentine, ‘An Edition of the Anglo-Norman Content of Five Medical Manuscripts of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, unpublished Ph.D. diss., Univ of Exeter, 1990, pp. 22–23; Wilkins 388; Dean & Boulton, 408, 412; Hunt, Receptaria, pp. 85–86.

In what follows, Tony Hunt's divison in Receptaria of the two compendia into groups of recipes has been retained. Those groups are larger and more miscellaneous at the beginning of the first compendium than is the case at the end, and in the second compendium.

Items [A 58] through [B 8] (i.e. ff. 1^rb–35^rb of the MS) make up what Hunt refers to as the ‘First Corpus Compendium’. See further at foot of entry.

[A 58]

[B 1]

[A 59]

[1]

ff. 4^ra–6^va

Item heit holwrt in eycil and do it to yi neseyerles yat ye odour cum into his heued and mak a playstre of holwrt soyen and ley it upon yi heued … (second recipe) for ache of ye heued yat lounge haik tac a anful of rue & an hanful of heihoue & an handful of ye leues of lorer … (third recipe) item tack suyernewode & huni & eycil & put hem togydere and drincket ofte fastande … (last recipe, f. 6^rb) for wermis in ye heued tac salt and saym and brinston and mack ye salue and smer yin heued yerwith.

Twenty-eight English recipes against ailments of the head in a group which also contains seven French and thirty-three Latin ones (ff. 3^ra–6^va), one of which (on f. 5^rb, has an English heading). Printed Hunt, Receptaria, pp. 93–99.

[A 60]

[2]

f. 5^ra

Tack ye rede colewrte & tansey hemp horsmynte red nettle brere cropus al so michel of madder os of alle ye oyere greses stamp hem togidere & seith hem in wyne and yif him to drinck …

f. 5^va

… and lat it stande so a day & a nyth and upon yat oyer morwen do seith it weil and wringit yourth a cloith wil it is hoyte and gres ye sore yerwith and it schal waris.

‘For w\o/nde in ye heued’. Instructions on diagnosing and treating a headwound and fractured skull; among the recipes in [1]. Wells Rev. 10: 3845 [287c].