London,
Wellcome Library MS 5262 is a late medieval vernacular medical recipe
collection. The manuscript was copied in the early fifteenth century, in the
area of Worcestershire. It is rather small in size, and still in its original
fifteenth-century binding. The manuscript contains medical recipes which tell
its reader how to cure common diseases ranging from tooth aches to stomach
aches or headaches.
The
past two decades have witnessed an increased interest in marginalia, especially
in the field of literary studies. In our society the marking of books is
generally perceived as a form of vandalism. However, annotating books bridges
the gap between the text and the reader and allows for them to project their
thoughts on the text and their engagement with the text onto the material
object. The reader is able to create a unique copy of the book they are
reading. It is this process of engagement between the reader and the text which
can shed light on the use of the book, which is especially attractive for scholars
of the book as a historic artifact. In this blog post I will give examples of
how and by whom MS
5262 was used.
MS
5262 contains several marks of ownership, all of which date to the
post-medieval period. ‘H. Henri Dingley’ added his name in the ruling on top of
folio 12r. Palmer identifies him as ‘Henry Dyneley/Dineley or Dingley, d. 1589,
of Charlton, Worcs’. The fact that Dingley’s Worcestershire origin fits in with
the manuscript’s place of production, Worcestershire, suggests that MS 5262
circulated in the Worcestershire area till at least the end of the sixteenth
century.[i]
Andrew
Wilkinson, an early modern owner, left more elaborate marks of ownership in the
manuscript. He has indicated his ownership twice. Folio 34r reads: ‘Who so
(e)wer on me doethe louk (and) aim Andrewe Wylkynsons bouk’. His second
annotation on f.60v reads: ‘I perteyne unto Andrewe Wylkynson Surgeon’ and
includes a shield with his initials.
A
third signature has been added by ‘a dryden’, who could not be further
identified. Finally, there are traces that MS 5262 must have made its way to
Liverpool by the eighteenth century. An annotation on f.39r reads: ‘Liverpool
May 1732’. This could suggest that MS 5262 is likely to have circulated in the
north of England.
Fifteenth
century owners did not only leave signatures in the manuscript, but also used the
space provided to insert additional texts. Folio 61v contains an additional
text in Latin. The text is a prayer to St. Cynehelm also known as Kenelm, an
Anglo-Saxon martyr and saint, of the ninth century. It is interesting in this
context that St. Cynehelm is associated with the area of Worcestershire/Mercia.
Although its overall content does not relate to medicine, one line of the
prayer alludes to it:
esto
nobis medicina cont(ra)
Mu(n)di tediu(m)
[Be to us a
medicine against the weariness of the world]
Although
the phrase ‘esto nobic medicina’ is not uncommon in medieval prayers to saints,
it is possible that the annotator saw this as a link to the content of the
manuscript.
Moreover, the manuscript contains several fifteenth century
marginalia, which serve as additions to the text. For example, a reader has added the word
‘hot’ to recipe as an indication of the warmth that is necessary to relieve a
back ache, and on one occasion the preposition ‘on’ has been added to indicate
the place of application of a remedy. These additions underline the fact that
MS 5262 was read in order to be put to practical use.
MS 5262 also bears marks of use by early modern owners. They all
target the Catholic content, which includes charms, which have been crossed
out, as well as illuminations depicting saints, which have been blackened. An
example of offensive text appears on folio 39r, in the form of a variation on
the ‘Flum Jordan’ charm, a common charm used to stop bleeding.[ii] This charm, which must
have reeked of Catholic superstition to post-reformation readers, has been
crossed out, along with two more examples of charms of this kind in the
manuscript. To indicate to themselves or to a future reader that these passages
were to be skipped, the early modern reader has added a generic designation in
the margin, in a sixteenth century secretary hand: ‘a charme’ In this context, it is important
to note that what is at first sight an engagement with the text, is in fact a refusal
to engage with it. Along with the damage done to the illustrations of saints,
these alterations seek to obliterate the text. Thus, science is separated from
religion, an action deemed necessary by the early modern reader in order to
justify the use of this manuscript.
A
short overview of the different kind of marginalia in MS 5262 thus shows the
ways in which this book was used and by whom it was owned in the fifteenth
century and beyond. The lack of early modern engagement with the text suggest
that by the end of the sixteenth century, MS 5262 had evolved from being
regarded as a utilitarian tool to be personalised to a historical artifact to
be archived.
-Contributed by Sarah Laseke
[i] Richard Palmer, ‘MS 5262: Medical Recipe Collection, England, 15th
Century’. Wellcome Library Catalogue. <
http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org>.
[ii] Rossel Robbins, ‘Medical manuscripts in
Middle English’. Speculum 45.3 (1970): 405.
