![Agnus castus with additional medical recipes : [manuscript]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN4K2A35U%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)
Manuscripts
ff. 1-40v. [Agnus castus]. Incipit: Agnus castus is an herbe that men clepyn Tutsayn other parkeleuys and this herbe hath leuys sumdele red yleke to the levys of Arage. Explicit: Also if a man haue grete itchyng in his Bodi take the Ius//. English. G. Brodin, ed., Agnus Castus: a Middle English Herbal Reconstructed from Various Manuscripts. Essays and Studies on English Language and Literature 6 (Copenhagen and Cambridge, Mass., 1950) 119-201; HM 58 not recorded; the text shares characteristics with Brodin's groups I and II, but many readings resemble the variants listed for London, Brit. Lib., Roy. 18.A.VI, the representative of group II. One leaf missing after f. 8 with loss of most of the entry for "Betonia"; between the entries for "Costus" and "Dragancia," ff. 15v-16, fourteen herbs not copied (contemporary note, f. 16, lists seven missed herbs); on f. 18v, ten lines cancelled and f. 19, a singleton, inserted by the scribe to allow for otherwise missed entries; other herbs occasionally missed; breaks defectively in the entry for "Rosa marinus," although the text may have been completed on the 4 leaves now missing after f. 40. See also A. Zettersten, "A Manuscript of 'Agnus Castus' in the Huntington Library," Notes and Queries 216 (1971) 130-31. ff.8v, 11v, 19v, 23v, 31v, 33, 34, 38v, 39, 41-42v. [Medical recipes]. English. Twenty-nine medical recipes added by several contemporary and later hands in the blank spaces left by the scribe of Agnus Castus in order to begin a new letter of the alphabet at the top of a page; ff. 41-42 were blank leaves completing the quire at the end of Agnus Castus; the recipe on f. 41 begins defectively. On f. 19v, a charm in verse against worms in children; on f. 41v, a charm "For to wynne at dyce." A recipe on f. 31v ends "probatum est per Iohannem Denys," referring to the surgeon John Denyse, whose name appears in records 1475-96/97; see C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, Medical Practitioners in Medieval England (London 1965) 140-41. In a seventeenth century hand in the lower margin of f. 41v: "Master Whettons electuarie for the stone. It is to be sold at Master Spichforkes an apothicarie in chepeside nere the greate cundit there...it is also to be had att the golden morter next shopp to Master Spichforke in chepeside...". f. 43-93v. Forto make a water that is ycleped maidons melke that shal don awai sausefleme and the rede Goute in the visage [i.e. Medical recipes and charms]. Incipit: Take lytarge of Golde and stamp itt ynto poudre. Explicit: And then stille itt yn a lymbak with eesy fyre. Rubric: Forto make a water that is ycleped maidons melke that shal don awai sausefleme and the rede Goute in the visage. English. Approximately 253 recipes, including 2 for the ointment Gracia dei, "that the Ladi Beauchamp used the Erlis wiff of Warweke" (f. 52v) and another "that þe gode Erle of herforde used þat was yhold a noble and Gracyus Surgierer" (f. 53); the non-medical recipes are: f. 69, an incantation against thieves; f. 75v, an incantation to staunch blood; ff. 81v-82, indices to determine if a sick person will live or die; f. 82r-v, means of determining if a pregnant woman is carrying a boy or a girl; f. 84, an incantation for a speedy delivery in childbirth; f. 84r-v, an incantation to deliver a stillborn child; ff. 87v-88v, a passage on the virtues of "betayne." In the margins next to the 4 incantations, in the hand of the scribe, "Prohibitum est exercicium ab Ecclesia catholica." Nine recipes added in contemporary and later hands on ff. 76, 86, 88v, 93v. On ff. 43-62 only, initials added in the margin representing the main word of the rubric, as if in preparation for an alphabetical subject index, e.g. f. 43: "m" for "maidons melk," "p" for "polus rubius," "o" for "oynement"; f. 43v: "c" for "cancrum," "w" for "webbe." On ff. 94-95v (misbound), part of a table of contents for these recipes but possibly copied from a different book.
mssHM 58
