CAROLINGIAN MEDICINE: a fragmentary bifolium, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Northern France or Southern Netherlands, late 9th century]

CAROLINGIAN MEDICINE: a fragmentary bifolium, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

[Northern France or Southern Netherlands, late 9th century]

a substantial fragment of a bifolium, c. 230 × 315mm overall, lacking one column of one leaf, and perhaps one line of text at the bottom, each page blind-ruled for two columns of 36 lines, written in Caroline minuscule script with Rustic Capitals; recovered from use as a pastedown in a binding, with consequent damage including small holes, stains, and wear, rendering parts of one side difficult to read, the lines on one side neatly numbered every 5th line by a 19th- or 20th-century owner; attached to a guard in a modern binding in a modern box with gilt leather title-piece.

PROVENANCE

1. Bernard Quaritch: Catalogue 1056 (1985), no. 38.
2. H.P. Kraus Inc.: bought in December 1992 by:
3. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 800.

TEXT

The more complete leaf contains a list of capitula (summaries of the chapters), starting in no. XVII and extending to no. XXVI on the recto, and continuing to no. XXXVI on the verso. The other half-leaf opening in no. CXIX and apparently reaching the end of the capitula and the beginning of the main text.

While not identical, the list of chapters is close to those in the Herbarium Apulei, Pseudo-Apuleius’s work on herbs with beneficial medicinal properties, also known under various other titles including ‘De medicaminibus herbarum’, and ‘De virtutibus herbarum’ (ed. by Howald and Sigerist, 1927). Chapters 33 and 34 in this manuscript, for example, are ‘Erba effodolos’ and ‘Erbe oxilapacium’, and in a printed edition of the Herbarium Apulei they are ‘De asphodelo’ and ‘De oxylapatho’. The last easily-legible one in the manuscript is no. 126, ‘Erbe femiculum’, which in the edition is no. 124, ‘De foeniculo’. The edition ends with no. 128, and the manuscript similarly ends with ‘[F]INIT’ about 15 lines after the beginning of no. 126. The manuscript then has the start of the text, the incipit somewhat damaged, but apparently beginning ‘Praesidium pastillo[rum auxili]um sani[tatis] …’; again, this seems to be based on Pseudo-Apuleis’s famous work, but not identical with the modern edition. Manuscripts of the text vary significantly, however, and the relationship between the present witness and other early copies is yet to be attempted.

This bifolium is presumably from the first or second quire of its parent manuscript. The capitula vary in length from less than two lines (no. 101) to about thirteen and a half lines (no. 32), but as the intervening bifolia comprised capitula nos. 37–119, and our complete leaf contains roughly 19 capitula (nos. 17–36), we can calculate that our bifolium was probably the second of four in a quire of eight leaves: the first leaf would have had an opening rubric and nos. 1–16, followed by our first leaf, followed by probably two more bifolia (four leaves) containing nos. 37–119, followed by our second leaf, and one more. A more detailed codicological-textual examination would doubtless reveal much more about the parent volume. For an overview of early manuscripts of the genre, see Beccaria, 1956.

REFERENCES

Bernard Quaritch Ltd, London, Catalogue 1056: Bookhands of the Middle Ages, Part II (1985), no. 38 (full-page ill.).

E. Howald and H.E. Sigerist, eds., Antonii Musae De herba vettonica, Liber Pseudo-Apulei herbarius, Anonymi De taxone liber, Sexti Placiti Liber medicinae ex animalibus, Corpus Medicorum Latinorum, IV (Teubner, 1927).

A. Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli IX, X e XI) (Rome, 1956).