Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawl. C. 81
| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |

Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:Oxford
Repository: Bodleian Library
Idno:Rawl. C. 81
AltName:SC 11946
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Date and Language
Date:s. xv
Language: English
Dialect:Two alternating hands in similar language (Scribe 2, ff. 9r-11v; 19r-v). Scribal Dialect: Worcestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 395 245, LP 7841 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, vol. 1, p. 151).
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Contents
A medical book that appears to have had a useful life until the eighteenth century. The manuscript carries internal evidence for early ownership at Pershore Abbey and later seventeenth-century ownership by a woman actively using the book for medical purposes.

Item: 1
Locus:ff. 1r-5r
Title:Medical remedies
Incipit:'This ys the declaracion of xx manner of watyrs žat is in...'
Explicit:'že wol staunche že bledyng'.
Bibliography:

Item: 2
Locus:f. 1v
Title:The Golden Mean (IMEV 1295.5)
Incipit:'I eschewe to clymb to hye alofte lest for presumption i shuld not falle soffte'.
Explicit:
Note:This two-line poem is written twice, the first time crammed in the footer and the second time by a later hand in a space above with modern spelling corrections: 'aloft' was corrected in 'aloaft' with an interlinear a added. F. 5v blank.
Bibliography:

Item: 3
Locus:ff. 6r-12v
Title:'De Urinis'
Incipit:'Here begynnyth a tretys in englyssh tong...'
Explicit:'and the contents that longeth to the dome of urine'.'Explicit inspeccio urinarum'.
Bibliography:

Item: 4
Locus:ff. 12v-13r
Title:Medical treatise
Incipit:'For to rede & to understonde the wryting of leeches in fisike'.
Explicit:'that longeth to the dome of urine'.
Note:Followed by a table of contents in the same hand on ff. 12v-13r.
Bibliography:

Item: 5
Locus:ff. 13v-16r
Title:A declaration
Incipit:'Here shewith'.
Explicit:Ends with a table.
Note:F. 16v-17v and verso originally blank, a later hand on f. 17v has transcribed the opening of the treatise appearing on f. 18r.
Bibliography:

Item: 6
Locus:ff. 18r-53r
Title:Herbal/Treatise of Macer (IPMEP 459)
Incipit:'Ingworte or moderworte is clepid arthemesid in latin'.
Explicit:'Here endith the laste boke of marcer'.
Rubric:'Here followeth the konnyng and sage clerk marcer'.
Note:A Latin herbal De Viribus Herbarum by Macer Floridus here translated by John Lelamour.
Bibliography:

Item: 7
Locus:ff. 53r-57r
Title:Herbal
Incipit:'Anyche is so callid for she helpith woundes'.
Explicit:'& hit wol helpe hym'.
Rubric:'And now foluen a fewe othere dyverse herbes with her vertues wich be not yfound in the bokes of macer'.
Note:Extension of the previous text. The remainder of ff. 57r-58r contains Latin and English recipes.
Bibliography:

Item: 8
Locus:f. 58v
Title:The thirty-two ominous days in the year
Incipit:'There be xxxii dayes in the yere'.
Explicit:'These dayes schal neuer comm to goede ende'.
Note:Ff. 59v and 60r are blank. F. 60v carries additions in a fifteenth/sixteenth-century hand whilst f. 61r-v carries additions by another fifteenthth/sixteenth-century hand.
Bibliography:

Item: 9
Locus:f. 63r-103v
Title:Medical Recipes
Incipit:
Explicit:
Note:F. 61 is followed by two unfoliated leaves. The remainder of the manuscript appears to be a later seventeenth-century manuscript. F. 62r carries the inscription 'Daritie Hudson hir booke of resaytte for salfes and medessens; Septemner ... 23: 1629'. The remainder fo the manuscript appears to be by two hands of the seventeenth century. F. 103v blank. F. 105r medical recipe in an even later, eighteenth-century hand, + 2 paper flyleaves.
Bibliography:
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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Paper
Extent:210 x 140 mm
Collation:15, ff. 1r-5v, 1 possibly a singleton; 212, ff. 6r-16v, wants 12, signatures i-vi; 312 wants all - torn with stubs - 12 left blank, f. 17r; 412, wants 12, ff. 18r-28v; 510, ff. 29r-38v, catchwords; 610, ff. 39r-48v; 712, ff. 49r-60v.
Layout:Pricking: at the four edges of the writing frame. Writing space: variable. Columns: mostly single apart from some lists which are double. Lines: c. 30. Ruling: writing frame in dry point.
Writing: Scribe 1, the major hand, writing in a small and compact Secretary script occasionally influenced by Anglicana. Characteristics: long s in initial position; sigma s in final position; single, occasionally double compartment, a; dotted y; open B-shaped w; almost flat topped t; 2-shaped r in medial position; ž. Body height 1.5-2 mm; Scribe 2 (ff. 8v-11v; 19r-v) - very similar characteristics to Scribe 1, but with a more rounded aspect and thicker backstrokes. Body height: 2-2.5 mm.
Decoration:None
Binding: Not medieval. Size: 215 x 150 mm. White parchment over pasteboard. Inner pastedown paper with bookplate of Rawlinson. On facing flyleaf another bookplate of Rawlinson with 'Sigillum Univ. Oxon./ Diplomati RIC: RAWLINSON/ pro gradu/ Doctoris Legum/ Appensum' and drawing of a monk holding a book seated in a church and flanked by clerics/monks at sides and bottom. On edges of oval 'SIGLL . CANCELLARII ET VNIUERSITATIS OXONIENS'.
Foliation:ff. 5 (the last 2 are parchment) + 105 + 2 paper
Additions:Flyleaves have been extensively written in. Initial 2 paper flyleaves are ruled across in red ink, second of the front parchment flyleaves has been written on in a sixteenth-century hand.
Condition:Good. Wormholes in first 2 parchment flyleaves.
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History
Origin:Unknown
Provenance:On the verso of the first parchment flyleaf: 'De Pershore', possibly in an early fifteenth-century hand. Afterwards in a later hand, 'Hic liber fuit quondam R. R. de T.'. On f. 62r is a seventeenth-century inscription: 'Daritie Hudson hir booke of resaytte for salfes and medessens; Septemner ... 23: 1629'.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, August 2003 and Orietta DaRold, June 2005.
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Bibliography
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