Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-Century England

by

Laura Theresa Mitcheell

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto

© Copyright by Laura Theresa Mitchell 2011

 Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-Century England

Laura Theresa Mitchell

Doctor of Philosophy

Medieval Studies
University of Toronto

2011

Abstract

This dissertation examines the ways that books can show the place of magic in fifteenth-century

English society. Specifically, I am interested in what was important about magic to people and

how magic was used by people in the creation of their identities, both as individuals and within

the community. As I explore these issues, I aim to demonstrate that magic freely co-mingled

with non-magical texts in manuscripts. Furthermore, this mixing of magical and non-magical

texts is a vital part of understanding magic‟s role in the shaping of people‟s identities, both

public and private.

Chapter one presents the results of a preliminary survey of magic in fifteenth-century English

manuscripts. I clarify how I delineate between texts – magical and non-magical and between

genres of magic. This chapter also uses a series of case studies to look at some of the issues of

ownership that are dealt with in more detail in the later chapters of this thesis. Chapters two,

three, and four look at individual manuscripts in depth. In Chapter two, I examine how a lower

gentry household used their notebook to establish their place within a strata of the gentry that

was increasingly interested in medical and scientific texts in the fifteenth century. Chapter three

looks at the private notebook of an anonymous scribe and how its owner combines the ordinary

and transgressive qualities of magic to create an identity for himself that is based on a quasi-

ii
clerical masculinity and the ludic qualities of magic. Chapter four concerns Robert Taylor‟s

medical notebook, which he may have used as a part-time medical practitioner, and the insight it

gives into the everyday concerns of medieval people. Chapter five is an examination of the book

of an early fifteenth-century Cistercian monk named Richard Dove. Dove‟s notebook contains a

copy of the Ars notoria, the only manuscript containing ritual magic that I study in this

dissertation. I argue that Dove, unlike other monastic users of the Ars notoria, does not use the

text for its spiritual benefits, but its material benefits as part of his desire to participate in a

broader intellectual culture outside the monastery.

iii
 Acknowledgments
I must first thank Alexandra Gillespie, Joe Goering, and John Haines, who have been an ideal
committee throughout this process. They have been unfailingly generous with their time and
have pushed me further intellectually than I would have gone by myself. Their painstaking
critique of my work has also prevented many blunders on my part. Ruth Harvey was a sharp-
sighted examiner and brought a new and helpful perspective to my final oral examination. I am
especially grateful to my external examiner, Richard Kieckhefer. His work has been an
influence on the development of my research for many years; his generous remarks and
insightful and stimulating criticisms will undoubtedly impact my future work. I would also like
to thank Bert Hall who provided invaluable help in the early stages of this project.
There are countless friends and colleagues who have helped and inspired me along the
way – more than I could possibly list in their entirety. The residents of the House of Cheese
have been a constant source of support, encouragement, and (sometimes) procrastination for the
past six years. I am especially grateful to my friends in our dissertation writing support group
who have provided help and encouragement during the crucial last push to completion. In
particular I would like to thank Elizabeth Watkins, Susannah Brower, Eileen Kim, Emily Butler,
Clare Snow, Annika Farber, Anna Wilson, and Victoria Goddard, whose help and insight has
added new dimension to my work and made the writing process that much easier to handle.
Samantha Booth generously read several chapter drafts and was always willing to lend an ear.
Frank Klaassen and Sharon Wright first encouraged me to consider graduate school and have
been a constant source of support, stimulating conversation, and valuable criticism since my
undergraduate days at the University of Saskatchewan. Travis Off, Chris Phillips, and Jen
Gilchrist have been pillars of support and help since day one. In addition, I would like to thank
Jeannique Darby, who graciously let me stay with her during research trips to England in 2010
and 2011, as well as Steven Kaye, Sandra Kotzor, and the other linguistic and philology graduate
students I met in Oxford; their enthusiastic and insightful comments have breathed new life into
my work.
Finally, I would like to thank my family. They have provided me with unfailing and
unquestioning support in all my endeavours. I could not have done this without them.

iv
 Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v
Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ vii
Transcription Protocols and Editorial Principles ......................................................................... viii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
The Clerical Underworld ............................................................................................................ 3
Approaches ............................................................................................................................... 15
English Book Production in the Fifteenth Century ................................................................... 16
Magic and Society in Fifteenth-century England ..................................................................... 22
Plan of Study ............................................................................................................................. 25
Chapter 1 A Preliminary Survey of Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts of Magic in England .......... 28
Categories of Magic in Fifteenth-century English Manuscripts ............................................... 34
Owners and Their Books .......................................................................................................... 78
Institutional Ownership ............................................................................................................. 90
Chapter 2 Out of the Ordinary?: Magic and a Northamptonshire Gentry Family ....................... 96
The Haldenbys and the Gentry in the Fifteenth Century ........................................................ 100
Scribes and the Compilation of TCC O.1.57 .......................................................................... 102
The Texts in Context............................................................................................................... 108
Charms, Natural Magic, and Secrets in TCC O.1.57 .............................................................. 118
Chapter 3 Dead Dogs and Frog Bones: The Recipe Collection of Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Ashmole MS 1435 ...................................................................................................................... 133
The Anonymous Scribe and the Construction of Ashmole 1435 ........................................... 135
Terminology, Classifications, and the Manuscript Context.................................................... 138
The Ludic Nature of Magic and the Manufacture of Medieval Masculinity .......................... 151
Chapter 4 Magic and Medicine in San Marino, Huntington Library HM 1336 ......................... 166
The Owner and the Scribe....................................................................................................... 168
The Composition of the Book ................................................................................................. 176
The Texts of HM 1336 ............................................................................................................ 180
Charms and Natural Magic ..................................................................................................... 187

v
 The Wider Community of Readers ......................................................................................... 201
Chapter 5 Richard Dove and the Ars notoria.............................................................................. 204
The Compilation of Sloane 513 .............................................................................................. 207
Richard Dove and Buckfast Abbey......................................................................................... 209
The Contents of Sloane 513 .................................................................................................... 214
The Ars notoria ....................................................................................................................... 231
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 243
Appendix One: Preliminary Survey of Fifteenth-century Manuscripts of Magic ...................... 249
Appendix Two: Description of Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.57 (1081) ........... 257
Appendix Three: Description of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1435 ....................... 268
Appendix Four: The Recipe Collection in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1435 ........ 273
Appendix Five: Description of London, British Library, Sloane MS 513 ................................. 280
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 293
Manuscripts ............................................................................................................................. 293
Catalogues ............................................................................................................................... 297
Printed Primary Sources ......................................................................................................... 299
Secondary Sources .................................................................................................................. 302

vi
 Abbreviations
Add. London, British Library, Additional MS
Ashmole Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS
Bodley London, British Library, Bodley MS
BPPB Griffiths, Jeremy and Derek Pearsall, eds. Book Production and
Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989.
Charms Roper, Jonathan, ed. Charms and Charming in Europe. Great Britain:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
CHBB The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. 6 vols. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987-2009.
Clm Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Clm
CS Fanger, Claire, ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval
Ritual Magic. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1998.
CUL Cambridge, University Library MS
Digby Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS
Egerton London, British Library, Egerton MS
FR Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer‟s Manual of the
Fifteenth Century. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1998.
Gonville and Caius Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS
Harley London, British Library, Harley MS
HMES Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols.
New York: Macmillan, 1923-1958.
Kieckhefer, Magic Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. 1989. Reprint,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Lansdowne London, British Library, Lansdowne MS
Rawlinson Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS
Sloane London, British Library, Sloane MS
TCC Cambridge, Trinity College Library
TK Thorndike, Lynn and Pearl Kibre. A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval
Scientific Writings in Latin. Revised and augmented edition. Cambridge,
Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1963.
Wellcome London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS

vii
 Transcription Protocols and Editorial Principles
I have adopted a semi-diplomatic approach in my transcriptions. Modern punctuation and

capitalization have been applied throughout, but the original spelling (eg., u for v, tripidare for

tripudiare, etc.) has been retained. Abbreviations have been expanded silently throughout.

\ / indicate words or letters inserted by the scribe.

< > indicate words or letters that have been erased or where there is damage to the manuscript

that obscures the text. Dots between these symbols indicate letters that I cannot see or identify.

[ ] indicate my comments or reconstruction of the text.

viii
 1

Introduction
In this dissertation, I examine how books can show the place of magic in fifteenth-century

English society. In particular, I am interested in exploring how magic shaped people‟s identities;

what was important about magic to them; and how it helped them establish their position in the

world. My dissertation begins with a survey of magic texts in fifteenth-century English

manuscripts that provides the context for the rest of the study. The survey lays out patterns of

use of magical texts, what sort of magical materials circulated, and in what manuscript and social

contexts magic texts were found. The remaining chapters examine four fifteenth-century

manuscripts in which magical texts appear. The case studies that form the core of this

dissertation, viewed in context with the results of the preliminary survey presented in chapter

one, highlight just how varied and far reaching the use of magic was in fifteenth-century

England.

I have chosen four manuscripts that cover four representative aspects of medieval society:

the gentry household, the university, medicine, and the monastery. In addition to the different

facets of society presented in these four manuscripts, they contain representative magic texts for

every category of magic: charms, natural magic, and ritual magic. Looking at these magic texts

within their manuscript context sheds light on how they became a part of people‟s ordinary lives

and how the charms, experiments, and rituals blend in with the other texts. These manuscripts

lay out the variety of attitudes people held towards magic and the ways in which those attitudes

altered how magic was adapted and integrated into people‟s everyday existence. Choosing

manuscripts that represent different aspects of society allows a close examination of individuals‟

use of magic while also presenting a broader picture of magic ownership and use across society.

My ultimate goal in this dissertation is to demonstrate two points: one, that copyists and

users produced and encountered manuscripts in which magic texts were freely intermingled with
 2

non-magical texts as they became a part of people‟s quotidian existence; and two, that medieval

books can show us how their owners used books and the texts contained within to define

themselves as individuals and within specific groups. Books were a key tool in this identity

formation, whether it was being done by lower gentry family trying to establish their position in

the social hierarchy, or by a monk who was attempting to create an intellectual life beyond the

monastery, or whether that identity was public or private, and I am interested in the roles that

texts of magic played in identity formation.

My approach in this dissertation is in many respects an answer to the call Richard

Kieckhefer put forth in Forbidden Rites:

I wish to propose that for the history of magic – especially in the late
Middle Ages – what we need most is a series of detailed studies of
particular representative manuscripts. This more than any other type of
study will contribute toward a concrete and realistic sense of how
magicians conceived and represented their art, especially if it is possible
to divine the process by which a manuscript was compiled, and to say
something about the mentality of the compiler as it changed through
different stages of compilation.1

While Kieckhefer may have been talking specifically about manuscripts of ritual magic, his point

about the need for studies of representative manuscripts still stands when it comes to other types

of magic. My work, therefore, takes Kieckhefer‟s proposition beyond ritual magic to include

natural magic and charms as well. It is useful to look at specific cases of magical use not just for

ritual magic, but for varieties of magic if we are to get a firmer understanding of the use and

place of magic in the whole of medieval society. This is a conscious shift away from the recent

scholarly concentration on the clerical underworld and its use of ritual magic.

1
Richard Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer‟s Manual of the Fifteenth Century (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 22.
 3

The Clerical Underworld

In order to properly situate my work, I will begin with an overview of the current scholarship on

medieval magic. Ritual magic and the clerical underworld have of late been the principal focus

of scholars working on medieval magic. Their work, especially those researching English magic,

are important to my work as they have laid the groundwork on the attitudes that scribes and

manuscript owners had towards magic. This survey of the scholarship will also look at recent

forays by scholars into medieval folk magic and charms, which is especially important for my

work because I examine both folk and ritual magic in this study.

For the past twenty years the majority of medieval magic scholarship, especially the

scholarship of ritual magic, has been focused on what Richard Kieckhefer has termed the

“clerical underworld.”2 Kieckhefer admits that the term “cleric” in a medieval context is

extremely difficult to narrow down – it has an “inevitable imprecision.”3 Nevertheless, he

retains this title and maintains that this underworld was populated by a group of men with at least

a rudimentary education in Latin and the rituals and doctrine of the medieval Church, many of

whom would have gone no further than the lower orders; within this group many would be

working as merchants or artisans and would have no employment with the Church at all.4 The

members of this group were linked by a knowledge of Latin and liturgical rituals and would have

been ideal practitioners of necromancy and the other forms of ritual magic that concerned

Kieckhefer.

Kieckhefer expanded on his initial proposal of the clerical underworld in his book

Forbidden Rites. In Forbidden Rites, Kieckhefer delves into the clerical underworld through a

2
Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (1989; repr., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 151-
156.
3
Kieckhefer, Magic, 153.
4
Kieckhefer, Magic, 154.
 4

fifteenth-century German necromantic handbook, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 849.

He uses the analogy of necromancy as the reverse side of a tapestry (with orthodox Christian

ritual and society on the obverse) to further our understanding of condemnations of magic and of

clerical culture as a whole.5 He argues that we can only understand condemnations of magic by

looking at the texts that were condemned and examining the principles behind them and the

justifications that their owners gave for their use. Furthermore, he argues that the contents of

necromantic rituals can help us understand the mentalities of the clerical users of magic and from

that, to get a better grasp of clerical culture as a whole.6

Since Kieckhefer first posited the existence of the clerical underworld, scholars of magic

have embraced this concept. Following Kieckhefer‟s lead, Jean-Patrice Boudet‟s Entre science

et nigromance: Astrologie, divination et magie dans l‟Occident médiéval (XII-XV siècle)

provides ample evidence of the clerical underworld. As the title suggests, Boudet‟s main interest

is the interaction of divination with magic throughout the Middle Ages and consequently he

spends only a fraction of his book on the clerical aspect. He confirms the existence of a clerical

underworld, both the practice of and the motivations for performing ritual magic.7 However,

Boudet also shows the penetration of the principles of ritual magic among the laity.8 For

example, he discusses the appearance of necromancy in literature and as one of the mechanical

arts, but also the influence of necromancy on brevets or sachets d‟accouchement, which were

essentially amulets that were inscribed with complex magical formulae and diagrams that went

5
FR, 3, 11-12.
6
FR, 3, 4, 10, 11.
7
Jean-Patrice Boudet, Entre science et nigromance: Astrologie, divination et magie dans l‟Occident médiéval (XII-
XV siècle), Histoire ancienne et médiévale 83 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2006), 383-393.
8
Boudet, Entre science, 417-423.
 5

beyond charms.9 Boudet‟s evidence for the spread of aspects of ritual magic beyond the clerical

underworld is an important point to consider. It is proof that parts of the elite, learned elements

of ritual magic permeated into parts of society that modern scholars have not necessarily

considered to be an audience for ritual magic. Although the brevets are only a minor part of

Boudet‟s book, their existence will have bearing on my work and the conclusions that I draw

regarding medieval attitudes towards magic.

Even though Benedek Láng‟s work is on central Europe, his recent book on magic in

Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary in the later Middle Ages has been important for developing the

image of the clerical underworld throughout medieval Europe. He spends a portion of his 2008

book, Unlocked Books, unpacking some of the issues surrounding the concept of the clerical

underworld.10 As he attempts to illuminate the unique magical milieu that existed in Central

Europe, Láng looks at the use of magic among the secular and monastic clergy, ranging from the

fourteenth-century Hungarian archbishop of Csanád, Jacobus of Piacenza, who seems to have

had an entirely theoretical interest in magic, to reports from the fourteenth-century preacher Jan

Milíč that Bohemian priests and clerics were performing magic.11 Despite a paucity of sources

and a frustrating lack of detail in the Central European medieval library catalogues, Láng is able

to show that there were isolated instances of monks practicing magic, as well as one monastic

community in southern Bohemia that had a relatively coherent interest in ritual magic.12 Láng‟s

work on the owners of ritual magic goes beyond the clerical context to consider magic in the

courtly and university contexts (this latter section overlaps somewhat with his discussion of

9
Boudet, Entre science, 419-420, 421-422, 423-430. See also Don Skemer‟s related work on medieval textual
amulets in Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2006).
10
Benedek Láng, Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 194-208.
11
Láng, Unlocked Books, 198-199.
12
Láng, Unlocked Books, 202, 204, 205.
 6

clerical users of magic).13 Because his interests lie in the libraries that held works of ritual magic

and less so with the readers and users of these texts, Láng devotes only a small amount of space

to these different groups in comparison with his study of the texts of magic. Nevertheless, this

brief section does illustrate the fact that magic appeared in a variety of contexts – even in the

libraries of humanist noblemen alongside astrological and neo-Platonist works.14

More important for my work, however, is Láng‟s interest in the “positivization” of magic.

The positivization of magic is a recent argument put forward by Claire Fanger and Frank

Klaassen. They posit that some late medieval intellectuals argued for positive benefits from

particular types of magical theory and practice.15 Láng sees evidence of magic‟s positivization

in late medieval manuscripts where alchemy, ritual magic, and natural and image magic

“appeared as respectable elements of science.”16 This “positivization” is an important factor to

consider, especially with regard to the use of ritual magic and it is a subject that I address in

chapter five as part of the monk Richard Dove‟s relationship with the Ars notoria.

Claire Fanger‟s work on the fourteenth-century Benedictine monk John of Morigny, and

his relationship with ritual magic has brought to life a prime example of the clerical

underworld.17 Throughout the past fifteen years, she has attempted to piece together John‟s

various incarnations of the Liber florum celestis doctrine and how he construed his relationship

13
Láng, Unlocked Books, 209-264.
14
Although, as Láng notes, this was confined to the learned magic of the later Middle Ages and to the Renaissance
magicians like Marsilio Ficino. Láng, Unlocked Books, 237.
15
Claire Fanger and Frank Klaassen, “Magic III: Middle Ages,” in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism,
ed. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 724.
16
Láng, Unlocked Books, 275.
17
See her initial work on the Liber florum in “Plundering the Egyptian Treasure: John the Monk‟s Book of Visions
and its Relation to the Ars Notoria of Solomon” in Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 216-249; her edition and translation of the Liber
florum with Nicholas Watson, “The Prologue to John of Morigny‟s Liber Visionum: Text and Translation,”
Esoterica 3 (2001): 108-217; and more recently, “Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems in the Ars Notoria and
the Flowers of Heavenly Teaching of John of Morigny,” in Die Enzyklopädik der Esoterik: Allwissenheitsmythen
und universalwissenschaftliche Modelle in der Esoterik der Neuzeit, ed. Andreas B. Kilcher and Philipp Theisohn
(Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2010), 157-175.
 7

with it. John‟s account of his initial acquisition of the Ars notoria, his trials using the Ars

notoria, the visions of the Virgin Mary and demons that he recorded, and the reasons he gives for

rewriting the Ars notoria as the Liber florum and dedicating it to Mary have been monumentally

important for the study of ritual magic. John‟s book is unique in medieval magic because it

provides a firsthand account of the experiences of a member of the clerical underworld. The

prologue that John wrote to the Liber florum recounts his misadventures with the Ars notoria and

his subsequent decision to refashion it as a devotional work dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the

prologue he reveals the ease with which magic texts could be acquired, he articulates the draw

that the Ars notoria had for students, as well as the spiritual drawbacks that weighed on the

minds of magic users. Whether or not he truly believed the justifications he gave, examining his

reasoning has provided scholars with valuable insight into the minds of medieval magicians.

Claire Fanger‟s work on John of Morigny and the Liber florum is relevant to my own

work for several reasons. It serves as an example of how necessary it is to study individual cases

of magic use and the questions that arise when doing so. Her most recent article, “Sacred and

Secular Knowledge Systems in the Ars Notoria and the Flowers of Heavenly Teaching of John of

Morigny,” is especially resonant for my own work in another regard. Fanger makes the

argument that in order to study fully the Ars notoria and the Liber florum they must be removed

from the exotic.18 It is more productive, she continues, to stop thinking of these texts as esoteric

or strange, and to start thinking of them as a part of “normal” history.19 Otherwise, these texts

will continue to be seen as marginal even when they can provide valuable insight into different

areas of “normal” medieval history.

18
Fanger, “Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems,” 160-161.
19
Fanger, “Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems,” 162.
 8

These scholars‟ work on the clerical underworld has also been part of an overall shift in

interest towards ritual magic. When Claire Fanger wrote in the introduction of Conjuring

Spirits:

to date Lynn Thorndike‟s monumental History of Magic and

Experimental Science, completed in 1958, remains not merely a base
reference for scholars interested in texts of this kind, but in some cases
the only available source of information about them outside the
manuscripts themselves20
there were few books and articles on this category of medieval magic. However, thirteen years

later, the same can no longer be said. There are now many scholarly discussions of ritual magic

and the clerical underworld thanks to the younger scholars mentioned above and those who work

on English magic, discussed below.

The topic of ritual magic in England is especially relevant to my own work. Modern

scholarship on the clerical underworld and ritual magic in England has developed in much the

same way as research on continental magic has, especially in the work of Sophie Page and Frank

Klaassen. Sophie Page‟s work on St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury has highlighted the complex

issues of magic in a monastic setting.21 She offers unique insight into how monks reconciled

magic with their religious beliefs. In her dissertation, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s Canterbury, in

the late Middle Ages,” Sophie Page considers how magic was integrated into a monastic

environment the Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine’s in the fourteenth century. She attempts to

answer how magic texts that were repeatedly condemned by ecclesiastical authorities ended up

surviving in such abundance in one monastery. She looks at the content of the texts, their

placement within the manuscripts, what other texts they travelled with, and their placement

20
Claire Fanger, “Medieval Ritual Magic: What It Is and Why We Need to Know More About It,” in CS, ix.
21
Sophie Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s Canterbury in the late Middle Ages” (PhD diss., The Warburg Institute,
2000).
 9

within the monastic library in order to discuss each text’s relationship to types of magic such as

natural magic and ritual magic.

Page‟s 2006 article in Magic and the Classical Tradition on Oxford, Corpus Christi

College Library MS 125, develops her arguments about the integration of magic by discussing

how the monastic owners of Oxford, CCC 125 attempted to reconcile astrological image magic

(which purports to draw spirits into objects) with a Platonic religious cosmology.22 The

manuscript she discusses contains seven such texts of image magic that are similar in structure

and purpose, but Page focuses on one, a magic text titled the Liber de essentia spirituum.23 Page

argues that the monastic owner of Oxford, CCC 125 was dissatisfied with the lack of a

theoretical explanation in his image magic texts and thus attempted to give his magic texts a

revelatory and cosmological justification by including a thirteenth-century magic text, the Liber

de essentia spirituum, that incorporated astrological material, divine names, invoked divine help,

and a Platonic religious cosmology.24 In this text, image magic and orthodox religious practices

were combined in a way that foreshadowed the visionary framework of the Ars notoria, the Liber

sacer, and Renaissance ritual magic.25

Frank Klaassen‟s most recent work has also looked at the clerical underworld in England,

focusing on how ritual magic was used to express a specific, clerical, ideal of masculinity.26 In

his 2006 article, “Learning and Masculinity in Manuscripts of Ritual Magic of the Later Middle

Ages and Renaissance,” Klaassen uses the clerical underworld as the backdrop for an

22
Sophie Page, “Image-Magic Texts and a Platonic Cosmology at St Augustine‟s, Canterbury, in the Late Middle
Ages,” in Magic and the Classical Tradition, ed. Charles Burnett and W.F. Ryan, Warburg Institute Colloquia 7
(London: Warburg Institute, and Turin: Nino Aragno, 2006), 69-98.
23
Page, “Image-Magic,” 79.
24
Page, “Image-Magic,” 70, 73-75.
25
Page, “Image-Magic,” 87.
26
Frank Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity in Manuscripts of Ritual Magic of the Later Middle Ages and
Renaissance,” Sixteenth Century Journal 38:1 (2007): 49-76.
 10

examination of the gendered features of ritual magic texts. Ritual magic excluded women,

implicitly if not explicitly, and he argues that these male-centric texts were used in the

construction of a particular kind of masculinity that was learned and clerical.27 The owners of

these texts, Klaassen asserts, used ritual magic as a means to construct a private identity that was

centred on the domination of women (while at the same time demonstrating sexual power

through abstinence), a desire to overcome one‟s intellectual failings, and a yearning to

demonstrate the manliness and virility that had been restrained by their clerical lifestyle.28

Klaassen‟s 2010 article, “The Middleness of Ritual Magic,” further refines these arguments.29

Klaassen argues in this article that much of the internal evidence in manuscripts of ritual magic

suggests that its users were primarily priests and monks.30 They lived in the middle of society,

that is, between “the worlds of learning and the numinous.”31 They were in the middle both

socially and spiritually, which Klaassen believes attracted them to magic in the first place.

Ritual magic allowed them to create a place for themselves that was subversive, but in a way that

still upheld the norms of society.32

While I do not disagree with Kieckhefer‟s concept of the clerical underworld, and the

subsequent scholarship that has focused on this idea, my own work shifts away from this

viewpoint to look at the side of magic that was not subversive, as in Klaassen‟s work, or reserved

for a particular group of people, but was in fact part of the fabric of everyday life. This side of

magic was not only ordinary, but necessary to people‟s lives and to the formation of their

27
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 50, 55.
28
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 60, 63-64, 69, 73, 74.
29
Frank Klaassen, “The Middleness of Ritual Magic,” in The Unorthodox Imagination in Late Medieval Britain, ed.
Sophie Page (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2010), 131-165.
30
Klaassen, “Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 148-149.
31
Klaassen, “Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 149.
32
Klaassen, “Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 154-155.
 11

identities. I want magic texts, as Claire Fanger wrote, “ to cease to be their own deep secret.”33

In this respect, I am much closer to the approaches taken by Owen Davies on cunning-folk in the

early modern period, and by Lea Olsan on medieval English charms.

In his 2003 book, Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History, Davies tries to

illuminate the world of cunning-folk in early modern England.34 The term was used in England

“to describe multi-faceted practitioners of magic who healed the sick and the bewitched, who

told fortunes, identified thieves, induced love.”35 The term “cunning-folk” only appears in court

records beginning in the fifteenth century, but the Latin terms that were used in court records

from the twelfth century onward, incantatrix, incantator, sortilegus, and maleficus, are clearly

used to refer to same group of people.36 The term cunning-folk applies to both men and women,

and records do attest to men and women working as cunning-folk, although Davies describes a

typical early modern cunning-folk as being male, artisan, semi-literate, and with some authority

in the community.37 Cunning-folk were practitioners of folk magic, and while early modern

cunning-folk owned printed grimoires, they were not interested in the overtly occult ritual magic,

but in helping people with their problems. Through his extensive research into the books

cunning-folk used, court records, literary sources, and continental comparisons, Davies brings to

light the world of every day magic in early modern England. His book highlights an area of

magic that was used by people at all levels of society and was a part of everyday life up to the

nineteenth century.38 The aim of his book is to shift the focus of scholarship from the users of

learned ritual magic and the witchcraft trials to the magic that more immediately affected the

33
Fanger, “Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems,” 162.
34
Owen Davies, Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (London: Hambledon and London, 2003).
35
Davies, Cunning-Folk, VII.
36
Davies, Cunning-Folk, VIII-IX.
37
Davies, Cunning-Folk, 69.
38
Davies, Cunning-Folk, XIII-XIV.
 12

majority of society.39 As a consequence of covering such a large period, however, some of his

conclusions are generalised, such as those concerning the use of printed sources; his work is best

used as a starting point for further research. My work does not deal directly with cunning-folk –

none of the books that I look at in this dissertation were owned by cunning-folk, nor is there any

evidence that the owners of these books dealt with cunning-folk. However, the magic texts in

these books (except perhaps for Richard Dove‟s ritual magic), and the ways in which I think of

these kinds of texts as circulating and being used are closely related to the world of cunning-folk

– namely, communities in which magic was integrated into everyday life and normalised to some

extent. Although Davies‟s focus begins in the early modern period and extends to the nineteenth

century, the concept of cunning-folk that he discusses begins in the Middle Ages and thus the

materials that I look at can be connected to this tradition.

In the same vein as Davies, Lea Olsan‟s work on medical charms in medieval England is

standard reading for any student of medieval charms. She has written on charms from the

Anglo-Saxon period to the fifteenth century. For the most part, she has focused on various

aspects of the language used in charms. Her article on Anglo-Saxon charms looks at the defining

characteristics of Anglo-Saxon charms with a particular focus on the relationship between

charms and Christian ritual, the porous nature of language in charms, and the use of specific

formulas for different charms.40 She develops this discussion of language and formulas in later

articles on the semantic motifs used in charms, the language of charms in a particular Middle

English recipe collection, and the charms in a fourteenth-century medical manuscript.41 In these

39
Davies, Cunning-Folk, XIII.
40
Lea Olsan, “The Inscription of Charms in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” Oral Tradition 14:2 (1999): 401-419.
41
Lea Olsan, “Latin Charms in British Library, MS Royal 12.B.XXV,” Manuscripta 33:2 (1989): 119-128; “Charms
in Medieval Memory,” in Charms and Charming in Europe, ed. Jonathan Roper (Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004), 11-31; “The Language of Charms in a Middle English Recipe Collection,” American Notes and Queries 18:3
(2005): 29-35.
 13

articles she looks at how language was used in charms in two ways. First, she has looked at the

language itself – the interchangeability of Latin, French, and English in charms. She notes that

versions of the same charm can and do appear in all three languages in English manuscripts.42

Olsan also argues quite convincingly that although Latin was associated with religion and ritual,

it held the same weight as the vernacular for those using charms.43 However, she also notes that

in macaronic charms Latin was always employed for the words of power and thus this neutrality

of language was not always so clear.44 Second, Olsan has been concerned with the use of motifs

for particular charms – both hagiographical stories and the simpler semantic motifs that

distinguish charm-types. The majority of Olsan‟s 1992 article, “Latin Charms of Medieval

England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition,” is a linguistic analysis of medical

charms with a focus on performance practice and oral tradition.45 Her work on semantic motifs

has largely focused on their use as memory aids in oral transmission and use.46 Two of her

recent articles have looked at how semantic motifs were employed and the range of subjects

covered by these motifs.47

Throughout her work, what comes across is the incorporation of charms in very different

kinds of social activities by people from every social group. In the same 1992 article on Latin

charms in which she analyses the linguistic aspects of charms, Olsan notes that medical charms

are found in the books of professional healers as well as in household notebooks alongside

42
Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 30, 32; “Inscription of Charms,” 408.
43
Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 32. See also chapter two, p. 127.
44
Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 30.
45
Lea Olsan, “Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition,” Oral Tradition 7:1
(1992): 116-142.
46
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” especially 62-64, 69.
47
Lea Olsan, “The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books,” in Charms and Charmers:
International Research on Verbal Magic, ed. Jonathan Roper (Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 214-237;
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 59-88.
 14

recipes for dyes or advice for running a manor.48 Her article on charms in medieval medical

theory explores the reasons why charms and healing prayers are found in the works of the

English academic medical writers Gilbertus Anglicus, John Gaddesden, John Ardene, and

Thomas Fayreford.49 She examines the implications of charms being associated with

experimenta and empirica, which were more accessible to non-academic people, rather than

scientia, which had the weight of academic learning behind it.50

Like these two authors, my work attempts to unfold the use of magic by people in their

everyday lives, where it is not subversive or part of an underworld. Olsan‟s focus on the

semantic and linguistic aspects of charms has shed light on the intricacies of transmission and the

pervasiveness of charms in medieval society. Her work has shown that charms were used by the

educated and uneducated alike. My dissertation reinforces and augments Olsan‟s arguments

about the use of charms in medieval England by looking beyond their structure and linguistic

makeup to examine their social and manuscript contexts, and the owners and scribes of these

manuscripts. Likewise, Davies‟s work has been important for establishing the role of cunning-

folk in early modern society, and with that, a side of magic that was ubiquitous in society until

the beginning of the twentieth century. While my dissertation does not deal directly with

cunning-folk, it does extend the world of everyday magic presented by Davies from the early

modern period into the late Middle Ages. My work is also focused on a smaller timeline and so I

am able to further refine Olsan and Davies‟s arguments. This way of approaching magic in late

medieval England requires studying the entirety of the manuscript, its construction, compilation,

dissemination, and ownership.

48
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 136.
49
Lea Olsan, “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice,” Social History of Medicine 16:3
(2003): 343-366.
50
See especially, Olsan, “Medical Theory and Practice,” 348-349.
 15

Approaches
My work in this dissertation is a combination of book history and social/cultural history, which

requires a brief explanation. My work is not straight cultural or social history, but a combination

of these two sub-disciplines. Admittedly, these two areas are closely related and their methods

are being used in tandem more frequently now.51 Combining social and cultural history allows

historians to overcome the “blind spots and blunders”52 of each discipline, such as the charge that

social history focuses too much on numbers or that it was too ready to apply the categories of

one period to another or that cultural history has gone too far to the other extreme and focused

too much on the marginal and on micro histories.53 My aim is to use my own micro histories, the

case studies of each chapter, to shed light on the broader issues of magic use and to demonstrate

the widespread use of magic in different areas of medieval life – that magic was more normal

than marginal and thus bring together the main focuses of social and cultural history together to

ultimately strengthen my work.

In this approach I have also relied heavily on the techniques of book history. Book

history has been influenced by the Annales French school of thought, which took a large-scale

approach to historical analysis and rejected the history of the elite in favour of what could be

learned from the evidence left by the common people, which inevitably included books.54 This

school of thought was not confined to book history, however. Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean

Martin‟s The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, one of the founding

works on book history, showed that the methods of book history could be used for social history

51
See for example, Paula Fass‟s article, “Cultural History/Social History: Some Reflections on a Continuing
Dialogue,” Journal of Social History 37 (2003): 39-45, which discusses how social and cultural history should be
used together.
52
Fass, “Cultural History,” 39.
53
Fass, “Cultural History,” 40, 43.
54
Joan Shelley Rubin, “What is the History of the History of Books?” The Journal of American History 90:2 (2003):
556.
 16

as well.55 Their work looks at the technological and material conditions that led to the spread of

print over three centuries and how that change affected society, not only among the intellectual

elite, but “all who used their minds.”56 They demonstrated that book history can thus show how

books change people and societies, and in return, how people and society change books. Book

history has since been called “interdisciplinarity run riot”57 and it is precisely this

interdisciplinarity that makes book history such a good fit for medieval studies. Looking at the

whole book, its construction, compilation, and dissemination calls on the skills of a wide range

disciplines including literary studies, the history of technology, library and archival science, and

antiquarian book collecting.58 The book is therefore an important tool for studying different

areas of society and my use of book history and social/cultural history must then begin with an

understanding of the production of books in fifteenth-century England.

English Book Production in the Fifteenth Century

Manuscript production in fifteenth-century England was anything but standardized.59 Much of

late medieval book production was bespoke and largely governed by local conditions.60 Monks

55
Alexandra Gillespie, “The History of the Book,” New Medieval Literatures 9 (2007): 253; Rubin, “History of
Books,” 556; Edward L. Bishop, “Book History,” in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, ed.
Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman, 2 nd ed. (Baltimore, 2005), accessed April 1, 2011,
http://litguide.press.jhu.edu; Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing
1450-1800, trans. David Gerard (London and New York: Verso, 1976).
56
Febvre and Martin, The Coming of the Book, 11.
57
Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?,” The Journal of American History 90:2 (2003): 67.
58
Gillespie, “The History of the Book,” 247.
59
Although Kathleen Scott has argued that the first standardised book production occurred in this period. For
example see, “Caveat lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustrations of Fifteenth-Century English
Manuscripts,” English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700 1 (1989): 19-63. See Erik Kwakkel, “Commercial
Organization and Economic Innovation,” in Alexandra Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin, eds., The Production of Books
in England 1350-1500, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011), 173-191 on the commercial book trade in England.
60
Alexandra Gillespie, “Books,” in Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature. Vol. 1, Middle English, ed. Paul
Strohm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 91; Ralph Hanna III, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity: Conditions
of Literary Production in Late Medieval England,” in The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval
Miscellany, ed. Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 37;
Graham Pollard, “The Company of Stationers Before 1557,” The Library 18:1 (1937): 15-16. For more detail on the
 17

copied books in their cells or in the cloister.61 Secular clergy made books for their cathedrals and

chaplains copied books for the households they were attached to.62 Students worked part-time as

scribes to pay the bills.63 Commercial scribes were increasing in numbers around the growing

book trades in London and Oxford as well.64 Clerks and notaries had entered the book trade in

the fourteenth century and could make books cheaply because they could write quickly using a

cursive script.65 The manuscripts that I look at in this dissertation typify this variety in scribal

practices as in Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.57 (1081) (studied in chapter two),

written by the members of a gentry household, or San Marino, Huntington Library HM 1336 (the

focus of chapter four), written by a student working part-time as a scribe.

Many manuscripts, especially the personal notebooks and commonplace-books of the sort

that are examined in this dissertation, were initially composed as booklets.66 These were, as

defined by Ralph Hanna, “a group of leaves forming at least one quire, but more likely several,

and presenting a self-contained group of texts.”67 Booklets were usually a single longer text with

shorter texts sometimes included to fill up leftover space. The great advantage of booklets was

that they allowed booksellers and compilers greater flexibility in manuscript production.68 Book

owners could collect series of booklets containing the texts that interested them without being

technical side of book production see, G.S. Ivy, “The Bibliography of the Manuscript-Book,” in The English Library
Before 1700, ed. Francis Wormald and C. E. Wright (London: Althone Press, 1958), 32-65.
61
M.B. Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes (Great Britain: Ashgate, 2008), 22-23, 31.
62
Gillespie, “Books,” 91; Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 35.
63
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 46.
64
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 39-40.
65
Erik Kwakkel, “A New Type of Book for a New Type of Reader: The Emergence of Paper in Vernacular Book
Production,” The Library 4 (2003): 243; Ralph Hanna, Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their
Texts (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 31.
66
Hanna, Pursuing History, 22; Ivy, “Bibliography,” 38; Margaret Connolly, “Compiling the Book,” in Production
of Books, 140.
67
Hanna, Pursuing History, 21.
68
Hanna, Pursuing History, 24-26.
 18

confined by the overall length or topic. In this way, larger codices were built up with an eclectic

series of texts based on the whims of the owner and the texts available.69

In addition to the variety of scribes and the use of booklets, the growing use of paper had

a significant impact on English manuscript production in the later Middle Ages. Paper was

especially important in the medical and scientific books that commonly contained magic texts,

like Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1435, the medical notebook examined in chapter

three. Paper had come to England in the fourteenth century and over the course of the fifteenth

century it came to be used for half of all books produced in the country.70 Throughout the

fifteenth century, the cost of paper steadily decreased, and with this decrease in cost came a

corresponding increase in demand.71 Medical and scientific books in particular increasingly used

paper; between 1375 and 1500 half of all medical and scientific books were partially or entirely

made of paper, as Linda Voigts has shown.72 The combination of paper and rough cursive script

meant for a less expensive enterprise and allowed a poorer reader to own their own book,

although cheap books and rich owners were not mutually exclusive.73

Along with the developments in booklet production and the use of paper, there were

developments in the scripts used to copy books. The English cursives, Anglicana and Anglicana

Formata, had developed over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.74 In the late

fourteenth century, the Secretary hand arrived from the continent and by the fifteenth century,

69
Hanna, Pursuing History, 23; Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 37, 47, 50. On this topic see also
Connolly, “Compiling the Book,” 129-149.
70
Kwakkel, “New Type of Book,” 219-220; R. J. Lyall, “Materials: The Paper Revolution,” in Jeremy Griffiths and
Derek Pearsall, eds., Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 11-12.
71
Lyall, “The Paper Revolution,” 11-12; Orietta Da Rold, “Materials,” in Production of Books, 25.
72
Linda Ehrsam Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books” in BPPB, 353; Kwakkel, “New Type of Book,” 224.
73
The rough script is also a common feature of the late medieval medical book, according to Voigts‟s survey. See
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 353.
74
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 106, 108.
 19

Anglicana and Secretary were viewed as equals in the scribal hierarchy and were mixed and used

interchangeably in the writing of books.75 This fact is demonstrated most clearly by the fact that

the scripts that appear in every manuscript that I examine in this dissertation are some form of

Anglicana-Secretary hybrid. When compiling a book, the scribe had to consider the time needed

to copy as well as the content of the book. Anglicana and Secretary and their hybrids were seen

as scripts that could find a balance between speed and decorum.76 As Daniel Wakelin argues, the

combination of script and writing material can help us understand the motivations of the scribe

and the “social world in which writing unfolded.”77

However a book was assembled and with whatever materials, the specific texts that were

included were dependent on the availability of texts in a given area. A scribe who was compiling

a manuscript in a university town or a large centre like London would have had more variety of

texts to choose from and would have had less time to wait for a specific text to become available

than a scribe who was working in some obscure small town.78 Those owners of manuscripts

without access to the collections in universities or large urban centres would have been at the

mercy of their neighbours and families, parish priests, local monasteries, and travellers for texts

to copy.79 Likewise, their texts would have been a source for their neighbours and friends

nearby. There is evidence that manuscripts circulated between local families, especially those of

75
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 113-114; Daniel Wakelin, “Writing the Words,” in Production of Books,
42.
76
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 120; Kwakkel, “Commercial Organization,” 185; Wakelin, “Writing the
Words,” 37.
77
Wakelin, “Writing the Words,” 45.
78
However, even in larger centres it could not be assumed that an exemplar of a particular text was available.
Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 47; Connolly, “Compiling the Book,” 130.
79
As was the case with Robert Thornton, who is discussed in chapter one, pp. 84-87. See Derek Pearsall, “The
Whole Book: Late Medieval English Manuscript Miscellanies and their Modern Interpreters,” in Imagining the
Book, ed. Stephen Kelly and John J. Thompson (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 24. See also, Hanna, “Miscellaneity and
Vernacularity,” 47.
 20

the gentry, and so groups of texts would have been passed around the community, as we will see

with TCC O.1.57 in chapter two.80

The books that I look at in this dissertation were compiled in a variety of ways that reflect

the eclectic methods of manuscript production and the developments occurring in the book trade

at this time. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the English book trade was expanding;

however, the type of book in demand fluctuated widely. There is more evidence of commercial

scribes writing bespoke books for clients in this period, but there also evidence for a growing

second hand book trade and an increasing number of people writing their own books.81 The

prevalence of the new book trade versus the second hand market was reliant on economic crises,

outbreaks of plagues, and war.82 Increases in these brought about an increase in the second hand

book trade. The fact that the labour was the highest cost associated with book production also

impacted the desire for used books.83 At the same time, the value of used books fell in the

fifteenth century.84 Thus, the market for the production of new books for a particular client was

not consistent in the later medieval period in England.

Additionally, printed books had reached England soon after the trade in printed books

began.85 There was no printing done in England before William Caxton set up shop in

Westminster in 1476, but in the quarter century beforehand printed books had been imported

from the Continent, mostly through individual acquisitions, and printed books continued to be

80
Pearsall, “The Whole Book,” 25; George R. Keiser, “Epilepsy: The Falling Evil,” in Lister M. Matheson, ed.,
Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1994), 223.
81
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 42; Kate Harris, “Patrons, Buyers and Owners: The Evidence for
Ownership and the Role of Book Owners in Book Production and the Book Trade,” in BPPB, 171-172.
82
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 42; Harris, “The Evidence for Ownership,” 172.
83
Joanne Filippone Overty, “The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300–
1483,” Book History 11 (2008): 5-7; Kwakkel, “Commercial Organization,” 183.
84
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 42.
85
Margaret Lane Ford, “Importation of Printed Books into England and Scotland,” in CHBB, vol. III, 1400-1557,
181-182; Margaret Lane Ford, “Private Ownership of Printed Books,” in CHBB, vol. III, 205.
 21

imported after Caxton began printing in England.86 Caxton was interested in printing English

texts and Latin texts designed for the English market and so other printed books had to be

imported.87

However, my concern in this dissertation is not with printed books. Printing would

become important for magic later on: from the sixteenth century on, printing became a crucial

component in the spread of not only the learned Renaissance magic of men like Cornelius

Agrippa and Marsilio Ficino, but also for the cunning-folk of rural England.88 During the

fifteenth century, however, the impact of printing on magic had yet to be made in any major way.

Instead, I am interested in the continuation of the older tradition of handwritten manuscripts

during this period of change. My attention here is focused on the methods of manuscript

production discussed above – the use of faster cursive hands, the growing use of paper, booklet-

style compilation, and the relationship between scribes and book owners, which all have bearing

on fifteenth-century book production.

These components of fifteenth century book production also influence how these books

are used in their owners‟ identity formation. New materials and techniques gave book owners

more opportunities and more flexibility in the compilation of books. The use of cheaper

materials, faster scripts, and the second-hand market meant that more people could own books.

At the same time, however, there were constraints of book production that affects this identity

formation. Scribes copying books for patrons, for instance, may have been compelled to choose

texts based on the availability of exemplars (or lack thereof). With these issues in mind, I will

86
Lotte Hellinga, “Printing,” in CHBB, vol. III, 67-68; Ford, “Importation of Printed Books,” 179.
87
Hellinga, “Printing,” 67; Ford, “Importation of Printed Books,” 179.
88
Davies, Cunning-folk, 121-127; Frank Klaassen, “Medieval Ritual Magic in the Renaissance,” Aries 3:2 (2003):
178-179; Frank L. Borchardt, “Magus as Renaissance Man,” Sixteenth Century Journal 21:1 (1990): 59, 62-72.
 22

now turn my attention to my overall argument and how it fits into the framework that I have laid

out.

Magic and Society in Fifteenth-century England

Douglas Gray argued in his 1974 article on charms in the works of Chaucer that people were

“unlikely to have thought, as we do, of the „natural‟ and „supernatural‟ as two quite distinct and

exclusive spheres.”89 There was still a distinction, he contends, but it was not as clearly

delineated as it is for modern people.90 The first part of my two-part argument mentioned at the

beginning of the introduction supports Gray‟s conclusion by demonstrating the mixing of

magical and non-magical texts in manuscripts. This is laid out most explicitly in the preliminary

survey of manuscripts of magic in fifteenth-century England that is presented in chapter one,

although it is a core part of the subsequent chapters as well. The survey in chapter one

demonstrates that magic appears in a wide variety of contexts, as well as the kinds of magic texts

that survive from the fifteenth century. The variety of owners and manuscripts illustrates the fact

that the magical or supernatural were not as distinct a category as they are now. The rest of the

chapters, primarily two, three, and four, are prime examples of this lack of distinction. All three

manuscripts discussed in these chapters contain charms and natural magic placed with non-

magical texts. The grouping and presentation of magic texts within their respective manuscripts

illustrate precisely the closeness of the natural and supernatural that Gray argued for. For

example, the preliminary survey shows that medical recipes and charms are often found together.

This is corroborated by several of the manuscripts discussed in this dissertation. TCC O.1.57,

for example, contains several medical charms (to cure a sore and to help someone sleep) in its

collection of medical recipes, as well as natural magic integrated into its texts on the medical

89
Douglas Gray, “Notes on Some Middle English Charms,” in Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of
Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Beryl Rowland (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1974), 57.
90
Gray, “Notes,” 60.
 23

virtues of plants and animals. Likewise, the Middle English medical notebook of HM 1336, the

focus of chapter four, includes several charms to treat epilepsy.

The second part of my overall argument is connected with this relationship between

magical and non-magical texts. As I wrote above, I am interested in how people used books to

present an identity, whether public or private, and how books can show us this identity.

Examining the lack of distinction between the magical and non-magical, or between the

supernatural and natural to use Gray‟s terms, is vital to understanding the role of magic texts in

creating a bookish identity. These owners were creating a book-based identity that was unique to

each of them and as they did that magic served different purposes to suit each person.

The owners of these manuscripts have infused them with their own idiosyncratic quirks

that reflect their unique goals and desires. How individuals used magic in their books says

something about how they view their place (or their desired place) in the world. Each of the four

manuscripts studied here, even though there are similarities between them, use magic for

different purposes and to present unique identities. The Haldenbys in chapter two use medical

charms and medical and scientific texts as a way of building up an identity that emulated other

gentry families of that time, like the Thorntons of Yorkshire, or the Findern family of southern

Derbyshire, who were becoming increasingly interested in medical and scientific works. Their

book becomes a way of establishing their place in society while still serving utilitarian purposes.

Chapter four presents a similarly pragmatic attitude towards medical charms, but for

different ends. Robert Taylor‟s inclusion of medical charms in his medical notebook is part of

his self-presentation as a part-time medical practitioner. The charms are a part of his everyday

professional life and are presented as such. Combined with an experiment of natural magic for

protection in the marketplace, they present an outlook on magic that was as utilitarian as the
 24

Haldenbys. In Taylor‟s case, however, it is not a matter of social mobility, but of professional

growth. The charms and natural magic were therefore part of Taylor‟s public face.

Unlike the Haldenbys and Taylor, the anonymous owner of Ashmole 1435 in chapter

three seems to have not intended his book for anything but his private use. As a result, his secret

desires are presented and the identity that he presented to himself. This identity that he has

created for himself is learned and bears significant similarities to the conception of clerical

masculinity that Frank Klaassen has discussed in “Learning and Masculinity” (see above). This

identity emerges from the scribe‟s complicated relationship – one in which magic is both

ordinary and transgressive. The items he includes are found in other manuscripts, but the

specific combination and the similarities some of the magical experiments have with necromancy

speak to a darker side of magic than is seen in the other chapters.

Richard Dove‟s use of magic as discussed in chapter five is unlike the other cases

presented in this dissertation. His is the only example of ritual magic use that I closely examine.

Dove uses his magic text, a copy of the Ars notoria, a ritual to obtain knowledge of the seven

liberal arts and skills in memory, eloquence, understanding, and perseverance that borrows

heavily from orthodox Christianity, to help expand his intellectual life beyond the monastery.

Although the text borrows heavily from orthodox Christianity for its rituals, the religious aspects

seem to be less important to him than the material rewards offered by the Ars notoria. Viewed in

context with the other texts he compiled, it becomes clear that this ritual was not part of a

spiritual journey for Dove, as Sophie Page argued was the case at St. Augustine‟s, but a means to

a very worldly end.

In her discussion of medieval book production in Twenty-First Century Approaches to

Literature, Alexandra Gillespie writes that the truth in books is not absolute and unchanging –

each book and each owner changes it. This is as true for magical texts as it is for literary works.
 25

The place of magic in a book, and by extension in society, was dependent on the individual

reader. That is why we can see charms, natural magic, and ritual magic being used for social

advancement, professional purposes, private fantasies, and intellectual development in fifteenth-

century England.

Plan of Study
Chapter one of this dissertation presents the results of a preliminary survey of magic in fifteenth-

century English manuscripts. As part of this examination, I will clarify how I am delineating

texts – between magical and non-magical, and between genres of magic. Because this survey is

preliminary it does not touch upon every text and aspect of fifteenth-century magic; however,

every effort has been made to provide as accurate a picture as possible. This chapter also uses a

series of case studies to look at some of the issues of ownership that are dealt with in more detail

in the later chapters of this thesis. In particular, these case studies illustrate the different

manuscript contexts in which magic was found, the variety of owners and social classes that

owned magic texts, and how individual and institutional owners dealt with the possession of

magic texts.

Chapter two looks at magic use in a household of the lower gentry. The members of the

Haldenby family in Isham, Northamptonshire, or scribes working on their behalf, compiled TCC

O.1.57, a predominantly scientific and medical book, in the early part of the fifteenth century.

This chapter argues that the Haldenbys used TCC O.1.57 as part of their desire to present

themselves as a specific kind of gentry family. George Keiser has noted that in the fifteenth

century, English gentry families and the secular clergy were increasingly interested in the

scientific and pseudo-scientific.91 I argue that the Haldenby family used their interest in these

91
Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223.
 26

texts as an signifier of their standing in society. The manuscript serves as a way for the

Haldenby family to establish the family as gentry – social mobility via the written word.

In chapter three, I examine Ashmole 1435, a largely medical book copied and owned by

an anonymous person at the end of the fifteenth century. Most of the manuscript is devoted to

academic medical texts, but there is also a collection of recipes at the beginning of the book that

includes many charms and experiments of natural magic. I argue that magic has a multi-level

role in this manuscript. Ashmole 1435 is both ordinary and transgressive in its presentation of

magic. These two seemingly contradictions merge in the owner‟s construction of a specific kind

of identity, one which is based on a quasi-clerical masculinity and the ludic qualities of magic

(which are often expressed in cruel ways). Part of this clerical masculinity, in addition, seems to

be the appropriation of ritual magic and stripping it of its most unorthodox elements to become

synonymous with natural magic.

Chapter four looks at a medical handbook owned by Robert Taylor of Boxford, Suffolk:

HM 1336. This manuscript was copied by Symon Wysbech, a law student at Cambridge, for

Taylor in the mid-fifteenth century. Magic seems to be both part of Taylor‟s part-time practice

of medicine and an expression of his concerns in everyday life. In this chapter I argue that

Taylor‟s book was meant to be seen because of the nature of book production in rural areas like

Boxford, as well as through Taylor‟s practice of medicine within his community. The book and

the texts it contained were part of his public identity and the charms and natural magic contained

in HM 1336 reflect upon that identity. The magic texts, in addition to being part of Taylor‟s

public identity, shed light on the everyday concerns of medieval people. This presentation of

Taylor‟s identity is complicated, however, by the choices made by his scribes in the copying of

the texts in HM 1336.

 27

My last chapter deals with London, British Library Sloane MS 513, a notebook owned by

Richard Dove, a monk at Buckfast Abbey in Devon in the first half of the fifteenth century.

Dove‟s notebook is the only one I look at that contains a text of ritual magic, a version of the Ars

notoria. It is the only text in Dove‟s book that has any religious aspect to it; the rest of his texts

are used for the running of the monastery and for his own intellectual pursuits. I argue that,

unlike other monastic owners of the Ars notoria, the religious aspects are incidental to Dove‟s

purposes. The Ars notoria is part of his intellectual pursuits beyond the monastery, as well as

being a means to acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge for these pursuits.
 28

Chapter 1
A Preliminary Survey of Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts of Magic in
England
This chapter presents the results of a preliminary survey of magic texts from the fifteenth century

– those either produced in England or for English use. In conducting this survey, I have two

goals in mind: one, to shed light on the contexts in which magic texts were gathered and written

down; and two, to provide a framework in which to view the subsequent chapters of this

dissertation. The first goal will naturally feed into the second as this survey highlights the

variety of sources and uses for late medieval magic. The codicological evidence will be

important in this regard as witness to the owners’ beliefs, what materials circulated in England at

this time, and in what contexts the magic texts may have been put to use. In an effort to provide

the best structure for these two goals, this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section

deals with the results of the survey and defining the kinds of magic in fifteenth-century English

manuscripts. The second section presents four case studies of magical book ownership –

outlining the users of manuscripts, examining how they treated their books, and attending to

some of the codicological evidence that is beyond the scope of this survey, but which will be an

important part of the subsequent chapters. The third section looks at the information that can be

found in medieval monastic catalogues. I have also included an appendix for this chapter

(Appendix One), which lists the manuscripts I surveyed with their dates of composition, the

location of composition where known, any names of scribes and medieval owners, and I have

noted very generally the type or types of magic in each manuscript.

This survey has its initial basis in and is an expansion of the preliminary survey on

learned magic conducted by Frank Klaassen and published as “English Manuscripts of Magic,
 29

1300-1500: A Preliminary Survey.”1 My own works expands on his survey to include charms

and texts of natural magic, while limiting the chronology to fifteenth-century manuscripts of

English provenance only. For this survey, I have looked not just at what magic texts survive, but

also the remaining contents of the manuscripts, and any clues to the owners‟ identities. By

including such details, more can be discovered about how various magic texts were used and

their owners‟ attitudes towards them.

Because it can be difficult to date manuscripts precisely, I have had to rely on the

cataloguers‟ and scholars‟ dates. Dating manuscripts is subjective for the most part, except when

dates are given within the manuscript or some other aspect allows for precise dating.

Consequently, the fifteenth century is a slightly loose category. The use of a specific script, for

example, cannot be the sole indicator because a scribe may have been trained in the fourteenth

century and continued to use his fourteenth-century script well into the fifteenth century. Mixed

hands especially, which combine features from Anglicana and Secretary scripts, are difficult to

date without some other indicators of time.2 Names and dates can narrow down the date range

when they are present.

In addition to Klaassen‟s survey of ritual magic, there have been a few important surveys

of charms and attempts at typologising medieval charms that have influenced this chapter. The

most extensive of these is Linda Ehrsam Voigts and Patricia Deery Kurtz‟s database, Scientific

and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English.3 Although magical texts are not in any way

the focus of this database, many charms have been indexed as part of the cataloguing process.

Their cataloguing is incomplete and still on-going, but it covers a large amount of data and it

1
In CS, 3-31. I am grateful to Frank Klaassen for granting me access to a copy of his unpublished database of
manuscripts.
2
M.B. Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands, 1250-1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), xxv.
3
Originally published in CD-Rom format in 2000 by the University of Michigan Press, this database is now updated
and accessible online at http://cctr1.umkc.edu/cgi-bin/search.
 30

does provide an excellent starting point for further research on vernacular charms.4 Next,

Jonathan Roper has published an initial typology of English charms that attempts to highlight

some patterns in type and use.5 While broadly useful, his article covers charm types from the

Anglo-Saxon period to the nineteenth-century, which does skew some of his results. For

example, one of the most popular charm types he discusses is a love charm that does not appear

in the written record until the late eighteenth-century.6 His work is also focused on English

charms only and disregards Latin and other vernacular charms. For the most part, however,

Roper‟s work on the dominant charm-types is invaluable. Suzanne Eastman Sheldon‟s work on

medieval charms in England, although it is becoming outdated, is still useful for distinguishing

charm types and motifs.7 Last, Lea Olsan‟s work on semantic motifs is an essential aid when

attempting to categorise medieval charms, whether in Latin or Middle English.8 Semantic motifs

were an image or words that served as a link between symptom and charm. They served as a sort

of mental index for the users of charms. For example, semantic motifs for staunching blood

include “Longinus miles” (using the story of the Roman knight, Longinus, who pierced Christ‟s

side at the Crucifixion), “Christus et Iohannis descenderunt in flumine Iordanis” (using the story

of Christ‟s baptism), and “Adiuro te sanguis” (an adjuration of the blood).9

This chapter is not a contradiction or refutation of these scholars‟ work; rather, it is an

attempt to synthesize their research into a cohesive whole while supplementing their conclusions

and providing new insight from a different set of perspectives. At the same time, by examining
4
Many entries for charms or medical recipes will list the incipit of the first entry, but will only state the number of
charms or recipes in that book or section of the manuscript. For example, Cambridge, St. John's College Library
MS K.49 contains 451 Middle English recipes over 49 folios, but only the incipit for the first recipe is included.
5
See Roper, “Typologising,” in Charms, 128-144.
6
Tis not this, a love divination charm. Roper, “Typologising,” 138.
7
Suzanne Eastman Sheldon, “Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular
Manuscripts,” (PhD diss., Tulane University, 1978).
8
Olsan‟s major work on semantic motifs is “Medieval Memory,” 59-88.
9
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 66.
 31

patterns in both charms and more learned ritual magic, I hope to paint a clearer picture of the use

of magic in fifteenth-century England. By confining this survey to one century, I will be able to

examine trends and patterns in more detail than previous surveys have been able to do. Once

laid out, this survey will help situate the four manuscripts that form the core of this dissertation.

For the most part I have had to rely on modern catalogues, but where I was able I

supplemented my research with printed medieval catalogues, mostly those in the Corpus of

British Medieval Library Catalogues series. I have confined my survey to comprehensively

catalogued libraries in North America and the United Kingdom. In the following discussion I am

more selective in dealing with books from libraries where catalogues are still unreliable in their

account of contents of medieval books – such as the British Library. For institutions with less

comprehensive catalogues, I rely on previous scholarship on magical texts in English

manuscripts.

There are a handful of magic texts mentioned in medieval catalogues, of which only a

very few survive. In my survey I looked primarily at the catalogues of monastic and other

religious houses.10 Most of these manuscripts are from the fourteenth-century, or earlier;

however, since the catalogues themselves were compiled in the last quarter of the fourteenth, or

in the fifteenth centuries, there is evidence that these texts could have been read and used in the

fifteenth century and beyond. A number of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts

10
Of the 14 catalogues currently published in the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues series, six (St.
Augustine‟s Canterbury; York, Austin Friars‟ Library; Leicester, Augustinian Canons; Bury St. Edmunds; St.
Martin‟s Priory, Dover; and Syon Abbey) listed manuscripts containing magic texts, or texts that could be magic.
Other catalogues, like Hospitals, Towns, and the Professions, The University and College Libraries of Cambridge,
and Peterborough Abbey list manuscripts that may or may not have contained magical content, such as bestiaries (as
in London, Clarenceux King of Arms (Medieval Catalogue) MS 54) or books of experiments (such as the secreta
Alberti in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library (Medieval Catalogue) MS UC19.19). However, without
seeing the manuscripts any magical content cannot be determined. In these instances, I have erred on the side of
caution and left them out of the survey. So far as is known, only the magical manuscripts from St. Augustine‟s
Canterbury survive.
 32

from St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury, for example, have fifteenth-century emendations or

annotations.11

As with all surveys, this one has some limitations. It is hoped that future research will

overcome some of these issues. The obvious next step in future work is to proceed to in-hand

descriptions, but that is beyond the scope of this survey. The reliance on other surveys for

information on charms has biased this survey in favour of medical charms and charms in

English. In particular, the Voigts-Kurtz database and the various indices of Middle English

prose and verse have weighted the survey in this way. However, an effort has been made here to

include all charm types and languages; I hope this will counterbalance some of the impact of

omissions because of the uneven quality of manuscript catalogues.

It should also be noted that there was a strong oral tradition, primarily among charms,

that is not covered here. This survey looks only at magic that survives in the written record.

Evidence of this oral tradition can be seen in the transmission of charms in the written record, as

demonstrated in Olsan‟s article on Latin oral charms.12 Strings of nonsense words and sound

patterns appear in Latin charms, such as the phrase “erex + arex + rymex +” in a fifteenth-

century English manuscript that seems to have been generated from the morpheme “rex.”13 A

more acute example of a sound pattern is found at the end of this same charm, “+ EEEEEEEEE

+,” following “Christi (sic) Eleyzon.” These sorts of patterns play on the sounds the source

phrases made when spoken aloud. The patterns also sometimes display echoes of the original

11
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 25, 191, 195, 199, 200. For more on the manuscripts and scribal practices of St.
Augustine‟s see, Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 18-19, 20-21, 24; David Pingree, “The Diffusion of Arabic
Magical Texts in Western Europe,” in La Diffusione delle Scienze Islamiche nel Medio Evo Europo (Rome:
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1987), 57-102.
12
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 116-142.
13
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 121. The charm is found on folio 129v of London, British Library, Sloane MS 3160, a
fifteenth-century English manuscript containing Middle English medical texts, religious lyrics, and homilies.
 33

language. Take, for example, the nonsense string in a fourteenth-century copy of a charm for

snakebite:

Porro porro poto

zelo zelo zebeta
arra array paraclitus
Et pone predictam aquam in ore pacientis sive sit homo sive sit animal
[Porro porro I drink
zelo zelo zebeta
arra array paraclete
And place the aforementioned water in the mouth of the patient whether
it be a man or an animal]14

This contains both the aforementioned sound patterns (“arra array” deriving from paraclete) and

traces of what was possibly once a coherent Latin phrase (“poto,” I drink, and “paraclitus,”

possibly meaning Paraclete, the Holy Spirit).

We can see evidence of oral transmission in more subtle ways too. Misspellings of Latin

words (such as “speritus” for “spiritus”) can point to someone who had little knowledge

mishearing (as well as misreading. Both could and did happen). The use of semantic motifs also

points to an oral tradition. Stock images and words would be easy to remember and pass on

orally. Cunning-folk in particular seem to have been the most active in oral transmission

because they did not leave behind firsthand written records until the early modern period.

This evidence of an oral tradition is important to keep in mind throughout this chapter.

The survey is necessarily limited to magic surviving in the written record, but concurrent with

this record was an oral tradition that influenced and was influenced by the written transmission

of charms. Charms could pass back and forth between written and oral transmission. Even

though the oral tradition is not included here, its influence is still felt.

14
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 124.
 34

Before delving into this survey, I must distinguish one category of texts that I am not

including as magic here. Divination, while it was often linked with magic, and magic was

sometimes used for divination, was in a different category from magic and developed from

different traditions.15 Both were condemned at various times in the Middle Ages, but for

different reasons.16 In general terms divination was “the procedure of foretelling the future and

discovering hidden knowledge through the interpretation of signs.”17 This covered a broad group

of texts from weather prognostications to chiromancy and even some necromantic experiments.

Including all these texts would quickly make this survey unmanageable. For example, there is a

great difference between a list of prognostications based on when it thunders, a charm to

determine if someone sick will live or die, an operation for scrying in a child‟s fingernail, and a

necromantic experiment that conjures spirits in order to learn about the future. Because it is hard

to distinguish between magic and divination with such a varied group of texts I have excluded it

from the general survey, but I address the intersection of magic and divination in more detail as it

comes up in individual cases.

Categories of Magic in Fifteenth-century English Manuscripts

Klaassen‟s survey is the starting point for my own research and so this survey will begin by

looking at ritual magic. However, I will not be focusing on Klaassen‟s analysis, but merely

using it as a jumping off point for my own survey. As part of the survey of ritual magic I also

include a brief examination of ritual magic manuscripts in medieval monastic catalogues. Most

of the texts and catalogues pre-date the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, they offer a glimpse into

the organisation and categorisation of ritual magic texts by medieval people, as well as providing
15
A prime example of this overlap can be found in Isidore of Seville‟s categorisation of magic, which primarily
discusses types of divination. Kieckhefer, Magic, 11.
16
Divination was condemned for threatening the concepts of free will and divine omnipotence, as well as for
presuming to possess knowledge that by rights only belonged to God. Láng, Unlocked Books, 125.
17
Láng, Unlocked Books, 123.
 35

information on texts that have not survived. It is hoped that viewing the fifteenth-century texts

against the background of earlier monastic catalogues will provide a more comprehensive layout

of the use of magic. This will be followed by a discussion of the natural magic and charms in the

manuscript record in order to provide as complete a picture as possible of the written record of

magic in the fifteenth century.

To begin, Klaassen divides ritual magic into four categories, which I have retained:

works of image magic (or what he refers to as astrological image magic), the Ars notoria, the

Liber sacer, or Sworn Book of Honorius, and necromancy. Books of image magic were works in

which images were used to channel magical powers, either through astrological associations or

rituals. The Ars notoria is a ritual to obtain knowledge of the seven liberal arts and skills in

memory, eloquence, understanding, and perseverance, which borrows heavily from orthodox

Christianity for its rituals and was condemned for its use of notae and verba ignota. The Liber

florum, John of Morigny‟s fourteenth-century re-imagining of the Ars notoria is also included in

this group. Notae were images that were to be meditated upon during the operation. The notae

usually take the form of circles or squares of concentric lines or with the relevant prayers written

inside. Each nota is assigned to a particular subject like memory or grammar.18 How intricate

they were depended on the manuscript, but many of the surviving copies are elaborate and richly

coloured.19 Verba ignota were thought to be the names of demons, such as in the prayer which

in one version begins: “Behenna, Behenna, Behenna, Soon, Euche, Onomas.”20 The Liber sacer

is a ritual largely to obtain a vision of God. Because there are no fifteenth-century copies

18
On the notae see Michael Camille‟s article in CS, “Visual Art in Two Manuscripts of the Ars Notoria,” 110-139.
19
For example, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 951 is a richly decorated fifteenth-century copy, discussed
below, pp. 41-42. Some of the more elaborate continental copies include Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale MS E.V. 13
(English?, thirteenth century) and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 9336 (Italian, fourteenth century).
20
Julien Véronèse, ed., L'Ars notoria au Moyen Age. Introduction et édition critique (Firenze: SISMEL edizioni del
Galluzzo, 2007), 108.
 36

surviving from England, this text will be dealt with only briefly. Last, necromancy was a type of

ritual magic that uses long, complex rituals, explicit invocations of demons, and often

appropriates and adapts orthodox Christian rituals.21

In many respects, image magic is dependent on the writing of the ninth-century Arab

writer, al-Kindi.22 Al-Kindi‟s treatise on magic, De radiis stellarum, provided an explicit

underpinning of neo-Platonic theory for image magic. This is not a work of practical magic, but

a theoretical treatise on the occult forces behind natural phenomena.23 Al-Kindi was influenced

by the neo-Platonists, mainly Porphyry and Plotinus, and their concept of causality and

emanation from God when constructing his cosmology and doctrine of rays. In particular, he

adopts their concept of intermediary entities, who received causal power from God.24 He argued

in De radiis stellarum that all sublunary motion relied on the rays of the stars. These rays varied

according to the specific properties of each star, the position of the stars in the sky as well as

their interaction with other stars and their rays. The combination of all these factors created a

celestial harmony that influenced all things on earth: “Omnis enim res, quam modica in mundo

elementorum agens, totius celestis armonie est effectus” [For everything, no matter how small,

which acts in the elemental world, is an effect of the harmony of all of the heavenly bodies].25

This stellar influence could then in theory be tracked using astrology.26

21
For more on Klaassen‟s definitions see “English Manuscripts,” 4, 14, 19, and 20.
22
See Pinella Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality: The Doctrine of the Ray in al-Kindi (SISMEL:
Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1999) for an overview of al-Kindi‟s life and works, especially chapter one, “al-Kindi in his
historical context.”
23
Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality, 17; Láng, Unlocked Books, 23.
24
Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality, 12, 17, 28, 42.
25
Marie-Therese D‟Alverny and F. Hudry, “Al-Kindi. De Radiis,” Archives d‟histoire doctrinale et littéraire du
Moyen Age 41 (1974): 223.
26
Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality, 23-25.
 37

The stars not only emitted rays, but gave the elemental (i.e., terrestrial) world the ability

to emit rays in return and transfer their own elemental qualities.27 Al-Kindi asserts that the

celestial and elemental rays create a reciprocal action between the two spheres, which is caused

by a natural, occult, connection. This connection is necessary for magical practices because acts

in one world will influence the other. Without that mutual influence, he argues, there would be

no relationship between the two worlds and no result from any attempt to take advantage of the

rays.28

Image magic thus worked through the manipulation of these rays. The practitioner used a

form or image that was connected to the celestial form, using sympathetic associations in

accordance with the proper astrological knowledge. Once the power of the rays was drawn down

to the image the desired goal was achieved. The user often might wear the image as an amulet.

Implicit in this was the belief of Divine assistance or acquiescence in the operation. The stellar

rays originated in the celestial sphere and therefore came from God.29 It followed that whatever

came from God would be approved of by God.

Because this system of celestial influence relied on neo-Platonic thought, it also appeared

in the writing of scholastics like Albertus Magnus (specifically in the Speculum astronomiae)30

and consequently received some legitimacy, although the principles of al-Kindi‟s work were

condemned at Paris in 1277 and 1398.31 The Speculum distinguished between three ways of

27
Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality, 21.
28
Travaglia, Magic, Causality and Intentionality, 23-24.
29
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 92.
30
There is much scholarly debate on whether the Speculum astronomiae was actually written by Albertus Magnus.
However, because he was believed to be the author of this work until the early twentieth century, I will refer to him
as the author. Even if he did not write this work, the ordinary medieval reader would have accepted it as fact and
been influenced accordingly. For a summary of the scholarly debate see “The Eleventh Chapter of the Speculum
astronomiae and the Biblionomia of Richard of Fournival” in Láng, Unlocked Books, 281-283.
31
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 5; Láng, Unlocked Books, 24; Albertus Magnus, Speculum astronomiae, ed.
Stefano Caroti, Michela Pereira, Stefano Zamponi (Pisa: Domus Galilaeana, 1977), 31-33; Paola Zambelli, The
 38

making images, although Albertus Magnus only approved of the third method. In his opinion,

the other two constituted forms of necromancy; the third method eliminated all that was

detestable, leaving behind only the celestial influence.32 The first method, which he calls the

most abominable, uses suffumigations and invocations to draw down the heavenly rays. The

second way is still terrible, but it is not as bad as the first method. This technique works by

writing characters on the images through which certain names are exorcised. The last method is

the only acceptable form of image magic. By this method the operator makes his images

according to the proper houses of the moon and draws down power from the heavens.33 Not all

writers accepted image magic as non-demonic, however. William of Auvergne, the thirteenth-

century bishop of Paris and proponent of natural magic, condemned image magic as demonic.34

The nine fifteenth-century manuscripts containing image magic support the pattern as

Klaassen has laid out that they were collected with astrological or astronomical works, alchemy,

books of secrets, medical works, and texts on natural wonders.35 Of those nine manuscripts, four

have astrological works, three include medical works, three contain a book of secrets, and two

are predominantly alchemical.36 London, Society of Antiquaries of London MS 39, for example,

Speculum astronomiae and its Engima: Astrology, Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his
Contemporaries (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), 241-251.
32
“Tertius enim modus est imaginum astronomicarum, qui eliminat istas spurcitias, suffumigationes et invocationes
non habet, neque exorcizationes aut characterum inscriptiones admittit, sed virtutem nanciscitur solummodo a figura
caelesti” [The third type is [that] of astronomical images, which eliminates this filth, does not have suffumigations
or invocations and does not allow exorcisms or the inscription of characters, but obtains [its] virtue solely from the
celestial figure]. Speculum astronomiae, chapter eleven; translation from Zambelli, Enigma, 247.
33
Speculum astronomiae, chapter eleven; Zambelli, Enigma, 241-247.
34
Láng, Unlocked Books, 27.
35
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 4.
36
The manuscripts of image magic are Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.xi.45 (with medical treatises and
recipes); London, British Library, Sloane MS 312 (also containing astrological texts); London, Society of
Antiquaries of London MS 39 (two collections bound together of astrological works and medical recipes); London,
Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 404 (a leechbook); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1416 (largely
an alchemical collection, with some medical material); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 37 (also containing a
Secretum philosophorum); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 194 (largely astrological); Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Digby MS 228 (astrological and also contains a copy of the Secretum secretorum); and Oxford, Corpus
 39

is composed of fragments from three manuscripts. The fragment containing image magic covers

folios 2r-17v. There are three treatises in this section: there are directions to conjure visions,

make gold, etc. according to the twenty-eight houses of the moon (folios 2r-6v); a treatise on the

planets with some conjurations (folio 13); and directions for conjuring spirits (folios 15r-17v)

(this manuscript seems to be unique in its combination of image magic and necromancy). The

remaining fragments are late fifteenth-century astrological treatises (folios 18r-25r) and some

early sixteenth-century astrological notes (folios 26r-33r).37 Just as Klaassen found, works on

image magic are often found alongside books of secrets, which we will later see share an

important connection with magic and often contain experiments of natural magic.38 Likewise,

the pairing of image magic and astrology is because of the similarities between the two and the

necessity of astrological knowledge for image magic. The practitioner had to be able to draw

down the appropriate astrological influence when it was the right time using substances, names,

characters, or images that had an affinity with the star or planet (such as making an image of a

scorpion while the constellation Scorpio is in the ascendant as part of a procedure to get rid of

scorpions).39 Klaassen argues that the grouping of image magic with such works demonstrate an

interest in the natural world that relates to image magic‟s similarities with natural magic.40 For

example, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 37 contains a work of image magic alongside a

copy of the secretum philosophorum,41 and the virtues of herbs, stones, and animals (which often

Christi College Library MS 125 (mostly alchemical, but contains sections on secrets, and medical recipes).
Throughout this survey, folios have been noted where known.
37
Pamela J. Willetts, Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Society of Antiquaries of London (Great Britain: D.S. Brewer,
2000), 18-19.
38
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 7, 13.
39
Kieckhefer, Magic, 132; Catherine Rider, Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 78.
40
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 8.
41
This is a book of secrets discussed in John B. Friedman, “Safe Magic and Invisible Writing in the „Secretum
Philosophorum,‟” in CS, 76-86.
 40

overlap with natural magic). Likewise, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 194 combines

image magic with texts of the virtues, weather prognostications, and astrological texts.

The contents of works of image magic certainly seem to back up Klaassen‟s claim. The

works of image magic, like the Liber lune, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, or the De

imaginibus by the ninth-century writer Thebit ben Corat, offer a variety of operations (like

binding someone‟s tongue or protection against danger) using images that are carved in rings,

stones, or metal disks during the appropriate houses of the moon. In my survey, for example, is

Cambridge, University Library MS Dd.xi.45 – a fifteenth-century compendium containing

medical texts and treatises and a short image magic text titled Liber de angelis, annulis

characteribus et Imaginibus planetarum (folios 134v-139r).42 The Liber de angelis is really

three fragmentary works of image magic put together. All three sections rely heavily on accurate

knowledge of astrology, as in an experiment for love in the third treatise in which the practitioner

makes an image of wax “in hora Lune in mense Iulij in signo Cancri uel in mense Februarij in

signo Piscium” [in the hour of the Moon in July in the sign of Cancer, or in February in the sign

of Pisces].43 The other procedures provide similar designations for the making of rings and

images for different purposes.

Next in this survey, the Ars notoria is a magic ritual that purports to offer the user

knowledge of the seven liberal arts as well as a stronger memory, eloquence, understanding, and

perseverance. Some versions also promise to find hidden treasures and foretell the future. This

is achieved through prayers to the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and various angels. Throughout the

ritual the user makes special figures (notae) that employ crosses and ostensibly holy names

(verba ignota), which are then blessed at a specified number of masses. The Ars notoria was

42
There is an edition and translation of this text in Juris G. Lidaka, “The Book of Angels, Rings, Characters and
Images of the Planets: Attributed to Osbern Bokenham,” in CS, 32-75.
43
Lidaka, “Book of Angels,” 64, 65.
 41

repeatedly condemned throughout the Middle Ages for its use of verba ignota.44 Julien

Véronèse has discovered five versions of the Ars notoria and a gloss: the A version (or Flores

aurei), the B version, a gloss to the B version, the Opus operum (John of Morigny‟s

reconfiguration), the Ars brevis, and the Ars Paulina.45 Copies of the Ars notoria often ascribe

their authority to Solomon or Apollonius, or Saint Paul, in the case of the Ars Paulina.46 This

was done in an attempt to give a semblance of authority, both ancient and Christian, to the text.47

The fifteenth-century English copies of the Ars notoria consist of two copies of the Ars

brevis version (Sloane 513 and a fragmentary copy in London, British Library, Sloane MS 3008)

and an elaborately decorated B version (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 951). Merton

College is known to have had a copy in the fifteenth century, but it does not survive.48 Bodley

951 is unique among the fifteenth-century copies as it survives as a solitary traveller without

companion texts. It is a large manuscript with a large number of colourful notae and much care

has been put into its construction.49 It was once owned by Simon Maidestone, who may have

been a monk at St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury.50 If this is the case, his other surviving books show

no sign of an interest in magic (namely, a copy of a gloss on Paul‟s Epistles, a copy of Goffredo

di Trani‟s Summa super titulis Decretalium, a repertorium biblie, an alphabetical gloss of the

44
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 14-15; Claire Fanger, “Plundering the Egyptian Treasure,” 216. For an account
of a fourteenth-century condemnation of John of Morigny‟s version of the Ars notoria see Les Grandes Chroniques
de France, ed. Jules Viard, vol. 9 (Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champion, 1937), 23-24.
45
Véronèse, L‟Ars notoria, 19-21.
46
Véronèse, L‟Ars notoria, 21.
47
Véronèse, L‟Ars notoria, 21; Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 15.
48
This was Oxford, Merton College Library, (Medieval Catalogue) MS 999. It is listed, along with MS 1053, in a
list of books given to the library in 1483. F.M. Powicke, The Medieval Books of Merton College (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1931), 213.
49
A more comprehensive description of Bodley 951 can be found in Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 15-16.
50
While it is not known for certain, both Klaassen and Page seem inclined to believe that the owner of Bodley 951
was the same monk at St. Augustine‟s. See Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 16; Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,”
23, 156.
 42

Bible, and the sermons of Richard FitzRalph, Archbishop of Armagh).51 In addition to the legal

and theological works in Maidestone‟s possession, his annotations and verses are found in

surviving abbey manuscripts on the sermons of John Preston, Gerald of Wales‟s Topographia

Hiberniae, and the Decretales of Gregory IX.52 Both of the Sloane copies, conversely, come to

us in manuscripts that are primarily alchemical in nature. Sloane 513, the subject of chapter five,

was originally owned by the Cistercian monk Richard Dove and demonstrates a definite interest

in alchemy and mathematics. It is worth noting that two of the three surviving copies of the Ars

notoria were owned by monks (Bodley 951 and Sloane 513). The highly religious nature of the

Ars notoria certainly made its appearance in monastic environments understandable and as will

be discussed below, the monastic environment was an ideal place for the Ars notoria. The case

of Simon Maidestone‟s copy seems to indicate an interest in the religious aspects over the

material rewards. The Ars notoria contains passages on the transcendental qualities of the

prayers, exhortations on the ascetic practices necessary to fulfil the ritual, and other uses for the

prayers.53 As we will see in chapter five, there is much in the Ars notoria that, out of sequence

and out of context, would pass as orthodox devotion.

Necromancy is our last category of ritual magic, and the most suspect to the ordinary

medieval observer. By the fifteenth century, necromancy had long since evolved from its

original and literal meaning of divination by conjuring the dead to mean the conjuring of

51
Canterbury, St. Augustine‟s (Medieval) MSS 209, 1616, and 1791. The works of FitzRalph, now Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 144, is signed “Liber fratris Symonis Maydeston,” but not in the same hand as the
other manuscripts. B.C. Barker-Benfield, ed., St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, vol. 3, The Catalogue, Third Part,
Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues (London: British Library in association with the British Academy,
2008), 1801; Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 16.
52
Barker-Benfield, St. Augstustine‟s, vol. 2, The Catalogue, Second Part, 770-771, 938-940, 1542.
53
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 157. For an earlier case of a monk using the Ars notoria for its spiritual
rewards and as a tool on the path to spiritual perfection see Page‟s discussion of the fourteenth-century monk
Michael Northgate, 160ff.
 43

demonic spirits to do the magician‟s will.54 Necromancy was openly demonic and made no

pretensions at promoting intellectual curiosity or spiritual endeavour, as other magical texts

did.55 As Richard Kieckhefer put it, “necromancy was explicitly demonic magic. Other forms

of magic might be taken as implicitly demonic…The necromancer, however, actually invoked

demons of the Devil.”56 Thus, it becomes much more difficult for the owners of such works to

justify possessing them.

Books of necromancy were repeatedly condemned and burned in the Middle Ages,

especially in France.57 The condemnation of 1277 by Etienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris (and

repeated that same year by Robert Kilwardby, the Archbishop of Canterbury) included a

condemnation of any books containing necromancy, invocations of demons, or conjurations.58

This condemnation was repeated in the condemnation of magic by the faculty of theology at the

University of Paris in 1398.59 The condemnation of a magic text and its maker most quoted in

the secondary literature is the burning of John of Morigny‟s Liber florum at Paris in 1323.60 In

54
This partly came about because medieval writers assumed that the appearance of the dead in ancient stories of
necromancy were really demonic spirits in disguise. Kieckhefer, Magic, 152.
55
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 13-14; 19; 25.
56
Kieckhefer, Magic, 152-153.
57
Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 90-
91.
58
“libros, rotulos seu quaternos nigromanticos aut continentes experimenta sortilegiorum, invocationes demonum,
sive conjurationes in periculum animarum, seu in quibus de talibus et similibus fidei orthodoxe et bonis moribus
evidenter adversantibus tractatur, per eandem sententiam nostram condempnamus…” [“by our same sentence we
condemn necromantic books, rolls, or quires containing experiments of divinations, invocations of demons, or
conjurations for the danger of souls, or those which handle in these and similar ways orthodox faith and good morals
in clearly adverse fashions.] Henricus Denifle and Aemilio Chatelain, eds., Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis,
vol. 1 (Paris: Delalain Bros., 1889), No. 473, p. 543.
59
Peters, The Magician, 91.
60
The account in the Grandes Chroniques de France condemns the book for promising knowledge of the seven
liberal arts and using invocations. It also condemned the book because the owner had to write his name in the book
and have his own copy made – the concern here being that it was expensive. For the full Latin text and translation
see Nicholas Watson, “John the Monk‟s Book of Visions of the Blessed and Undefiled Virgin Mary,” in CS, 164.
 44

the latter case the book was burned, but there is no mention of John‟s punishment so presumably

he recanted.61

In England, however, necromancy and its users appears to have attracted little notice in

the courts. Although both secular and ecclesiastical courts dealt with cases of magic, there were

only a handful of accusations of magic or sorcery in England before the fifteenth century and few

of these were actually concerned with necromancy. 62 In one instance, in May of 1432, Thomas

Northfelde, professor of divinity of the Dominicans was arrested and all his books on “sorcery

and wickedness” were taken. Whether those books were necromantic or not is unknown.63 The

most significant cases in the fifteenth century were largely political, such as the case against

Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester, in 1441. She was accused of hiring an astrologer,

Roger Bolingbrooke, a canon named Thomas Southwell, and a cunning-woman named Margerie

Jourdayne to use magic against Henry VI.64 Most cases of magic before the courts were like the

1492 case in London of Richard Laukiston who was accused of offering to find a widow named

Margaret Geffrey a rich husband with the help of a cunning-man.65 In this case, the authorities

were more concerned with the deception and social disruption Richard caused than the use of

magic. Only under Henry VIII did England see a systematic campaign against magical

practitioners.66

61
Watson, “John the Monk,” 165.
62
For example, in 1325 John of Nottingham was accused of using necromancy, at the instigation of 27 men from
Coventry, to injure and kill the king, Hugh Despenser, earl of Winchester, and the younger Hugh Despenser, and the
prior of Coventry. Before he could achieve this, John succeeded in killing one of the Coventry men, Richard of
Sowe, as a test to see if his magic would work. The outcome of the case is unknown. John Bellamy, Crime and
Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 61-63.
63
Bellamy, Crime and Public Order, 63.
64
Davies, Cunning-folk, 1; Bellamy, Crime and Public Order, 63.
65
Davies, Cunning-folk, 2.
66
The sentence for practicing magic under Henry VIII was death, but there is no record of anyone actually suffering
this punishment. Davies, Cunning-folk, 4. For more on medieval condemnations and court cases see Klaassen,
“Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 141-142; FR, 4-7, 97, 100.
 45

Part of this obscurity may be due to the fact that necromantic texts survive exclusively in

personal notebooks. It is altogether unheard of to find an elaborately decorated necromantic

manuscript as sometimes happens with copies of the Ars notoria.67 There are seven manuscripts

in this survey that contain necromantic materials.68 These texts appear not to have been

produced for any audience but for the owner and therefore reflect their unspoken fears and

desires. Their manuscript contexts display a variety of approaches to organising necromantic

books. Three, Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.8.29 (1404); Society of Antiquaries 39;

and London, British Library, Sloane MS 3849, contain separate books or booklets that have been

bound together by later owners.69 One, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 252 is an

exemplary case of a necromantic manual that has survived on its own without companion texts.70

A necromantic book mentioned in a list of the books given to the library at Merton College in

1483 also travelled on its own, but it does not survive.71 Rawlinson D. 252 is unique amongst

the surviving fifteenth-century English necromantic works. As Klaassen describes it, it was

compiled by one scribe with no discernible order. The manuscript‟s operations are mostly

conjurations to do things like find treasure, make a spirit do your bidding, or create illusions.72

67
See above, pp. 41-42, for my discussion of the survival of high quality copies of the Ars notoria.
68
These are Boston, Boston Medical Library, MS 18 (which has texts on poisons, medical recipes, prayers, and
divination); Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.8.29 (1404) (several manuscripts bound together with texts
on astrology and divination); London, British Library, Sloane MS 3849 (numerous manuscripts with experiments,
texts on astrology, and divination); Society of Antiquaries 39 (see below); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS
266 (which also contains medical material); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 252; and Oxford, Merton
College Library, (Medieval) MS 1053, which does not survive.
69
On booklets in manuscript production, see the introduction, pp. 17-18.
70
Although it is possible that at one point it had companion texts, Klaassen does not think this is likely. Klaassen,
“English Manuscripts,” 21.
71
This was Merton College 1053. Powicke, Merton College, 215.
72
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 21.
 46

Throughout, there is a preoccupation with the ritual practice – there is no interest in theory here.

This is standard for works of necromancy.73

Necromancy was couched in terms of orthodox Christian ritual and belief, especially in

the formulation of conjurations. These are virtually identical to orthodox Christian exorcisms.

Richard Kieckhefer has identified four elements that were essential to necromantic conjurations,

as these were adopted and adapted from Christian exorcisms.74 The conjuration begins with the

declaration (using adiuro, coniuro, or exorciso interchangeably), the address (the name of the

spirit), the invocations (by whatever holy powers), and the instructions (to do the bidding of the

conjuror).75 Each element is vitally important to ensure the success of the operation. The

invocations are especially important to demonstrate to the intended spirit the power and virtues at

the disposal of the operator. Each element also appears in exorcisms; however, the important

difference between exorcism and necromancy is in the ultimate goal – expulsion versus

coercion.76 The preparations done beforehand also require extensive fasting, long periods of

prayers, and numerous masses. Necromantic operations sometimes employed prayers instead of

conjurations as a means of controlling spirits. These elements in combination with the religious

aspects of the conjurations reveal the debt necromancy owed to Christian practices.

The intentions of necromantic rituals were many and varied. Because chapter three deals

with these purposes in detail, a concise description will be sufficient for now. In Forbidden

Rites, Kieckhefer divides the necromantic rituals of his fifteenth-century German manual into

three categories: illusions, psychological experiments, and divinatory experiments. The illusions

could be anything from making a banquet appear to making the living appear dead to becoming

73
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 25.
74
Kieckhefer provides a template of the medieval exorcism in comparison with necromantic conjurations in FR,
144-149.
75
FR, 127.
76
FR, 127.
 47

invisible.77 The point here seems to be to openly display one‟s abilities and powers as opposed

to the other categories, which are much more secretive.78 The psychological experiments were

more about asserting control and deception than the somewhat more benign trickery of the

illusions. These could include operations to make a woman love you or do your will, to gain

favour, or sow discord between people.79 Finally, the divinatory experiments went beyond

simply learning the future, although that was done as well. Necromantic divination was often

employed to find lost or stolen goods, find hidden treasures, or to identify thieves. This

information might be learned by looking in the fingernail of a child or other reflective surface,

through a dream vision, or directly from the demon.80 In the end, once a demon or spirit had

been conjured, the magician was confined only by his imagination or that of the medium.

In ritual magic texts, as we have already seen with the Ars notoria, there was a tradition

of ascribing texts to King Solomon.81 This was not confined to ritual magic – texts of natural

magic and non-magical tricks and experiments are also attributed to him, which are discussed

below and in later chapters. Dozens of texts from the medieval period were attributed to

Solomon. This seems to be borne out of a desire to place the weight of an ancient authority

behind these texts and to capitalise on Solomon‟s reputation for wisdom.82

Within necromancy there is a sub-group of texts whose titles are variations on clavicula

or vinculum Salomonis. The rituals in these texts are much the same as other necromantic texts:

spirits are conjured with various rituals in order to perform illusions, gain knowledge, or

77
FR, 44.
78
FR, 44.
79
FR, 70-91.
80
FR, 103-118.
81
For example, see the list of Solomonic texts in HMES II, chapter XLIX, especially 280-284.
82
HMES II, 279.
 48

whatever else the practitioner desires.83 The earliest surviving copy from England is London,

British Library, Sloane MS 3847, which is from 1572. However, I note these Solomonic texts

because there is a record of a vinculum Salomonis in a late fourteenth-century monastic library

catalogue and so it was extant, if not read, for at least part of our period.84

What is of note in examining English books of ritual magic from the fifteenth century is

the high proportion of necromantic and image magic that they contain. Works of this sort far

outstrip copies of the Ars notoria. While three of the four known fifteenth-century copies of the

Ars notoria survive, there are nine surviving manuscripts of image magic and six of

necromancy.85 Image magic may have been produced in larger numbers in general because of

the aforementioned perceived legitimacy built up by its neo-Platonic framework. The relatively

high survival rate of texts of necromancy may be due, in contrast, to chance and the diligence of

their owners in making sure they were hidden from the wrong sorts of eyes. As mentioned

above, necromantic works for the most part are found in private notebooks. Precisely because

necromantic texts were so suspect, their owners might have taken extra precautions to conceal

and protect them.86 An old battered notebook would have attracted less attention than a

beautifully illustrated manuscript. The numbers of surviving manuscripts do attest to a certain

appeal of ritual magic, despite the condemnations and concerns about demonic trickery.

Although this is discussed in detail below, it should be noted here that the magic texts

that are listed in medieval monastic catalogues overwhelmingly fall under the heading of ritual
83
Editions of varying quality have been published in print and online. The most well-known is the edition by S.
Liddell MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis) Now First Translated and Edited
from Ancient MSS. in the British Museum (1888; repr., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972).
84
In the collection of John Erghome. See below, pp. 87-90.
85
The three surviving Ars notoria are Bodley 951, Sloane 513, and Sloane 3008 (fragmentary). Merton College 999
does not survive. See above, note 47. The manuscripts of image magic are CUL Dd.xi.45; Sloane 312; Society of
Antiquaries 39; Wellcome 404; Digby 37; Digby 194; Digby 228; Oxford, CCC 125; and Ashmole 1416 (see above,
note 36). The six necromantic manuscripts are Boston Medical 18; TCC O.8.29; Sloane 3849; Society of
Antiquaries 39; Bodley 266; and Rawlinson D. 252 (see above, note 68).
86
Davies, Cunning-folk, 119.
 49

magic. Copies of the Ars notoria and Thebit ben Corat‟s works on image magic are

predominant. The monastic predilection for the Ars notoria is to be expected, given Klaassen‟s

findings mentioned above. The Ars notoria was highly religious in nature and attracted a

number of monastic users whose names survive to the present.87 Aside from the monks at St.

Augustine‟s, who make up the greatest portion of known owners, there was also Richard Dove of

Buckfast Abbey, who is the focus of chapter five, who owned a copy of the Ars notoria in Sloane

513. Of course, more explicit necromantic texts may have been present in medieval monasteries

and were purposefully omitted from monastic catalogues, or may have been unknown to the

cataloguers; nevertheless, it is telling what was included in medieval monastic catalogues.

One anomaly to note in this survey of ritual magic is the absence of the Liber sacer or

Sworn Book of Honorius from the fifteenth-century manuscript record in England. This was a

piece of ritual magic in two parts: the first part enabled the user to obtain a vision of God, while

the second was for summoning an angel, spirit, or demon to serve the magician. The author of

this text is ascribed to Honorius of Thebes and he is a great defender of magic; he presents in his

prologue a story of a council of magicians who have gathered together to protect magic from the

threat of the Church.88 Honorius believes the Church to be working through “demonic

instigation.”89 The council of magicians accordingly compose a book containing all magical

knowledge, the Liber sacer, which they give to Honorius for safekeeping.90 The prologue is

followed by instructions for a month-long period of fasting, prayers and daily devotions, and

87
As we shall see in chapter five, the religious aspects of the Ars notoria were not always the greatest draw for
monastic users.
88
Robert Mathiesen, “A Thirteenth-Century Ritual to Attain the Beatific Vision from the Sworn Book of Honorious
of Thebes,” in CS, 147-148. Hedegård, Gösta, ed., Liber iuratus Honorii: A Critical Edition of the Latin Version of
the Sworn Book of Honorius (Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, 2002), 60-61.
89
Mathiesen, “Thirteenth-Century Ritual,” 148.
90
Mathiesen, “Thirteenth-Century Ritual,” 149; Hedegård, Liber iuratus Honorii, 60.
 50

purification in preparation for receiving the vision.91 These instructions include digressions on

the nature of man and angels. The second operation to summon a spirit is a standard

necromantic ritual using a magic circle to keep the spirit confined.92 The combination of these

two rituals in one book makes this a wholly unique work of medieval ritual magic.

There are six surviving manuscripts of the Liber sacer of English provenance: two are

from the fourteenth century and the rest are from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.93 Two

more copies are listed in the fourteenth-century collection of the master regent and prior of York,

John Erghome, in the Austin Friars‟ Library at York.94 We should not assume from the archival

gap that the text was not present in the fifteenth century. The contents of the rituals are no more

suspect than those of the Ars notoria or necromancy. Presumably, as well, these fourteenth-

century copies continued to be read and used in the fifteenth century. Why the mysterious

absence of fifteenth-century copies? The most likely and probable answer is that they simply did

not survive. The likelihood that no copies were made in the fifteenth century is quite low in the

face of the four copies that we know of from the fourteenth century. More probably, the

fifteenth-century copies of the Liber sacer succumbed to the same fate that countless medieval

manuscripts have suffered.

Now we turn to the non-ritual forms of magic – which have been termed alternately low,

popular, or folk magic.95 There are two groups in this category: natural magic and charms.

91
Mathiesen, “Thirteenth-Century Ritual,” 150-157.
92
Mathiesen, “Thirteenth-Century Ritual,” 151.
93
In roughly chronological order these are, London, British Library, Sloane MS 313; London, British Library,
Sloane MS 3854; London, British Library, Sloane MS 3885; London, British Library, Royal MS 17.A.XLII;
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3826; and London, British Library, Sloane MS 3883. Mathiesen, “Thirteenth-
Century Ritual,” 145.
94
York, Austin Friars A8 361, A8 364. See my discussion of John Erghome‟s books below. K.W. Humphreys, The
Friars‟ Libraries, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues (London: British Library in association with The
British Academy, 1990), 87, 89.
95
Davies, Cunning-folk, X.
 51

These two are very similar in their goals and approaches. Both genres of magic use a

combination of sympathetic associations and Christian elements.96 The goals of natural magic

and charms are often the same: healing, protection, love. In the small sampling of natural magic

included in this survey, however, the ratio of the different categories (e.g., healing versus love) is

much closer than with charms. Medieval charms overall seem more confined to specific topics,

as is discussed below. Natural magic is also distinct from charms in its operation. Unlike

charms, natural magic does not require the user to read or recite certain words or phrases – it

relies only on the occult properties and sympathetic associations of natural objects.

Natural magic, along with charms, are arguably the most innocuous genres of magic in the

medieval period. Natural magic is predicated on the notion that all natural objects, like metals,

stones, and herbs, possess occult properties, which people could tap into and use for various

endeavours, from love magic to medicine.97 Often, the occult properties could be controlled by

using sympathetic associations thought to exist between certain objects. This concept is found in

Western Europe from the writing of Augustine on; however, following Augustine‟s argument,

the use of occult properties was generally viewed with suspicion outside medical practice (and

even within medical practice), especially when words were used.98 Augustine contended that

“Ad hoc genus pertinent omnes etiam ligaturae atque remedia quae medicorum quoque disciplina

condemnat, sive in praecantationibus sive in quibusdam notis quos caracteres vocant, sive in

quibusque rebus suspendendis atque illigandis” [To this category [i.e., superstitions] belong all

the amulets and remedies which the medical profession also condemns, whether these consist of

96
Davies, Cunning-folk, X; Rider, Magic and Impotence, 84.
97
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 19, 44. Claire Fanger notes that this assumption appeared beyond academic
writings in medieval Latin proverbs and the works of John Gower in “Things Done Wisely by a Wise Enchanter:
Negotiating the Power of Words in the Thirteenth Century,” Esoterica 1 (1999): 97, accessed December 12, 2010,
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Fanger.html.
98
Rider, Magic and Impotence, 84; Fanger, “Things Done Wisely,” 97; Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and
trans. R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 91-94.
 52

incantations, or certain marks which their exponents call „characters‟, or the business of hanging

certain things up and tying things to other things (around the neck or on the wrist, for

example)].99 Augustine went further and condemned all magic as a “nugatoriae vel noxiae

superstitionis” [a futile and harmful superstition] that brought people into concords with demons

and thus endangered their souls.100

Some later medieval writers were more lenient in their beliefs. Thomas Aquinas, for

example, accepted that some objects had natural occult powers, but he attributed the power of

images and formulas to demons.101 In the twelfth century, Michael Scot also argued for two

kinds of magic: one that was acceptable and one that was not. Only the magus sapiens was

legitimate. The rest, the maleficus and praestigiosus, who respectively “interpreted characters

and phylacteries, incantations, dreams, and [made] ligatures of herbs” and created illusions were

to be condemned.102 Natural magic received some support with the translation of a number of

works from Arabic, which discussed the occult properties of amulets, stones, plants, and animals,

in particular De phisicis ligaturis, ascribed to Costa ben Luca, a ninth-century physician who

worked in Baghdad and Armenia, and the Kyranides, a group of Greek treatises put together

between the fourth and eighth centuries.103 As a separate category it was first described in the

thirteenth century by William of Auvergne in De Legibus (written 1228-1230) and later in De

Universo (written 1231-1236). William of Auvergne argued that natural magic was part of

99
Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 90, 92; translation is from 91, 93.
100
Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, 91-93; 98-99.
101
Láng, Unlocked Books, 24.
102
Peters, The Magician, 86-87.
103
The Kyranides was ostensibly written for Kyranus, the king of the Persians. The original date of composition is
unknown; the earliest surviving manuscripts are from the thirteenth century. In the Latin tradition of the text,
Hermes Trismegistus is ascribed as the author. The book is divided into four parts on the remedies derived from
animals, plants, and stones. Suzanne Eastman Sheldon, “The Eagle: Bird of Magic and Medicine in a Middle
English Translation of the Kyranides,” Tulane Studies in English 22 (1977): 5-6, 9; HMES II, 229-231, 233; Page,
“Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 17; Rider, Magic and Impotence, 23, 50, 84.
 53

natural philosophy; all other magic was based on idolatry and the help of demons and was

therefore sinful.104 The use of sympathetic associations in natural magic overlapped with image

magic and subsequently natural magic took on many of the same connotations as image magic,

as mentioned above.105 Its use of sympathetic associations also meant it overlapped with

medicine (as will be seen below with regards to texts on virtues).106

Texts of natural magic often appear in medieval recipe collections and books of secrets or

experiments. Books of secrets were “compilations of recipes, formulas, and „experiments‟ of

various kinds, including everything from medical prescriptions and technical formulas to magical

procedures, cooking recipes, parlour tricks, and practical jokes.”107 Their contents, on the whole,

are still un-noted and un-catalogued. For example, a work of natural magic titled the Eighty-

eight Natural Experiments of Rasis on folios 37r-44r of Oxford, Bodleian Library Digby MS 67,

a manuscript containing texts on alchemy, arithmetic, astrology, and diet from the twelfth to

fifteenth centuries, is listed in the catalogue with the generic title “Experimenta multa et varia ad

Miranda operanda, de coloribus, etc.”108 Any comprehensive survey of natural magic in these

sources remains a Herculean task and as a result, this discussion will be very general and

dependent on a limited number of sources.

The reliance on astrological influences linked image magic more closely with natural

magic than with the other forms of ritual magic discussed by Klaassen. Natural magic‟s occult

properties were thought to be from the influence of the celestial bodies, and ultimately, God, as

104
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 16-17; Láng, Unlocked Books, 25-26; Peters, The Magician, 90.
105
Rider, Magic and Impotence, 83-84.
106
Rider, Magic and Impotence, 84.
107
William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 16.
108
Henry O. Coxe, Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Bodleianae pars nona codices a viro clarissimo
Kenelm Digby (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883), 73-74. For more on this manuscript see below, p. 56 and HMES II,
784-788.
 54

were the powers of images in image magic. The Speculum astronomiae in fact states explicitly

that image magic could be legitimate, and William of Auvergne argued that natural magic was

not demonic but a part of natural philosophy.109 Thus, both of these kinds of magic were

associated more with nature and the appeal of natural wonders and not with the darker,

unambiguous rituals used in necromancy. As we will see, the manuscript contexts for texts of

image magic and natural magic bear this out. Owners of such texts often group them with works

that fall under the heading of wonders of nature or natural philosophy.

Texts of natural magic cover a wide array of topics. Healing is a common topic, as it is

with all non-ritual forms of magic. This is particularly so in texts on the virtues of plants, stones,

and animals. These virtues were thought to be special powers or abilities that natural objects

possessed from an external influence or affinity. Thus, a plant with liver-shaped leaves would be

used to treat liver ailments.110 Works of virtues are often a mixture of natural magic and

mainstream medical knowledge. Texts on the virtues are found throughout the manuscript

record, usually in commonplace books or medical notebooks. Betony, for example, is a common

subject of such texts and its powers include not only the ability to keep a person safe from

demons (if it is collected in August and carried on your person), but it could also be used as a

purgative (when the powder of the root is mixed with tepid water).111 These texts blur the line

between natural magic and medieval medicine even more so than healing charms since many of

109
The Speculum astronomiae states that the acceptable form of image magic works with the help of God: “et
habebit effectum iussu Dei a virtute caelesti, eo quod imagines quae inveniuntur in hoc mundo sensibili ex quatuor
elementis, oboediunt caelestibus imaginibus” [and it will have [good] effect from the celestial virtue by the
command of God, because [the images] found in this sensible world [made] from the four elements obey the
celestial images]. Text and translation from Zambelli, Enigma, 248, 249.
110
Kieckhefer, Magic, 13.
111
TCC O.1.57, folios 39r-39v: “Betonica animas custodit et corpora qui secum portauerit demon ei nocere non
poterit; et habet colligi in mense Augusti ante ortum solis…Item, puluis radicis betonice cum aqua tepida bibita
purgat flemna per vomitum” [Betony guards the souls and bodies [of] whoever carries it with them [so] demons
cannot hurt them; and it has to be collected in the month of August before sunrise…Likewise, drinking the powder
of the betony root with tepid water purges phlegm through vomiting.]
 55

the remedies included do not rely on the occult properties of the object in question, but on its

unique combination of qualities (i.e., the four humours) or some other more legitimate quality of

the object known to mainstream medicine. That is, the health of the body depended on keeping

the four humours (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood) in balance. Balancing the

humours could be done by secretion (such as through bleeding) or by applications of the proper

medicine. Betony, chamomile, and lupines were thought to be hot and dry; tarragon was cold

and moist; and lettuce was cold and somewhat moist.112 Because works on virtues combined

medicine and natural magic so seamlessly, natural magic was able to find an acceptable place as

part of medical practice.

When natural magic has been copied into a recipe collection or book of secrets it is

usually also found with magic tricks and sleights of hand. For example, London, British Library

Sloane MS 121 is an English fifteenth-century book with “Experiments which King Solomon

devised for the love and courting of a certain noble queen, and they are experiments of

nature.”113 These are a combination of magic tricks and natural magic, with a necromantic ritual

at the end. Likewise, Ashmole 1435‟s recipe collection (see chapter three) combines charms,

natural magic, and magic tricks.

112
William Copland, A boke of the propreties of herbes called an herball wherunto is added the time [the] herbes,
floures and sedes shold be gathered to be kept the whole yere, wyth the vertue of [the] herbes when they are stilled.
Also a generall rule of all maner of herbes drawen out of an auncyent booke of phisyck (Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan, Digital Library Production Service 2001), http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A03040.0001.001.
113
In addition to the tricks and experiments are texts on bloodletting, diet, medicine, alchemy, chiromancy, the
nature of the planets, a charm against thieves, and at least one cooking recipe in Middle English. The catalogue only
gives a partial Latin title for the experiments of King Solomon: “Experimenta naturae quae Salmon Rex.”
Kieckhefer, Magic, 171. Samuel Ayscough, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum
Hitherto Undescribed: Consisting of Five Thousand Volumes; Including the Collections of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart.
the Rev. Thomas Birch… vol. 2 (London: Printed for the compiler by J. Rivington, June, 1782), 595, 599, 609, 611,
613, 870; Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, eds., Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the
Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of cury) (London: Published for The Early English Text Society by
Oxford University Press, 1985), 154.
 56

Natural magic was itself used for these tricks as well. A collection of recipes and

experiments titled the Eighty-eight Natural Experiments of Rasis in Digby 67 includes this piece

of natural magic:

To make all þe strawes in a how/s\e to appere like adders take a tode and
put here in an old erthyn pott in an ovyn and bren here all to powder and
then bete here to powder and then take powder of brymston and menge
them togeder with talowe or with whyȝt wax and make þerof a candell
and lyȝt it þer as none oþer candell is lyȝt et fiet.114

[To make all the straws in a house appear like adders: take a toad and put
it in an old earthen pot in an oven and burn it all to powder and then beat
it to powder and then take powder of brimstone and mix them together
with tallow or with white wax and make from it a candle and light it
where no other candle is lit and it will be done.]
Making snakes appear and other illusions of this sort are common in natural magic. Procedures

to make snakes appear are found in De mirabilibus mundi, the book of secrets attributed to

Albertus Magnus, the recipe collection of Ashmole 1435, and other books of secrets and

experiments.115 A similar piece of magical trickery appears in TCC O.1.57 (discussed in chapter

two) with instructions to make a house appear filled with water. Natural magic seems then to

have had a playful side to it as well. Unlike charms and most forms of ritual magic, natural

magic could be adapted to provide entertainment. Whether or not the original defenders of

natural magic foresaw this possibility, by the fifteenth century, the owners of texts of natural

magic clearly saw an affinity between natural magic and tricks.116

114
Digby 67, folio 44r. According to Thorndike, the Digby copy contains only experiments 1-5 and 27-33 of the
promised 88. HMES II, 784.
115
HMES II, 785; The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus: of the Virtues of Herbs, Stones and Certain Beasts. Also
a Book of the Marvels of the World, ed. Michael R. Best and Frank H. Brightman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973),
71, 92, 124.
116
Such as the recipes for blowing soap bubbles found in Digby 67 and the Secretum philosophorum. HMES II,
787; Robert Goulding, “Deceiving the Senses in the Thirteenth Century: Trickery and Illusion in the Secretum
philosophorum,” in Magic and the Classical Tradition, 136.
 57

Love is another common goal, either directly or indirectly, of natural magic. As

demonstrated in chapter three, Ashmole 1435‟s recipe collection has a number of procedures to

make a woman fall in love or to make a man and woman fall in love. These types of operations

assume a certain level of intimacy that the magician could get fairly close to the intended woman

in order to touch her with the magical object or to put a magical powder in her food or drink.

The goals of these procedures are not always strictly love. As with the love charms examined

below, natural magic could be used to gain favour. It could be used more perversely as well, as

Ashmole 1435‟s formula to make a woman lift her skirt illustrates.117 Indirectly, books of

secrets will sometimes be given a title associated with love and courting. There are variations on

the title like Sloane 121‟s above, of tricks or experiments devised by King Solomon in order to

woo a queen, such as the incomplete text in TCC O.1.57 titled De ludis Salamonis (Tricks of

Solomon) (folio 97r). The outcome implied by such a title is that the performer of these tricks

will likewise be able to impress and court women.

There is a category of magical texts that Klaassen does not include in his preliminary

survey of ritual magic, nor does it appear in surveys of charms. This is a group that contains

elements of ritual magic and natural magic. This small, but important, subset of magic

represents a relationship between two categories of magic that have not been previously linked

by scholars. While my research on this is still very preliminary and currently confined to one

manuscript, what I have found suggests that some magical procedures operated as natural magic,

but clearly had some sort of relationship with necromancy and have had some of the most

suspect aspects stripped away. The manuscript in question, Ashmole 1435, is the focus of

chapter three. Briefly, it is a primarily medical notebook with a collection of magical and non-

magical recipes. Within this collection are three operations (two for invisibility and one to

117
For more on this experiment see chapter three, pp. 155-156.
 58

constrain a virgin‟s will)118 that bear significant similarities to contemporary necromantic

operations. In every case the physical actions are the same, but the prayers, invocations, and

conjurations are absent in the Ashmole operations. Future research may show this connection

with necromancy to be an anomaly or a false assumption, but for the present this possibility

should be acknowledged.

Medieval charms are tricky to define. Some scholars are broad in their approach to

charms, like Eamon Duffy, who sometimes blurs the line between charms and prayers (albeit

deliberately),119 while others, like T. M. Smallwood, choose a narrow definition that “deals

simply with verbal charms that have a sequence of thought, a rationale, usually describing an

event or some supposed truth and making this the grounds for a claim to divine help or

protection.”120 The latter definition works within the confines of a particular argument, but it

fails to account fully for the subtleties of charms. Whatever the definition, charms must be

considered with their dual nature in mind. It should take into account that charms have an oral

and a written tradition, often at the same time.121

With that in mind, I follow Olsan‟s definition of charms: “spoken, chanted and written

formulas, derived ultimately from a traditional oral genre and circulated both by word of mouth

and through manuscript and amuletic texts.”122 Textual amulets are somewhat distinct within the

charm category, as “brief apotropaic texts, handwritten or mechanically printed on separate

sheets, rolls, and scraps of parchment, paper, or other flexible writing supports.”123 The physical

118
Pages 7, 19, and 25.
119
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, 2nd ed. (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2005), especially 269-270.
120
T. M. Smallwood, “The Transmission of Charms in English, Medieval and Modern,” in Charms, 11.
121
Smallwood, “Transmission,” 12-13.
122
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 60.
123
Skemer, Binding Words, 1.
 59

aspect is essential to a textual amulet‟s operation, which is not necessarily true of written or oral

charms. However, because of their otherwise extensive overlap with charms, textual amulets

have been grouped with charms whenever they have been encountered in this survey.

Catalogued fifteenth-century English medieval charms are predominantly found in

medical books or with medical material. Collections of medical recipes are frequently

interspersed with charms, medical and other. London, British Library, Sloane MS 962 is a good

example of this. This is a medical notebook from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

containing treatises on diet and bloodletting, a copy of the Agnus castus, a Middle English

herbal, and a Liber medicinarum. Throughout the manuscript there are charms for childbirth,

fever, against thieves, and numerous charms to staunch blood.124

It should also be noted that the varying quality of manuscript catalogues means that many

charms are not catalogued properly. M.R. James‟s catalogues, for example, are generally good

about noting the presence of charms, but he does not always describe the charm adequately or

explain its purpose. Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS. O.9.39 (1451) is a good illustration

of this. The manuscript is a collection of five volumes bound together. The first section contains

charms in Middle English for healing a wound with a lead plate, the Tres boni fratres charm, and

the Longinus charm (page 35), but the James catalogue describes this whole first section as “A

Book of Receipts in English, imperfect at the beginning.”125 There are countless charms, as well,

found alongside medical recipes and in the margins and flyleaves of medical manuscripts that

have not been noted in catalogues, indices (like the Index of Middle English Verse), or databases

124
For the texts of these charms and others see Tony Hunt, Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England:
Introduction and Texts (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990), 93.
125
M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College Cambridge,
vol. 3, Containing an Account of the Manuscripts Standing in Class O (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1902), 503.
 60

(like the Voigts-Kurtz database).126 Robert Thornton‟s version of the Liber de diversis medicinis

(discussed below) contains twelve charms and amulets that have gone unnoticed until recently.127

Charms like the charm to put out a fire in the margin of TCC O.1.57 will remain undiscovered

because of their position on the fringes of manuscripts until they are found by diligent readers.

Medical charms are by far the most numerous in the catalogued manuscripts. This survey

is admittedly skewed towards medical charms because of the Voigts-Kurtz database of medical

texts; nevertheless, used in conjunction with other surveys like the Index of Middle English

Prose and Index of Middle English Verse, medical charms still vastly outnumber other charm-

types in the known corpus of surviving charms in the manuscript record. Of the nearly one

hundred manuscripts surveyed that contain charms, over sixty have medical charms. By

comparison, only five manuscripts contain love charms and twenty-three manuscripts contain

charms against thieves. Even though there are most likely untold numbers of charms waiting to

be found, the evidence so far has established the dominance of medical charms.

A second problem is the oral nature of charms. Charms passed back and forth between

the written and oral record with ease throughout the Middle Ages and through to the nineteenth

century.128 Obviously, not everyone who used them wrote down charms nor was everyone able

to. A charm might pass from person to person for decades before being scribbled in the flyleaf

of a manuscript. As a result, there are no doubt many charm types that have not survived to the

present day. As a consequence of this oral transmission, the texts of charms are especially

unstable. In the case of Latin charms, little or no knowledge of the language plus copying from

aural memory can turn a charm into a string of nonsense. Just as often as one encounters a

126
Smallwood, “Transmission,” 17, 21; Hunt, Popular Medicine, 64-65.
127
See Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 275; Olsan, “Corpus,” 226-227.
128
Davies, Cunning-folk, 117; 147-161; Smallwood, “Transmission,” 21-22.
 61

charm or group of charms that have been copied down with care to avoid textual corruption, so

does one find a charm that bears little to no relations to its source.

The absence of charms from medieval monastic catalogues, except for one instance, can

be explained as a consequence of their brief nature and tendency to appear amongst medical

recipe collections.129 All of the monastic catalogues consulted contained medical texts and

recipes, so the chances are good that there were medical charms included in these texts.

Although it predates this survey, one surviving manuscript is a perfect example of the incomplete

cataloguing in medieval monastic catalogues. Now surviving in three parts as Cambridge,

Trinity College Library MS R.14.30 (903) and London, British Library, Egerton MS 823 and

840, this was a medical miscellany of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries that was

donated by John of London and catalogued as MS 1599.130 This book contained two medical

recipe collections that consist of a combination of medical recipes and charms, which are now in

TCC R.14.30, folios 1r-46r and 129r-136r. However, the medieval catalogue simply lists these

two texts with the vague titles “Item practica quedam magistralis in lumbardico” [a certain

practical [work] of a master in Lombardic (perhaps referring to the fact that it is in French?)] and

“Item quidam tractatus de vrinis” [A certain treatise on urine].131 Just as modern catalogues are

not always as thorough as we would like them to be, so the medieval catalogues could overlook

items in their manuscripts. As well, given the large number of medical charms that do survive, it

is safe to assume that some were in monasteries.

129
Dover, St. Martin‟s Priory MS 323 is the lone exception. According to the fourteenth-century catalogue
compiled by John Whytefelde, it contained “Carmina uel incantaciones” [charms and incantations]. William P.
Stoneman, ed., Dover Priory, Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues (London: British Library in
association with the British Academy, 1999), 134.
130
Barker-Benfield, St. Augustine‟s, vol. 2, 1512-1513. For more on John of London see Page, “Magic at St.
Augustine‟s,” 27-30, 32, 36.
131
Barker-Benfield, St. Augustine‟s, vol. 2, 1512.
 62

The ailments that English medical charms were intended to cure are fairly limited in

scope. Olsan has argued that this was the result of mental indexing that linked specific illnesses

with semantic motifs.132 There is much in the written records of charms that hints at its strong

oral tradition and that tradition was built on the link between symptoms and cures in the

medieval mind. As Olsan argues, “medieval Christian charms seem to emerge for particular

medical (and other) conditions, when a primary characteristic of the medical problem coincided

with a culturally charged image that could be expressed in a charm.”133 In verbal charms

memory was crucial and the ability to recall the proper charm for the right cure quickly was

necessary. The effects of this need – the memorable forms of charms – held when these charms

were written down and passed back and forth between oral and written transmission.134 Olsan

has compiled a list of what she terms semantic motifs based on this notion that she believes

triggered and reinforced the mental links between charms and cures.135 What is to be noted in

her list and this survey is the wide variety of motifs to serve a small number of illnesses. For

example, the charms to staunch blood, discussed below, have two very different and very

prevalent motifs associated with them, and evidently both easily came to mind.

Most medical charms in English manuscripts of this period can be divided into a few sub-

categories: charms to staunch blood, for wounds and sores, for childbirth, for fever, for

toothache, for epilepsy, worms, growths in the eye, and for sleep. Closely related are veterinary

charms, which are mostly for horses, but they also deal with other animals.

Charms to staunch blood are a widespread part of the corpus of medieval healing charms.

Jonathan Roper, in his discussion of charm types, singles out the Flum Jordan and Longinus

132
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 62.
133
Olsan, “Corpus,” 228.
134
On the transmission of charms between oral and written see Smallwood, “Transmission,” 11-28.
135
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 65-68.
 63

charms as the most prevalent medical charms in the body of surviving charms; this holds true for

fifteenth-century England.136 Manuscripts will often have both charms, or they will have

multiple versions of the same charm, such as London, British Library, Sloane MS 2584, which

has two versions of the Flum Jordan charm.137 Likewise, San Marino, Huntington Library HM

64 and Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.9.26 (1438) both have the Flum Jordan and

Longinus charms. The Flum Jordan charm to staunch blood is based on the story of Jesus‟s

baptism in the river Jordan. Just as the river stopped flowing when Jesus entered the water so the

blood will stop flowing once the charm is recited.138 Likewise, the Longinus charm also

staunches blood (although it was used for other illnesses, such as stomach pains, fevers, and

farcy, a form of glanders, an infectious disease of the respiratory tract and skin found in horses,

136
Roper, “Typologising,” 138; Smallwood, “Transmission,” 15.
137
Folio 73v. For more on this particular manuscript‟s copy of the Flum Jordan charm see T. M. Smallwood, “„God
was Born in Bethlehem…‟: The Tradition of a Middle English Charm,” Medium Ævum 58 (1989): 209-210. The
fifteenth-century English manuscripts that are known to contain either copies of both charms or multiple versions of
the same charm are Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Library MS 258 (both charms); Cambridge, Cambridge
University Library, MS Ee.i.15 (both charms); Cambridge, Cambridge University Library Additional MS 9308 (both
charms on folios 35r, 36r, and 86v); TCC O.9.26 (1438) (both charms on folios ivv); London, British Library,
Additional MS 33996 (both charms); London, British Library, Arundel MS 272 (both charms); London, British
Library, Sloane MS 374 (both charms); London, British Library, Sloane MS 468 (both charms); Sloane 962
(multiply copies of both charms on folios 38v-39r, 39v, 51r); London, British Library, Sloane MS 1314 (both
charms); Sloane 2584 (two versions of the Flum Jordan charm on folio 73v); Sloane 3160 (multiple copies of Flum
Jordan charm on folios 116r, 172r); Wellcome 404 (both charms on folios 19v-20r); London, Wellcome Historical
Medical Library MS 406 (both charms on folio 4v); London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 542 (both
charms on folio 9r); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1477 (both charms); Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Rawlinson MS D. 328 (both charms on folio 192v); HM 64 (both charms); Stockholm, Royal Library, MS Holm X.
90 (both charms on pages 103 and 110). Individual copies of these charms can also be seen in Cambridge, Gonville
and Caius College Library MS 457 (Flum Jordan charm on folio 8r); Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS
Dd.iv.44 (Flum Jordan charm); TCC O.9.39 (page 35); Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.32 (905)
(Longinus charm on folio 132r); TCC R.14.51 (Longinus charm on folios 25v-26r); Cambridge, Cambridge
University Library MS Dd.v.76 (Flum Jordan charm); London, British Library, Additional MS 33381 (Flum Jordan
charm); London, British Library, Egerton MS 833 (Flum Jordan charm on folio 20v); London, British Library,
Lansdowne MS 680 (Longinus charm); London, British Library, Sloane MS 122 (Longinus charm on folios 49r-
49v); London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 225 (Longinus charm on folio 143v); Ashmole 1435 (Flum
Jordan charm on page 6); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS C. 506 (Flum Jordan charm on folio 297v);
Oxford, St. John's College Library MS 108 (Longinus charm); HM 1336 (Flum Jordan charm on folio 24r).
138
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 75-76. A short example of this charm appears in Sloane 962, folio 38v, “Criste was
borne in Bedlem, baptized in þo flem Jordan. Also þo flem astode, also astond þi blode .N. In nomine Patris et Filii
et Spiritus Sancti.” [Christ was born in Bethlehem, baptised in the river Jordan. As the river stood still, so may your
blood, N, also stand still. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.] Hunt, Popular
Medicine, 93; unless otherwise noted, translations of Middle English are my own.
 64

donkeys, mules, and sometimes other animals).139 This charm uses the story of the Roman

centurion Longinus who pierced Jesus‟s side with a lance at the crucifixion. In medieval legend,

Longinus was cured of his blindness in old age by wiping his eyes with blood from the selfsame

lance.140 The charm conflates this miraculous cure with the piercing of Christ‟s side and

accordingly the charm works on the principle that the act of piercing was itself the impetus for

the miraculous cure.141 Therefore, just the act of reading the story will staunch bleeding. The

details may vary between versions, but the key features remain the same.

Another popular charm type was the Tres boni fratres charm for wounds whose earliest

extant appearance is from the thirteenth century.142 In this charm, three men, the tres boni

fratres, walk up the Mount of Olives. Once there, they see Jesus, who gives them a charm to

cure all wounds using oil and wool.143 The words of the charm act as both the instructions and

the cure. The power of the charm inherent in the story itself is a feature of narrative charms.

139
Roper, “Typologising,” 130.
140
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 76.
141
Such as this version in Wellcome 404, folio 19v: “When oure lord ihesu christ was don on þe crosse then comme
longeus thydder and stonge hym with a spere yn the syde blod and waitter come out at that wounde he wyppede hys
eyȝen and save anon thorow the holy vertue that god dide ther I coniure the blod that thou ne comme oute of this
christyn man N or woman. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti amen. saith this charme iij tymes ne dare the
neuer douȝt wher the man or the woman be so thou knowe ther nammes.” [When our Lord Jesus Christ was put on
the cross, then Longinus came along there and pierced him with a spear in the side; blood and water came out of that
wound [and] he wiped his eyes and was healed at once through the holy virtue that God did there. I conjure thee,
blood, that thou not come out of this Christian man or woman, N. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit amen. Say this charm three times, doubt not wherever the man or woman is, as long as you know
their names.] Sheldon, “Middle English,” 189.
142
Olsan, “Corpus,” 228.
143
A typical example of this charm is in Sloane 3160, folios 133v-134r: “thre goode breþren went ouer þe londe and
ihesu mete with hem and seyde breþren wheþer wolle ȝe gone lorde we wendeþ to þe mount of oliuet to gadar
herbes to hele wonddis and oþer soris. comeþ with me and y schal ȝow teche. take oyle of oliue tre and blake wolle
and do þe wolle in þe oyle and lay it to þi wonde and say þis charm þer-ouer: righte as longius þrillide þe seyde of
god and þat wonde ne blede not longe ne rotide not ne oke noȝt ne swellede ne fesstarde nouȝt ryȝtht so þis wonde
ne blede he nouȝt ne fester he nouȝt ne ake he nouȝt ne swelle he not ne rote he not in þe name of þe fader + and þe
sonne + and of þe holy gost + amen.” [Three good brothers went over the land and Jesus met with them and said
“brothers where are you going?” “Lord we are walking to the Mount of Olives to gather herbs to heal wounds and
other sores.” “Come with me and I shall teach you. Take oil of olive tree and black wool and put the wool in the oil
and lay it on the wound and say this charm over it: just as Longinus pierced the side of God and that wound did not
blood long, or corrupt, or ache, or swell, or fester, or tear so this wound not blood or fester or ache or swell or
corrupt in the name of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost + amen.] Sheldon, “Middle English,”
166-167.
 65

The belief seems to be that simply reciting or reading the tale will release the magical powers

hidden within the charm.144 The Tres boni fratres charm appears in seventeen of the manuscripts

surveyed, including TCC O.1.57 (discussed in chapter two), and Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter

Library MS 91 (A.5.2), one of Robert Thornton‟s manuscripts that is examined below in the

section on owners.145

Apart from the Tres boni fratres charm, there were many types of charms to heal wounds

and sores. The Longinus charm was often used for wounds as well as for bleeding. The

emphasis in these versions focused on the Christ‟s wound rather than the water and blood that

flows from it, as in the copy of the Longinus charm in Cambridge, University Library, Additional

MS 9308.146 Charms for wounds would often focus on the passion and crucifixion of Christ as a

conduit to draw away the pain. Thus, healing charms employed crosses to ease pain.147 For

example, the plate of lead charm in Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.51 (921) to

heal a wound had the user place the lead plate over the wound, make the sign of the cross (or

inscribe it on the plate) and recite a set number of Pater Nosters and Ave Marias.148

Childbirth charms are a regular feature of medical recipe collections. They draw on a

number of Christian motifs. The Sancta Maria peperit and Anna peperit Mariam charms both

work on the belief that the ability of the Virgin Mary and her mother, Saint Anne, to give birth

144
See Douglas Gray‟s remarks on this phenomenon in the works of Chaucer as indicative of medieval attitudes in
general in, “Notes,” 56-71.
145
The remaining copies of this charm are in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 383 (page 14);
Cambridge, Jesus College Library MS 46 Q.D.4 (on folio 179v); TCC O.9.26 (on folio ivv as part of other fifteenth-
century additions to a fourteenth-century manuscript); TCC O.9.39 (page 35, discussed above); CUL Additional
9308 (folio 61r); CUL Dd.v.76; London, British Library, Additional MS 33972 (folios 13r-13v); Add. 33996;
London, British Library, Harley MS 1600; London, British Library Harley MS 1735 (folio 52v); London, British
Library, Harley MS 2558 (folio 64r); Sloane 374; London, British Library, Sloane MS 468; Sloane 1314; Wellcome
542; Ashmole 1477; and HM 64 (folio 158r).
146
Folio 61r. Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 77.
147
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 77.
148
Folio 25v. The plate of lead charm also appears in HM 64 (folios 144v-145r); and Stockholm, Holm X. 90
(pages 117-118).
 66

without complications or pain could be passed down to the expectant mother.149 The Lazarus

charms seem to make the baby a symbolic Lazarus, who is called out of the mother‟s womb by

Christ. In one version of this charm, the words are written on wafers that are fed to the woman

to ease the delivery.150 The Sator arepo formula (“sator arepo tenet opera rotas”) was also used

for women in labour and is used in fourteen of the nineteen childbirth charms surveyed, but here

the connection between the two is more tenuous.151 This expression was a palindrome and when

arranged in a square with one word on each line it was readable in four directions.152 This phrase

was popular throughout the ancient world and Middle Ages and was adapted for many different

purposes.153 Its popularity in the Middle Ages may be due to the fact that the letters of “sator

arepo tenet opera rotas” could be rearranged to spell out “Pater noster” in acrostic.154 The

formula appears in many different variations in childbirth charms. For example, one charm that

appears in at least twelve of the surveyed manuscripts instructs the user to write down a string of

holy names and phrases, including the Sator arepo formula, interspersed with crosses (this charm

also references the Lazarus motif mentioned above).155 In another variation the pregnant woman

eats butter or cheese that has had the Sator arepo formula inscribed in it.156

149
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 74. The copies I have found in my survey are in Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter Library
MS 91 (folios 303v-304r); CUL Ee.i.15; Harley 1735 (folio 40r); Sloane 962 (folio 35v); HM 58 (folios 84r-v); and
HM 58 (folios 84r-84v).
150
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 74.
151
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 74; Skemer, Binding Words, 238. The Sator arepo formula is used in childbirth
charms in the following manuscripts: Aberdeen 258; TCC O.1.13 (1037); CUL Additional 9308 (folios 49r-50r –
see note 155 below); CUL Dd.v.76; Lincoln 91 (folio 303v); Add. 33996; Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 468;
Sloane 962 (folio 35v); Sloane 1314; Wellcome 542; Ashmole 1477; and HM 64 (folios 111v, 163r).
152
Kieckhefer, Magic, 77
153
Skemer, Binding Words, 116-117; Kieckhefer, Magic, 78.
154
Skemer, Binding Words, 116.
155
CUL Additional 9308, folios 49r-50r: “Bind þis writ to here rigt thy: In nomine + patris + et filii + et spiritus
sancti amen. Per uirtutem Dei sint medicina mei pia crux et passio + Christi. Vulnera quinque Dei sint medicina mei.
+ sancta Maria peperit + Christum. + sancta Anna peperit + Mariam. sancta Helizabeth peperit + Iohannem sancta
Cecilia peperit + Remigium. + sator + arepo + tenet + opera + rotas + Christus uincit + Christus regnat + Christus
imperat + Christus te vocat + Mundus te gaudet. Lex te desiderat. + Christus dixit, Lazare, veni foras. + Deus
vlcionum dominus + deus ulcionum, libera famulam tuam. N. + Dextera [manus] domini fecit virtutem + a + g + l +
 67

Childbirth charms were commonly used as amulets – the charm would be written on a

strip of parchment and wrapped around the woman (usually around her stomach or thigh).157

Some of these birthing amulets survive and show signs of wear and repeated use. The wear and

tear that these amuletic charms were subjected to means that many have not survived from the

medieval period.158

The major motif associated with charms for fever was the Trinity. Charms that called on

the power of the Trinity were to be written down and eaten by the patient over a period of three

days. This combined the three-fold power of the Trinity with the belief that fevers lasted in a

cycle of one, two, or three days.159 In a similar vein, a text known as the Sage Leaf charm has

the charm written on three sage leaves, which are consumed on successive days. One manuscript

has this charm and a variation that uses apples instead of sage leaves.160 The three-ness of these

charms was believed to break the cycle of the fever and prevents its continuance.161 Unlike the

previous charms encountered so far, these charms include a component that is consumed;

perhaps this is an overlap with natural magic that combines the power of the holy words with the

healing properties of the sage leaves or apples.

a + alpha + et oo. Anna peperit Mariam + Helizabeth precursorem + Maria + dominum nostrum + Iesum + Christum
sine dolore et tristitia. O infans, exi foras siue viuus siue mortuus quia + Christus vocat te ad lucem + agios +
sanctus + dominus + deus omnipotens + qui es et qui eras et qui uenturus es amen. + bhurnon + bhurini + blutuono +
blutaono + Iesus + nazaerenus + rex iudeorum + fili dei miserere mei amen.” Transcription from Olsan, “Corpus,”
219-220. The other childbirth charms of this kind are in Aberdeen 258; Cambridge, Trinity College Library O.1.13
(1037); CUL Dd.v.76; Add. 33996; London, British Library, Additional MS 37786 (folio 43r); London, British
Library, Additional MS 34111 (folio 73r); Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 468; Sloane 1314; Wellcome 542;
and Ashmole 1477 (all are from versions of the Leechcraft discussed by Olsan in “Corpus”).
156
Lincoln 91, folio 303v: “Tak and write thir wordis in butter or in chese and gare hir ett it: Sator arepo tenet opera
rotas.” [Take and write these words in butter or in cheese and give it to her to eat: Sator arepo tenet opera rotas.]
157
Such as the instructions for two childbirth amulets in Lincoln 91, folios 303v-304r. One is wrapped around the
woman‟s knee and the other is wrapped around her stomach.
158
Skemer, Binding Words, 239, 242, 244, 263, 266.
159
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 70-71.
160
HM 64, folio 168r. Another example of the Sage Leaf charm can be found on folio 78r of Add. 9308.
161
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 71.
 68

Charms for toothache are more varied in their approach than fever charms. There are two

narrative charms that use stories of Saint Peter and Saint Apollonia. Saint Apollonia is the

Alexandrian saint who had her teeth extracted, but felt no pain.162 The Saint Peter charm is one

of the earliest known charms in England.163 It relates a story in which the saint suffers from a

toothache and is miraculously cured by Jesus. The origin of this story seems to lie in the

connection of Peter (the rock) with the hardness of teeth.164 This motif makes up the bulk of the

fifteenth-century toothache charms, with twelve known examples out of the eighteen charms for

toothache.165 Other charms for toothache offer a cure by writing on the patient‟s jaw, such as in

one fifteenth-century English charm in San Marino, Huntington Library HM 64,166 or they work

by writing out “mn” or “ilililr ilililr ilililr” to represent healthy teeth.167 In this sub-category we

can see some of the variety of methods employed – narrative charms that were recited, written

charms, and visual representations.

162
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 73.
163
Roper, “Typologising,” 138.
164
As seen in this copy from CUL Additional 9308, folios 25v-26r: “Dominus noster + Iesus Christus supra petram
marmoream sedebat. Petrus tristis ante Iesum stabat et dixit ei + Iesus, quare tristis es? Petrus respondit, domine,
dentes mei dolent. At ille dixit, Adiuro te migranea gutta maledicta per patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum et per
xii apostolos et iiii euangelistas + Marcum + Matheum + Lucam + Iohannem et per centum xliiii milia innocentes et
per Mariam matrem domini nostri Iesu Christi que talem filium portauit per quem totus mundus redemptus est vt
non habeas potestatem in istum hominem .N. neque in capite neque in ullo loco corporis sui nocere valeas. Adiuro te
per illum qui passus est pro nobis in cruce amen” [Our lord + Jesus Christ was sitting on a marble stone. Peter stood
sadly before Jesus and + Jesus said to him, “why are you sad?” Peter responded, “Lord, my teeth hurt.” But he said,
“I adjure you wicked migraine spot through the father and the son and the holy spirit and through the twelve apostles
and the four evangelists + Mark + Matthew + Luke + John and through the 144,000 innocents and through Mary,
mother of our lord Jesus Christ who carried such a son through whom the whole world was redeemed, that you do
not have power against that man, N, that you be not able to harm him neither in his head nor in any other part of his
body. I adjure you through him who suffered for us on the cross amen]. See also Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 73.
165
These are Aberdeen 258; CUL Additional 9308 (folios 25v-26r); Add. 33996; Arundel 272; Harley 1600;
Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 468; Sloane 1314; Wellcome 542; Oxford, All Souls College Library MS 121
(folio 13v); Ashmole 1477; and HM 64 (folio 145r).
166
Folio 192v: “Contra dolorem dencium. Scribe in maxilarum paciente ista nomina + In nomine + patris + et filij +
et spiritus sancti Amen. + <.>ex co pax + Nax + in christo filio + et statim cessabit, ut vidi frequenter” [Against pain
of the teeth. Write these names on the jaw of the patient: + In nomine + patris + et filij + et spiritus sancti Amen. +
<.>ex co pax + Nax + in christo filio + and at once it will stop, as I have frequently seen.]
167
Both of these variations appear in Harley 2558, folio 81v. Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 73.
 69

Charms for epilepsy, or the “falling evil,” appear with remarkable frequency among the

medical charms in English medieval books. There are at least 24 fifteenth-century manuscripts

with charms for this affliction.168 There are two motifs associated with these charms. The first

uses the Latin names for the three Magi, Jasper, Melchior, and Baltasar. The user writes the

names of the Magi in blood on a piece of parchment and wears it around the neck as an amulet;

alternatively, the names are written with the patient‟s blood in a cup which is washed and the

patient drinks a mixture of stale ale and peony from that cup.169 The image of the Magi falling

down before the child in homage acts as a curative image for the victim of epilepsy. The use of

the three gifts in the amulet also serves as a reminder of the motif in the days and weeks

following the initial treatment. The second motif is the use of the word “ananizapta” in charms.

The word “ananizapta,” according to Olsan, is probably a corruption of the Greek word

“ananeazo” used to revive and invigorate the Old Testament proto-martyr Eleazar.170 The

ananizapta motif is used in a much greater variety of ways than that of the Magi motif. It

sometimes appears in a string of words and names to be recited or worn as an amulet. At other

168
Most of these manuscripts contain portions of the Leechcraft discussed in Olsan, “Corpus” and so appear with
other medical charms. Folios are noted where known. Aberdeen 258; TCC O.1.13; CUL Additional 9308 (folio
53v); Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter Library MS 88 (folio 129v); Lincoln 91 (folios 296r-v); Add. 33996; Add. 34111
(folio 174r); Harley 1600 (folio 39v); Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 468; Sloane 747 (folio 57v); Sloane
1314; Sloane 3160 (folio 146r); Wellcome 542; Ashmole 1477; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 407 (two
charms on folios 15r and 34r); HM 1336 (folios 8v-9r); and HM 64 (folios 110v-111r).
169
Lincoln 88, folio 129v: “take þo blode of þo riȝt hond of þo litel finger þat is seke an write þese þre nomes in
perchemyn with þo blode + iaspar + melchior + balthazar + and sith close hit and heng hit aboute hys necke þat is
seke and er þou close hit put þer ine gold mirre an francencense of ilkan a litel an bid hym þat hase þo euel bles him
gwen he rises up of his bed ilka day with þo þre nomes and sai for hor fader sauk an hor moders þre pater noster and
ane ilka day in a monyth drink þo rote of þem wt stale ale an he shal be hole secerly and if hit an innocent draw
blode of þo same litel finger of þe riȝt hond an write þo same nomes in a map with þat blode an wasshe hit with ale
or milke an let þo childe drink hit an he shal be hole.” [Take the blood of the right hand of the little finger who is
sick and write these three name in parchment with the blood, + iaspar + melchior + balthazar + and close it and hang
it about his neck who is sick and before you close it put an equal amount each of gold, myrrh, and frankincense in it,
and bid him that has that evil bless himself when he rises out of his bed each day with the three names and say for
his father‟s soul and his mother three Our Fathers and each day for a month drink the root of them with stale ale and
he shall be whole safely. And if it is an innocent draw the blood of the same little finger of the right hand and write
the same names in a cup with that blood and wash it with ale or milk and let them drink it and he shall be healed.]
170
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 72; Peter Murray Jones and Lea Olsan, “Middleham Jewel: Ritual, Power, and
Devotion,” Viator 31 (2000): 263-264.
 70

times it is used in a procedure that is very similar to the Magi charm in which the word is

ingested with peony.171

Charms for worms, in general, use two motifs. The first is the motif of Job sitting on a

dunghill and a counting down of worms from nine to none, which survives in at least three

fifteenth-century manuscripts.172 There is no Biblical narrative in this case, but Job‟s name and

the reference to the dunghill serve as a reminder of his suffering at the hands of Satan – the

ultimate worm. The counting down is a common trope that was used in charms from the Anglo-

Saxon period onward.173 The counting in the charm is supposed to be reflected in the reducing in

size or number of the targeted problem. The second motif, which is found in eight of the eleven

fifteenth-century worm charms, directly addresses the worms and orders them to leave the

patient in the name of the Trinity and calls on Saints Nichasius and Cassian for help.174 Saint

171
This occurs in one of the charms in Harley 2558, folio 119v: “Item, ponatur in cedula predicta + ananizapta +
ananizapta + ananizapta + et unam iuncturam de muscilto, id est visci querci, addatur in cedula et portet circa
collum et cantantur iii misse de trinitate pro animabus dictorum parentum regum. Et eciam consulitur quod cotidie
commedat de radice pionie pro tempore et portet de eadem circa collum et iniungatur dieta conveniens pro illo
morbo.” [Likewise, the aforesaid „+ ananizapta + ananizapta + ananizapta +‟ is placed in a pouch and one joint of
mistletoe, that is, visci querci, is added to the pouch and he should carry it around the neck and sing three masses of
the Trinity for the souls of the said parents of the king. And then it is advised that every day he eat the root of the
peony for [that] time and carry the same around the neck and undertake the diet suitable for that illness.]
Transcription from Jones and Olsan, 287. See also, 267.
172
HM 58, folio 19v: “Job + in a donghill laye + thre wormis + did hem ffray + the one + was whitte + the therde +
was blacke + the second + was red + J bede a bonne + to almyghti god + that thes wormis + mowght be dede + god
and our lady grant hit be mowte + In + the name + of + the father + and of the svnne + and + of + the holy goste +
and of + the holy trynyte + iij + persons + and one god + amen + a pone charite. ter dicat Jn nomine + patris + et +
filij + et spiritus + sancti + amen” [Job + in a dunghill lay + three worms + did attack him + the one + was white +
the third + was black + the second + was red + I ask a boon + to almighty God + that these worms + might be dead +
God and Our Lady grant it be said + In + the name + of + the Father + and of the Son + and + of + the Holy Ghost +
and of + the Holy Trinity + three + persons + and one God + amen + upon charity. Say three times In the name + of
the Father + and + of the Son + and of the Holy + Spirit + amen] See also Roper, “Typologising,” 135. The other
known copies of this motif are in CUL Dd.iv.44 (folios 31r, 34v); Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.2.13
(1117); Sloane 122 (a much shortened version on folio 113v).
173
For example, the Anglo-Saxon charm for a glandular swelling that counts down from nine to none. Edward
Pettit, Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585, The Lacnunga, vol. 2
(Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), no. CLIII.
174
CUL Additional 9308, folios 51v-52r: “Coniuro te vermiculum per + patrem + et filium + et spiritum sanctum et
per victoriam passionis domini nostri + Iesu + Christi + et per septiformem spiritum sanctum et per graciam et
uirtutem huius nominis + Iesu, vt non habeas potestatem ulterius commorandi in isto famulo dei, nec in aliquo sui
membro perforandi seu corrodendi licenciam habeas sed per virtutem gloriosissime dei genitricis Marie et domini
nostri Iesu Christi et sanctorum martirum dei Nigasii atque Cassiani confusus ab eo discedas et contritus amen. And
 71

Nichasius is used here because he was martyred by decapitation and was therefore associated

with problems of the head.175 The reliance on Saint Cassian seems to be because of an incident

recounted in his Life. After the saint‟s death a stain appeared in the form of a cross on his tomb.

A man named Germanus came to the tomb asked the saint how he had made the stain, to which

the saint replied that he was resting.176 The worms in the charm are thus equated with the man

who was pestering the saint.177

The charms to treat a “hawe in the eye,” a film or growth that constricted sight, are some

of the more common medical charms, with thirteen fifteenth-century English copies extant.178

They used a motif from the book of Tobit (6:8 and 11:11-15) that was based on the story in

which Tobit received help from the angel Raphael to remove the film from his father‟s eyes and

restore his sight.179 As part of the charm there are threefold repetitions of the words “agios” and

sey þis in his ere and do him sey .v. pater noster in þe worschip of þe fiue woundes and .v. Aue Maria in þe
worschip of þe fiue ioyes of oure lady.” [I conjure you worm through + the father + and the son + and the holy spirit
and through the victory of the passion of our lord + Jesus + Christ + and through the sevenfold holy spirit and
through the grace and virtue of this name + Jesus, that you not have the farthest power to stay in this servant of God,
nor that you have licence to bore into or gnaw any part of him, but through the virtue of the most glorious mother of
God, Mary, and our lord Jesus Christ and the holy martyrs of God Nichasius and Cassian brought together by that,
let you depart contrite and in confusion from him. Amen. And say this in his ear and bid him say five Our Fathers in
the worship of the five wounds and five Ave Marias in the worship of the five joys of our Lady.] Olsan, “Corpus,”
220. The other known copies of this motif are in CUL Dd.v.76; Add. 33996; Harley 1600; Sloane 374; Sloane 468;
Sloane 1314; Wellcome 542; and HM 64 (folio 141v).
175
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 72.
176
Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography & Literature to the End of the 6 th Century A.D., With an Account
of the Principal Sects and Heresies (London: Murray, 1911), 149.
177
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 72.
178
The manuscripts that have charms for this affliction are Aberdeen 258; CUL Additional 9308 (folios 22v-23r);
CUL Dd.v.76; Add. 33996; Arundel 272; Harley 1600; Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 468; Sloane 1314;
Wellcome 542; All Souls 121; and Ashmole 1477.
179
CUL Additional 9308, folio 22v-23r: “In nomine + patris + et filii + et spiritus sancti + amen. Y coniure þe hawe
in þe name of þe fader and of þe sone and of þe holy gost þat fro þis time foreward þu neuer greue more þe ye of this
man. N. + Iesu + Crist of it be þi wil draw out þis hawe and clense þe ye of N þi seruaunt as verilich and as sothlich
as þu clensedest þe ye of Tobie + agios + agios + agios + sanictus (sic) + sanctus + sanctus + christus vincit +
christus regnat + christus imperat + christus sine fine vuiut et regnat. In nomine patris etc. þis charm schal be seid
thries on þe ye and at ech time a pater noster and an Aue. and writ þis charm in a scrowe and bere it. and vse þat
medecyn þat is afore write for þe perle in þe ye.” [In the name + of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy
Spirit + Amen. I conjure you growth in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Ghost that from this
time forward that you no more grieve the eye of this man, N. + Jesus + Christ if it be your will, draw out this growth
and cleanse the eye of N your servant as truly and as safely as you cleansed the eye of Tobit + agios + agios + agios
 72

“sanctus” (both meaning holy). The repetitions of words three times in this, and other charms

like the sleep charm below, was often done in medieval charms because of the connection of the

number three with the Trinity and the threefold renunciation of the devil at baptism.180

Charms for sleep were used to help someone sleep as well as to prevent sleep and for

nightmares. There are twelve manuscripts with charms for sleep, with eleven containing charms

to help people sleep.181 Two of the manuscripts have charms to prevent sleep or for

nightmares.182 The most common motif in the charms for sleep is writing the phrase “+ ysmael

+ ysmael + ysmael” on a laurel leaf and putting it under the head of the patient.183 The phrase is

joined with an adjuration that by the power of the angels the patient sleep. The word “ysmael”

and its variants is derived from the Hebrew “yishma‟e‟l,” “God hears.”184 There is only one

charm in my survey to prevent someone from sleeping. It instructs the user to write “exurgat

deus” on a piece of parchment and bury it before his door.185 The phrase “exurgat deus” is the

beginning of Psalm 68 and works as a positive analogy to encourage the person to stay awake.

+ holy + holy + holy + Christ conquers + Christ reigns + Christ commands + Christ lives and reigns without end. In
the name of the Father etc. This charm shall be said three times on the eye and at each time [say] an Our Father and
an Ave. And write this charm on a piece of parchment and bear it. And use that medicine that is written above for
the growth in the eye.] Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 71; Olsan, “Corpus,” 217-218.
180
Examples of the use of the number three in charms throughout the medieval period can be seen in Olsan, “Verbal
Healing,” 118, 125, 127, 130, 132, 136, 137. On the renunciation of the devil see Henry A. Kelly, The Devil at
Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 96, 103.
181
The charms to help someone sleep are Aberdeen 258; TCC O.1.13; TCC O.1.57 (folio 45r); CUL Additional
9308; CUL Dd.v.76; Lansdowne 680; Sloane 374; Sloane 1314; Sloane 3160 (folios 133r, 158r); Wellcome 542;
Ashmole 1435 (folios 2v, 3r, page 5, 6, 23, 24, 25); and Ashmole 1477.
182
These are in Ashmole 1435 (folio 3v, page 21); and Rawlinson C. 506 (folios 297r-v).
183
Sloane 3160, folio 158r: “write þes wordes on a lorey lef + ysmayel + ysmayel + Adiuro vos per angelos sanctos
dei vt s[o]poret homo iste .N the ley þat lef vnder his hed þat he know the noȝt þerof and lete hyme ete letus after
and drinc popised ybete to powder. þen drinc hit with clere ale.” [Write these words on a laurel leaf + ysmayel +
ysmayel + I adjure you by the holy angels of God that this man N sleep, then lay that leaf under his head without
him knowing thereof and let him eat lettuce after and drink poppy seed ground to powder. Then drink it with clear
ale.] Sheldon, “Middle English,” 254.
184
Thomas R. Forbes, “Verbal Charms in British Folk Medicine,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society 115:4 (1971): 297.
185
Ashmole 1435, folio 3v: “Si vis alias non dormiat: scribe exurgat deus et sepile ante portas vel portam eius et non
dormiet” [If you want someone not to sleep: write “exurgat deus” and bury before his doors or door and he will not
sleep.]
 73

The last of the sleep charms – for nightmare – is for both humans and animals. It too is found in

only one fifteenth-century copy. It begins with instructions to find a stone with a hole in it and to

hang it by a string over the door and write the charm with it. The charm is the story of Saint

George, who goes in search of “that foule wight,” and when he finds it he binds it so that it will

never come at night again to bother the sleeper.186

Charms for animals are a small but revealing segment of medieval healing charms. Most

are veterinary charms for horses. Cambridge, University Library MS Dd.iv.44 illustrates this

group nicely. This manuscript is composed of two or three separately composed treatises from

the fifteenth century that have been bound together into one manuscript of 34 folios. All three

booklets have recipes and charms for diseases of horses, with a text on the virtues of rosemary

and betony. Two of the charms are to be recited into the right ear of the horse, as seen in this

charm from folio 31v:

For al maner yveles in hors sey þis charme in þe right ere of þe horse and
sit þi fot on his right fot and make weth þin hond a crosse in his hed and
sey in nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti amen oure lord was bore and
honged on þe rode as wisly as hit ys soth be þaw hors hole amen and
seye þis charme iij sidys steryng his iiij legges byfore and byhynde and
euery tyme sey a pater noster and take v eyyen of an hen and cast on his
mouth raw.

[For all manner [of] evils in horses say this charm in the right ear of the
horse and set your foot on his right foot and make a cross with your hand

186
Rawlinson C. 506, folios 297r-297v: “Seint Jorge, Our Lady knight, / he walked day, he walked night, / till tha
the founde that foule wight; / and whan that he here founde, / he here bete and he here bounde, / till trewly there here
trouthe sche plight / that sche sholde not come be nighte / withinne seven rode of londe space / ther as Seint Jeorge
inamed was. St. Jeorge St. Jeorge St. Jeorge. In nomina patris, etc. And write this in a bille and hange it in the hors
mane.” [Saint George, Our Lady‟s knight / he walked [by] day, he walked [by] night, / till he found that foul beast; /
and when he found her / he beat her and he bound her, / till truly he kept his promise to her / the she should not
come by night / within seven roods of space / where Saint George so named was. St. George St. George St. George
In the name of the Father, etc. And write this in a bill and hang it in the horse‟s mane.] Transcription is from the
edition in Maxwell S. Luria and Richard L. Hoffman, eds., Middle English Lyrics (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1974), 113.
 74

on his head and say, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit amen; our Lord was born and crucified on the cross; as true
as is divine wisdom be you whole horse amen.” And say this charm [on]
three sides, moving his four legs before and behind and every time say an
Our Father and take five eyes of a hen and cast on his mouth raw.]
A few of the charms and recipes are for human ailments (such as the Flum Jordan charm (folio

19r) and the Sage Leaf charm for fevers (folio 29r)). Most of the charms are to cure farcy, a

form of glanders.187 The high mortality rate of farcy points to the preponderance of these

charms. Dd.iv.44 also contains three charms to keep a horse still while it is being shod.188 What

is most interesting about these particular horse charms is the reliance of the aforementioned

recitation of certain words into the right ears of the horses and on hagiographical stories, such as

a charm for farcy on folio 28r in which Jesus meets Saint John the Evangelist on the road to

Bethlehem and miraculously cures the saint‟s horse of farcy.

There were also charms to cure dog bite, to protect sheep, to catch rabbits, and against

moles, which so far I have found in only two of the manuscripts surveyed: HM 64 and HU

1051.189 A charm to catch rabbits in Middle English is also found on folio 1v of Cambridge,

Trinity College Library O.2.16 (1120). Although only a handful of these charms have been

found thus far, they are important to note as evidence of the variety present in the corpus of non-

medical charms.

Following closely behind medical charms in terms of numbers are charms against

thieves. This category can be divided into two: defensive charms to protect one‟s property or

self against thieves and danger in general, and proactive charms to identify thieves and find lost

187
Folios 27v-28r, 31r.
188
Folios 25v, 33r, and 35r.
189
On folios 137v-143r and 86v, respectively. HM 64 has an extensive collection of charms (not all have been
noted, but there are well over 20) and the bulk of known animal charms surveyed. HU 1051 has three charms
(against dog bite, to open a sealed document, and for a woman‟s love), the latter two of which are titled in cipher.
 75

or stolen goods. The former type are much more common and speak to the fears and anxieties of

people in the Middle Ages and, indeed, beyond. While the latter type of charms is not unheard

of, it is certainly not common.190 There are only five manuscripts containing proactive charms to

the twenty-two manuscripts with defensive charms.191 The disparity between the two types of

charms (defensive and proactive) can be attributed to several factors. First, charms to find

thieves and lost or stolen goods may have been too close to divination for some people, as

opposed to the more passive forms of prognostication that appear throughout the manuscript

record. Second, because identifying thieves and finding lost or stolen goods was usually the

domain of cunning-folk, other people may have been disinclined to do it themselves. This is

hindered by the fact that cunning-folk did not leave records of their own outside of court records

until well into the Early Modern period.192

Connected to these types of charms are those for more general protection. The most

common of these is the Charlemagne Prayer. It purports to be a prayer given to Charlemagne by

the pope (sometimes the pope is named as Leo, Sylvester, or Gregory, sometimes it is angels

who give the prayer). Whoever recites the prayer or carries it on his or her person will overcome

190
More often, magic with the intent to seek out people or goods is found in ritual magic. The Ars brevis version of
the Ars notoria, for example, contains a ritual to find hidden treasure. The necromantic manual in Rawlinson D. 252
(see above, p. 45) also has a necromantic operation to locate treasure. This type of magic is also associated more
with cunning-folk, who offered their services for healing the bewitched, theft detection and retrieval of goods, love
magic, and to a lesser degree, treasure hunting. Davies, Cunning-folk, VII.
191
The defensive charms are found in Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.45 (916) (a marginal notation on
folio 65v); Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Additional MS 5943 (folio 170r); CUL Additional 9308
(folio 68r); Harley 1600; London, British Library, Sloane MS 56 (folios 100r-100v); Sloane 121 (folio 36v); Sloane
374; Sloane 468; Sloane 962 (folio 51r); Sloane 3160 (folios 137v-138r); Sloane 2457 (folios 8v-9r); Sloane 2584
(in couplets on folio 75r); London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 405; Wellcome 542 (folio 15v):
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud misc. MS 685 (folios 2v-3r); HM 58 (incantations against thieves on folio 69r); and
Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 163 (folios 15v-16r). The proactive charms are found in
TCC O.1.57, which uses a loaf of bread to identify thieves; Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library MS 291, which
uses a similar method to TCC O.1.57, using balls of clay instead; TCC R.14.51, in which the suspected thieves are
given pieces of parchment to eat with certain letters written on them; Add. 34111 (folios 70v, 71r, and 75r), which
has three different operations to find thieves; and Ashmole 1435 (page 28), in which the practitioner sleeps on a
piece of parchment with certain letters written on it and receives the desired information in a dream.
192
Davies, Cunning-folk, 120-121, 147; Smallwood, “Transmission,” 21.
 76

their enemies, will not be killed in battle, and will be protected from thieves. In addition, they

would be protected from natural disasters, fire, evil spirits, and epilepsy. Pregnant women could

use it as a protection in childbirth.193 The prayer itself is not always the same, but it is usually

some form of a prayer called the “Crux Cristi.”194 Permutations of the Charlemagne Prayer are

extremely common, and often appear labelled as prayers and without the Charlemagne legend

attached, which makes it difficult to give exact numbers.195

The last significant category of charm-types is for love. This includes not only what we

think of as traditional love charms to create love between two people, but also charms to increase

one‟s graciousness or make one‟s self welcome to others. Love is a frequent goal in medieval

magic, as we have already seen with necromancy and natural magic. In the realm of charms,

love is much less prominent than medical or protective charms. As mentioned above, only five

of the manuscripts I surveyed have love charms, in comparison with the more than sixty

manuscripts with any number of medical charms.196 If we include charms to increase one‟s

graciousness or to make oneself welcome (as a sort of universal love) that number increases to

seven.197 This differential can be attributed to several factors: one, the bias of this survey

towards medical charms; two, in much the same way as charms to identify thieves, love charms

may have been seen more strictly as the purview of cunning-folk; three, the larger number of

193
Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 273.
194
“Cross + of Christ be with me. Cross + of Christ is what I ever adore. Cross + of Christ is true health…May the
Cross + of Christ banish all evil. Cross + of Christ…be ever over me, and before me, and behind me, because the
ancient enemy flees wherever he sees you…Flee from me, a servant of God, o devil, by the sign of the holy Cross +
behold the Cross of the Lord + begone you enemies, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has
conquered.” Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 273.
195
For an example of its various forms see Davies, Cunning-folk, 131; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 274-276.
196
TCC O.1.57 (folio 24r, in a sixteenth-century hand); Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.58 (1082);
Oxford, Trinity College Library MS 9 (folio 111r); Ashmole 1435 (folio 3v; page 11); HU 1051 (folio 85v-86r; an
alchemical, medical, and technical compilation with the love charm titled in cipher).
197
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.65 (1089) (charm to make oneself welcome to all men on folio
188r); and Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.8.35 (1410) (charm to improve one‟s graciousness on folio
124v).
 77

natural magic experiments for love may indicate a more general preference to use natural magic

in this regard. Whatever the reasons, love charms are still useful to gauge what appealed to users

of charms.

There is a small group of charms that can best be described as pecuniary. These cover a

broad continuum from Ashmole 1435‟s charm to keep money in one‟s purse to the charm in San

Marino, Huntington Library HM 58 to win at dice.198 In each case, they reveal something of the

manuscript owner‟s interests and priorities. Like the animal charms above, these pecuniary

charms gives us valuable insight into what preoccupied the medieval mind. They show us what

people worried about in their daily lives and the options they were willing to take.

Throughout this examination of charm types, there have been some aspects of note. The

first is the religious character of most charms. Medieval charms often contain narratives based

on Biblical stories, passages from the Bible or prayers, or other religious words and phrases.

While in the past scholars may have viewed charms as holdovers from a pagan past, the

Christian nature of charms has been well documented by now.199 Because religious elements are

almost universal in the charms of the fifteenth century, it is clear why for many the line between

prayer and charm was obscured.200 The second aspect is the range of medical charms and their

semantic motifs. The use of semantic motifs for specific illnesses seems to be based on two

primary principles: what religious tales could be adapted to fit illnesses and what afflictions were

thought to be treatable with supernatural assistance (such as fevers and epilepsy). The use of

religious stories can be easily seen in the semantic motifs (e.g., the Longinus charm for bleeding

198
The only other pecuniary items are three natural magic experiments to protect oneself in the marketplace (HM
1336, folio 13r; TCC O.1.57, folio 43r; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 37, folio 54r). There may be
others that have not been described in the catalogues.
199
See David Elton Gay, “On the Christianity of Incantations,” in Charms, 32-33. For examples of charms as pagan
holdovers see in particular Forbes, “Verbal Charms,” 293-316.
200
On this see especially, Lea Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 119-120.
 78

that references Christ bleeding on the cross), but the second principle often seems arbitrary.

Why was fever treated with charms but not dropsy? The third aspect to take note of is the range

of non-medical charms that survive. These reveal an interest in veterinary issues (primarily for

horses), protection of self and goods, love, and money matters. This group has been neglected in

favour of scholarly work on medical charms. Future research will surely reveal more non-

medical charms.

Owners and Their Books

Now that we have examined the different genres of magic in the fifteenth century, let us turn to

the significance of some of the codicological evidence discussed so far: who owned these texts,

how were they labelled, and what were their manuscript contexts. Four case studies of fifteenth-

century manuscripts and their owners will serve to show the varieties of owners and types of

magic and to discuss some of the codicological evidence that has been excluded from this

survey, but which will be addressed in the chapters to follow.

In most cases, as many examples already listed show, the owners of manuscripts of magic

are not known. In general, it was not usual for fifteenth-century owners and scribes to put their

names in books because of the personal or bespoke nature of most book production. There was

little need to write down names except for domestic entries like obituaries or for public

display.201 Often, the appearance of a name is for a purpose. Owners of more illicit forms of

ritual magic may have consciously refrained from leaving their names behind, but for most

owners anonymity was the norm and not necessarily because of a fear of the illicitness of magic.

At best, an educated guess of the owner‟s social status or occupation can be made based on the

201
On this topic see Harris, “The Evidence for Ownership,” 164, 170-173; Carol M. Meale, “Patrons, Buyers and
Owners: Book Production and Social Status,” in BPPB, 212-216; Carol M. Meale, “The Politics of Book
Ownership: The Hopton Family and Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185,” in Prestige, Authority and Power in Late-
Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (York: York Medieval Press, 2000), 103-131; Hanna,
“Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 37; Overty, “Scribal Business,” 2.
 79

contexts of some of the manuscripts – medical notebooks are likely to have been owned by a

physician or part-time leech, and monks, as seen above, were regular owners of magic texts.

Physicians, whether full or part-time, have been shown to have made frequent use of medical

charms in their work.202

It is often conjectured that monks or other religious persons were the most likely to own

and use magic texts, especially texts of ritual magic, because they assumed a certain level of

Latin or liturgical knowledge that was uncustomary in the lay world.203 However, this

assumption is not entirely accurate, because anyone with a few years of education was taught

Latin to some degree, whether or not they became entirely proficient in it. Those who had the

money, inclination, and school nearby could send their child to school. Surviving records show

that there was a wide variance in the social rank of those who attended the medieval grammar

schools.204 Thus, anyone from nobility to serf could in theory attain some literacy in Latin.

While many of these pupils were technically clerics (and could be included in Richard

Kieckhefer‟s clerical underworld of magic practitioners), because they would have had to adopt a

tonsure to attend some schools, it is only in the loosest sense of the word; many did not go on to

university or take Orders, but went into trade or business after a few years of education.205

Further, late medieval popular devotion and pastoral care encouraged liturgical education.206

The contents of charms highlights a broad understanding of the Bible and Christian doctrine.

The predominance of monastic users, then, is the result of a more complicated set of factors than

202
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 136.
203
In particular, see Kieckhefer‟s clerical underworld, first laid out in Magic, 153-156; FR, 4, 37; Page, “Magic at
St. Augustine‟s,” 16; Klaassen‟s arguments for priestly and monkish users in “Learning and Masculinity,” 49-76;
and the overview of the development of the clerical underworld in the secondary scholarship in the introduction, pp.
3-11.
204
Nicholas Orme, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2006), 118, 129-135.
205
Orme, Medieval Schools, 130, 135. On the clerical underworld see the introduction, pp. 3-11.
206
See, for example, Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, chapter two: “How the Plowman Learned his Pater Noster.”
 80

previously set out. Beyond Latinity and familiarity with the liturgy, the time needed to conduct

rituals and an atmosphere congenial to the practice of magic were necessary. 207

Decorations, materials, and the quality of hands can sometimes provide clues as well, but

not always. While a neatly copied parchment manuscript with illuminated illustrations could

only have been owned by someone well off in the fifteenth century, a small paper or parchment

notebook with no decorations and written in with a rough, messy hand could have been owned

by anyone with the money to afford it and the ability to read it – rich or poor; noble or yeoman.

This section will therefore look at four case studies where the owners of manuscripts

containing magic are known. These case studies show magic use across a broad spectrum of

social groups. The first of these studies is Robert Reynes of Acle in Norfolk, who is described as

a yeoman in early sixteenth-century court records following his death.208 His collection of

booklets (now bound into one manuscript) covered a wide range of genres from accounts to

religious texts.209 Overall, the manuscript is conservative in nature, but it does have six charms

for illness and protection.210 Following that is the physician Thomas Fayreford, who compiled a

list of cures, his patients, and texts on medicine and surgery in the first half of the fifteenth

century.211 Along with these cures he wrote down forty-one healing charms.212 The third case

207
Sophie Page‟s work on St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury gives the best and most nuanced discussion to date on
monastic magic use.
208
Cameron Louis, “Reynes, Robert (d. 1505x12),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), accessed December 19, 2010, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/93682.
209
Tanner 407. This has been edited by Cameron Louis in The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle (New
York and London: Garland, 1980).
210
Louis, Commonplace Book, 13, 105, 108, 169-170.
211
Harley 2558. Peter Murray Jones, “Fayreford, Thomas (fl. 1400–1450),” in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), accessed December 19, 2010,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45762. For more on Thomas Fayreford see Olsan, “Medieval Memory,”
passim and Peter Murray Jones, “Harley MS 2558: A Fifteenth-Century Medical Commonplace Book,” in
Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays, ed. Margaret R. Schleissner, Garland Medieval
Casebooks, 8 (New York: Garland, 1995), 35-54.
212
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 60; Jones, “Harley MS 2558,” 35–54.
 81

study is the Thornton Lincoln manuscript, written by the Yorkshire gentleman Robert

Thornton,213 which has three charms for toothache between the romances and prayers and other

religious writings as well as a number of charms in the medical recipe collection.214 The last

case study is the Augustinian friar John Erghome and his large collection that he bequeathed to

the priory at York. These are exceptional cases that allow us to construct a broader picture of the

use of magic texts. The case studies in this chapter will also highlight some of the issues that will

be brought up by the manuscripts that are the focus of the later chapters.

The first case study of book ownership in this chapter is Robert Reynes of Acle, who was

a yeoman in the latter part of the fifteenth century. His profession is unknown, but there is

evidence that he worked for the local lord in some capacity and he is called a churchreeve and

alderman of the guild of Saint Edmund in his book. A sixteenth-century record from after his

death lists him at the status of yeoman.215 From the records of his land ownership (which mark

him as having at least thirty acres, well above average), his work for the lord of Acle, and his

roles as churchreeve and alderman, Reynes appears to have had some standing in the community

of Acle.216 Cameron Louis and Eamon Duffy have described him as a typical member of his

class and therefore he is of great importance to the study of this class‟s interests and concerns.217

Reynes‟s book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 407, is composed of at least four

booklets in eight quires, over 64 paper folios, that seem to have been composed and used

simultaneously before being bound together. The book is written in one hand, which Louis

213
Robert Easting, “Thornton, Robert (b. in or before 1397, d. in or before 1465?),” in Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), accessed December 19, 2010,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27360.
214
Lincoln 91, folios 176r-v.
215
Louis, “Reynes, Robert.”
216
Louis, Commonplace Book, 29, 33
217
Louis, Commonplace Book, 27-35, 114; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 71.
 82

argues was Reynes‟s own hand.218 Quires three to seven consist of miscellaneous records; quire

one began as a recording of tables of regulations; quire eight began as a collection of legal

formulae (and at some point quires one and eight acquired more varied materials); and quire two

began as a random collection, but was later turned into a guild book.

What should be noted especially is the range of texts in Tanner 407. Reynes compiled

his texts for use in all aspects of his life: public, private, domestic, and professional. Tanner 407

provides us with an image of the life of a well-to-do yeoman and the matters that concerned him.

Reynes‟s book contains items connected to his duties as an official for the manor of Acle;

records that reveal his involvement in the judicial aspects of village life; practical recipes and

instructions; catechetical texts (mostly moralistic verses) in addition to some secular educational

material; items on historical events, both local and international; literary pieces that are mostly

for performance by the guild of Saint Anne; and the magical items: six charms against fever,

epilepsy, malaria, for protection, and a ritual for divination using a child‟s fingernail.219

The magical items appear in various parts of the manuscript. The charms for fever (folios

14v-15r), epilepsy (folio 15r), malaria (folio 16r), and the divinatory experiment (folio 15r)

appear together in the first quire between an entry on legal concords (the final decision of courts

over disputes of property or possessions) and churchwardens‟ accounts. A second charm against

epilepsy (folio 34r) is among material on the zodiac and phases of the moon in quire three. The

charm for protection (folios 36r-v), also known as the Charlemagne prayer,220 comes between

218
Louis, Commonplace Book, 7-8.
219
Louis‟s edition contains a full list of the 120 items in the manuscript. I have included the divinatory procedure
among Reynes‟s magical texts because it is instructions to conjure angels to appear in the nail of a child and so falls
within the purview of ritual magic. The modern title in Louis‟s edition states that it is a procedure for divination, but
the last lines show that it was not limited to that: “And þen let þe chyld aske what þat he lyst and þei schal schewe to
hym.” Louis, Commonplace Book, 169-170.
220
So called because the charm was believed to have been given to Charlemagne for protection by an angel or the
Pope (sometimes Leo, but also Pope Gregory or Pope Sylvester). See Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 177 and 273.
 83

two religious texts: a Middle English poem on sin and another on the efficacy of faith, also in

quire three.

Louis argues that Reynes‟s inclusion of charms and divinations is indicative of the

unintellectual and popular character of his religion and reinforces the books lack of moral

complexity.221 However, Duffy has countered Louis‟s judgement by arguing that Reynes‟s

elementary approach to religion and his use of charms was not due solely to the difference

between elite and popular religion or a lack of proper religious education, but was largely

because of the differences between town and country.222 Reynes‟s book illustrates some of the

factors that attracted one portion of society to charms and divination. Duffy argues that Reynes‟s

faith was more focused on the objective aspects of religion, rather than inward devotion, which

placed great value in the sacraments, the healing powers of the saints and of the Mass, and by

extension, an entrenched belief in the power of charms.223 Indeed, the next case studies will

show that the use of charms was not relegated to someone lacking “moral complexity” as Louis

writes, but was found in all social classes and across all levels of education.

As we have seen, medical charms make up the bulk of charms recorded in this survey and

Thomas Fayreford‟s medical notebook provides us with a superlative example of medical charms

in context. Fayreford‟s book, London, British Library, Harley MS 2558, is a collection of older

medical texts (mostly written in the fourteenth century) and his own fifteenth-century additions.

He uses both academic sources – drawing from a broad range of authors – and folk remedies –

cures that he has himself used or that he learned from other medical practitioners, both male and

221
Louis, Commonplace Book, 110-112.
222
Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 73-75. Duffy cites a similar manuscript, the Brome commonplace book, that was
owned by a gentry household in the same area. Its catechetical items display the same moralistic tone as those in
Tanner 407.
223
Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 75.
 84

female.224 The charms and amulets Fayreford includes are the sort we would expect in a medical

notebook. He collected 41 charms, including the Longinus charm (folio 125r), the Tres boni

fratres charm (folio 64r), six charms for toothache grouped together (folios 81r-82r), and six

charms for epilepsy (folios 99v, 119r-120r).225

Peter Murray Jones notes one recipe in his description of Fayreford‟s book that might

more properly be categorised as natural magic. If someone wishes to lose a tooth, they should

take “a green frog that leaps in trees on sacred ground” and anoint the intended tooth with the

green substance (it is unclear what exactly this green substance is). Fayreford refers to this

recipes as one of his secrets (privities) that he has sold to others.226

The details of Fayreford‟s life are unclear. He was undoubtedly a medical practitioner.

The list of patients he treated places him in Somerset and Devon. Jones dates Fayreford‟s hand

to the first half of the fifteenth century. His extensive use of academic medical sources and his

account of a medical case in the first decade of the fifteenth century at Oxford suggest that he

spent some time there, although his name does not appear on the biographical register.

What details we can piece together, though, show us that Fayreford was willing to draw

from whatever sources he could to find treatments that worked. Personal experience and

academic authority both had cachet with him. Thus, he was willing to consult the works of

Avicenna and Gilbertus Anglicus, and even his own patients, as evidenced by the inclusion of a

recipe for demigreyne (migraine) from Lady Poynings of Sussex.227 Charms and natural magic

had just as much a place here as any other type of treatment. Fayreford‟s book shows us the

variety of sources and types of treatment available to a fifteenth-century doctor.

224
Jones, “Harley MS 2558,” 40-41, 47-48.
225
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 60, 67-68.
226
Jones, “Harley MS 2558,” 51.
227
Jones, “Harley MS 2558,” 50.
 85

Robert Thornton and his two manuscripts (Lincoln 91 and London, British Library,

Additional MS 31042) have been subjected to a lot of scholarly attention since the nineteenth

century because of Thornton‟s superb collection of narrative works, religious literature, and

medical recipes – some of which are the sole surviving medieval copy. His compilation of texts

has been important to the advancement of medieval studies, especially in the field of medieval

literature and Middle English romances.228 But the charms he placed in the Lincoln manuscript

are not often studied, and these are important for understanding the whole of Thornton‟s

collection.229

The Robert Thornton of our manuscripts, it is generally accepted, was a member of the

minor gentry in north Yorkshire. He was lord of the manor of East Newton, in the wapentake of

Ryedale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire from his father‟s death in 1418 to sometime before

1465. He seems to have been an active member of the community working as a tax collector and

had contact with the leading Yorkshire families of the day.230 His level of education is unknown,

but theories have been put forward that he attended one of the nearby grammar schools or was

taught at home by the family priest.231

Thornton compiled both of his manuscripts concurrently over a long period of time.

George Keiser has proposed the dates of composition as occurring between 1420 and 1450 using

228
In addition to the works cited below, see John J. Thompson, “The Compiler in Action: Robert Thornton and the
„Thornton Romances‟ in Lincoln Cathedral MS 91,” in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The
Literary Implications of Manuscript Study, ed. Derek Pearsall (Great Britain: D.S. Brewer, 1983), 113-124; John
Finlayson, “Reading Romances in Their Manuscript: Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript 91 (“Thornton”),” Anglia -
Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 123:4 (2006): 632–666; James O. Halliwell, ed., The Thornton Romances: The
Early English Metrical Romances of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, and Degrevant: Selected from Manuscripts at
Lincoln and Cambridge (London: Printed for the Camden society, by J.B. Nichols and Son, 1844).
229
Duffy and Olsan are notable exceptions. Their discussions of these charms can be found in Duffy, Stripping of
the Altars, 267, 272, 275, and Olsan, “Corpus,” 226-227.
230
For all the evidence for the identity of Robert Thornton see George R. Keiser, “Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91:
The Life and Milieu of the Scribe,” Studies in Bibliography 32 (1979): 158-179, and George R. Keiser, “More Light
on the Life and Milieu of Robert Thornton,” Studies in Bibliography 36 (1983): 111-119; Michael Johnston, “A
New Document Relating to the Life of Robert Thornton,” Library 8:3 (2007): 304-313.
231
Keiser, “Life and Milieu,” 164-165; Keiser, “More Light,” 111-112.
 86

the dates that we have for Thornton.232 The distribution of the watermarks between the

manuscripts indicates that both were copied at the same time (and were possibly meant to be one

book).233 Thornton, who is thought to be the scribe, originally composed the manuscript in

booklets. The frequent appearance of his name in these booklets and the signs of wear on their

outer leaves suggest that they were unbound for an extended period of time and the possibility

that these booklets circulated on their own.234

Thornton‟s choice of topics can be roughly divided into narrative works, especially

Middle English romances, such as Sir Percyvelle; devotional and other religious literature,

primarily the works of Richard Rolle, and medical works such as the Liber de diversis medicinis.

Ralph Hanna has argued that the Lincoln manuscript was divided into four booklets with the first

booklet being made up entirely of the prose Life of Alexander, the second booklet being

romances, the third booklet comprising religious materials, and the fourth booklet being medical

recipes (other divisions of Thornton‟s Lincoln manuscript differ only in that they include the

prose Life with the romances as one grouping).235 Thornton‟s London manuscript is less ordered

than the Lincoln manuscript, but it also reflects Thornton‟s interests in these three genres of

romance, devotional works, and medicine.236

The magical items in Thornton‟s Lincoln manuscript, three charms for toothache (folios

176r-v), and a copy of the Charlemagne prayer (folio 176v), are found in the second booklet and

232
Keiser, “Life and Milieu,” 159.
233
John J. Thompson, Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript, British Library MS Additional 31042
(Great Britain: D.S. Brewer, 1987), 64, 71-73.
234
Thompson, Robert Thornton, 2; D.S. Brewer and A.E.B. Owen, eds., The Thornton Manuscript: (Lincoln
Cathedral MS. 91) (London: Scolar Press, 1975), ix.
235
Ralph Hanna, “The Growth of Robert Thornton‟s Books,” Studies in Bibliography 40 (1987): 51-54; Ruth
Kennedy, “The Evangelist in Robert Thornton‟s Devotional Book: Organizing Principles at the Level of the Quire,”
Journal of the Early Book Society 8 (2005): 72.
236
Thompson provides a description of the contents of the London manuscript in Robert Thornton, 10-18.
 87

another group of charms appear in the Liber de diversis medicinis in the fourth booklet.237 The

first group of charms appear together on one folio page, which is considerably more worn than

those on either side. The placement of these charms on their own, in a booklet otherwise

devoted to romances, may have been due to the presence of a blank folio page. The Liber

charms encompass eleven charms for toothache (folio 287v), epilepsy (folios 296r-v), to staunch

bleeding (folio 299v), childbirth (folios 303v-304r), and fevers (folio 306v), and an amuletic ring

for cramp (folios 297r-v).238

The first group of charms may have been copied only to fill up a blank folio page, but the

fact that they were copied down at all is important. These charms and the charms in Thornton‟s

copy of the Liber de diversis medicinis show that they were not just of interest to medical

practitioners like Thomas Fayreford or the less educated like Robert Reynes, but to people in the

gentry and to people who demonstrated an interest in intellectual and religious pursuits as

Thornton does with his two manuscripts. The magical elements of this Lincoln manuscript

viewed in comparison to the religious texts of both his manuscripts highlights the pervasiveness

of charms in all levels of society. As Duffy has so compellingly argued, the popular elements of

religion (into which he places charms), were abundant in both high and low levels of society.239

Our last case study of book ownership is the Augustinian friar John Erghome. Unlike our

previous case studies, he lived in the fourteenth century. Although he pre-dates the start of this

survey, Erghome‟s collection of books was in the library of the Austin Friars in the fifteenth

century. His collection shows us that earlier manuscripts could still be read and used in the

fifteenth century. John Erghome‟s books also allow us to examine the issues surrounding

237
Transcriptions of the toothache charms and Charlemagne prayer are in C. Horstman, ed., Yorkshire Writers:
Richard Rolle of Hampole, vol. 1 (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895), 375-376.
238
Olsan discusses these charms briefly in comparison with another collection of medical charms in “Corpus,” 226-
227.
239
Duffy, Stripping of the Altars.
 88

institutional ownership of magic texts – what happened when an organization inherited a

person‟s private collection of books. The inclusion of his books in the medieval catalogue of the

Austin Friars shows us the context in which manuscripts containing magic were kept.

John Erghome was a member of the Austin Friars at York. He was ordained an acolyte in

1353, studied at Oxford, and was at York by 1372 when he is described as frater in the first

portion of the priory‟s catalogue. In 1377 he was appointed master of the priory. In 1385 he was

appointed master regent and prior of York, and in 1386 the prior general of the Order made him

magister antiquus at the Naples convent.240 In that same year he served as master of the studium

of the Roman curia.241 After 1386 he disappears from the manuscript record and the date of his

death is unknown.242 Sometime after his death, Erghome‟s collection of 306 books became part

of the priory‟s collection and were added to the catalogue in the fifteenth century. However,

there is evidence in the catalogue and the writings of other contemporary friars at York that

Erghome‟s collection was physically part of the library before 1372.243

Erghome‟s collection is broad and varied. His collection was so large that nine

subsections were added to the catalogue to accomodate his books.244 A large portion of

Erghome‟s books are devoted to religious works: the Bible and Biblical commentaries, books of

the Divine Office, works of the Church Fathers, and sermons.245 His interests also extended to

medicine, rhetoric, philosophy, law, literature, music, and geometry.246 Moreover, Erghome had

240
Michael J. Curley, “John Ergome (1385–1386),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), accessed March 9, 2011, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14856.
241
Curley, “John Ergome.”
242
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, xxix.
243
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, xxx.
244
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, xxv-xxvi.
245
York, Austin Friars A8: 5, 23-32, 53-58, 122-125, 363, 395-400, 597-598.
246
York, Austin Friars A8: 121, 160, 165, 217-260, 300-306, 312-316, 406-428, 450-453, 475-517, 520-536, 538-
544, 638-646. Of these, 160 survives in Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library MS 81; 165 survives in London,
College of Arms, Arundel MS 6; 460 survives in London, British Library, Royal MS 8 B.XIX; 493 survives in
 89

an extensive interest in astrology and image magic. Seven of his manuscripts included magic

texts, although none of these has survived.247 In relation to his whole collection, this number

barely makes a dent; nonetheless, compared to other records of magic texts in monastic

catalogues, this was the second largest collection of magic works known of in any English

religious house in the Middle Ages.

In those seven books that Erghome possessed was an extensive collection of ritual magic

texts. Image magic was the primary subject of his interest (every one of the seven books

contained texts on image magic, either theoretical or practical), but he also had several copies of

the Ars notoria, a copy of the Liber sacer, several ritual works attributed to Solomon, and

treatises on talking to spirits.248 In addition to the texts of ritual magic he also collected several

texts of experiments and magic tricks, such as the Secretum philosophorum in York, Austin

Friars 362.

All but one of Erghome‟s books followed the typical configuration for ritual texts that

Klaassen set out.249 MS 362 contained the largest number of texts and was the most varied in

content. This particular manuscript had several texts of image magic, the copy of the Liber

Sacer, a text on talking to the spirits and another on how to enclose them in a mirror, a

necromantic text called the vinculum Salomonis, two copies of the Ars notoria, experiments, and

non-magical texts on the orders of the angels, images, and visions. Remarkably, this book seems

London, British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian B.xxiii; and 643 survives in Oxford, St. John‟s College Library MS
150.
247
York, Austin Friars A8: 362, 364, 371, 375, 383, 385, and 452; Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 9. Erghome‟s
collection also includes a number of non-magical astrological texts, such as 369, which contained a Calendar, a
compotus manualis, works on the spheres, the astrolabe, on the planets and stars, and tables for measurements.
248
All are found in York, Austin Friars A8: 362. The third Ars notoria was in A8: 371.
249
See especially, Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 9.
 90

to have been a combination of all genres of ritual magic and a similar manuscript has not been

found.250

As a personal collection, Erghome‟s books give a glimpse at what a person with the right

resources and knowledge could possess in general, as well as for books of magic. His books are

listed in 16 of the 24 categories that the medieval catalogue used.251 It also highlights how

numerous works of magic were, especially in regards to image magic. Even though his books of

magic do not survive, the titles listed in the catalogue offer us invaluable information on what

existed in the late medieval period, what texts of magic were grouped with, and how they were

categorised. The case study of John Erghome is therefore a good jumping off point for the final

section of this chapter, which examines the information that can be used from medieval library

catalogues.

Institutional Ownership
This section deals with the information on magic texts available in certain institutional

catalogues.252 The discussions of ritual magic and charms above have already shown that monks

and monasteries were frequently owners of works of magic in the Middle Ages. The ownership

of magic texts by institutions allows us to see a public side of books of magic. Medieval

monastic catalogues allow modern readers to see how magic texts were labelled, where they

were grouped in the library, and what their manuscript context was, something which is not

always possible to know when medieval manuscripts have been rearranged and rebound in the

modern period. Although most of the manuscripts and catalogues discussed here are pre-

fifteenth century, as with Erghome‟s books, there is evidence that they were used in the fifteenth

250
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 9; Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 87-88.
251
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, xxx.
252
Only six of the 14 volumes in the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues series list manuscripts
containing magic texts. For my list see above, n. 10.
 91

century. Moreover, many of the earlier manuscripts were catalogued in the fifteenth century and

those labels reflect fifteenth-century beliefs.

What is remarkable is the willingness of the cataloguers of religious houses and college

libraries to include clearly magical works, like the Ars notoria, without any reprobation or

concealment. As discussed above, the collection of John Erghome‟s books in the Friars‟ Library

at York included a relatively large number of manuscripts containing image magic, necromancy,

and the Ars notoria. The catalogue of St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury also explicitly lists a large

number of magical texts in its collection.253 Remarkably, Merton College‟s Register lists the

acquisition of an Ars notoria and a necromantic book without comment.254 The other books

listed in the same entry are primarily theological, but also include poetry and works on logic and

grammar.255

Only two medieval catalogues of religious houses pass judgment on the contents of a

manuscript. Syon Abbey 78 contained a number of works of astrology, a text on the spheres

attributed to Robert Grosseteste, and a work of geomancy (a form of divination using markings

on the ground) labelled as “De Geomancia qua non licet Christianum vti” [Of geomancy, which

is not lawful for a Christian to use].256 Although this is more properly divination than magic

because geomancy uses signs in the earth to foretell the future, the significance of this should not

be overlooked. The catalogue of John Erghome‟s books in the Friars‟ library at York as well,

makes it clear to the reader that not all of Erghome‟s books were welcomed equally. Most of his
253
Sophie Page‟s dissertation “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” provides an excellent discussion and explanation of the
use and ownership of magic texts in this monastery in the fourteenth century.
254
These are listed among the books of the Warden‟s study on June 10, 1483 (the feast of Saint Margaret). The
entry for the Ars notoria reads, “item Ars notoria in quaternis, secundo folio, haybala.” The necromantic book
appears near the end of the list, “item liber nigromancie, secundo folio, in circulo.” H.E. Salter, ed., Registrum
Annalium Collegii Mertonensis, 1483-1521 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 14-15; Powicke, Merton College, 213,
215.
255
Powicke, Merton College, 213-215; Salter, Registrum, 13-15.
256
Vincent Gillespie, ed., Syon Abbey, Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues (London: British Library in
association with the British Academy, 2001), 25.
 92

books, including those containing magic texts, were listed under the heading “Libri magistri

Johannis Erghome” [Books of Master John Erghome].257 However, four of his books were put

under the heading “Prophecie et supersticiosa Libri magistri Johannis Erghom” [Prophecies and

superstitious books of Master John Erghome].258 The distinction between these categories seems

to be whether or not the works contained ritual magic like the Ars notoria or the necromantic

vinculum Salomonis or works of image magic. The books listed as superstitious contain both

ritual and image magic texts like MS 362, which had several treatises on images, a copy of the

Liber sacer, two copies of the Ars notoria, and the vinculum Salomonis, among others.259 The

only magic manuscripts in Erghome‟s collection that escape the criticism of the cataloguer are

those that contain only image magic texts, such as MS 375, which had three separate works on

images.260

Some of the catalogues also provide evidence on where the books were held in their

respective monasteries and abbeys and how their books were organised. The catalogue of the

Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary de Pratis in Leicester, for example, appears mostly to classify

its books based on the subject of the first text in the manuscript. Thus, two of its manuscripts

containing magic are classified as “astronomia”261 and one appears under the medieval

equivalent of miscellaneous: “Volumina de diuersis materiis.”262

257
See for examples entries A8: 369 to 394. Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 90-101.
258
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 86. For more on the labelling of Erghome‟s books as superstitious see
Klaassen, “Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 132-133.
259
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 87-88.
260
Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 94.
261
Leicester, Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary de Pratis, A20 1160, which contains works by Thebit ben Corat,
Hermes Trismegistus, and a possible Ars notoria titled “Exceptiones quas Appollonius Flores appellauit.” A20 1163
contains a text titled “Liber de occultis,” which may be the work of the same name by Messahala. T. Webber and
A.G. Watson, eds., The Medieval Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, Corpus of British Medieval Library
Catalogues (London: British Library in Association with the British Academy, 1998), 319-323.
262
A20 862, which contains a copy of the Secretum philosophorum. This work is largely concerned with technical
recipes, but there are some occult elements to it. As John Friedman argues, it is largely used to give the appearance
of magic but without the dangers of actual magical practices. Another copy of this text was also made in
 93

The catalogue for St. Martin‟s Priory, Dover, gives us even more information on the

categorization of magic texts. It has been repeatedly singled out as an exemplary piece of

cataloguing and consequently gives us a more complete picture of how books were organised

within the priory library.263 The lone manuscript containing magic, BM 1.323, which had

unspecified charms and incantations, was on the third shelf from the bottom, in section H, which

was for books on logic, philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, medicine, and vernacular literature.264

According to the catalogue the charms and incantations are in a manuscript that also contained a

physiognomy of pseudo-Aristotle, a short poem by Hildebert of Lavardin, a work on the

commendation of philosophy, a text on St. Patrick‟s staff, the statutes of Fulk Basset, bishop of

London, Odo of Cheriton‟s Parabolae, and Petrus Alfonsi‟s De disciplina clericali.265 The

specific charms and incantations in this manuscript are not known, but we can see from this entry

that the magic texts have been grouped with a varied group of texts, in much the same ways as

the case studies discussed above. This catalogue description gives us an unparalleled level of

detail concerning the placement of the manuscript within the library and allows us to see that

some magic texts existed side by side with more orthodox books.

That books of magic, even in such a small number, were recorded in medieval monastic

catalogues speaks to the ambivalent nature of many of these texts. Sophie Page has addressed

this issue with regard to the monks at St. Augustine‟s Canterbury in the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries. The monastery housed a collection of over 30 magic texts, significantly more than any

Leicestershire at the Augustinian Priory of Saint Peter at Kirby (or Kirkby Bellars) in 1492 by William
Wymondham. Webber and Watson, Augustinian Canons, 270; Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 76.
263
See the numerous references cited in Stoneman, Dover Priory, 7.
264
Stoneman, Dover Priory, 6.
265
Stoneman, Dover Priory, 134.
 94

other English medieval monastery is known to have possessed.266 Although this is a unique case

that perhaps over-represents magic in the monastery, a large part of her argument can be applied

more generally to monastic magic in general. Page argues that the monastery offered an

atmosphere congenial to the specific kinds of magic present there.267 Additionally, these

monastic texts were often highly religious in nature (such as the Ars notoria) or relied on some

sort of spiritual assistance or divine influence (as with the image magic and natural magic texts).

The congenial atmosphere coupled with the nature of the magic texts produced a small corpus of

magical texts that found a niche within the monastic environment.

The most important point that should be taken from this survey is how widespread magic

was in the fifteenth century. Users ranged from physicians to clerics to members of the gentry.

For all these users there was something about magic that appealed to them, whether it was an

opportunity to gain knowledge, heal a wound, or create an illusionary scene. The context in

which they placed these texts show that, except for necromancy, there were aspects of all types

of magic that could be seen as legitimate and could be paired with orthodox texts like medical

recipes or works of natural philosophy. Book owners had their own perception of magic and its

supernatural powers; a perception in which the distinction between the natural and the

supernatural was not always distinct and could see an ordinariness to magic. For these people, it

was just a matter of course to choose a charm or piece of natural magic as it was to turn to a non-

magical recipe.

The overlap between magic and orthodoxy extended to an overlap between categories of

magic. As seen above, there are similarities among all categories of magic, such as the

similarities between natural and image magic in terms of the astrological influences on terrestrial
266
Page, “Image-Magic,” 69. The manuscripts that Page studies at St. Augustine‟s were often brought into the
monastery by individuals who owned them before their entry – a point that should be kept in mind with regard to
Richard Dove in chapter five.
267
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 33.
 95

objects. The blurring of magical categories led magic to be easily assimilated to more legitimate

works. The texts on virtues are a prime example of this: in these works, medical theory and

magical belief co-exist side by side. The line between magic and religion, medicine, science, or

any other orthodox category is not hard and fast. It was easy for many of these users to go from

one to the other without necessarily perceiving philosophical or theological problems in doing

so.
 96

Chapter 2
Out of the Ordinary?: Magic and a Northamptonshire Gentry
Family
In the fifteenth century the gentry were major commissioners and owners of books and were a

growing influence in the late medieval book trade.1 Books were a means of presenting one‟s

place among the gentry. Gentry families commissioned books with their names and coats of

arms in them in order to show off their status in the community, as the Hopton family of

Yorkshire and Suffolk did in the late fifteenth century using their coat of arms.2 Because

manuscripts (or parts of manuscripts) were often passed around friends and neighbours among

the gentry for copying, they were prime vehicles for declarations of status by their owners.3 At

the same time, there was a sub-section of the gentry who, along with some members of the

secular clergy, were becoming increasingly interested in medical and scientific texts, like Robert

Thornton, whom I discussed in chapter one.4 The Haldenby family of Isham, Northamptonshire

is an example of one family who were involved in both these aspects of book ownership in their

creation and use of TCC O.1.57, a primarily medical and scientific household notebook.5

The Haldenby family used TCC O.1.57 to set forth a specific kind of identity that

emulated the undertakings of other gentry families like the Thorntons. The magic texts that are

found in this book – five charms (to put out a fire, to cure a sore, to stop bleeding, to put

someone to sleep, and to catch a thief) and numerous items of natural magic found in the texts of

1
Meale, “Politics of Book Ownership,” 103-104.
2
Meale, “Politics of Book Ownership,” 103-131.
3
See Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223; Pearsall, “The Whole Book,” 25.
4
pp. 85-87. On this sub-section of the gentry see Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223 and below, p. 107.
5
I must clarify here what I mean by “scientific.” As Linda Voigts points out in “Scientific and Medical Books,” in
BPPB, 345-348, there is no real definition of “medieval science.” So I am using the criteria she lays out to
determine what constitutes a medieval scientific book, i.e., that they contain items that are experimentally sound and
empirically useful, like herbal lore; items that we would call pseudo sciences like judicial astrology and
physiognomy; occult texts like alchemy and chiromancy; medical writing; and agricultural treatises.
 97

the virtues of plants and animals – are one component employed in this identity formation, along

with genealogical notices concerning their family and other gentry families they were connected

with, and the manuscript‟s collection of medical and scientific texts, practical recipes,

prognosticatory texts, and an ad hoc book of secrets.

The magic texts in TCC O.1.57 contribute to the formation of the Haldenby‟s identity in

two ways. The first is by their utility. An important element of TCC O.1.57 is its pragmatic

nature, which is seen in its practical recipes, medical recipes, and some of its scientific texts,

such as a work on the siphoning and distillation of liquids. One of the common themes uniting

the texts in TCC O.1.57 is their usefulness in the household and the community. As an

expression of their gentry identity, the manuscript showcases the Haldenby‟s interest in medical

and scientific texts that were also potentially of use in the community. Likewise, the charms and

some of the natural magic address the problems and concerns of everyday life, such as the charm

to put out a fire, and charms to cure sores and stop bleeding.

The second way that the magic texts contribute to the Haldenby‟s identity formation is

through magic‟s association with wonder. The concept of wonder (and wonders) has a long and

varied history in the Middle Ages, and wonders and the feeling of wonder were inexorably

linked in the medieval period. A full explanation of wonder and wonders in the medieval period

is beyond the scope of this study, but it is enough for the present argument to note that “the

world of medieval Christians…was a world of wonders heterogeneous over both time and

space.”6 Wonder had two roots in the Middle Ages – ignorance of natural causes and the

“experience of the novel or unexpected.”7 These two causes most commonly found expression

in works like travel narratives, encyclopaedias, bestiaries, herbals, and lapidaries where tales of
6
Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books,
1998), 61.
7
Daston and Park, Wonders, 23. On the feeling of wonder and the experience of wonder see Caroline Walker
Bynum, “Wonder,” American Historical Review 102:1 (1997): 1-26.
 98

creatures like dog-headed men had the potential to elicite feelings of excitement and danger.8

The focus on what created that sense of wonder expanded in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries as collections of marvels possessing occult or magical powers became the domain of

non-royal nobility as a means to demonstrate wealth and power.9 At the same time, natural

wonders often overlapped with books of secrets and experiments; consequently, wonder became

linked with a category of texts in which people could directly control wonders.10 The ability to

create that sense of wonder by means of experiments and occult properties gave the owners of

these texts an intellectual supremacy over others.

An important aspect of wonder is its connection with books of secrets or experiments.11

The contents of these books, such as are hinted at in the texts on virtues and the miscellaneous

tricks and recipes in the ad hoc book of secrets represented a “safe” or “Christianised” magic.12

They offered the appearance of magic without the inherent dangers of real magic. The books

seemed to offer secret knowledge beyond the magic tricks and the practical and technical

recipes that actually make up the contents of these volumes.13 They give the “appearance of

power and learning” through the manipulation of natural forces.14 Moreover, part of the draw of

8
Daston and Park, Wonders, 27. On the evolution of wonder in the central Middle Ages see, Carl Watkins,
“Fascination and Anxiety in Medieval Wonder Stories,” in The Unorthodox Imagination, 45-64; and Robert Bartlett,
The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). For the
history of emotions more broadly see especially Barbara H. Rosenwein‟s article on the historiography of the study
of emotions and her own approach to the history of emotions, “Worrying About Emotions in History,” The
American Historical Review 107:3 (2002): 821-845; and her book, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle
Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press: 2006), which brings to fruition the concepts first laid out in her 2002
article.
9
Daston and Park, Wonders, 86
10
Daston and Park, Wonders, 129; Eamon, Science, 71-75.
11
See chapter one, p. 53; Eamon, Science, 16.
12
Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 76.
13
I use “secret” and “occult” interchangeably throughout because in the Middle Ages the term “occult” did not have
the same connotations as it does today in relation to magic, but it had a technical sense that referred to inherent
properties of objects and was thus simply equivalent to “secret.” See Kieckhefer, Magic, 12-13.
14
Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 84.
 99

esoteric knowledge was the esteem it brought. Whoever controlled this knowledge could set

himself apart. Secret knowledge was valuable simply because it was secret. Secrets literature

further built itself up on the idea that truly valuable knowledge was reserved only for those who

were worthy of it. The actual knowledge contained inside the book was often secondary to the

air of authority gained by possessing it in the first place.

In TCC O.1.57, wonders and the ability to create a sense of wonder play an important

role in the way that the magic texts are presented. The texts of virtues of plants and animals in

which the natural magic of TCC O.1.57 is found are the most obvious demonstration of these

wonders.15 The virtues, both magical and natural, instil a feeling of wonder in the reader because

they work through invisible forces. In a similar way, the charms in TCC O.1.57 create a sense of

wonder because their power lies in God and they do not use natural causes. The charm to catch a

thief in particular, with its placement in the manuscript as part of the ad hoc book of secrets,

builds on the association between wonder and secrets and experiments. The inclusion of these

kinds of texts, in addition to following the overall character of the manuscript, build up an image

of intellectual superiority. Because the Haldenbys possess these texts, it is implied that they

have the ability to perform these experiments and wonders and are therefore in possession of

occult knowledge. Viewed in conjunction with the medical and scientific texts, the charms and

natural magic in TCC O.1.57 build up an identity for the Haldenby‟s that uses intellectual

prowess as an expression of their gentry status.

The different scribes that contribute to the compilation of TCC O.1.57 and the large

number of hands that appear in the manuscript is an important factor to consider with regard to

how magic is used in the creation of the Haldenby‟s gentry identity. Ten hands contributed to

the writing of the surviving texts in the manuscript, three of which write the magical texts, and

15
See below, pp. 121-123.
 100

each hand represents a new perspective and interpretation of the book. As the discussion below

will show, the use of magic shifts depending on who is copying it. Consequently, magic appears

in several different contexts within the book, which reflects the flexibility of magic and the

variety of its uses, and also the communal composition of the manuscript – each scribe

contributes his or her own view of magic by including a particular magic text. Accordingly, this

chapter will begin with an examination of the Haldenby family and their milieu in order to

delineate their position in the community and who in their family and the larger household could

have contributed to the writing of TCC O.1.57. Once this has been laid out, the texts will be

examined in light of this fifteenth-century milieu. Then the magic texts can be studied and their

roles in the Haldenby‟s identity making can be established.

The Haldenbys and the Gentry in the Fifteenth Century

It is difficult to clearly define the English gentry and to delineate them as a social class. There

are at least three theories for their development and scholars remain unable to explicitly define

what is meant by “gentry.”16 Despite this lack of a clear definition, however, historians of the

medieval English gentry have followed very consistent parameters for their studies. In general

terms, historians have placed the gentry in the social stratum between yeomen and knights, while

acknowledging the fact that the lines between all three groups were often blurred.17

16
Both Eric Acheson and Susan Wright begin their books on fifteenth-century gentry families by attempting to
define the gentry and both come to the same general conclusions regarding their uncertain nature. Eric Acheson, A
Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth-century, c.1422-c.1485 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1992); Susan M. Wright, The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth-century (Chesterfield: Derbyshire Record Society,
1983); Peter Coss, The Origins of the English Gentry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 11-12.
17
Wright, 1; Mark Bailey, “Rural Society,” in Fifteenth-century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval
England, ed. Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 150-151.
 101

As a way to more strongly demarcate the gentry Peter Coss has argued for the use of six

criteria for characterising this class.18 I am adopting these as my criteria for placing the

Haldenbys among the gentry of Northamptonshire, with the exception of his second criterion,

“gentility,” because it is a tenuous category to pinpoint at the best of times and is practically

impossible with the evidence at hand. The first of Coss‟s criteria is land and landownership. The

names of two members of the Haldenby family appear in documents relating to landownership:

in 1448 John Haldenby was a witness to a Charter of demise and in 1453 William Haldenby

granted a quitclaim deed for the manor of Wypsnade.19 Additionally, the family held land in the

town of Wollaston and a manor in Isham, along with other fees.20 The bulk of Coss‟s criteria are

sub categories of what he terms “territoriality.” Maintaining one‟s social status amongst the

gentry was based on personal associations and wealth within a given region; this was

territoriality. The gentry had a collective identity and collective interests that necessitated, among

other things, marriage between gentry families to reinforce status and power. Conveniently we

find that John and William Haldenby, respectively, married Joan and Eleanor Mortemer, who

were members of another local gentry family; their family tree (folio 129r) and the death notices

of their relatives John and his son John Mortemer are found in TCC O.1.57 (folio 4ar).21 These

genealogical texts mention other local gentry families the Mortemers had married into as well.

18
For Coss‟s discussion see, “The Formation of the English Gentry,” Past & Present 147 (May, 1995): 38-64 and
The Origins of the English Gentry, which is an expansion of his Past & Present article. His classifications are
largely an explicit development of the implicit categories used by Wright, et al.
19
Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 5, 1447-1454 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1933-47), 64, 446.
20
In the 1428 tax assessment, William Haldenby of Isham held part of a fee in Wollaston; William also held part of
a fee in Isham in 1428. The Haldenbys held a manor in Isham alternately called “Haldenby‟s Manor” or “Manor of
Holdenby.” In 1411 Maud, the wife of Robert Haldenby, granted her son John rent of half a pound of pepper from
the manor of Isham. By 1428, William had succeeded to this manor. The family held this manor until 1546 when
William Haldenby made a conveyance to Richard Humfrey of the manor and advowson of the church of the parish.
L.F. Salzman, ed., The Victoria History of the County of Northampton, vol. 4, Victoria History of the Counties of
England (London: A. Constable, 1937), 59, 189, 191.
21
There are two sets of folios in TCC O.1.57 labelled 1-4 so I have distinguished the first set with the letter a. The
Victoria History lists John Mortemer as their father, but it is unclear which one it was. It is likely that the elder was
their parent and the younger their brother. Salzman, Victoria History, 249.
 102

Beyond owning land or wealth, the gentry were expected to hold public office or exercise some

sort of public authority. Robert Haldenby (whose obit appears on folio 3v) was escheator of

Northampton and Rutland in 1394 and 1400 and a commissioner of the peace in 1409.22 Robert

also held commissions de wallis et fossatis in 1412.23 In addition to Coss‟s descriptors, there is

the identification of the Haldenbys in court records as “esquire.”24 This term was being applied

to the gentry by the mid-fourteenth century when “esquires and all manner of gentlemen below

the estate of knight” were listed in the 1363 sumptuary legislation.25 This evidence thus solidly

places the Haldenby family among the lower gentry and sets the stage for the following

discussion of the scribes of TCC O.1.57 and their possible identities.

Scribes and the Compilation of TCC O.1.57

TCC O.1.57 is a 101 folio parchment manuscript that the Haldenby family and members of their

household compiled in the first half of the fifteenth century (for a full description see Appendix

Two).26 Genealogical entries regarding the Haldenby and Mortemer families give the

manuscript a terminus post quem of 1454.27 The manuscript originally consisted of twelve

22
A.C. Wood, List of Escheators for England and Wales, vol. 72 (London: List & Index Society, 1932), 94; 95;
Calendar of Patent Rolls. Henry IV, vol. 4, 1399-1413 (Great Britain: Public Record Office, 1909), 483; Calendar of
Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1399-1422 (London: H.M. Stationery
Office, 1916), 82, 84, 88.
23
Patent Rolls. Henry IV, 374.
24
A writ of diem clausit extremum from August, 1498 lists William Haldenby, esquire. John Haldenby, esquire is a
witness on a charter of demise from 1448. John Haldenby, esquire, held a commission of Oyer and terminer in 1426.
Close Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 5, 64; Patent Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 1, 1422-1429 (Great Britain: Public Record Office,
1901), 359.
25
Coss, Origins, 228.
26
There is a good description in James, Trinity, 54-58, but I have taken the liberty of compiling my own description,
which has a more thorough explanation of the hands used and an expansion on some of the contents.
27
Folio 4ar contains the obits for two John Mortemers: “memorandum quod | Johannes mortemer, filius et heres
Johannis mortemer de Grendoni et Agnetis vxoris sue, obijt apud parvam Fyllyng xii ius die Augusti decima hora post
horam nonam in nocte anno domine millesimo. CCCCius. quinquagesimo tercio littera dominicale tunc .g. Et
Johannes mortemer, filius et heres eius procreatus de Anna, filia Georgij longbyle, obijt quarto decimo die Augusti
proximi sequenti anno supradicto” [Remember that John Mortemer, son and heir of John Mortemer of Grendon and
Agnes his wife, died at little Filling on the 13th day of August in the 10th hour after the 9th hour in the night in the
year of our Lord 1453 when the dominical letter was G. And John Mortemer, his son and heir born from Anna,
 103

quires, but two have since gone missing; these two quires contained two mathematical treatises

(the Tractatus algorismi and the Tractatus de cautelis algorismi) and a medical prognosticatory

device (the Spera pictagore). The remaining quires contain mostly medical and scientific

material, along with calendrical material, practical recipes (for pigments and ink), works on

dream interpretation and prognostication, charms and natural magic, and miscellaneous

entertainments that make up an ad hoc book of secrets. The quires are of varying lengths – the

shortest is the first quire at four folios, but the rest range from eight to twelve folios.

There are ten fifteenth-century hands that write in TCC O.1.57 (Hands A-J) and most

hands and texts cross over the ten folio gatherings indiscriminately. The large number of hands

used throughout the manuscript and the ways in which the texts have been placed lead me to

believe that this was a communal project and that various members of the household contributed

to its construction, although it is possible that professional scribes were brought in for short-term

jobs. Because of the way the texts and hands run over quires without breaking, the texts appear

to have been written mostly by members of the Haldenby household. The communal makeup of

the manuscript allows us to see “the conditions in which knowledge has been made and

utilized.”28 Each hand represents a new interpretation of the manuscript. They offer different

ways of seeing how this family used the manuscript to help shape their identity and articulate

their position in the community.

The large number of hands is also indicative of the manner in which the manuscript was

written. Even professional scribes working in large urban centres were dependent on the

exemplars available to them, and a rural gentry family like the Haldenbys would have had to use

daughter of George Longbyle, died on the 14th day of the next August in the year following the [one] mentioned
above [1454]]. There are also references in the calendar to a strong wind in 1438 (folio 1r), and the births of
William Haldenby in 1420 (folio 1v) and Robert Haldenby in 1433 (folio 3r).
28
Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 623.
 104

texts that friends, family, travellers, monasteries and local clergy, and neighbours had.29 As a

result, whoever was available at the time would have copied down relevant texts as they became

available. This can be seen in the way that the hands appear in the manuscript. Each hand has

written one section of the manuscript of varying length and on different topics. Hand G, for

example, has written the treatise on siphons and the treatise on the houses of the moon (folios

84v-95r) that fills up the sixth and part of the seventh quire. Hand H has written the treatises on

physiognomy, chiromancy, and the somniale danielis (folios 95v-124r), which extends from the

latter half of the seventh quire to the first folio page of the last quire. Only Hand A has written in

separate sections of the manuscript: the genealogical entries at the beginning and end of the

manuscript (folios 1r and 129r), and two medical recipes on folio 20r.

Based on the arrangement of the hands I would propose the following as the probable

arrangement for the composition of TCC O.1.57. A quire, or a set of quires, were initially

purchased and used to copy down a certain number of texts. As more texts were written down

and pages were filled up, more quires were purchased and added on to the book. If the initial

purchase of parchment was large enough, there may not have been a need to buy more quires and

subsequently the Haldenbys may simply have copied down texts until the pages were filled. The

layout of the manuscript supports this supposition as well. The bounding lines and prickings are

still visible and the writing area is remarkably consistent throughout the manuscript. This

suggests, perhaps, that the folios were prepared well in advance of their use.

For the most part, the scribes of TCC O.1.57 have not left behind any indications of their

identities. We have a few clues, however, to shed some light on the matter. The bottom of folio

16v contains the inscription “Wodeman ad Haldynby” [Wodeman to Haldenby]. At the bottom

29
For example, there is evidence that the Somniale danielis in TCC O.1.57 and a copy in London, British Library,
Egerton MS 847 shared the same exemplar. Lawrence T. Martin, ed., Somniale Danielis: An Edition of a Medieval
Latin Dream Interpretation Handbook (Frankfurt am Main: P.D. Lang, 1981), 69; Hanna, “Miscellaneity and
Vernacularity,” 47.
 105

of folio 95r an elaborate four line heading reads, “Iam sequitur tractatus de phisignomia

secundum Aristotelem cum causis et experitis probantibus propositum quod Haldenby Amen”

[now follows the treatise on physiognomy according to Aristotle with causes and experiences

approved. Thus Haldenby Amen.] On folio 118v there is a colophon following the second text

on chiromancy stating, “Explicit libellus compositus a magistro Johanni. Iste liber constat

Haldynby.” [Here ends the little book composed by master John. This book is Haldenby‟s].

Folio 125r contains a poem composed by a William, “Si mea penna valet melior mea litera fiet /

Nomen scriptoris Willemus plenus amoris / omnibus omnia non mea sompnia dicere possum /

Dum calor est et pulcra dies formica laborat.” [If my pen is healthy my letters will be made

better / The name of the writer, William Fulloflove / I cannot tell all my dreams to all people /

While it is hot and the day is beautiful, the ant works].30 From this we can tentatively presume

that John and William Haldenby were two of the scribes. Which William is another problem as

there are two of them mentioned in the manuscript; they are father and son: William of Isham,

born circa 1390 and his son, born March 30th, 1420. Because of the range of dates in the

genealogical entries, it easily could have been either of them.

There are other possibilities for the identity of some of the scribes, based on information

that survives from other gentry households. In addition to the named members of the Haldenby

family, William and John, there could have been other unnamed members of the family who

wrote in TCC O.1.57. The genealogical entries mention many different people who could have

had a hand in the book‟s composition. Female members of the family could theoretically have

also helped compile the manuscript. Women were commissioners and owners of books in the

Middle Ages, although not typically medical and scientific books like TCC O.1.57, nor were

30
I would like to thank Susannah Brower for her help in the translation of this passage.
 106

they normally the scribes themselves.31 Nevertheless, there is still the possibility that female

members of the household could have participated in the manuscript‟s compilation. Non-family

members of the household could have also taken part in the compilation. If the family had a

chaplain, he may have been employed as one of the scribes. Domestic chaplains were often

employed in such work when they served in gentry households.32 Professional scribes or clerks

could have also had a hand in writing the manuscript, having been hired in short-term capacities,

as was the case for the fourteenth-century household account book of John de Multon of

Frampton, Lincolnshire. His book was written over a seven-year period by numerous clerks.33 If

the Haldenby household is at all typical, the scribes of TCC O.1.57 came from the members of

the family, the broader household, and the community.

Although we cannot know how much education each of the scribes had, based on the

amount of Latin used throughout and the academic nature of many of the texts it seems to have

been fairly extensive overall. There were several educational options for those who could afford

it in the fifteenth century: one could go to the local clergy, whose Latinity was not guaranteed34

or to the grammar schools in the local market towns, such as the one that was established near

Isham in Northampton from the latter half of the twelfth century onwards.35 As I noted in

chapter one, even someone with only a few years of schooling would have some knowledge of

Latin, although not necessarily at the level used in TCC O.1.57.36 The number of schools in

31
Gentry women seemed mostly to have owned liturgical and devotional works, but there is also evidence that
women owned romances and other literary works. Carol M. Meale and Julia Boffey, “Gentlewomen‟s Reading,” in
CHBB, vol. III, 526-540; John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 12-22.
32
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 35.
33
C.M. Woolgar, Household Accounts from Medieval England, vol. 1, Introduction, Glossary, Diet Accounts (i)
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 227-229.
34
Michael J. Bennett, “Education and Advancement,” in Fifteenth-century Attitudes, 82.
35
Orme, Medieval Schools, 362.
36
See pp. 79-80.
 107

England was steadily increasing in the fifteenth century and as a gentry family the Haldenbys

would have had the means to go beyond the local grammar school if they so desired. Gentry

families might send their children to Cambridge or Oxford to be taught by the grammar masters

there, or they might send them to be taught in a local noble‟s household.37 More immediate

evidence of the Haldenby‟s schooling can be seen on folio 127v: a list of Latin words from the

works of the fifteenth-century grammarian John Leylond with interlinear English translations.

The growing number of schools in England created more readers, which in turn created a

greater demand for practical books containing medical and scientific texts.38 There was sub-set

of the gentry who were part of this demand. The aforementioned Robert Thornton is just one

example of this trend among the gentry.39 Other examples include a gentry family in Devon

(either the Chalons of Chalonsleigh or the Bamfields of Poltimore) who owned Oxford, Bodleian

Library, Douce MS 291, which contains a Middle English lapidary; The Boke of Marchalsi, a

treatise on veterinary medicine and horse breeding; and a Middle English copy of Vegetius‟s De

re militari.40 The Stapletons of Suffolk owned Princeton University Library, Garrett MS 141,

which is similar in composition to TCC O.1.57; it contains treatises on physiognomy,

chiromancy, the phases of the moon, prognostications for the year, and John Metham‟s Amoryus

and Cleopes.41 London, British Library, Royal MS 17 A.VIII, a fourteenth-century copy of the

Liber de diversis medicinis, was owned by Sir John Fastolfe in the fifteenth century and contains

37
Jeremy Catto, Jan Ziolkowski, and M. Twomey, “University and Monastic Texts,” in CHBB, vol. II, 1100-1400,
232; J.B. Trapp, “Literacy, Books and Readers,” in CHBB, vol. III, 31-43; Bennett, “Education and Advancement,”
79-86; Orme, Medieval Schools, 232-3.
38
Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223.
39
See chapter one, pp. 85-87.
40
Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223. The lapidary has been edited in J. Evans and M.S. Serjeantson, eds., English Mediaeval
Lapidaries, English Early Texts Society, vol. 190 (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1933), 17-
37.
41
Ian R. Johnson, “John Metham, Amoryus and Cleopes: Prologue and Ending,” in The Idea of the Vernacular: An
Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, et al. (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 50-51.
 108

recipes and charms that he and others in his circle (like John Gloucester, an exchequer clerk)

added.42 These manuscripts illustrate the growing interest in the sorts of texts that the Haldenbys

owned that was a consequence of the growth of education and literacy in the fifteenth century. It

meant that the Haldenbys could show off their status through the medical and scientific texts that

they copied.

TCC O.1.57 is not an extraordinary manuscript. Far from it; it is a typical example of the

medical and scientific books that proliferated in the later Middle Ages.43 This is why it is worth

studying. The more that we study the contents, contexts, and owners of unassuming manuscripts

the better we will understand medieval society. Looking at how the various scribes used TCC

O.1.57 will help us understand their mindset. Central to this approach are the charms and natural

magic in TCC O.1.57. What magic texts they copied and how they were used are key to

unlocking the attitudes of the Haldenby scribes towards magic and what place magic had in

establishing their position in the world. Therefore, the following section will examine the

contents of TCC O.1.57 and set out the manuscript context for the magic texts.

The Texts in Context

The first fifteenth-century texts in TCC O.1.57 are the genealogical entries written by Hand A.

As I noted above, these texts consist of birth and death notices for the Haldenby family (folios

4ar, 1v, 2r, 3v, 4r) and obits for the two John Mortemers (folio 4r), and their family tree (folio

129r). There is also a family tree for an as yet unidentified family and a record of a court case

involving William Haldenby (folio 129r). The Haldenbys and Mortemers had intermarried so it

is not surprising to find notices about the Mortemers here. Genealogies were often used to show

42
Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 221.
43
See Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 345-402.
 109

family pride and establish pedigree.44 Given the nature of the gentry and their reliance on

establishing ties amongst each other, the family tree would have been a way for the Haldenbys to

demonstrate their collective ties with the local gentry families as well as the longevity of these

ties.45 These entries are therefore an important instrument for investigating the identity put forth

by the family. The inclusion of these records was done with the knowledge that a family

notebook like this one would have been read by others in the community.46 Some of these

entries would have ostensibly been one of the first texts seen by a reader and would have served

as a subtle reminder of who the owners were.

Following the first set of genealogical entries are the calendrical materials (folios 1r-10r),

written by Hand B, which are comprised of a calendar, a table of eclipses of the sun and moon,

tables of dominical letters, the phases of the moon, and the length of shadows; there is also a

compotus manualis (folios 21r-31v) that was written by Hand E. Calendars and related material

were ubiquitous in medieval books.47 The division of the liturgical year and the date of feast

days were essential knowledge for anyone in medieval society. The compotus manualis would

have been useful in this regard because it provided instructions on how to discover the date of

Easter and other movable feasts using the hands and fingers. The astrological tables in TCC

O.1.57 are of the sort that became popular in England in the fourteenth century.48 They are

44
This was done in a psalter owned by Beatrice Cornburgh, John Shirley‟s sister-in-law. Coss, Origins, 55, 272;
Meale, “Patrons, Buyers and Owners,” in BPPB, 215; Meale, “Politics of Book Ownership,” 103-131. Margaret
Connolly, John Shirley: Book Production and the Noble Household in Fifteenth-century England (Aldershot, UK:
Ashgate, 1998), 114.
45
The Mortemer family tree extends as far back as Sir Robert de Pavely, who was assize justice six times in the late
thirteenth century and one of the few Northampton royalists during the Second Barons‟ War of 1264-1267. Coss,
Origins, 155.
46
Such as what happened among the Paston family and their circle in the late fifteenth century. Peter Coss,
“Aspects of Cultural Diffusion in Medieval England: The Early Romances, Local Society and Robin Hood,” Past &
Present 108 (1985): 54-55.
47
Faith Wallis, “Medicine in Medieval Calendar Manuscripts,” in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine, 111,
113.
48
Boudet, Entre science, 327.
 110

largely based on the influences of the moon on the world. The tables would have been useful not

only for their immediate calendrical purposes, but also for the proper timing of the medical

material that follows these tables, especially the Zodiac and Phlebotomy Men, discussed below,

that were copied by the same scribe (Hand B).

Most of the medical texts appear in the first half of the manuscript. These are texts on

bloodletting (folios 10v-16v), copied by Hand B; and the following texts copied by Hand F: the

Serpentium corius, a group of magical and non-magical experiments using snakeskin (folios 69r-

70r); texts on the virtues of plants and animals (folios 71r-76vr), which include a number of

items of natural magic; and Middle English medical recipes and charms (folios 20r, 76v-80v). In

the latter half of the manuscript there is a treatise on the houses of the moon (folios 84v-95r),

copied by Hand G, and two short recipes for worms in the teeth (folio 127r), copied by Hand I.

The medical texts in TCC O.1.57 cover two branches of medieval medical practice. The

first branch uses the natural properties of plants, stones, and animals. This branch is of course

most prevalent in the treatises on the virtues of plants and animals, as well as in the Serpentium

coris and the medical recipes. As I wrote in chapter one, this branch of medical knowledge is

often found in texts on virtues and with natural magic due to their mutual reliance on occult

virtues. These properties could be used to combat sickness and improve health and well-being,49

such as the use of betony mixed with mint as a cure for stomach-ache.50

The second branch of medicine in TCC O.1.57 is astrologically based, although there is

some overlap with the first branch. Both branches of medical practice assume a macrocosmic

and microcosmic relationship between the heavenly and earthly spheres. With this second

branch cures and treatments rely on the proper astrological timing. Only certain days and times

49
Kieckhefer, Magic, 13.
50
Folio 71v: “Item, betonica et menta frequentate mira stomacum comfortant” [Likewise, betony and mint
frequently comfort the stomach wonderfully]
 111

were fortuitous for bloodletting or for applying remedies. Some of the Middle English recipes

require that they be performed at certain times such as the recipe for a “marvelus oyle” (folios

79v-80r) that should be let to stand from the Assumption of Mary (August 15th) to the nativity of

Mary (September 8th).51 Likewise, the virtues of plants are often dependent on the time of year

as well, such as the entry on the lily (folio 73v), which advises the reader that if the plant appears

when the sun is in Leo, it should be collected in order to make a mixture to prevent someone

from sleeping or to relieve a fever.52 The astrological tables that make up a portion of the

calendrical texts would have been used in combination with the texts on bloodletting that

accompanied the illustrations of the Zodiac and Phlebotomy Men (folios 10v and 16v). These

figures are common in texts of bloodletting and are often found paired together because of their

reliance on the influence of the planets and houses of the zodiac.53 Both of the TCC O.1.57

51
Folios 79v-80r: “To make marvelus oyle ¶ Take henbane wit al þo rote or þo sunne go to rest and fil þer with a
nwe pot mad of erþe with þo same herbe and þan couer þat pot with a turfe and take an oþer pot and set wnder nethe
hit and make a lytul hole on þo ower pot bothum and do hom boþe vnder þo erþo (sic) and lat hom stond fro þo
assumciwn of our ladi tyl þo nativite of owre Lady with out remunyge tyl hy mes be don and þan take vp þo pot and
þo schalt fynde oyle þer inne and þat oyle is good for al maner of gowt and hit is good for almaner of suellyng and
for ranklyng and for lepur and hit is good for woundys. and hit is good for al maner of confeccionis and þys oyle
may not be mad but by twene þyse .ij. fests of owre lady” [To make a marvellous oil. ¶ Take henbane with all the
root before the sun sets and fill therewith a a new earthenware pot with the same herb and then cover that pot with a
piece of turf and take another pot and set underneath it and make a little hole on the bottom of the upper pot and
place them both under the earth and let them stand from the Assumption of our Lady until the nativity of our Lady
without removing it until after High Mass, and then take up the pot and you shall find oil inside it and that oil is
good for all manner of gout and it is good for all manner of swelling and for sores and for leprosy and it is good for
wounds; and it is good for all manner of medicine and this oil may not be made except between these two feasts of
our Lady.]
52
Folio 73v: “Et alia herba que vocatur lilium et, si sole existente in leone, colligeris et cum succo lauri miscueris.
deinde sub aliquo fimo succum illum posueris fient vermes de quibus. fiat puluis et ponatur circa collum alicuius aut
in vestimentis et numquam dormire poterit donec deponatur. et si cum predicto lac vaccarum miscueris statim
ducetur ad febrem” [And [there is] another herb which is called lily and, if, when the sun is rising in Leo, you collect
it and mix it with the juice of the laurel, and then you should place that juice under some dung; worms will appear.
Make a powder of those [worms] and let it be placed around someone‟s neck or in [their] clothes and he will never
be able to sleep until it is removed. If you mix the aforesaid mixture with cow‟s milk, he will at once be brought into
a fever.]
53
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 373.
 112

figures relay information on the proper times for bloodletting according to the zodiac. The

calendrical materials were their companions to guarantee the correct outcome.54

In amongst these medical materials are several recipes for glues and inks and pigments

(folios 17r-19r) – the only texts copied by Hand C. Some of these are the practical sorts of

recipes found in medieval household books.55 The recipes found in TCC O.1.57 are

representative of the kinds of utilitarian texts that were used in the medieval household. They

also demonstrate the communal aspect of the manuscript. Somewhere along the line, a member

of the household found a copy of these short, useful texts and took the opportunity to copy them

down for the benefit of the household.

The scientific treatises make up the latter portion of TCC O.1.57. These are a work on

siphons (folios 81r-84v), two works on physiognomy (folios 95v-110v), and a treatise on

chiromancy (folios 110v-118v). Like several of the texts already discussed, these texts use a

specialised Latin vocabulary and assume a knowledge of other subjects. The text on siphons

(copied by Hand G), for example, which details various procedures for the distillation of alcohol,

requires a background in mathematics and geometry in order to understand how the described

apparatus operate. As a means of setting the Haldenby‟s identity, these texts emphasise not only

their interest in scientific material, but the education of their scribes as well. By including such

technical texts, these scribes assert their intellectual abilities. The treatise on siphons especially,

because of its technical language, is not an easily accessible text, although its ultimate purpose

(the distillation of alcohol) could have been put to practical use on a manor.

Physiognomy used the features of the face and the general aspect of his or her body to

describe a person‟s personality: a ruddy complexion, for instance, indicates someone was born at

54
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 373; Harry Bober, “The Zodiacal Miniature of the „Tres Riches Heures‟
of the Duke of Berry – Its Sources and Meaning,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948): 23.
55
Olsan, “Verbal Healing,” 136; Peter Murray Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” in CHBB, vol. III, 460.
 113

a lucky time.56 Bartholomew of Messina was the first to translate a physiognomy text from

Greek into Latin around 1260. Physiognomy was attributed to Aristotle and became widespread

because of its inclusion in the popular Secretum secretorum.57 Michael Scot defended

physiognomy as a science of nature and it was studied at the University of Paris as part of natural

philosophy.58 The physiognomy texts in TCC O.1.57 are a pseudo-Aristotelian text from the

aforementioned Secretum secretorum (folios 95v-106r) and a shorter anonymous treatise on

physiognomy (folios 106r-110v), both of which were written by Hand H. The first includes a

brief introduction defending and explaining physiognomy before expounding the hidden

meanings in the face and body. It starts at the head and proceeds down the body, outlining what

a person‟s hair colour, complexion, voice, and so on signify for a person‟s character. The

pseudo-Aristotelian text repeatedly makes reference to Aristotle and his supposed views on

whatever aspect the text is focusing on at that point. The second physiognomy proceeds in much

the same fashion, but without the references to Aristotle and without getting beyond the features

of the face and head.

Chiromancy is closely related to physiognomy. Chiromancy narrowed the focus from

physiognomy‟s analysis of the entire person to scrutinise the lines and points on a person‟s

hands. Because of the closeness between these texts chiromancy often accompanies

physiognomy in manuscripts.59 The origins of chiromancy are unknown; the earliest mentions of

chiromancy in England are from the mid-twelfth century and bears little similarity to the earlier

traditions.60 Around eighty manuscripts containing chiromancies survive, mostly from the

56
Folio 64r: “Color autem rubeus bonam natiuitatem” [the colour red [indicates] a fortunate nativity]
57
HMES II, 267.
58
Boudet, Entre science, 114, 336.
59
Charles Burnett, “The Earliest Chiromancy in the West,” in Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages (Aldershot,
UK: Variorum, 1996), 191, n. 15.
60
Burnett, Supplement to “Earliest Chiromancy,” 4.
 114

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.61 The TCC O.1.57 chiromancy begins with a brief

explanation of how the lines of a person‟s hand can tell of present and future things because they

are signs from God, just as in physiognomy. It then explains what each of the lines indicates,

such as faithfulness or irascibility, depending on length and position on the hand.

Physiognomy and chiromancy were sometimes criticized for being a form of divination,

but on the whole they avoided criticism in part because they were also associated with the

twelfth and thirteenth century Arabic translation projects.62 The 1493 Kalender of Shepherdes,

for example, described chiromancy as a science.63 In addition, both physiognomy and

chiromancy defended themselves by claiming they were using natural signs from God.64 As with

the medical texts, the theory behind the practice was that the heavenly macrocosm was

imprinting signs on the human microcosm. The introduction to the chiromancy of TCC O.1.57,

for example, defends itself as a natural science because God displays our personalities in the

lines of our hands by means of the influence of the stars and planets.

Two of the missing works fall under the scientific heading as well: the Tractatus

algorismi and the Tractatus de cautelis algorismi, both of which would have been mathematical

treatises. The Tractatus algorismi was probably a copy of the fourteenth-century Tractatus

algorismi by Jacopo da Firenze or something similar to it.65 This was a work on algebra that

included the rules for solving equations (such as the multiplication of binomials or finding roots)

and provides sample problems with their solutions.66 The Tractatus de cautelis algorismi may

61
Paul Acker and Eriko Amino, “The Book of Palmistry,” in Popular and Practical Science, 145.
62
Kieckhefer, Magic, 181; Burnett, “Earliest Chiromancy,” 189-190; Acker and Amino, “Palmistry,” 144.
63
Burnett, “Earliest Chiromancy,” 189-191; Acker and Amino, “Palmistry,” 144-146; Boudet, Entre science, 115,
333-334.
64
Acker and Amino, “Palmistry,” 145.
65
For a description and edition of this text see Jens Høyrup, ed. and trans., Jacopo de Florentia, Tractatus algorismi
(1307), The Chapter on Algebra (Roskilde: Filosofi og Videnskabsteori På Roskilde Universitetscenter, 1999).
66
Høyrup, Jacopo de Florentia, 1.
 115

have been the same treatise as the de cautelis algorismi found in a fourteenth-century

mathematical manuscript, which seems to have been read as part of university studies.67 If so,

these texts are further evidence of the Haldenby‟s intellectual pursuits and their interest in highly

technical academic works.

The last of the texts now missing from TCC O.1.57 was a copy of the Spera pictagore, a

Pythagorean circle used for determining the length and severity of an illness. To do this one first

adds together numbers corresponding to the letters in the patient‟s name; then one adds numbers

corresponding with certain lunar and planetary components, the age of the moon at the access

(start) of the illness, and the illness and the number of the weekday on which the access

occurred. One then divides this number by thirty (i.e., the days in the lunar cycle) and the

remainder is matched to a column in the circle to determine the outcome and duration of the

disease.68

Prognosticatory texts like the Spera pictagore are a common feature of late medieval

medical and scientific books.69 Like physiognomy and chiromancy, the authors of

prognosticatory texts justified their use because they were deciphering natural signs from God,

although that did not stop the texts‟ condemnation in Canon Law.70 Weather prognostications

67
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 141, folios 35-37. See Barnabas B. Hughes, “‛De regulis
generalibus‟: a Thirteenth-Century English Mathematical Tract on Problem Solving,” Viator 11 (1980), 214; M.R.
James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Vol. 1, Nos. 1-354
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907), 155.
68
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 360; Linda Ehrsam Voigts, “The Latin verse and Middle English Prose
Texts on the Sphere of Life and Death in Harley 3719,” The Chaucer Review 21:2 (1986): 294; Carole Rawcliffe,
Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud, Gloucestershire: A. Sutton, 1995), 100; Láng, Unlocked
Books, 130-131.
69
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 347-348.
70
“Qui…per Pitagoricam nigromantiam egrotantium uitam uel mortem, uel prospera uel aduersa futura inquirunt,
siue qui adtendunt somnialia scripta, et falso in Danielis nomine intitulata…sciant, se fidem Christianam et
baptismum prevaricasse, et paganum, et apostatam, id est retro abeuntem et Dei inimicum, iram Dei grauiter in
eternum incurrisse, nisi ecclesiastica penitencia emendatus Deo reconcilietur.” [Those who…through Pythagorean
necromancy search for the life or death of people who are sick, or for prosperous or adverse future things, or who
pay attention to dreambooks written down and entitled with the false name of Daniel…let them know that they have
committed a crime against the Christian faith and against baptism, and that, pagan and apostate (that is, going
 116

were especially common and they eventually developed into the almanac we are familiar with

today.71 Their presence in religiously conservative books like the commonplace book of Robert

Reynes (discussed in chapter one) demonstrates the pervasiveness of prognostication.72 The

prognostications by thunder on folios 70r-70v of TCC O.1.57 are a standard text of this genre.

The text goes through each month, beginning in March and ending in February, and gives a brief

forecast for the year. For example, if it thunders in April, “oues moncium prosperabunt in vallis

deficient vinum (sic) et bestie multiplicabuntur” [the sheep of the mountains will prosper, the

vines in the valleys will fail, and the beasts will multiply].73

The last prognosticatory text is a copy of the Somniale danielis (folios 119r-124r), which

was copied by Hand H. The Somniale danielis was the most common type of dream book in the

Middle Ages.74 The earliest copy of this book of dream interpretations is a fourth-century Greek

version and it eventually found its way into Old and Middle English, Old Icelandic, Welsh, Irish,

German, French, and Italian. It is known in Europe from at least the ninth century in two

versions (a and b). Lawrence Martin has noted 73 extant manuscripts containing copies of one

or the other versions of the Somniale danielis across Europe.75 The TCC O.1.57 copy has a

backward and hostile to God), [they have] gravely incurred the ire of God for eternity – unless, corrected by
ecclesiastical penitence, [they] will be reconciled to God.], Gratian‟s Decretum, Part 2, case 26, question 7, chapter
16. Quoted in Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 13.
71
Almanacs were among the most popular early printed materials. Peter Murray Jones, “Medicine and Science,” in
CHBB, vol. II, 438-440: Stephen Wilson, The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe
(London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2000), 52, 55.
72
Louis, Commonplace Book, 169-170, 312-315.
73
These were not set texts. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 939, folio 13v in comparison states,
“Aprilis. Humidum et fructosum annum et mortem minuorum hominum” [April. A humid and fruitful year and the
death of lesser men]. Boudet, Entre science, Plate XII.
74
There were three types of dream prognostication. The other two types disregard the contents of the dreams. One
takes its meaning from the first letter of the alphabet that one sees in an open book. The other takes its meaning
from the phase of the moon in which the dream occurred. 73 manuscripts containing the Somniale danielis survive,
in comparison to 13 manuscript copies of dream alphabets and 20 copies of the Latin version of the dream lunar.
Kruger, Dreaming, 10-11.
75
Additionally, there were 28 Latin, three German, two French, and four Italian incunabular editions. Martin,
Somniale Danielis, 60-62; Boudet, Entre science, 341; Kruger, Dreaming, 11.
 117

mixture of the two versions that lists 324 dream-types in alphabetical order. It begins with a

shortened b prologue that describes the text as interpretations made by God through Daniel.76

Each dream-type, such as “capturing birds,” is listed on a separate line and the meaning,

“wealth,” follows.

Dream books like this one attributed their authorship to the Biblical Joseph or Daniel in

order to add authority to their contents. However, although the interpretations of dreams by

Daniel and Joseph in the Old Testament were taken as true visions from God, medieval dream

books were viewed with mistrust as possible demonic deceptions. For example, John of

Salisbury condemned the use of dream books, but he also believed in the God-given dream

interpretations of Daniel and Joseph. Even individuals who composed dream books did not

believe all dreams to have divine origins.77 Despite this ambivalence and official opposition in

Canon Law,78 the genre remained popular in the Middle Ages.79

The last set of texts to consider come at the end of the manuscript. These last five folios

of TCC O.1.57 are a jumbled mass of texts. There are no headings and the texts follow closely

on each other. Apart from the genealogical entries that are on folios 129r, this section comes

across more as an ad hoc book of secrets than anything else. Here one finds magic tricks, the

charm to catch a thief, instructions for a game, trick ink recipes, and an incomplete text titled the

Tricks of Solomon. This last work consists only of a few gunpowder recipes and headings

promising marvellous entertainments such as making a loaf of bread dance across a table. Based

on the little text we have it bears some relation to books of experiments like the Eighty-Eight

Natural Experiments of Rasis, the Liber ignium ad comburendos hostes by Marcus Grecus, and

76
Martin, Somniale Danielis, 10, 47, 69.
77
Kruger, Dreaming, 15-16.
78
See above, n. 70.
79
Kruger, Dreaming, 11-13, 15.
 118

the Secretum Philosophorum.80 Like the Tricks of Solomon, books of experiments offer the

practitioner the ability to create such marvels as invisible writing, a candle that burns in water,

and a ring that will jump when placed near a fire. Many of theses experiments rely on the

incendiary nature of substances like quicklime and saltpetre.81 The point of these experiments is

to create the illusion of magical forces at work while taking advantage of the natural properties

of things. There is some overlap with the texts on virtues and the Serpentium coris, and there is

in fact a connection between these kinds of texts, which will be explored in more depth in the

next section.

The texts of TCC O.1.57 show a range of interests from the strictly utilitarian recipes for

inks and glues to the technical treatise on the siphoning of liquids to the common, but

questionably orthodox, works on physiognomy, chiromancy, and divination. This is the sort of

eclecticism seen in other gentry-owned books like Douce 291. This is indicative of the wide-

ranging tastes of the gentry in the fifteenth century and illustrates the variety of texts with which

magic can be found. What I hope this examination of the contents of TCC O.1.57 has shown is

that the Haldenby family were interested in texts that gave them a special knowledge, or at least

the appearance of such, whether that was with technical texts using complex Latin or texts of

virtues and magic tricks. As I turn now to focus on the magic texts, this is an important point to

keep in mind, and it will have bearing on how these texts have been incorporated into the

manuscript.

Charms, Natural Magic, and Secrets in TCC O.1.57

Three scribes (Hands A, F, and J) have copied the magic texts that appear in TCC O.1.57. Each

hand contributes its own idiosyncrasies in the placement and presentation of these texts. Some

80
Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 76-86; HMES II, 792-793. See Pierre Berthelot‟s edition of the Liber ignium in La
chimie au moyen âge, vol. I (Paris 1893; repr., Osnabrück: Otto Zeller and Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1967), 100-135.
81
HMES II, 792-793.
 119

items have been wholly integrated into non-magical texts; others are isolated or are squeezed in

the margins. Their purposes range from the practical to the entertaining. The variety of contexts

and uses of magic texts exemplify the two-sided approach that underlies the identity constructed

by the Haldenbys. In the following examination of the magic in TCC O.1.57, both aspects – the

“marvellous and practical”82 – will come to light.

The charm to stop a fire is the first charm in TCC O.1.57 that an attentive reader will find

tucked in sideways in the outer margin on the page of the calendar for February (folio 1v) along

with the epithet of Saint Agatha.83 The one line charm, copied by Hand A, instructs the user to

write down a phrase on a slip of paper and throw it on a fire: “pro igne sessandi (sic) scribatur ad

euangelium in festo sancte Agathe et iactatur super ignem” [for a fire to be held back it [should

be] written for the Gospel on the feast of Saint Agatha and thrown on the fire.] Saint Agatha was

the patron saint against fire, lightning, and volcanic eruptions and her feast day is February fifth,

which explains the charm‟s appearance in February.84 The charm has been squeezed onto the

edges of the page by the birth notice for William Haldenby, which fills up the bottom of the

page. The slight corruption of the text may indicate a misreading while copying or a mishearing

during oral transmission. Like the medical charms that are discussed below, the fire charm is

typical of the practical, ordinary side to magic that can be seen in this manuscript.

Most of the magic texts in TCC O.1.57 were copied by one scribe – Hand F – who copied

the Serpentium coris, the thunder prognostications, the treatises on virtues, and the medical

82
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 44.
83
The epithet, “+ Mentem scanctam (sic) spontaneum honorem deo et patrie liberacionem” [The holy mind, honour
freely [given] to God and the liberation of the country], was a motto that was found on stained glass, encaustic tiles,
and bells in the late Middle Ages. See Llewellynn Jewitt, “A Paper on Encaustic Tiles,” Transactions of the Exeter
Diocesan Architectural Society 4 (1853): 84; G.C. Dunning, “Late Medieval Jugs With Lettering,” Medieval
Archaeology 11 (1967): 240.
84
J.P. Kirsch, “St. Agatha,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907), accessed
February 15, 2010, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01203c.htm; Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae Cursus
Completus. Series Latina, vol. 17, Sancti Ambrosii, mediolanensis episcopi, opera omnia (Migne, 1879), 1250.
 120

recipes and charms. This scribe has copied three medical charms preceding the medical recipes

(folios 76v-77r): to treat a sore, a Tres boni fratres charm to staunch blood, and a charm for

sleep. As the survey in chapter one showed, these charm types are very common in the

manuscript record and this emphasises the ordinary nature of these charms. This ordinariness is

an important facet of the medical charms in TCC O.1.57. Unlike the natural magic that Hand F

copied, there is less of the marvellous about the medical charms and more of the practical. Their

source of power may be just as wondrous as natural magic, but the pragmatic and utilitarian

nature of the charms is at the forefront. This can be seen in the way that the charms are

integrated with the medical recipes. The charms immediately precede the medical recipes and

are decorated in the same manner as the recipes: crosses and capitals are highlighted in red;

borders around headings have been done in red ink; and paraphs alternate red and blue. In

addition, the charms were originally labelled as charms. The charm for a sore began with the

heading “<A charme> for þo felun” and the sleep charm ended with “Þis is <a charme> for a

man þat may not slepe.” However, at some point all references to charm were carefully scraped

off and now these headings are only visible under UV light. All of these factors combine to

reinforce the role of the medical charms as practical and, above all, ordinary texts within the

manuscript and by extension, the role of the charms as ordinary texts in the lives of the

Haldenbys.

Before I move on to the natural magic copied by Hand F, there is one significant aspect

about the sleep charm that should be noted. Charms for sleep were fairly common in the

fifteenth century, with twelve surviving examples.85 However, the particular motif used in TCC

O.1.57 is unique. To date I have found no other examples of this particular charm. All other

known charms for sleep use the “+ ysmael + ysmael + ysmael” motif discussed in chapter one.

85
See chapter one, pp. 72-73.
 121

The TCC O.1.57 charm references the story of Jesus sleeping on the boat while a storm raged

around Him.86 It is a Latin prayer charm that asks for the intercession of Christ, the Seven

Sleepers, Mary, and all the holy martyrs:

¶ Domine ihesu christe qui sompno deditus in mari a discipulis tuis

exitari (sic) voluisti per intercestionem (sic) vij. dormiencium Maximani,
Malchi, Dyonisij, Martiniani, Constantini, Serapionis, Johannis fac
dormire famulum tuum .J. sompnolescens a sompno quod amisit; tibi et
sanctissime dei genitricis marie et hijs sanctis martiribus gentes conferat
nomini sancto tuo, quod est benedictum in secula seculorum. amen. Þis is
<a charme> for a man þat may not slepe

[¶ O Lord Jesus Christ, who given over to sleep on the sea, wished to be
aroused by your disciples, make your servant .J. fall asleep through the
intercession of the seven sleepers Maximanus, Malchus, Dyonisius,
Martinianus, Constantinus, Serapiones, Johannes, drowsy from the sleep
which was lost; let the peoples praise you, and most Holy Mary mother
of God with these holy martyrs, in your holy name, which is blessed
forever. Amen. This is a charm for a man that may not sleep.]
The appearance of a charm here that does not appear elsewhere offers a glimpse of a tradition or

motif that has not otherwise survived. This may point to evidence of oral transmission or of a

lost manuscript tradition. This charm serves as a reminder that there is still much about medieval

charms that is unknown and still undiscovered in manuscripts.

The rest of the magical material copied by Hand F is the natural magic in the various

texts on the virtues of plants and animals and the Serpentium coris. There was little to

differentiate between “natural” occult virtues and the powers of natural magic in the Middle

Ages and that view is clear in the way that natural magic is presented in TCC O.1.57. The

placement of the natural magic in this manuscript with the experiments and treatises on the

virtues of plants and animals is typical of other fifteenth-century examples of natural magic and

86
Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25.
 122

is representative of the medieval attitude towards natural magic. The various items of natural

magic are viewed with a degree of wonder because their root causes are mysterious; a lot of the

natural magic takes advantage of this wonder to promise fantastic results like the power of

invisibility or secret knowledge. However, these texts are also seen as part of everyday life

because of their association with natural wonders, and this can be seen in the way that many of

the items deal with problems of everyday life.

A few examples from the texts on virtues will serve to illustrate this point. Many of the

items offer medical cures, such as the advice on folio 76r that a headache can be cured by

carrying a mouse head in a linen cloth,87 or that celandine placed under the head of a sick person

can be used to determine whether or not he or she will live.88 These medical virtues and the

medical recipes bolster George Keiser‟s argument that the increase of gentry-owned medical and

scientific manuscripts in the fifteenth century was a sign that medicine was often in the hands of

the household.89 At the same time, these medical virtues strengthen the Haldenby‟s image as

owners of useful texts. This is further fortified by virtues that address other areas of everyday

life. One entry informs the reader that carrying the eye of a hoopoe in his purse will protect him

from fraud in the marketplace and ensure that he will come out ahead.90 There are numerous

items that promise to help bring a person favour and make them amiable around others, like the

heart of a kite, which will give the love and favour of all people to whomever carries it over his

87
Folio 76r: “caput muris in panno lineo suspensum et portatum abet (sic) dolorem capitis” [The head of a mouse
suspended and carried in a linen cloth will remove a headache]
88
Folio 72v: “et si predicta ponatur sub capite infirmi, si debiat (sic) mori clamabit alta voce, si non incipiet
lacrimari” [if the aforesaid is placed under the head of a sick person, if he is to die he will shout out loud, if not he
will begin to cry]
89
Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 223.
90
Folio 75r: “Et caput eius in bursa habueris non potes esse deseptus a mercatoribus, sed semper lucraberis” [And if
you have its head in a purse you will not be able to be deceived by merchants, but you will always make a profit.] A
similar version of this is found in HM 1336 and will be discussed in detail in chapter four.
 123

or her heart.91 Heliotrope can be used to find a thief; place it on your head before sleeping and

the thief‟s identity will be revealed in a dream.92 Snakeskin powder sprinkled on the head and

then covered in a linen cloth will do the same.93 These uses of natural magic reveal the fears and

concerns that affected medieval people in their day to day lives, and this is an aspect of magic

that will be seen in the following chapters as well. Moreover, these examples illuminate the

interweaving of magic with everyday life.

Natural magic is not entirely concerned with the practical concerns of everyday life, as I

wrote above. The forces behind these experiments were powerful and unknown, and many of

the natural magic experiments take advantage of this secrecy to build up a sense of wonder.

Parts of this can already be seen in the previous examples, such as through the use of hoopoe‟s

eyes for monetary protection. Other entries in the virtues and the Serpentium coris are more

explicit. The wing of a blackbird can be used to keep people out of a house and its head, if

placed under someone‟s pillow, will make a person reveal all their secrets while they sleep.94

The herb snakeroot will make red and green snakes appear when it is mixed with the juice of

trefoil.95 Place the herb houndstongue on the neck of a dog and it will turn about in circles until

91
Folio 75v: “Milluus est auis cuius, si caput accipiatur et feratur ante pectus, dat amorem et gratiam omnium
hominum et mulierum” [The kite is a bird [who], if its head is taken and carried before the heart, it gives the love
and favour of all men and women]
92
Folio 72r: “Et si aliquid tibi furetur, circum caput ponas et videbis furem et omnis condiciones eius in sompnis”
[And if something is stolen from you, place it around the head and you will see the thief and all his circumstances in
sleep.]
93
Folio 69v: “est hoc si aliquis de re aliqua furata scire voluerit, aspergat de puluere super caput suum et post
modum cooperiat caput suum cum capici lineo et vadat ad lectum et furem videbit sompinando” [if someone wishes
to know who stole something from someone, let him sprinkle the powder over his head and afterwards let him cover
his head with a linen covering and go to bed and he will see the thief when sleeping.]
94
Folio 76r: “Merula est auis, cuius si penne ale dextra suspendantur in medio domus cum filo rubio, numquam
poterit aliquis dormire donec deponatur. et si caput eius ponatur sub capite dormientis, et queratur ab eo aliquid
narrabit omnia que fecit alta voce” [The blackbird is a bird, [which] if its right wing is suspended in the middle of a
house with red thread, no one will be able to enter the house until it is removed. And if its head is placed under the
head of a sleeping person, he will tell everything that is asked of him, which he will do out loud.]
95
Folio 73r: “hec herba, cum succo trifolij mixta, generat serpentes rubeos et virides” [This herb, mixed with the
juice of trefoil, makes red and green snakes.]
 124

it falls down as if dead.96 These entries illustrate the creation of wonder that was fundamental in

natural magic. By copying texts that include these wonders, the scribe has added a layer to the

Haldenby‟s identity formation that is picked up again at the end of the manuscript in the ad hoc

book of secrets and the charm to catch a thief.

Part of this use of wonder and the Haldenby‟s identity is implicated in the last line of the

treatise on the virtues of animals on folio 76v, which reads, “Memorandum quod sunt multe hic

que sunt vere et multe que sunt false” [Remember that there are many of these which are true and

many which are false]. The implications are that not everyone will be able tell the difference and

that perhaps only those worthy (i.e., the Haldenbys) will be able to know. This hearkens back to

my earlier discussion of the non-magical texts in TCC O.1.57. The Haldenbys present an

identity that connects themselves to the gentry in a particular way that relies on works that

emphasise their education. The natural magic becomes a part of this by impressing the reader

with the Haldenby‟s knowledge of the secrets of nature and how to control the magical

properties of objects. This is also present in the ad hoc book of secrets at the end of the

manuscript and it is to this I turn now and the last charm to be discussed in this chapter.

The charm to catch a thief (folio 126v) is the only text that Hand J writes. The charm

uses a loaf of bread to identify a thief:

Item pro rebus ablatis. Recipe vnum panem et fac in parte inferiori ho[c]
signum [drawing of star]. quo facto recipe iij cultellos et infiges per
latera panis et primo primum dices, “Infigo te cultellum per patrem et
filium et spiritum sanctum vt demonstres mihi veritatem et non
falcitatem quis reus sit.” Ita vt toto isto tempore dictus panis pendat per
stimulum taliter factum [drawing of loaf hanging] inter digitos
diversorum hominum. Deinde scribe diuisim nomina de quibus habes

96
Folio 73v: “Et si predictam in collo alicuius canis posueris quod non posset ore attingere, semper vertet se in
circuitu ad modi rote volubile quousque cadat ad terram sicut mortuius (sic)” [And if you place the aforesaid on the
neck of some dog that it will not be able to touch [it] with its mouth, it will always turn itself in a circle like a
winding wheel right up until it falls to the ground as if dead.]
 125

suspectum rei ablate. Et cum scripceris (sic) accipies nomina singillatum

dicens in anglicis verbis, “I prey to god almyty fadur alweldyng sone and
stedfast holy gost os þo brake .v. lowves And .v. fyschys on schere
thursday and myraclys to þy desiplys gaf gyf grace þys lof to turne
aboute with þo gylty.” Et cum inposuerit (sic) nomen rei vertet se panis.

[Likewise, for stolen objects. Take a loaf of bread and make this sign on
the lower part [drawing of star]. When it is made take three knives [or,
pegs] and implant [them] through the sides of the bread and at the
beginning say first, “I affix you knife by the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit that you would show me the truth and not falseness who is
guilty.” Thus while speaking during that entire time the bread hangs by
means of the spur made in such a way [drawing of loaf hanging] between
the fingers of separate men. Then write separately the names of those
you suspect of stealing the object. And when you have written the names
you will take each one saying in English words, “I pray to God almighty
father, almighty son, and steadfast holy ghost as you broke the five
loaves and fishes on Maundy Thursday and gave the miraculous gift [of]
grace to your disciples [so] turn about this loaf with the guilty.” And
when the name is placed on top of it the loaf will turn itself.]
This is one of the five surviving examples of proactive thief charms from the fifteenth century.97

As the manuscript survey showed, defensive charms against thieves were far more common in

the written record. This example seems to be typical of the proactive charms. For example, two

court cases from fourteenth-century London concern men claiming to find a thief using a loaf of

bread in the same manner as TCC O.1.57. In 1375, John Porter of Clerkenwell prosecuted John

Chestre for failing to discover a thief. They agreed on a settlement but Chestre was sworn not to

use the art again. In 1382 Robert Berewold was charged with defamation and deceit by Johanna

Wolsy for accusing her of theft by the loaf of bread method. For his punishment he was put in

the pillory with the loaf of bread hung about his neck. He was also required to confess his crime

97
See chapter one, pp. 74-75.
 126

publicly at Mass in front of Johanna and her neighbours.98 Although few copies of these kinds of

charms survive, it is clear that it was not an uncommon route to take. Additionally, we have seen

similar operations above using heliotrope and snakeskin in the natural magic texts, which

indicate that perhaps this kind of magic was more common than the manuscript record shows.

The charm is set apart from the rest of the manuscript. The preceding folio was blank on

the verso side and the bottom half of the recto side was blank at the time of composition.99 This

seems to have been a conscious decision. It is possible that the charm was written here to fill up

blank space; however, I think it is more likely that it was placed here to attract attention and for

quick access. The mise-en-page of the thief charm reinforces this hypothesis. Some care was

clearly put into the copying of this charm. It is laid out on its own folio page in a script that is

clearer than many of the others in the manuscript and changes in duct and aspect signal the

beginning of the English prayer that is recited. Rubrication is used on the crosses and capital

letters and the two instructional diagrams have been outlined with red. There was originally an

elaborate heading below the charm that consisted of a face and scroll that read “Carmen pro

<furibus>” [Charm for thieves], although the heading, like those for the medical charms, has

since been erased and is now only partially visible under UV light.

The text of the charm supports this theory as well. It requires that there be at least two

people present during the operation (to hold the knives inserted into the loaf of bread). This

public aspect of the charm is important. Secrecy was sometimes encouraged in magic texts: it

was supposed to give power in addition to keeping the ritual safe from the wrong people.100

However, in practice openness and multiple participants are more often the norm. Magic texts

98
Davies, Cunning-Folk, 2-3.
99
Folio 125v was later written on by the sixteenth-century hand (K) with recipes for conception.
100
For example, the prologue to the Liber sacer states that no more than three copies of it should exist at once and
that these copies should only be passed down from master to apprentice, lest they fall into the wrong hands and the
knowledge contained be disseminated. Hedegård, Liber iuratus Honorii, 61.
 127

sometimes require a young apprentice such as the instructions for a necromantic divination in

Robert Reynes‟s book.101 Charms and other magic rituals will often require multiple masses said

over a book or herbs, which presumes the involvement of a priest.102 Many charms assume an

audience such as when medical charms are recited over the sick. The need for multiple

participants brings magic into the public gaze. In these magic texts secrecy becomes a literary

trope, not a reality.

Much ink has been spilled discussing the use of language in magic.103 Latin was

supposed to be reserved for the words of power. As the language of the Church it was

automatically imbued with a level of holiness that was not found in the vernacular. This holiness

was perhaps meant to increase the power and efficacy of the incantation.104 In general, charms

followed these guidelines and so they are often a mixture of English, Latin, and French.105 In

macaronic charms, Olsan argues that each language serves different functions: the instructions

are in the vernacular and the incantations are in Latin.106

Given this belief in the power of Latin, one would expect to find all the incantations or

prayers of the macaronic charms in TCC O.1.57 to be written in Latin; however, that is not the

case. The charm to catch a thief reverses the expected order: the instructions are in Latin and the

101
Louis, Commonplace Book, 169-170. See chapter one, p. 82.
102
The Liber consecrationum, a ritual used in necromancy, requires multiple masses said over it. Anglo-Saxon
medical charms often instruct the user to have masses said over various herbal concoctions. FR, 9.
103
See for example, FR; Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Century England (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), 179; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars,
221; Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 29-35; Jean-Patrice Boudet and Julien Véronèse, “Le secret dans la magie
rituelle médiévale,” Micrologus 14 (2006): 101-150; Béatrice Delaurenti, La puissance des mots = Virtus verborum:
débats doctrinaux sur le pouvoir des incantations au Moyen Âge (Paris: Cerf, 2007); Robert W. Scribner, “The
Reformation, Popular Magic, and the „Disenchantment of the World,‟” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23:3
(1993): 475-94; and by extension, M. T. Clanchy‟s discussion of the role of the written word in medieval society in
From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307 (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993).
104
For similar reasons Hebrew and Chaldean (or gibberish purporting to be these languages) were used in ritual
magic texts.
105
French charms tapered off as the use of Middle English as a literary language spread. Olsan, “Language of
Charms,” 30; Smallwood, “Transmission,” 15.
106
Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 30.
 128

prayer/incantation to be said over the loaf of bread is in English.107 This seems more in line with

Lea Olsan‟s remark that “it seems worth considering that the Latin employed in the charms

might have had the same weight and feel to the scribe as the vernacular; that is, the two

languages functioned neutrally toward one another, even though each one could play identifiable

roles.”108 It stands to reason that if the writer viewed Latin as interchangeable with English, then

it made no difference which language was used for each section of the charm. In the case of the

Haldenbys they had a good knowledge of Latin and might be inclined to give English and Latin

equal weight.

Päiva Pahta has argued that switching between languages in macaronic texts could be

used as an organisational tool and to “enhance the power and efficacy of the words;”109 however,

Latin could also be used as a demonstration of one‟s education. It could be used as a source of

power and authority, but not necessarily so. For example, the charm for a sore has an English

heading, but the charm and instructions are in Latin. Nevertheless, I think it is significant that

Latin, the non-native language, would be used for the instructions. It may not be that Latin is

holy, but that it represents book learning. Putting the instructions in Latin will naturally exclude

some people from being able to use the charm properly. In much the same way that the non-

magical texts of the manuscript highlight the Haldenby‟s level of learning, the use of Latin here

may have been another way for the scribes to show off.

The charm to catch a thief is located at the end of the manuscript, among the texts copied

by Hand I that make up the ad hoc book of secrets. The location of the charm to catch a thief

among these texts associates the charm with books of secrets and its connotations. As I have

107
Päiva Pahta, “Code-Switching in Medieval Medical Writing,” in Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval
English, ed. Irma Taavitsainen and Päiva Pahta (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 96, mentions this
anomaly in passing and provides examples of this reversal, but does not comment on it further.
108
Olsan, “Language of Charms,” 32.
109
Pahta, “Code-Switching,” 88.
 129

written above, and in chapter one, books of secrets and experiments built themselves up on the

pretence that they contain special, secret knowledge that only those worthy of it could

understand. The contents were often secondary to the air of authority associated with books of

secrets.110 This is not to completely disregard the recipes contained in the books of secrets.

They add to this perceived authority because they tend to be relatively obscure artisan recipes

such as for making pigments or metallurgical techniques or because they are parlour tricks that

appear to work through magical forces. All the excitement and mystique of performing magic is

there but without the danger associated with real magic. Even as parlour tricks for entertaining,

the very fact that only the practitioner understands how they work adds value to them. More

importantly, the ability to perform these tricks or techniques successfully was an important

component of wonder in the later Middle Ages.

The wonder created by the ad hoc book of secrets is reliant on another role: magic as

entertainment. The complete magic tricks (folio 127v) in TCC O.1.57 are clearly designed for an

audience. The first promises to make a house appear filled with water. It requires the reader to

bury a bird‟s egg in the road for three days; then to take the egg, break it in a dish, and soak a

string in the egg. To complete the trick the practitioner places the egg-soaked string around the

doorpost of the house.111 The second trick, to make fire run around a house, is less fantastic, but

110
Davies discusses this kind of portrayal of perceived knowledge through the ownership of magic books in the
early modern period in chapter five of Cunning-folk.
111
Folio 127v: “Ad faciendum domum apparere plenum aque: accipe ouum alice adyl pone in quadriuio per spacium
trium dierum et trium noctum sub terra, et tunc accipe ouum et frange in vase, et tunc accipe filum deplicatum et
madefac illum in ouo pone circa postem domus et sic apparebit” [To make a house appear full of water: take an egg,
garlic, [and] euphrasy, place in the crossroad for the space of three days and three nights under the earth and then
take the egg and break it in a dish and then take a string [that has been] doubled and soak it in the egg; place it
around the doorpost of the house and it will appear thus.]
 130

potentially more dangerous. To do this one takes incense in hand with a lit candle and casts it

around the house.112

The incomplete Tricks of Solomon (folios 128r-128v) continues this style of magic trick.

Many of the headings are for simple tricks using gunpowder, such as the trick to make fire fly

through the air like a dragon, or the trick to make clothing burn without damaging it.113 These

are easily managed using gunpowder, hence the gunpowder recipes that accompany this work.

However, a number of the headings are not so easily contrived. One of the headings in the

Tricks of Solomon promises to make robbers appear hanged in a house.114 One heading offers

knowledge of a woman‟s secrets and another to know whether a woman is a virgin or not.115

The tricks create a sense of wonder by the sleights of hand and the mastery of gunpowder and

occult virtues that are necessary for their successful performance.

These magic tricks have the same sort of relationship with wonder and wonders that was

seen with the virtues and natural magic. Hands I and J, the scribes of the thief charm and the

book of secrets, have carried on the use of wonder started by Hand F and expanded on it in the

texts that make up the ad hoc book of secrets. In both sets of texts wonder is an essential

element and, it could be argued, the primary goal for many of the individual items. Wonder is

important in these two sections of the manuscript as a component of entertainment and as a

means of elevating the owner of these texts in the reader‟s mind. As the reader is entertained by

112
Folio 127v: “Ad faciendum ignem currere circa domum accipe: encensum [sic] et mo<le> bene et pone in manu
tua cum candela illuminata et iacta circa domum et sic apparebit” [To make fire run around the house: take incense
and grind it well and place it in your hand with a lit candle and throw it around the house and it will appear thus.]
113
Folio 128r: “de igne volante in aiere (sic) ad modum draconis… Si vis facere pannum alicuius ardere sine
lesione” [on fire flying in the air in the manner of a dragon…If you wish to make someone‟s garment burn without
harm]. Similar recipes also appear in Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.2.45 (1149); London, British
Library, Royal MS 12 B.XXV; and London, British Library, Sloane MS 282. Singer, 632.
114
Folio 128v: “Vt domus in qua fueris videatur plena latronibus suspensis” [So that the house in which you are
seems to be filled with hanged robbers.]
115
Folio 128r: “Si vis vt mulier reuelat omnia secreta cordis sui. Si vis scire si mulier sit virgo an non” [If you wish
that a woman reveal all the secrets of her heart. If you wish to know if a woman is a virgin or not.]
 131

the various tricks and explanations of virtues, he or she is reminded of the elite knowledge that

the Haldenbys possess. Even the texts that might not immediately seem to be a part of the

family‟s identity shaping contribute to it in some way.

Throughout this chapter, the texts in TCC O.1.57 have been used in different ways to

reinforce the identity being created by the Haldenbys. The scribes of TCC O.1.57 use their texts

in a number of different ways to build up an identity that places the family within a specific sub-

set of the gentry. They use the genealogical entries to establish themselves as a gentry family

with connections to other local gentry families and as the owners of the manuscript. The medical

and scientific texts serve two purposes in this identity building. First, they are practical texts that

would have been useful for a gentry family to possess in the fifteenth century. This is

exemplified by the practical recipes for inks and glue that are so common in late medieval

English household books. Second, these texts are primarily in Latin and some use technical

Latin with a very specialized vocabulary. These technical texts also presume a base level of

knowledge that requires more education than one may have been able to acquire at the local

grammar school. Thus, these texts are practical, but also elite; they are useful for the household

and anyone else that might read the book, but some are restricted to those with the proper

knowledge to understand them. Inextricably tied in with these uses is the concept of wonder and

wonders and it is here that magic comes into play.

Like the medical and scientific texts, the magic in TCC O.1.57 is included because it can

be useful and is thus part of their day to day lives. It can be used to address the issues and

concerns of everyday existence and this is reflected in magic‟s integration within the manuscript.

However, magic also expands on the image of intellectual abilities through its employment of

wonder in the treatises of virtues and the ad hoc book of secrets. Magic‟s association with

wonder is used in this manuscript to highlight the intellectual superiority of the Haldenbys
 132

through the knowledge and manipulation of occult properties of objects and through the mastery

of magic tricks. Wonder and magic thus serve an important role in the Haldenby‟s identity

formation as an added enforcement of the intellectual capabilities exhibited by the rest of the

texts. Taken together then, the texts of TCC O.1.57 help confirm the Haldenby‟s standing within

the gentry and place them within a certain group of the gentry that was growing in fifteenth-

century England.
 133

Chapter 3
Dead Dogs and Frog Bones: The Recipe Collection of Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1435
Ashmole 1435, unlike the other manuscripts I examine in this dissertation, has no known author

or owner and seems to have been a personal notebook that was not intended for any other

audience but the original scribe. It is a quarto manuscript written in a very rough hand of the

fifteenth century. The majority of the manuscript is given over to practical and academic

medical texts; of interest to us are the first 32 pages of the book, which comprise a recipe

collection of over 180 items covering a wide range of topics. These recipes include charms,

natural magic, and items that seem to have a connection with necromancy, in addition to medical

and other non-magical items. Through these texts the anonymous scribe has created an identity

in Ashmole 1435 that reflects the anxieties and desires that underscore medieval constructions of

masculinity.

The identity that the anonymous scribe of Ashmole 1435 creates for himself is one that is

based on a quasi-clerical masculinity that draws on similar influences as the clerical masculinity

that Frank Klaassen elucidates in “Learning and Masculinity in Manuscripts of Ritual Magic of

the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance.” It is a masculinity that is focused on control –

especially over women – intellectual anxiety, and the desire for knowledge. The scribe of

Ashmole 1435 creates this identity in several different ways. The academic medical texts

provide the scribe with an intellectual outlet as well as serving practical goals. These texts are

divided into academic works and practical texts and recipes. They show someone who, while he

does not seem to have been a medical practitioner, had an extensive interest in medicine and

possibly some university training. Whereas the medical and scientific texts of TCC O.1.57 were

used to emphasise the Haldenby‟s place among the gentry, in Ashmole 1435 the medical texts

serve a practical purpose in addition to emphasising the scribe‟s learning.

 134

The magic in Ashmole 1435 supports the learned aspect of the scribe‟s identity, but also

adds different aspects that reflect the shifting nature of magic and the different facets of the

scribe‟s identity. The first way that this is done is through the ordinariness of magic in the

manuscript. Like TCC O.1.57, many of the magical items serve practical purposes in line with

the medical texts in the rest of the manuscript. Magical and non-magical texts intermingle in a

way that reflects the blurring of these two types of texts that was prevalent in the Middle Ages.

The second way this is done by a deliberate lessening of some of the more unorthodox or

transgressive elements of magic in a series of magical experiments that have had their ritual

elements stripped away to make them nearly indistinguishable from natural magic. The

connection with necromancy is especially important as it serves as a tangible link with the world

of clerical magic and its particular form of masculinity that is present in Ashmole 1435. The

reduction of the transgressive ties in with the second way that magic contributes to this scribe‟s

identity. In chapter two I mentioned the importance of magic as a form of entertainment and in

Ashmole 1435 the ludic quality of magic comes to the fore. The ludic magic of Ashmole 1435

overturns the normally serious purposes of magic and becomes jokingly transgressive, although

often in ways that seem cruel or misogynistic to a modern audience. These two aspects of magic

are merged in the scribe‟s quasi-clerical masculinity as Ashmole 1435 serves at one moment as a

practical guide or source of learning, and at the next moment it is a source of private delight.

This chapter will begin with a section on the construction of the book and an examination

of what information the scribe has left of his identity. This will be followed by an explanation of

some of the terminology that I use. Following that will be a discussion of the medical texts that

make up the bulk of the manuscript. Last, because the contents of this collection are much larger

and more varied than in any of the other manuscripts I look at in this dissertation, there is a brief

explanation of the categories of magic that appear in Ashmole 1435 and their place within the
 135

context of the manuscript. Once these areas have been addressed, and the necessary groundwork

established, the magic texts and their role in the formation of the scribe‟s identity can be properly

explored.

The Anonymous Scribe and the Construction of Ashmole 1435

The owner of Ashmole 1435 has left us only one small piece of evidence to his identity: a list of

the witnesses defending a woman‟s character in a defamation case in Leicester (page 305).

However, this only proves to us that he lived in or near Leicester at some point; the scribe might

not necessarily be any of the listed people.1 Unlike the other manuscript owners discussed in this

dissertation, the scribe of Ashmole 1435 did not need or want to broadcast his name and

ownership of his book. The lack of a name here does not necessarily indicate any shame or a

desire to hide his connections to the book, but perhaps merely a disinclination to label a book not

shown to others.2 This is an important part of the scribe‟s relationship with his book: Ashmole

1435 was very much a personal notebook that was probably not intended to be shared with others

and the physical presentation of the manuscript bears this out.

Ashmole 1435 is not an extravagant manuscript (see Appendix Three for a full

description of the manuscript). There is practically no decoration in the manuscript: only pages

258 to 267 use flourished initials, and a space has been left on page 53 for an initial S. There are

no illustrations and the hand is a very rough cursive that mixes Anglicana and Secretary features

that dates to the first three quarters of the fifteenth century.3 The scribe occasionally employs a

neater form of this cursive hand that is smaller and has a more formal duct and aspect for some

1
As of yet I have been unable to ascertain when this case occurred. The scribe only writes that it occurred on
February 13th in the reign of King Henry. Because there were three King Henrys in the fifteenth century it is
impossible to pinpoint this with any accuracy, although a modern hand has suggested Henry VII in the margin.
2
It is, after all, unusual to find the names of scribes or owners in manuscripts. See chapter one, pp. 78-79.
3
The proportion of Anglicana to Secretary features gives us this date. See Appendix Three for further discussion of
my dating of the hand.
 136

of the academic texts, such as for the latter half of Henri de Mondeville‟s Chirurgia.

Additionally, the scribe abruptly switches mid-text on page 222 only to switch back mid-line on

page 223 to a cursive that favours Anglicana with occasional Secretary features and that is much

more formal and square in its aspect. This script is more compressed vertically, with less space

between lines, and a greater variation between thick and thin lines.4 Although his hand is very

poor, the scribe can produce a fair script if desired, so he clearly had some skill in that regard and

chose not to employ it here. Titles are very rarely used; the medical texts are primarily

demarcated by a blank page and the recipes and experiments throughout are only distinguished

by beginning on a new line. These characteristics plus the lack of the owner‟s name in the book

shows a distinct lack of interest in sharing this book. In contrast with the Haldenby family, who

used their book to strengthen their self-styled identities, the owner of Ashmole 1435 seems to

have viewed his book as a purely personal work; any potential audience was incidental to his

purposes.

The manuscript is made up of 11 paper quires of varying lengths. For the most part,

Ashmole 1435 appears to have been composed as a single unit. The final quire (pages 305-318),

which contain the record of the defamation case and a small group of medical recipes, seems to

be a later addition. The pages of this quire are noticeably smaller than the rest of the manuscript

pages and they show more signs of wear (with the exception of the first quire, whose first three

folios are considerably torn and damaged). Additionally, the final page of the penultimate quire

contain the sorts of pen trials and other scribbles that are usually found at the ends of

manuscripts (such as in TCC O.1.57 and Sloane 513). This suggests that this was originally the

final quire. The fifth quire has also been inserted into the sixth quire at some point. Other than

these quires, there is no evidence that any other part of the manuscript was ever in booklet format
4
Daniel Wakelin has shown that these script changes reflect short bursts of writing activity. Wakelin, “Writing the
Words,” 37.
 137

or otherwise in separate components before being bound together. The most probable scenario

for the construction of this manuscript seems to be that quires 1-4 and 6-10 were gathered

together as one unit (or quires added as needed) with texts added over time. Quires 5 and 11

were then added to the other quires after the initial compilation.

The use of paper for a personal notebook such as this one was common by the fifteenth

century.5 Paper meant for a cheaper book and allowed poorer readers to own their own book.

Our scribe may have been one of these new readers, but not necessarily so. Instead, what is key

here is that the use of paper and the rough cursive hand are indicative of the private nature of this

manuscript. The Ashmole scribe has not composed a manuscript that was meant for display, but

has made a cost effective notebook that was written quickly and without much attention to detail,

as the rough script demonstrates. This is a vital point and bears much significance for how the

scribe has formed this manuscript.

The combination of cursive writing and paper also suggests that the scribe of Ashmole

1435 was one of the many men who spent an indeterminate amount of time at university as one

of the scholares simplices, acquiring his scribal skills (and an interest in medicine in this case)

before leaving in search of an administrative job.6 If so, this may be where he encountered ritual

magic and the clerical form of masculinity connected with it that can be seen in the recipe

collection. As a university student, he would have taken minor orders, which would have placed

him in the clerical world and its unique form of masculinity. He may have been one of the many

clerks and notaries who had university backgrounds and were involved in the book trade in the

5
See my discussion of fifteenth-century book production in the introduction, pp. 16-22.
6
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 60; see also T.A.R. Evans‟s discussion of the large proportion of students
who left Cambridge and Oxford before taking degrees in “The Number, Origin, and Careers of Scholars,” in The
History of the University of Oxford, vol. II, Late Medieval Oxford, ed. J.I. Catto and Ralph Evans (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), 497-498.
 138

fifteenth century.7 This book may have been something the scribe copied out for himself,

making use of exemplars he came across in his professional life and copied quickly before he

had to return it.8 This would also explain the scribe‟s ability to switch scripts on page 222.

Terminology, Classifications, and the Manuscript Context

In this dissertation I use a particular set of terminology in reference to items of natural magic and

other magical items that do not fall within the accepted definitions of charms or ritual magic.9

For these I use the terms “recipe” or “experiment” fairly interchangeably. In this, I am following

the precedent in secondary scholarship to label natural magic and other items of folk magic as

recipes or experiments.10 The two terms are adapted from different aspects of the texts; one from

the format (recipe) and the other from the principle on which they worked (experiment). I chose

not to use the term “spell” or “incantation” because those suggest some sort of verbal formula,

which is largely absent here.11 Moreover, recipe or experiment better reflects the intermediary

nature that is such an important part of this collection. The term recipe is fairly self-explanatory

in the medieval context and its use in medicine and cookery is ubiquitous. The English term

recipe derives from the Latin recipe (take), and it and its variants (i.e., accipe, take) are found

throughout Ashmole 1435, which necessitates the use of recipe in the current discussion.12 The

term experiment comes from experimenta, whose root meaning was the experience of

7
Kwakkel, “New Type of Book,” 243.
8
Kwakkel, “New Type of Book,” 242-243.
9
For my definitions of these see chapter one, pp. 35-38; 42-43; 58-59.
10
For example, see Eamon, Science, 40. Although it should be noted that the term “experiment” is also used in
ritual magic as well. See, for example, Kieckhefer‟s use of it in Forbidden Rites.
11
There are a few exceptions to this, the charm to staunch blood on page 6 for instance (see n. 36 below), but they
are overwhelmingly outnumbered in the manuscript.
12
Linda Ehrsam Voigts, “The Character of the „Carecter‟: Ambiguous Sigils in Scientific and Medical Texts,” in
Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A.J. Minnis (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
1989), 92.
 139

something.13 This reliance on past experience meant that experiments often end with “probatum

est” to prove that it has worked in the past. For example, the experiment to make a sparrow

grow three wings on page 13 ends with “probatum est.”14 An experiment to get someone to

reveal secrets in their sleep on folio 3r also ends with “probatum est.”15 Because experiments

relied on past experience rather than explainable causes, they did not have the weight of

academic knowledge or scientia behind them. Experiments were thus marginalised in theoretical

contexts and relegated to “popular practice.”16 They were associated with wonders or miracles,

which is fitting given the contents of the Ashmole 1435 collection; indeed, more than one item in

the collection is referred to as an “Experimentum mirabile.”

As I said above, the majority of Ashmole 1435 is made up of academic medical treatises.

The first major medical work is a portion of Henri de Mondeville‟s Chirurgia (pages 29-59 and

67-103).17 Henri de Mondeville was a late thirteenth-/early fourteenth-century French writer

who wrote an important Latin medieval treatise on surgery. De Mondeville argued that surgery

was both art and craft and therefore had a legitimate place in the university curriculum. Surgery

was a separate discipline from medicine and there was not usually a course of study for surgeons

in the university. Cambridge, for example, would give a licence for surgery, but taught only

theoretical and practical medicine.18 De Mondeville took as his sources the works of Galen and

Avicenna, as well as his near contemporaries Teodorico Borgognoni and Lanfranc of Milan. The

Chirurgia introduces the reader to all areas of surgery. The work is divided into five sections:
13
Eamon, Science, 55; Olsan, “Medical Theory and Practice,” 349.
14
See below, n. 32.
15
Folio 3r: “Pone harbam (sic) vocat<a> egrimoynum sub capite alicius dormientis et dicet tibi omnia secreta sua, ut
probatum est.” [Place the herb called agrimony under the head of someone sleeping and he will tell you all his
secrets, as it has been proven.]
16
Eamon, Science, 56.
17
The nineteenth-century catalogue has mislabelled this as an anatomical text by Avicenna.
18
Damien Riehl Leader, A History of the University of Cambridge, vol. 1, The University to 1546 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), 203-204.
 140

the first section is a substantial text on anatomy divided into twelve chapters; the second is 26

notables on the science of medicine and the treatment of patients; third is 12 chapters on the

treatment of wounds and 24 chapters on other maladies, such as tumours and scabies; the fourth

is 23 chapters on the humours and surgical pathology; the fifth section is ten chapters that cover

pharmacology.19 The Ashmole version includes only the first section on anatomy.

The majority of the manuscript is taken up by Petrus Hispanus‟s Commentum Ysagoge

Johannitii ad tegni Galeni (pages 105-272). Petrus may have been a doctor practicing in Siena

between 1245 and 1250. There are two types of medical works attributed to him: prescription

books and commentaries, of which the Commentum is the latter.20 The Commentum survives in

only four manuscripts, including this one.21 This is Petrus‟s commentary on the Isagoge

Ioannitii ad Tegni Galieni, an introduction to Galen written by Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-'Ibadi

(known as Joannitius) in the ninth century.22

The Isagoge was originally titled al-Masā‟il fi‟l-Tibb li‟l-Muta‟illimīn (Questions on

Medicine for Scholars) and received its Latin title when translated by Gerard of Cremona in the

twelfth century. The treatise was modelled on Galen‟s Ars Parva and was widely read in the

Islamic world. The work is split into five parts on theory and practice; the four elements; the

qualities, temperaments, humours, faculties, and spirits; diet, work, and rest; and medical

19
Brenda Gardenour, “Henri de Mondeville,” in Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, eds., Medieval
Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2005), 217-218. There was a French
translation published by E. Nicaise in 1893 as Chirurgie de Maitre Henri de Mondeville: Chirurgien de Philippe de
Bel, Roi de France (Paris: Auguste Aubry, Libraire, 1893), and an English translation of Nicaise‟s text published in
2003 as Leonard D. Rosenman, tr., The Surgery of Master Henry de Mondeville: Written From 1306 to 1320, 2 vols.
(Philadelphia, PA: XLibris Corp., 2003-2004).
20
José Francisco Meirinhos, “Petrus Hispanus,” in Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine, 389-390.
21
Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin. Rev. and aug.
Ed. (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1963), 1482, list copies in Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche
Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.221; Soissons, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 48; and Madrid, Biblioteca
Nacional, MS 1877.
22
Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Questions on Medicine for Scholars, trans. Paul Ghalioungui (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for
Scientific Translations, 1980), vi, xiii.
 141

treatment and the ten factors to be taken into account when diagnosing a patient.23 This text was

widely read in the Middle Ages and was a required text at both Cambridge and Oxford for

students in the faculty of medicine.24

Petrus‟s Commentum was for use in the medieval classroom. The work is presented as a

list of questions, which Petrus then answers by quoting from the Isagoge – in the same question

and answer format that was used at universities to teach the other subjects in the liberal arts.

That this was a teaching text suggests that our scribe was at one time a university student. This

sort of commentary on the Isagoge would have been useful if he had been a student of medicine.

The hurried, rough script used in the manuscript may then be a sign that the scribe only had

access to the exemplar or exemplars for a short period of time while a student.

There are five shorter academic medical treatises in Ashmole 1435 along with a table of

useful medicines. The first is a work on plague (pages 60-64), which briefly gives two

treatments (for early and late diagnosis), and spends the rest of the treatise explaining how the

plague is spread through infected air to the blood and then through the principal organs (the

heart, liver, and brain). It also devotes some space to the signs of the plague and where they will

appear on the body (and how these areas are connected to the three principal organs). The

second text is a one page note on the stomach and digestion inserted into the Commentum (page

147). The third text is a three page treatise (pages 273-275) on various recipes for balancing the

humours. The fourth is a treatise called the compendium Salarnie (pages 281-284), which lists

medicines that help or harm organs of the body, starting with the brain and moving down the

body (through the eyes, heart, and so on). The fifth is a text on the preservation of limbs (pages

23
Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Questions, vi-vii; xxii.
24
Leader, University of Cambridge, 203; Faye Getz, “The Faculty of Medicine before 1500,” in The History of the
University of Oxford, vol. II, 375.
 142

284-302) based on Galen. Finally, the table of medicines (pages 275-280) lists illnesses and

their corresponding remedies.

Apart from the medical recipes in the main recipe collection, there are a handful of

medical recipes scattered throughout Ashmole 1435. They are in the same vein as those in the

recipe collection and, by extension, those in other medieval medical recipe collections like TCC

O.1.57 and HM 1336 (discussed in chapter four). These non-magical recipes include cures for

rheumatism (page 307), headaches (pages 104 and 315), recipes for laxatives (page 104), and

cures for nosebleeds (page 308). The recipes are a mixture of English and Latin, which is typical

in later medieval recipe collections.25 Like the TCC O.1.57 recipes and those in the main

collection, they derive from numerous untraceable sources, they are short, and they offer cures

for illnesses as well as cosmetic recipes (such as for hair loss).

These medical texts are important on two levels, as I suggested above. On one level, they

are useful texts with a practical purpose. Medicine, as we saw in chapter two, was of growing

interest in the fifteenth century household. Remedies for minor problems like headaches and

nosebleeds would have been essential to have on hand. On another level, these texts represent

the learned side of the scribe. At Oxford and Cambridge in the Middle Ages the standard

medical texts that were lectured on included the Isagoge, Galen‟s Tegni, Nicholas of Salerno‟s

Antidotarium, the Liber urinarum of Theophilus, the Liber de pulsibus of Philaretus, and the

Liber aphorismorum and Liber prognosticorum of Hippocrates, in one compound volume known

as the Articella.26 Oxford in particular favoured the elementary medical texts of Salerno over

other centres of medicine like Bologna or Montpellier in its requirements.27 Therefore, the

presence of texts like the compendium Salarnie and the Commentum demonstrate the scribe‟s

25
Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 353.
26
Getz, “Faculty of Medicine,” 375; Leader, University of Cambridge, 203.
27
Getz, “Faculty of Medicine,” 384.
 143

possible attempts to interact with the academic milieu, as well as evidence that the scribe could

have been a university student.

All of the magical experiments and charms in Ashmole 1435 are in the main recipe

collection at the beginning of the manuscript. As I noted above, this is a large collection of over

180 magical and non-magical recipes in English and Latin and in no discernible order. Rather

than discuss each charm or experiment in turn, I will instead be referring to the types of

experiments and recipes and pick out particular ones as examples (Appendix Four contains a full

list of the recipes with their incipits, page numbers, and my categorization). These designations

are artificial of course and there will be overlap between categories, but such categorization is

necessary for any coherent and meaningful discussion of such a large number of experiments.28

To facilitate this discussion I have adopted Richard Kieckhefer‟s classifications from Forbidden

Rites of the experiments in Clm 849 into illusionist, psychological, and divinatory experiments,

along with Kieckhefer‟s definitions of these categories.29 To these I have appended the

following categories: animal-focused experiments; metallurgy; medical charms and recipes; texts

on the occult virtues of plants, animals, and stones; experiments for sleep; experiments to make

and break bonds; cooking recipes; and miscellaneous experiments and recipes. Within each of

these categories there are both magical and non-magical items. As each group is examined in

detail below, the distinction between the magical and non-magical items in the recipe collection

will be expounded.

The existence of such a wide variety of charms and recipes in a single manuscript is not

unique. A fifteenth-century Dutch manuscript, now London, Wellcome Historical Medical

Library MS 517, contains a similar, albeit smaller, collection of recipes. Like Ashmole 1435, it

28
For example, the texts on virtues often contain items that could also fit under the heading of divination or
psychological experiments and many of the items that rely on occult virtues I classify elsewhere.
29
FR, 44, 70.
 144

has recipes for invisibility, and to detect thieves; it also has a recipe for turning a peacock white,

love charms, and an experiment to make dogs dance.30 A German manuscript in the Kassel

collection (Codex Medicus 4˚10) is very similar to Ashmole 1435. It too contains recipes to put

people to sleep, and to become invisible, as well as a recipe to make a house burn in the rain.

Most importantly, the compiler appears to have been a lay medical practitioner – some sort of

barber surgeon – without a university education. Like the Ashmole scribe, he tempered a serious

interest in medicine with tricks and jokes.31

In addition to the breadth of the kinds of recipes in Ashmole 1435, the recipe collection‟s

relationship with books of secrets should be noted. Like TCC O.1.57, the collection is not

explicitly labelled as a book of secrets; however, its contents are drawn from secrets literature

and the collection is typical of the genre. Consequently, the implied superiority attributed to

owners of books of secrets and the perceived prestige of the contents of these books is present

here and should be kept in mind as a possible influence on the Ashmole scribe as he compiled

this collection. Certainly, as we will see below, the desire for knowledge and superiority is a

significant issue for the scribe.

Unfortunately, the first three folios of the manuscript are heavily damaged and torn, and

only a scattering of words are visible on each of those pages. These words give us a few

tantalizing glimpses of now lost recipes and what they contained. For example, folio 1v contains

an experiment possibly to do with money, but all that remains are a few words: “bursa

post…riandi et…non possit…suspendatur…um vel argenteam…” In a few spots we can see

30
Willy Braekman, Magische experimenten en toverpraktijken uit een middelnederlands handschrift (Ghent:
Uitgave van het Seminarie voor Volkskunde Blandijnberg 2, 1966), 69-70; Richard Kieckhefer, “Magic Manuals,”
in Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs, ed. Carl Lindahl, John McNamara,
and John Lindow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 253.
31
Melitta Weiss Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play: Non-sense Recipes and Practical Jokes in Medieval
Literature,” in Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Melitta Weiss Adamson (New York and London:
Garland Publishing, 1995), 188.
 145

what these experiments were trying to achieve, such as an experiment on folio 1r that ends “et

fient amici et optima pax inter eos” [and they will be made friends and [there will be] the best

peace between them]. Unfortunately, how this love and peace is accomplished is missing.

Without these pages, any discussion of the original manuscript as it was composed will be

incomplete.

Many of the categories that I use for this collection are fairly self-explanatory. The

experiments for making and breaking bonds, for instance, hardly need further explanation for

what these experiments entail. It suffices to note that this is a small group of five experiments:

one to fasten something (page 13), two to break a chain or bond (pages 13 and 14), one if you

wish to enter someone‟s house (page 14), and a last one to open a door (page 17). The animal-

related recipes are likewise straightforward. They consist mostly of methods for catching birds

and fish, or getting rid of vermin, such as moles (page 16). This category also includes advice on

how to make a horse take a bridle well (page 20) and other solutions for the problems of

everyday life. Only one of the animal recipes is definitely magical: an experiment to give a

sparrow three wings. This experiment entails cooking a sparrow‟s egg in the blood of a rooster

and making a fire from the feathers of a capon; once this is done, the egg is placed back in the

nest and presumably hatches a bird with three wings.32 The metallurgic recipes mainly fall

within the category of technical recipes and magic tricks (rather than proper magic). There are

technical recipes for making silver and gold writing (page 28), for making a copper ring appear

to be silver (folio 2r), and for writing on iron or steel (page 23). The recipes that I have put

under the caption of “miscellaneous” naturally cover a wide range of topics from a non-magical

recipe to inebriate a man (page 5) to a charm to always keep money in one‟s purse (page 9).

32
Page 13: “Si vis facere passerem habere tres alas: accipe ouum passeris et decoque in sanguine galli, et fiat ignis
de pennis capanis, et repone nido. Probatum est” [If you want to make a sparrow have three wings: take the egg of a
sparrow and cook it in the blood of a cock and make a fire from the feathers of a capon and replace it in the nest. It
is proven.]
 146

Texts of virtues have been encountered in previous chapters and so need no further

definition. However, one important point concerning this genre should be made. As I noted

above, there is overlap between categories and this is particularly true of the texts of virtues.

Many of the experiments in the recipe collection rely on the occult properties of various objects.

However, their presentation in the manuscript switches the focus of many of these experiments

from the object that has the occult properties to the wondrous things that can be achieved. This

underscores the scribe‟s approach to magic in Ashmole 1435. By subtly shifting focus, the

experiments become something that the reader can actively make happen rather than something

that will passively happen without any skill needed from the practitioner.

Other categories need a bit more explanation. The cooking recipes come from a long-

standing tradition of joke and parodic recipes.33 There are two types of the joke recipes: parodies

that create humour through the substitution and combination of real ingredients with disgusting

and absurd ones; and practical jokes, like those in Ashmole 1435, which rely on chemical

reactions to fool either the recipient or the cook.34 The Ashmole collection includes recipes for

boiling food in cold water (page 8), to make cooked meat appear raw (page 5 and 25), to make it

appear full of worms (page 5), and a recipe to make an egg uncookable (page 25).35

One feature of the main recipe collection that should be addressed in light of the medical

texts in the rest of the manuscript is the small number of medical charms. In fact, the one

definitively medical charm in the entire manuscript is a form of the Flum Jordan charm to

staunch blood, which includes a reference to Saint Veronica (page 6).36 The rest of the medical

33
Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,” 178.
34
Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,” 188.
35
Similar recipes are described in HMES II, 785, 787.
36
Page 6: “Si vis refrenare sanguinem alicuius: fac crucem in fronte et scribe berenix et si sit femina beren<ice> ad
idem dic istam orationem, „contra te sanguinem per per (sic) ihesum et per latus eius et per sanguinem exeuntem de
later<e> eius sancta sancta sancta sic christus et johannes descenderunt in flumen jordanis et aqua obstipuit et stetit
sic fiat sanguis eius corporis in christi nomine et sancti johannis baptiste.‟ Tunc dicitur j pater noster” [If you wish to
 147

recipes that appear in the main recipe collection and elsewhere in the manuscript follow the

principles of mainstream, Galenic medicine. Our scribe seems to have had no qualms about

using various sorts of natural magic, so the comparatively small number of medical charms

should attract attention. Of all the medieval charm types the most likely to be found in a

manuscript are medical ones.37 There seems to be a disconnect between the medical texts

(including those in the recipe collection) and the non-medical texts in the recipe collection.

Magic is useful to the scribe for many purposes, but medicine, especially the kind of medicine

that the scribe is interested in, is not one of them.

The categories that I have adopted from Kieckhefer are more complicated and require

more thorough definition and explanation than the previous categories. Kieckhefer defines the

illusionist experiments in Clm 849 as those, “intended to make things appear other than as they

are,” and includes in this category the experiments to make people perceive objects or a scene

that is not present, to obtain some means of transport (like a horse), to make the dead appear

alive (and vice versa), and those to become invisible.38 While Ashmole 1435 does not have

anything like the complex illusions of banquets and castles found in Clm 849, it does have four

experiments for invisibility (pages 7, 12, and 25) and instructions to make someone living appear

dead (page 22). Invisibility seems to have been a common desire for magicians as it appears in

the Greek Magical Papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt, recipe collections like the Kassel and

staunch someone‟s blood: make the sign of the cross on the forehead and write berenix and if it is a woman
berenice. Say this prayer, “against you blood through Jesus and through his side and through the blood flowing from
his side holy holy holy thus Christ and John descended into the river Jordan and the water was amazed and stood
still; thus may the blood of his body [stand still] in the name of Christ and John the Baptist.” Then say one Pater
Noster.]
37
See my discussion of medical charms in chapter one, pp. 60-74.
38
FR, 44.
 148

Wellcome manuscripts, and it is frequently seen in later medieval ritual magic.39 Under the

illusionist heading I have included recipes with instructions for changing an object‟s colour, such

as to turn a red rose white (page 5), experiments for different types of illumination using a crystal

(pages 5 and 8), and other magic tricks that rely on sleights of hand, hidden props, or use

chemical reactions and the occult properties of compounds such as gunpowder and quicksilver.

We have already seen fantastic gunpowder tricks in the Tricks of Solomon in chapter two and this

collection contains many of the same illusions, such as those to burn fingers without injury (page

10), and to extinguish candles with your hand (page 23).

Divinatory experiments make up a relatively small proportion of the Ashmole recipe

collection. In contrast with the necromantic rituals in Clm 849, only very few of these recipes

are to catch thieves or find treasure and none use scrying methods like mirrors or fingernails.40

The Ashmole collection includes experiments to find out the day of someone‟s death (folio 3r

and page 24), a charm to discover thieves (page 28), and instructions to see visions in dreams

(folio 3v and page 21). I have also included in this category experiments to ascertain if a woman

is a virgin or not and experiments to learn secrets (pages 6 and 7), because the purpose of these

experiments is to divine secret information, even though it is not strictly to discover knowledge

of the future. A wide variety of methods is employed, demonstrating the extensiveness of this

kind of text and the breadth of purposes for which it was used. For example, one recipe uses the

head of a blackbird placed under a sleeping person‟s head to see visions in dreams (folio 3v);

another employs a powdered stone mixed with food to determine whether a woman is a virgin or

not (page 6); yet another for learning secrets from someone instructs the reader to write the Sator

arepo formula on a piece of parchment with the blood of a white dove and place holy water on
39
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 62, 63; FR, 59; on the ancient rituals see especially Richard L. Phillips, In
Pursuit of Invisibility: Ritual Texts from Late Roman Egypt (Durham, North Carolina: American Society of
Papyrologists, 2009).
40
FR, 103-115.
 149

the parchment and then put the parchment on the altar for three days. Once done, this should be

carried on the person and they will discover what they seek (page 6).41

The last of Kieckhefer‟s categories are the psychological experiments. These are

“intended to influence people‟s minds or wills.”42 The psychological experiments in Ashmole

1435 that fit this definition fall into four rough sub-categories: those to make someone sleep or

not, experiments to make people dance, experiments related to love magic, and experiments for

dealing with thieves or enemies. Those for sleep are a mixture of magic and medicine. Two are

to prevent sleep; one recipe (page 21) uses a bat – presumably this is a sympathetic association

between the nocturnal creature and night time wakefulness.43 The other is a charm (folio 3v) that

has the reader write “exurgat deus” over the door of the intended recipient‟s house.44 The

remaining recipes are to put someone to sleep. Some seem to be for medical purposes. For

instance, those to specifically make a woman sleep (pages 24 and 25) might be for a woman who

has just given birth, given the presence of other recipes and charms for conception and childbirth

in the manuscript.45 Others, such as the recipe to make a man sleep for his whole life (page 6),

have more sinister connotations to them.46

The next sub-category of psychological experiments is composed of charms and a

talisman against thieves and enemies. Most of the charms are defensive: those against thieves

41
Page 6: “Si vis aliud de domino vel de domina petere: scri<be> illa nomina Sator arepo tenet opera rotas cum
sanguine albe columbe et superpone aquam benedictam et postea dimitte iacere super altare per tres die<s> et fer
tecum in manu tua et quicquid pecieris habebis” [If you want ask something from the master or mistress: write these
names sator arepo tenet opera rotas with the blood of a white dove and place holy water on it and afterward put it
down on the altar for three days and carry it with you in your hand and you will have whatever you seek.]
42
FR, 70.
43
Page 21: “Si quis autem caput eius cum panno nigro ligauerit ad brachium dextrum non dormitabit neque dormiet
vsque portauerit ipsum“ [If someone ties its [the bat‟s] head with a black cloth to the right arm he will not feel
drowsy and he will not sleep all the time he carries it.]
44
Folio 3v: “Si vis alias (sic) non dormiat scribe exurgat deus et sepile ante portas vel portam eius et non dormiet”
[If you want someone not to sleep write exurgat deus and bury before his doors or door and he will not sleep.]
45
See folio 3v for conception, page 6 for a woman in labour with a stillborn, and page 24 to make a woman sterile.
46
Page 6: “Si vis hominem dormire per totam vitam suam…” [If you want a man to sleep through his whole life…]
 150

and enemies (page 12), and a protective talisman (page 16); only one is proactive: to triumph

over your enemy in court (folio 3r). Charms to protect against thieves are common in the

surviving corpus of charms, as the manuscript survey showed. The proactive experiment has a

particularly overt air of dominance that hints at a desire for control and authority over others.

This recipe requires the user to carry the gallbladder and spur off the right foot of a cock with

them if they wish to defeat their opponents in court.47

In my third sub-category are those experiments to make people dance. These consist of a

recipe to make people dance without ceasing (folio 3r), one in Latin to make women dance (page

7), an English one for men and women to dance (page 16), and another in Latin to make women

dance (page 17). On the face of it, these seem like light hearted tricks. However, closer

examination of these recipes shows the darker undertones. Dancing was not always seen as an

innocent pastime. Pentitentials, for example, often contained censures against dancing.48

Moreover, the last experiment promises that women, upon entering a house, will not only dance,

but will also take off their clothes.49 Finally, the underlying fact that the practitioner is forcing

people to dance against their wills mars any light heartedness in these experiments.

47
Folio 3r: “Cum volueris exaltari super inimicum tuum in causa: accipe calcar g<alli> dextri pedis et fel et vinces
si portaueris tecum.” [When you wish to exalt over your enemy in a case: take the spur of the right foot of a cock
and the gallbladder and you will win if you carry it with you.]
48
Robert Mannyng of Brunne includes one tale in which unstoppable dancing is a punishment for sin. See Handlyng
Synne, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall (London: Published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner, 1901), 156, 283-290. For other examples see, John T. McNeill and Helena Gamer, eds., Medieval
Handbooks of Penance: A Translation of the Principal “libri poenitentiales” and Selections from Related
Documents (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 273, 289, 333.
49
Page 17: “Si vis facere aliquam se nudare et tripidare (sic): accipe percamenum nouum rigidum et sanguinem
vespertilionis et scribe super eum percamenum ista quatuor nomina, scilicet: alma amalion iura ardestar et tunc pone
super tectus (sic) domus et omnes mulieres intrantes deponent pannos suos et saltabunt.” [If you want to make any
woman strip and dance: take a new stiff parchment and the blood of a bat and write on that parchment these four
names, namely: alma amalion iura ardestar, and then place it over the roof of the house and all the women entering
will remove their clothes and dance.] The De mirabilibus mundi contains a similar recipe to make women dance.
The operator is to take the blood of a hare, the blood of a bird called Solon, and the blood of a male turtle, and put it
in a wick. When it is lit all the women in the house will be compelled to dance.] Best and Brightman, Book of
Secrets, 105.
 151

As the manuscript survey showed, love was a common topic in medieval magic, and it

should come as no surprise that there is love magic in Ashmole 1435. The number of love-

related experiments present in Ashmole 1435 speaks to the sheer breadth of methods employed.

There are seven such experiments to create love between a man and a woman. Some of these are

charms and some rely on the occult properties of plants and animals. Among them there is love

caused by the judicious application of a plant in a woman‟s drink (page 28), love fostered with

the heart of a crow (folio 4r), and charms that use holy words and nonsense phrases (folio 3v).

The love magic is not confined solely to romantic love – there is an experiment to make all men

honour and love you (page 17) and one incomplete recipe to make love and peace between

people (folio 1r). There are also a few experiments that are not strictly for love, but still fall

within the confines of psychological experiments: four experiments promise to make a woman

do your will (pages 7, 14, 19, and 26), another has the vaguely hostile incipit, “Si mulier non vult

dare gratis tibi” [if a woman does not want to give freely to you] (page 17), yet another is to

make a woman lift her skirts (pages 14-15).50

The Ludic Nature of Magic and the Manufacture of Medieval

Masculinity
The previous sections of this chapter have built up a possible identity for the scribe of Ashmole

1435 and have set out my classifications and the manuscript context for the recipe collection.

With these speculations and the context in place, I come now to the main thrust of this chapter.

As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, the texts of Ashmole 1435 highlight different, but

related, sides to the anonymous scribe‟s self-made identity. The medical texts, discussed above,

reveal an interest in learning and possibly time spent at university. This interest underscores an

anxiety over knowledge that is apparent in the ludic side of the manuscript. This anxiety, as well

50
On this experiment see below, pp. 155-156.
 152

as a desire for control (especially over women) is a key component of the magic texts in the

recipe collection. These components underline the quasi-clerical ideal of masculinity that the

scribe has created for himself. Underpinning all of these different aspects is the ordinary nature

of magic in this manuscript. As both a practical text and as entertainment, the magic in Ashmole

1435 overturns the potentially transgressive aspects of magic. In the following section, these

aspects of magic in Ashmole 1435 and their role in the creation of the scribe‟s quasi-clerical

identity will be explored.

So much of the emphasis in the scholarship on magic is placed on its religious qualities or

its relationship to medicine and science that its capacity for amusement is often overlooked.

When this aspect is discussed it is usually in reference to magic tricks – sleights of hand and

technological feats that only give the appearance of magic for amusement‟s sake, such as those

in the book of secrets discussed in chapter two.51 Richard Kieckhefer is a notable exception

when he discusses the entertainment value of the illusionist experiments of Clm 849. While his

examination of this point is brief, he does make the important point that “the magicians

themselves seemed to revel in their role as illusionists”52 and that entertainment was an essential

feature not only in the performance of these illusions but in the act of reading the elaborate

ceremonies as well.53 Ashmole 1435 certainly contains simple technical tricks but the

manuscript also contains charms and experiments whose purposes are clearly ludic in nature. The

proliferation of these types of experiments in books of secrets and elsewhere speaks to their role

as a valid form for magic.

What, then, is ludic about magic in Ashmole 1435? The most obvious place to start is

not with magic proper, but with the magic tricks that fall under the illusionist heading. These

51
See pp. 129-130.
52
FR, 44.
53
FR, 44, 45, 64. Kieckhefer also discusses the ludic nature of magic and magic tricks in Magic, 90-94.
 153

tricks, like making an apple appear to float over a table using a piece of string (page 27), making

the sea appear in the house (page 16), or a coin trick using wax and a hair so that others cannot

see how it moves (page 15), appear in numerous manuscripts; their entertainment value is

obvious and is reflected in similar tricks performed by modern magicians today. Other recipes in

the collection, such as those to make two eggs fight (folio 3v),54 or to make a loaf of bread run

about the house (page 26),55 contain elements of farce.

From these kinds of tricks and experiments two important points are raised. As I wrote in

chapter two, wonder was an important part of the medieval world. While the philosophers and

theologians argued over the place of wonder and the preternatural56 in the world, the readers of

these books, including the Ashmole scribe, were content to suspend their disbelief and allow

wonders to entertain them. These experiments illuminate a culture that was willing to wonder,

whether or not they knew the truth of the matter. The tricks appealed to a part of society that

was taught that everything in creation was wonderful.57 These experiments also reveal an

interest in the ridiculous. It should come as no surprise that medieval people enjoyed things as

farcical as fighting eggs or loaves of bread running about seemingly under their own power. The

surreal can be found in all areas of the medieval record.58

54
Folio 3v: “Ad faciendum duo oua pugnare: fac vnum paruum foramen in vtroque et inpone viuum argentum cum
paruo visco vel cum muria et pone in sole.” [To make two eggs fight: make a small hole in both [eggs] and place
mercury inside with a little birdlime or with brine and place in the sun.]
55
Page 26: “for to make a /lowfe\ to renne roun a bowte þe house take one hote lofe and put a lytyl quicsyluer on a
penne et stape (sic) þe hende with a lytyl wax and put hyt in þe lofe and yt schal be doun ut probatum” [In order to
make a loaf run round about the house, take one hot loaf and put a little quicksilver on a feather and stamp the end
with a little wax and put it in the loaf and it shall be done, it is proven.]
56
This is a term Daston and Park adapt from book III of Thomas Aquinas‟s Summa contra gentiles, in which he
refers to “praeter naturae ordinem.” This phrase refers to a level between the natural and the supernatural, but which
was often conflated with supernatural. Daston and Park, Wonders, 122.
57
Daston and Park, Wonders, 25-27, 41. For more on this concept see chapter two, pp. 97-98.
58
Such as Chaucer‟s Miller‟s Tale; the “marvellous” farting lamp of the De mirabilibus mundi, in Best and
Brightman, Book of Secrets, 104; the many illustrations in New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS G24, including
the hybrid animal playing bagpipes with its anus (folio 18v), CORSAIR, Images from Medieval and Renaissance
Manuscripts (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library), accessed May 13, 2011,
http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/single_image2.cfm?page=ICA000110613&imagename=g24.018v.jpg; and the
 154

There are also experiments in Ashmole 1435 that modern readers may not see as

entertaining, which contain elements of cruelty or misogyny. They reveal the desires and

anxieties of the scribe that underscore the compilation of the recipe collection. These

experiments speak to a desire for dominance and an expression of overt masculinity that is a

feature of late medieval and early modern ritual magic. Frank Klaassen has begun to look at how

these later rituals construct a unique style of masculinity. In his 2006 article on masculinity in

late medieval and Renaissance magic, he argues that a lack of censorship in personal notebooks

allows for a more honest image to emerge – without posturing or guile – that reveal the

insecurities of the users whether that be desire for knowledge or anxiety about masculine

dominance. Magic enables the practitioner to overcome these anxieties while at the same time

presenting a façade of virility that has its basis in learning and secrecy.59

The desire for control in Ashmole 1435 is exemplified by experiments specifically to

control women‟s actions which mirror and subvert the way that Klaassen‟s clerics express their

masculinity in terms of self control over their sexuality (and subsequently rejecting it as a show

of power). In Ashmole 1435‟s experiments, women are induced to love, tricked into lifting their

skirts (for what seems to be no more than puerile titillation), and are made to do whatever the

operator wishes. Unlike the clerical magicians discussed by Klaassen, there is no sign here that a

rejection of sex is a moral triumph. In ritual magic, while the goal may be to gain a woman‟s

love or to make her appear alone in a magic circle, the ritual itself requires that the practitioner

be chaste and spiritually pure. As a result, the magic rituals become an exercise in self-control.60

numerous illustrations in Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 229, which include a man laying
eggs (folio 31r) and a monkey playing a trumpet into another monkey‟s backside (folio 147r), Beinecke Rare Book
& Manuscript Library Digital Collections, accessed May 13, 2011,
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/ms229.html.
59
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 61-62; 64
60
This is demonstrated by the oft-quoted account an anonymous scribe gave in Rawlinson D. 252 (folios 75v-76v)
of his adventures with a demon horse. He conjures the horse and flies to India on it. Once there, he has sex with a
 155

However, the Ashmole scribe only takes this clerical ideal so far; the Ashmole experiments

contain no references to abstinence or any sort of spiritual purity. Through the love magic and

related psychological experiments the Ashmole scribe can satisfy his baser desires – whether or

not he actually performed the experiments – without fear of repercussions. Klaassen likens

studying these personal collections to finding someone‟s pornography stash, and the analogy is

fitting here.61

An examination of some of the experiments will demonstrate this twisting of the clerical

ideal. The experiment mentioned above to make a woman lift her skirts (pages 14-15) uses the

bones of a frog. The frog is cooked and its bones washed in running water. A particular bone is

chosen, and when the operator touches the woman with the bone she will think that she is in the

middle of a river and lift her skirts up to her stomach.62 The aforementioned experiment to make

women remove their clothes and dance in a house has the practitioner write certain names on

parchment with the blood of a bat and then place it over the roof of a house. An experiment to

make a man and a woman love has the user put a powder in their food or drink (page 25).63 The

implications here are that the magician is already in a position where he is in contact with

women on a regular basis. The close physical proximity necessary for these experiments and

implied familiarity contrasts with the complex rituals of necromancy wherein long conjurations

woman and when he attempts to re-mount the horse he is hurled off and breaks his leg. He remains in India for four
months while his leg heals before he can confess his sins and summon the horse to fly back. A full transcription and
translation are in Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 66-67.
61
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 61.
62
Pages 14 and 15: “Si vis ut mulier leuat pannos suos vsque ad vmbilicum: accipe viridem ranam et coque illam et
postea leva (sic) ossa sua in aqua currente et inuenies vnum os quod saltabit contra aquam. Tunc accipe illud et
tange illam illam (sic) cum eo et apparebit ei quod vadit in magno flumine et euellet.” [If you want a woman to lift
her skirts up to her belly button: take a green frog and cook it and afterward wash its bones in running water and you
will find one bone which jumps against the water. Then take that one and touch her with it and it will seem to her
that she is walking in a great river and lift [her skirts].] I am grateful to Steven Kaye for his help transcribing and
translating this experiment.
63
Page 25: “Ad faciendum amorem inter virum et mulierem: accipe pullos columborum et abstrahe corda eorum et
arde ea in puluerem et pone in cibo vel in potu earum.” [To create love between a man and a woman: take the young
chicks of doves and remove their hearts and burn them into a powder and place in their food or drink.]
 156

and preparations are made but either no women are present, or little contact is made.64

Nevertheless, these experiments reveal a similar desire to control women in overtly sexual ways,

just as in the necromantic rituals. Without the checks in place that are found in necromancy, the

focus is not on how the practitioner establishes his masculinity via self-control and abstinence,

but on the sexual control the scribe has (or imagines he could have) over women.

The desire to control women finds further expression in experiments to learn secrets,

which are overwhelmingly directed towards women. These experiments include not only

learning unspecified secrets from women, but learning whether a woman is a virgin or not.

However, the latter are not like the joke experiments in other books where the prankster uses

urine to write “no” on his hand beforehand and then “magically” reveals it with a bit of dust at

the right moment.65 The Ashmole versions are offered as serious and legitimate experiments to

the reader. One version (page 25) requires that a powder made of red nettle be put in a woman‟s

drink to discover if she is a virgin or not.66 With these two types of tricks and experiments we

can see secrecy favoured and used in both serious and non-serious contexts. This primacy of

secrecy is prevalent in books of secrets, as stated above, but it is also widely used in ritual magic

texts to create a mystique and, as Klaassen argues, enhance the image of the user as a member of

a secret fraternity.67

This desire for authority or control is expressed more generally in the experiments for

sleep, for making and breaking bonds (such as chains), and against enemies. By possessing the

64
There are exceptions to this, such as the love ritual from Clm 849 that I describe below, p. 160, but this is not the
norm. FR, 86-88, 201, 295.
65
Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 81-82.
66
Page 25: “Si vis scire an mulier sit corrupta an non: accipe radices rubie (sic) vrtice et lapidem qui vocatur gytte et
laua in seruitia (sic) et da ei ad potandum et si sit corrupta statim minget, et aliter non,” [If you want to know if a
women has been corrupted or not: take the root of a red nettle and the stone which is called agate and wash in ale
and give to her to drink and if she has been corrupted she will urinate at once, otherwise not.]
67
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 71, 73; FR, 45.
 157

ability to control someone‟s sleeping habits or having the ability to enter someone‟s house at

will, the Ashmole scribe could alleviate his insecurities about those he mistrusts. This is seen

even more explicitly through the experiments to gain the honour of all men (page 17) and to

triumph over one‟s enemies in court (folio 3r). It is only natural to protect oneself from harm,

but here the scribe seems to take extra steps to keep control. Likewise, this same need for

control is revealed in the pecuniary charm that promises to always keep money in one‟s purse

(page 9). These experiments reveal more of the anxieties that underpin medieval masculinity

beyond a desire to control women. Recipes promising similar outcomes can be found in other

manuscripts and that emphasises the prevalence of these concerns for medieval people.68 In this

regard, these experiments show the use of magic in everyday life. Only when viewed in the

overall context of the recipe collection do we see a deeper anxiety driving the inclusion of these

experiments.

The Ashmole experiments, however, are lacking some of the more aggressively

masculine aspects of ritual magic outlined by Klaassen. The “brag,” or expression of bravado, as

conveyed in fantastic exploits, such as the tale in Clm 849 of the magician fooling an emperor

and his court, is missing.69 The “myth,” the elaborate stories of ancient authors and secret

organisations of magicians working against the Pope, is also absent here.70 The crucial

difference in the approach here is the community surrounding the Ashmole scribe. While the

possibility remains that he was one of the scholares simplices who had a little university

68
For example, the description of the use of hoopoe‟s eyes for protection in the marketplace, which occurs in TCC
O.1.57, Digby 37, and HM 1336; TCC O.1.65 contains a charm to make oneself welcome (folio 188r); and TCC
O.8.35 has a charm to increase one‟s graciousness. The hoopoe‟s eye is also used in the De mirabili mundi. See
Best and Brightman, Book of Secrets, 56.
69
See Clm 849, folios 20r-21r. FR, 51-53. The author claims to have fooled an emperor and his retinue into
believing that a group of armed men was attacking them and helped them hide in a castle whereupon both the
attackers and the castle disappeared.
70
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 69-72; the secret organisation is described in the prologue of the Liber
sacer. Hedegård, Liber iuratus Honorii, 60-61.
 158

education and was thus a member of the lower clergy (at least while at university), it seems

unlikely that he was permanently ordained to the higher clergy as part of the monastic or secular

clergy. This group in the major orders had what Klaassen describes as an ambivalent

relationship with the surrounding communities.71 As part of their struggle to create an image of

masculinity beyond the accepted norm, some used the brag and myth to present an appearance of

intellectual force. Without that ambivalence, the need or desire to express that specifically

clerical style of magic is missing. The brag and the myth are unnecessary in Ashmole 1435

because the scribe lives in a different world, one in which concern about gender is less pressing

and intimacy with women is possible. As previous examples have shown, the experiments that

the Ashmole scribe includes presume a domestic relationship with women – the scribe can get

close enough to women to touch them with frog bones or put something in their food. Even

though the magic in the recipe collection is heavily influenced by clerical approaches to magic, it

is not imagined in the same terms. The scribe seems to have adjusted the clerical approach to fit

his own particular circumstances.

Despite the different approaches to masculinity seen here, there are clearly some

connections with ritual magic in terms of building an image of masculinity. There are also

significant similarities to be seen between these experiments and necromancy. These are

intermediary experiments that share goals with necromantic operations, although their forms are

much closer to those of folk magic. They play an important role in revealing the scribe‟s use of

magic and how he turns the transgressive into something less unorthodox. Yet the prevailing

scholarship on magic does not include these types of procedures. So where do they fit in? To

fully understand what role magic played in this manuscript we have to examine how these

unique experiments fit into the corpus of medieval magic.

71
For more on this ambivalence see Klaassen, “Middleness of Ritual Magic.”
 159

Two of the recipes for invisibility are the most similar to necromancy in their forms and

intentions. The first experiment (page 7) is partially damaged, but most of it is still legible. The

user takes the heart of a black dog and the heart of a cat, along with four leaves of the Adder‟s

tongue plant. These are burnt together and placed under the altar for nine masses. Finally, the

mixture is washed with holy water. The final instructions for this concoction are missing, but

from what survives it appears that the mixture is then carried about on the person.72 The third

experiment for invisibility in Ashmole 1435 (page 25) is the most complex and it also bears a

striking resemblance to one of the necromantic operations in Clm 849. The Ashmole recipe

entails the finding of a dead dog. The user buries the dog and plants a bean plant over this spot.

Once the bean plant has sprouted the user has only to place one of the beans in his mouth and he

will become invisible.73 The Clm 849 ritual has the operator kill a black cat that was born in

March. He cuts out the cat‟s eyes and places heliotrope seeds in its eyes and mouth; then he

buries the cat while reciting conjurations. Once the plant has sprouted the practitioner takes each

sprouted bean, putting them in his mouth one by one while gazing into a mirror until he turns

invisible.74 The similarities between the experiments for invisibility in Ashmole 1435 and Clm

849 are remarkable. Clearly, there has been some sort of appropriation of ritual here. The most

notable difference between the two is the lack of conjurations in the Ashmole 1435 versions, and

the distinction between eviscerating a cat in Clm 849 and finding an already dead dog in

Ashmole 1435. All of these experiments contain significant similarities to a spell for invisibility

72
Page 7: “Ad faciendum invisibilem: accipe cor nigri ca<nis> et cor mureligi (sic) et quatuor folia lingue
serpent<is>, comburentur simul omnia postea pone sub altar<e> vsque ad nouem misse desuper cantetur. et postea
puluerem asperge cum aqua benedicta et creper… fer tecum.” [To become invisible: take the heart of a black dog
and the heart of a cat and four leaves of Adder‟s tongue, burn them all simultaneously [and] afterward place it under
the altar until nine masses have been sung on that altar. and afterward wash the powder with holy water and carry it
[obscured] with you.]
73
Page 25: “Si vis esse inuisibile: accipe vnum canem mortuum et sepilles eum et plantes super eum fabus et vnam
in ore tuo et sine dubio eris inuisibile” [If you wish to be invisible: take a dead dog and bury it and plant a bean plant
over it and place one in your mouth and without a doubt you will be invisible.]
74
FR, 60-61; 240.
 160

in the Greek magical papyri. In a short spell from the third or fourth century, said to come from

a book titled The Diadem of Moses, the operator places the dog‟s head plant under the tongue

while lying down and recites certain magical words.75

This same selective appropriation of necromancy occurs in an experiment to constrain a

virgin‟s will (page 19). In this procedure, the user takes three hairs from the head of the woman

and mixes them with the wax from a burning candle. The operator then writes her name on the

candle and can have his way while the candle burns.76 This is highly reminiscent of two cases of

necromancy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries where clerics used wax figures of women in

various ways to seduce them.77 In an even more similar ritual in Clm 849, the operator takes

hairs and other objects from the woman he desires. He makes an image of a woman using virgin

wax (presumably using the previously gathered hairs as well) at a certain time and place while

reciting an invocation. Following this he places nine specially made needles in various parts of

the wax image while reciting another incantation. Then the image is baptised, dressed in a clean

cloth, and placed in a specified spot. Finally, at a certain auspicious time the operator performs a

conjuration while holding the wax image before hot coals.78

The most important features to take note of here are the use of the woman‟s hairs and the

wax image. While the Ashmole experiment does not quite go all the way in constructing the

image, it does draw from the same tradition of image magic whereby names and images are

inscribed in order to draw down magical forces. In a similar fashion, one of the experiments to

75
Phillips, In Pursuit of Invisibility, 110-111.
76
Page 19: “ad idem: accipe tres capillos de capite eius et de cera que de candela ardente cadit, faciesque ca[n]delam
(sic) ad medium pollicis tue, et hec nomina scribe in candela: arcum patentur arabactus alta et accende et caue ne
totum ardetur.” [For the same: take three hairs from her head and the wax that falls from a burning candle, and you
must make a candle up to the middle of your thumb, and write these names on the candle: arcum patentur arabactus
alta and light it and beware lest it burn completely.]
77
FR, 80-81.
78
FR, 86-88; 226-228.
 161

make women dance has the operator write nonsense words on virgin wax as part of the

instructions.79 Clearly, the Ashmole scribe is less willing to go to the same extremes as Clm

849‟s numerous invocations, like Kieckhefer‟s example of the fourteenth-century Carmelite friar

Peter Recordi who performed conjurations over wax images smeared with his blood and the

blood of a toad before burying them beneath the thresholds of women he wanted to seduce.80

Nevertheless, we can still see clear parallels between the necromantic experiments and the

Ashmole experiments in the use of wax and hair.

Less readily linked to necromancy are two experiments that use bones to control people‟s

wills. The first, on folio 4r, uses the bones of a mole to make a woman do your will.81 The

second is the previously discussed experiment to make a woman raise her skirts using the bones

of a frog. While the experiments themselves are quite clearly natural magic, their connection to

necromancy is seen through the use of bones to control a woman‟s will. The Clm 849 rituals that

use bones in love magic both involve conjurations and writing holy words or the names of the

people involved on a bone to create some sort of erotic affliction. The bones in the Ashmole

experiments do not create the same sort of affliction, but there is a similar kind of mind altering

outcome, which is demonstrated by the illusion in the victim‟s mind that she is in the middle of a

deep river. Although the link between the two groups is more tenuous here, we can still see

some similarities in the ways in which bones are used a tool for coercion.

79
Page 7: “Si vis facere mulieres in domo saltare scribe in sera virgeniea (sic) hec nomina Ala aima cada nassa” [If
you want to make women dance in the house write these names on virgin wax: Ala aima cada nassa.]
80
FR, 81.
81
Folio 4r: “Accipe talpam et pone in olla hurce habente plura foramina; postea obstrue ollam bene et tunc pone in
loco vbi sunt multe formite per decem dies postea ossa eius talpe pone in a<qua> currente et laua ossa et tene ossa
que curr<it> contra aqua et tange muliemrem (sic) in facie vel in quocumque loco volueris et faciet quod volueris.”
[Take a mole and place it in an earthen? jar that has many holes; afterwards, block up the jar well and then place it in
a location where there are many ants for ten days; afterwards place the mole‟s bones in running water and wash the
bones and hold the bones which run against the water and touch a woman on the face or in whatever place you wish
and she will do what you want.]
 162

It is significant that the Greek spell and Clm 849 rituals all include an invocation of some

sort, while the Ashmole versions have no spoken component. As with his construction of

masculinity, the Ashmole scribe picks and chooses what particular aspects he wants to include.

Here, he seems unwilling to fully commit to a necromantic operation and excludes the worst of

the ritual, the most religiously unorthodox portion, effectively rendering it a piece of natural

magic. This altering is indicative of the Ashmole scribe‟s approach to magic as a whole. Just as

the scribe focuses on the ludic side of magic – as entertainment, rather than as a tool for serious

purposes – so too does he include rituals that are stripped of their more unorthodox elements.

They are, in effect, natural magic and their transgressive nature is hidden from those without the

proper background knowledge.

Even more blatant mixtures of ritual magic with charms and natural magic survive in the

written record. The Kassel manuscript, mentioned above, in addition to its miscellaneous

collection of Latin and Middle Dutch charms and experiments, has a fragmentary moon-book

containing magical ceremonies that are conducted when the moon is in the signs of the zodiac.

Sloane 121, first discussed in chapter one, contains a book of experiments allegedly performed

by King Solomon to court a certain queen.82 While most of the experiments are like the ones in

Ashmole 1435, such as to make a hollow ring leap and run through the house, the text shifts

suddenly at the end and concludes with a necromantic operation to consecrate a ring in order to

make a woman obey one‟s wishes. As Richard Kieckhefer concludes in his discussion of Sloane

121, the same person can be interested in more than one kind of magic.83 The mixing of magic

genres in Ashmole 1435 is further indication of the shifting roles of magic in this manuscript.

There is no discernible pattern to the order in which things appear in the recipe collection so

82
Folios 90v-93v. See p. 55.
83
Kieckhefer, Magic, 171-172.
 163

someone can read on the same page, for example, recipes for making all metal appear silver, a

charm to catch a thief, a recipe for a powder that will make a woman love you, recipes for gold

writing, and a recipe to make hard eggs (page 28). Magic and non-magic overlap in the recipe

collection, as does serious and ludic magic. The Ashmole scribe had numerous interests that he

indulged in the recipe collection and the unorganised order of the collection makes these

alternative interests available to the reader almost simultaneously.

The intermingling of magical and non-magical tricks and illusions is a significant feature

of the recipe collection. It must be remembered that the scribe does nothing to differentiate

between recipes, nor does he organise them in any discernible pattern. Thus, magical and non-

magical items appear side by side throughout. It is apparent that the scribe viewed these in the

same light. It does not seem to matter to him if the tricks were real magic or sleights of hand as

long as they accomplished what they were supposed to do. There is neither a distinction nor a

stigma for the scribe between what is magic and what is not; either could be a valid option.

Moreover, the experiments influenced by necromancy clearly demonstrate a level of nonchalance

towards magic that is not usually seen to this degree.

There is a complex set of factors guiding the Ashmole scribe‟s choices in the compilation

of the recipe collection. One factor is his desire for the book to have some practical purpose,

which is achieved through the medical texts and recipes and the magical and non-magical recipes

that deal with the problems and concerns of everyday life. Another factor is the scribe‟s

relationship with the insecurities and anxieties concerning learning and women that underline the

clerical construction of masculinity. Again, the academic medical treatises serve to reassure the

scribe of his intellectual capabilities. In this way, magic becomes a way for the scribe to create

for himself an ideal of masculinity that overcomes his imagined shortcomings. The ludic nature

of magic in Ashmole 1435 becomes an important element in addressing these concerns. The
 164

pleasure derived from reading and performing was just as important as the sense of power

achieved in these acts. It is possible to use an experiment to play on that sense of power and still

get entertainment from it. Moreover, that feeling of power may in fact add to the pleasure

derived from the experiment. Kieckhefer‟s point about the illusionists is central here; magicians

enjoyed the experiments on numerous levels, including for pleasure. The significance and

purpose of entertainment in people‟s lives should not be underestimated, especially in magic

where it is so prevalent. Humour and parody can teach us as much about medieval society as

“serious” topics. Knowing what people found funny or entertaining helps us understand how

they viewed the world.

For some people, the ludic side of magic was also less dangerous – what John Friedman

refers to as a safe, Christianised form of magic – and disassociated from the perils of

necromancy and other forms of ritual magic that were slowly gaining attention in some circles.84

The combination of magical and non-magical tricks most likely served to emphasise this safe

aspect, although in the case of Ashmole 1435 the situation is more complicated. If not for the

connection to necromancy and darker implications of some of the experiments, it would be clear

that the scribe grouped the magical and non-magical tricks together because they balanced each

other out. That may still be the case here, although the argument for it must be necessarily more

nuanced. The non-magical tricks that rely on sleights of hand and the recipes that use the occult

properties of natural substances may be softening the impact of the more outrageous

experiments. Laying out the recipes without any discernible plan of composition or pattern

prevents the casual reader from discovering the nature of the more dubious experiments.

However, given the personal nature of the book, it could still be the case that the scribe was

unconcerned about censoring himself.

84
Friedman, “Safe Magic,” 76; Michael Bailey, “The Age of Magicians: Periodization in the History of European
Magic,” Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft 3:1 (2008): 15-16.
 165

The use of magic in Ashmole 1435 is consequently complicated by many different

factors. In the manuscript magic is both serious and playful; innocent and transgressive. What

links these disparate aspects together is the scribe‟s apparent desire to create an identity for

himself that is personal and uninhibited. Ashmole 1435 is a personal notebook and it was

probably not meant to be seen by anyone but the scribe. Therefore, the image that emerges – of

a person, perhaps with some university education, anxious about women, desirous of knowledge,

adopting an image of masculinity that had its roots in ritual magic and the clerical underworld –

is one that reveals the scribe‟s participation in a part of society that was shaped by desire in

certain ways. The scribe has adapted the texts of Ashmole 1435 to reflect his circumstances and

fit into his worldview. He had a complex relationship with magic and that reflects the intricate

and sometimes contradictory attitudes surrounding the use of magic in the later medieval period.
 166

Chapter 4
Magic and Medicine in San Marino, Huntington Library HM 1336
Sometime in the mid-fifteenth century Robert Taylor of Boxford, Suffolk, commissioned a law

student at Cambridge named Symon Wysbech to write a short book for him. The contents of this

book (HM 1336), which now include a quire copied by an unknown fifteenth-century scribe, are

predominantly medical, with a handful of practical and trick recipes interspersed. Taylor‟s

medical collection includes several medical charms and experiments of natural magic. These are

two charms and an experiment to cure epilepsy, a Flum Jordan charm, a divinatory charm to

determine whether a sick person will live or die, and a natural magic experiment using the

hoopoe for protection in the marketplace. For the most part, the charms and magical procedures

are medical in nature and their use is much the same as we have seen in the previous chapters.

HM 1336 also contains a recipe to staunch blood that has not been discussed in the secondary

scholarship until now. The heading indicates that it is to be used only after charms have failed,

and in every known case but one it has been paired with a charm to staunch blood. The

discovery of this recipe is important for our understanding of how medieval people approached

healing and what happened when magic failed.

HM 1336 shares many similarities with the manuscripts we have looked at in the

previous chapters. As with the texts in TCC O.1.57 (see chapter two) and Ashmole 1435 (see

chapter three), there is a mingling of magical and medical texts, which demonstrates further the

connection between the two subjects in late medieval books. Likewise, the same sorts of tricks

and sleights of hand that we saw in those two manuscripts appear in HM 1336. There is also a

mixture of charms and natural magic in the magical material of HM 1336, in a similar fashion as

Ashmole 1436, although not to same extent nor with the same purpose in mind. Their books

reflect a correspondence of interests that are indicative of fifteenth-century magic use. These
 167

similarities emphasise the quotidian aspects of the use of magic in the fifteenth century.

However, there are a few aspects of HM 1336 that set it apart from the previous two

manuscripts: the prominence of both the scribe‟s and author‟s name and a marked emphasis on

economy and practicality in the choice and presentations of texts in the manuscript.

There are a number of aspects of HM 1336 that contribute to its focus on practicality and

(in the case of the second quire) economy of space. This focus finds expression in the texts that

are included in the manuscript and the way that they are laid out on the page. The quires copied

by Wysbech are arranged and displayed to help the reader to quickly navigate the book. The

quire penned by the anonymous scribe shows much concern over the conservation of parchment

and includes only the essentials parts of recipes and experiments. The texts copied by these two

scribes are all practical texts that are typical of Middle English medical books in fifteenth-

century England.1

HM 1336 presents us with a unique opportunity to study a manuscript in which both the

scribe and the owner‟s names are known. As I have noted before, it was rare for owners and

scribes in the fifteenth century to record their names in personal notebooks.2 Even rarer is the

survival of the full names of both scribe and owner. This survival in HM 1336 allows us to find

out more about the context in which the manuscript was written than is usually the case. The

prominence of their names is a vital component to understand the identity put forth by Taylor. I

argue below that Taylor was a part-time medical practitioner who used this book in his practice

of medicine; consequently, this book is likely to have been seen and read by others. Like the

Haldenby family in chapter two, Taylor seems to be using HM 1336 not only as a source of

practical texts, but as a means to single out his standing in the community.

1
Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” 461; Jones, “Medicine and Science,” 433.
2
See chapter one, pp. 78-79.
 168

This chapter will begin with a discussion of Taylor and Wysbech and what information

that HM 1336 can provide us about them. This is followed by sections on the physical makeup

of the book and the contents of HM 1336. With that groundwork in place, I will look at the

magical texts and Taylor‟s use of the manuscript within the wider community to establish his

identity therein.

The Owner and the Scribe

There are a number of Robert Taylors in the published court records of fifteenth-century England

including a surgeon in London,3 a chaplain in Lincoln,4 a yeoman in Gloucestershire,5 several tax

collectors,6 and a clerk in Leicestershire,7 but none in Suffolk, let alone Boxford. The Robert

Taylor of HM 1336 does not seem to have left any other records of himself, except for one

possible instance where a Robert Taillour stood as one of the witnesses to a charter in 1441 in

Berkyng, Essex.8 If this is our Robert Taylor, the record does little more than to tell us that he

was alive and in Essex (which borders Suffolk to the south) in the mid-fifteenth century, which

corroborates Dutschke‟s dating of the manuscript to the mid-fifteenth century.9 Our

understanding of Taylor is therefore dependent on the information in HM 1336.

3
Admittedly, this could be the same Taylor who owned HM 1336. Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 14, Henry V, A.D.
1413-1422 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1934), 211.
4
Calendar of Close Rolls. Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III, A.D. 1476-1485 (London: H.M. Stationery
Office, 1954), no. 435, p. 123.
5
Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VII, vol. 2, 1500-1509 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1963), no. 260, pp. 93-94.
6
One in Gloucestershire and one in Somerset. Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 22, Henry VII, 1485-1509 (London:
H.M. Stationery Office, 1962), no. 390, p. 159; Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 17, Henry VI, A.D. 1437-1445 (London:
H.M. Stationery Office, 1937), 147; Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 5, 1447-1454, 244, 416, 436.
7
Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 1, 1422-1429, 278, 298, 473.
8
“John Payn of Berkyng co. Essex to Master William Hamond rector of Ledyn Rothyn, John Woderof, John
Newark „barbour‟, Thomas Ambrose, John Herde and Richard Sawnsom, their heirs and assigns. Charter with
warranty of all his lands, rents and services, and of all his goods and chattels moveable and immovable within the
realm. Witnesses: William Harleston, William Cotelere, Robert Taillour, Thomas Frost, Walter Burre.
Dated Berkyng, 2 January 18 Henry VI.” Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VI, vol. 3, 1435-1441, 471.
9
C.W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, with the assistance of
R.H. Rouse, et al., vol. II (San Marino, CA: The Library, 1989), 564.
 169

Based on the evidence in HM 1336, we can attempt to create a picture of Taylor. There

are three important pieces of information that will be taken into consideration: the fact that

Taylor commissioned a new book instead of purchasing one on the second hand market or

writing it himself; the use of Middle English solely over other languages; and the medical focus

of the book. Taking all this into account, we can build up a rough image of Taylor, his interests,

his social standing, and from that, the impulses behind the compiling of HM 1336.

First, Taylor had the money to afford to commission a new book, rather than purchasing

something second hand or writing his own book to save money since the greatest cost associated

with new books was the scribe‟s wages.10 As I noted in my introduction, the type of books in

demand (new or used) fluctuated widely depending on a variety of factors, and in the fifteenth

century the cost of used books fell.11 Theoretically, however, commissioning a new book gave

Taylor more choice over the texts in his manuscript than if he had bought second hand.

Moreover, he may have been unable to find English medical books second hand, and been

compelled to commission a bespoke book because of a scarcity of supply. He would,

nevertheless, have been dependent on the exemplars available for copying. Taylor may have had

to been less discerning in his choice of texts, or been forced to wait until texts became

available.12 By commissioning a student in a busy university town like Cambridge, Taylor

would in theory have more texts to choose from than if had used what was available to him

locally.13 The driving factor for Taylor may have been one of choice over cost.

Second, the manuscript is entirely in English, so Taylor may not have been able to read

Latin or French or he may have only been able to read it poorly, a hypothesis which is supported

10
Overty, “Scribal Business,” 30.
11
See p. 20.
12
Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 47, 49-50.
13
M.A. Michael, “Urban Production of Manuscript Books and the Role of the University Towns,” in CHBB, vol. II,
169-170; 188-191; 193-194.
 170

by the presence of a Latin-English glossary of herbs. He could have attended school at the

nearby town of Sudbury, but he may not have had much education.14 Latin was still the primary

language in fifteenth-century schools, but Middle English was quickly supplanting French as the

language of instruction.15 Remedy books, containing the types of texts found in HM 1336, had a

long tradition in England and they were increasingly written in English and becoming more

common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.16 There is also the obvious point that Taylor

may have preferred the texts to be written in his native vernacular.

Without further information, we cannot know Taylor‟s occupation or standing in his

community. However, we already know that he knew how to read and that he was well-off

enough to be able to commission a scribe to copy a book for him. In addition to this, the almost

exclusively medical and practical nature of HM 1336 could be proof that Taylor was a medical

practitioner, perhaps a part-time practitioner, like John Crophill of Essex, discussed below. If the

record of Robert Taillour from the close rolls of 1441 is of our Robert Taylor, then that could be

an indication that his medical work extended into Essex. Boxford is on the southern edge of

Suffolk, so it would not be unreasonable to presume that a medical practitioner in that area could

minister to patients in both counties.

Before we try to determine if Taylor was a practicing physician, we should clarify what

that term means in fifteenth-century England. Most physicians in medieval England worked

independently of guilds, without any university education, and part-time.17 They also came from

all levels of society and so very few left behind a concrete record of their existence.18 When they

14
Sudbury had an endowed school in the fifteenth century. Orme, Medieval Schools, 230.
15
Orme, Medieval Schools, 75-78; Catto, et al., “University and Monastic Texts,” in CHBB, vol. II, 231-232.
16
Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” 457-461; Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” 381, 383.
17
Faye Getz, ed., Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the Pharmaceutical
Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), xxvii-xxix.
18
Faye Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 5-7.
 171

do appear in the records they are given a wide variety of titles, the most common of which are

barber, barber-surgeon, leech, le mire, medicus, chirurgus, sururgicus, and physicus.19 The

variety of titles reflects the variety of backgrounds and levels of education that English

practitioners had. The written record, however, favours the famous and the well-educated over

the ordinary practitioner like Fayreford or Taylor. Taxation records, for example, rarely list full-

time physicians, which suggests that the majority of practitioners worked part-time, such as John

Crophill, who made the majority of his living working as a bailiff.20

The sources used by medical practitioners are as diverse as the people who were

practicing. We have already seen some of the academic sources used in the university context in

chapter three. The most common medical sources in the fifteenth century, however, are

compendia of practical medicine such as we find in HM 1336. These were collections that

crossed the boundary between university medicine and the vernacular remedy books that had

been used in England for centuries.21 They contained short medical works, recipes, texts on

bloodletting, weights and measures, and various experiments. The best-known compendia were

those of Gilbertus Anglicus and John of Gaddesden, although these and other compendia were

often mined for their recipes, just as the authors of the compendia had done with their sources.22

John Crophill‟s book, London, British Library, Harley MS 1735, is an example of these

sorts of compendia and he and his book will serve as a guide and comparison here in an attempt

to argue that Taylor was a medical practitioner, and help us use the evidence in HM 1336 to

figure out what sort of practitioner he could have been. Crophill was a part-time medical

practitioner in Wix in northeast Essex. His chief employment seems to have been as the bailiff

19
Getz, Medicine, 8.
20
Getz, Medicine, 7-8; Getz, Healing and Society, xvii. See Lois Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books: An Edition of
British Library MS Harley 1735” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1994).
21
Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” 459-460.
22
Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” 458-459.
 172

of Wix Priory, a small community of Benedictine nuns.23 The evidence for his work as a

medical practitioner is primarily a list of patients from Wix and from surrounding communities

in which the priory held property that he wrote down in Harley 1735. Lois Ayoub, in her

discussion of Crophill‟s book, thus contends that Crophill may have combined his duties as a

bailiff with medicine.24

Harley 1735 was originally two separate books bound together. The first book is made

up of prognostications and cooking recipes on parchment from the first half of the fifteenth

century. The second book is a paper manuscript containing astrological and medical texts copied

for Crophill in the second half of the fifteenth century. Both books were owned by Crophill: he

has made additions and annotations in both parts.25 The contents of the second part of Harley

1735 include medical charms for childbirth and wounds, a text on regimen, recipes for gout and

warts, the virtues of rosemary, recipes for kindling fire in water, a list of the perilous days,

prognostications by month and by zodiac sign, and various lists of patients treated by Crophill.

Although the parallels between Harley 1735 and HM 1336 are not exact, there are some

important similarities that help us determine Taylor‟s likely circumstances. Like Taylor,

Crophill had his medical book copied for him by a professional scribe.26 Both Crophill and

Taylor included texts not just on the curing of ailments, but on diet and regimen, prognostics,

and non-medical recipes. The cooking recipes in the first part of Harley 1735 and the fire recipes

in the second part demonstrate that Crophill, like Taylor, used his books as compendia of

whatever texts and genres he thought were interesting or useful. In both manuscripts, the

contents reveal someone whose interest in medicine was extensive but not exclusive.

23
Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books,” 194-195.
24
Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books,” 196.
25
Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books,” 1-2.
26
Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books,” 147.
 173

What does this comparison with Crophill tell us about Taylor? The similarities in the

contents of their books show that Taylor was probably a part-time medical practitioner like

Crophill; however, that term covers an extensive range of occupation. Medical practitioners in

late medieval England represented a wide array of people and social classes, with or without

formal education.27 Both Crophill and Taylor lived in rural areas and so Taylor, like Crophill,

may have only practiced part-time in his surrounding community. It is doubtful that he would

have had a full-time practice like Thomas Fayreford, discussed in chapter one, whose practice

extended over three counties.28 Although Taylor does not have a list of patients like Crophill

did, that does not rule out the possibility that he practiced medicine. He may have only done so

very casually or within a very limited area or he may not have bothered to keep such a record.

While the evidence in HM 1336 is not conclusive, it is nevertheless possible that he did some

work as a medical practitioner. What HM 1336 can show conclusively is that Taylor was

educated enough to read English and was well-off enough to be able to commission a scribe to

write a book for him – and it is to this scribe that we turn to now.

Symon Wysbech claims in his colophon to be an inceptor at Cambridge, teaching and

studying canon law at the masters level. Unfortunately, Wysbech does not appear in the

biographical register for the university of Cambridge, nor does there appear to be any other

records of his life that survive. Consequently, our portrait of Wysbech is based on the scant

information he provides, supplemented with general information we have concerning students

and scribes living in university towns in the fifteenth century. In the mid-fifteenth century it is

believed that there were approximately 1,300 students at Cambridge, of which law students (both

27
See especially Getz, Medicine, 5.
28
On Fayreford see chapter one, pp. 83-84 and Jones, “Harley MS 2558.”
 174

canon and civil) comprised forty percent of the student body.29 As a student of canon law,

Wysbech would have been part of a faculty that outnumbered civil law two to one.30 Wysbech‟s

claim to be an inceptor meant that he was studying to be a master and would have already taken

a BA. Inceptors had to hear lectures for three years, respond and oppose masters in disputations

(called the vesperies and inceptio), as well as be judged suitable by a panel of masters in the

faculty of canon law.31 The probability that Wysbech ever completed his studies, however, is not

very promising since less than half of students at Cambridge in the fifteenth century took a

degree.32

Because he was a student, Wysbech most likely worked part-time as a scribe to offset the

costs of his education.33 Freelance copying, of the sort he did for Taylor, would have been

unpredictable and wide-ranging, which would explain how a law student wound up copying a

medical manuscript. If Wysbech was at all typical of other contemporary part-time professional

scribes described by M.B. Parkes, he would have been hired on a casual basis, been paid by the

quire, and worked in his own lodgings.34

The inclusion of Wysbech‟s name in HM 1336 was not a common occurrence for scribes,

whether full or part-time workers.35 That he did include his name was probably because he was

a new, or relatively new, scribe and was attempting to build up his reputation and clientele. His

name in HM 1336 acts as an advertisement for his services and shows off his scribal skills to

29
T.H. Aston, G.D. Duncan, and T.A.R. Evans, “The Medieval Alumni of the University of Cambridge,” Past &
Present 86 (1980): 26.
30
Leader, University of Cambridge, 193-195.
31
Leader, University of Cambridge, 100-105; Leonard Boyle, “Canon Law Before 1380,” in The History of the
University of Oxford, ed. T.H. Aston, vol. I, The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J.I. Catto (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984), 546.
32
Aston, Duncan, and Evans, “Medieval Alumni,” 57.
33
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 46.
34
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 43, 46, 50-51.
35
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 44.
 175

potential readers.36 The addition of his location and position as a student would have further

served to provide information on how to find him in order to hire him.37 Wysbech‟s colophon

states in full (with the spacing as it appears on the page):

Explicit good gouernanse quod Symon.

Nunc scripsi totum pro christo da mihi potum.

Iste liber constat Roberto Taylor de Boxforde.

Omnibus omnia non mea sompnia dicere possum.

Quod Symon Wysbech scolaris cantabrige inceptor canonum

et legens siue studens in iure canonico

Symon Wysbech studens in iure canonico

Hec predicta scripsit benedicatur deus

[Here ends “good gouernanse” thus Symon.

Now I have written the whole for Christ; give me a drink.

This book belongs to Robert Taylor of Boxford.

I cannot tell all my dreams to all people.

Thus Symon Wysbech, a Cambridge scholar, inceptor in the canons and

a reader or student in canon law.

Symon Wysbech, student in canon law,

wrote the aforesaid [things], God be praised.]

36
An image of this folio can be found at the Digital Scriptorium Huntington Catalogue Database (The Regents of
the University of California, 2006), accessed February 14, 2011,
http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/dsheh/heh_brf?Description=&CallNumber=HM+1336.
37
Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 45.
 176

The colophon takes up over three-quarters of folio 36r with elaborate capitals highlighted in red.

Wysbech has made liberal use of red throughout the last page: in addition to drawing a large red

box around the explicit of the last text on daily living, he has drawn a large rectangle in the

margin beside the colophon that is roughly coloured in. The last occurrence of Wysbech‟s name

is especially elaborate with large highlighted capitals S and W and a long ascender on b that is

outlined in red. Wysbech‟s use of colour and dramatic flourishes on the colophon draw the

viewer‟s eye to his name, as well as to his patron‟s. In the same way that modern

advertisement‟s are designed to attract our attention, so too does Wysbech‟s colophon call

attention to himself and his abilities as a scribe.

The Composition of the Book

The previous section has presented an image of Taylor as a part-time medical practitioner and

given us some idea of how the presentation of the manuscript contributes to a particular sort of

outer identity that Taylor was constructing with his book. In the next section we will see how

the composition of the book supports this presentation and what sorts of issues must be kept in

mind concerning its present form. This will help set the context for the discussion of the magical

texts and Taylor‟s use of HM 1336 within his wider community. Unlike the previous three

chapters I will not be providing an appendix with a description of this manuscript because the

one provided by C.W. Dutschke in her catalogue of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the

Huntington Library is more than adequate.38 Instead, I will be expanding on the more salient

aspects of the manuscripts that will have particular bearing on the present discussion.

HM 1336 is made up of three parchment quires totalling 36 leaves. There may be a quire

missing from the beginning of the manuscript because the present folio 1r begins with two

medical recipes, which Dutschke believes may be the last of a collection, although there is no

38
See, Dutschke, Guide, 562-564.
 177

strong evidence to support this as the foliation and binding was done after this theoretical first

quire disappeared.39 The first and third quires were written by Wysbech for Taylor. The second

quire, by an unknown scribe in a mid-fifteenth-century hand, interrupts the main collection of

medical recipes (folios 19r-28v).40 It begins and ends imperfectly and it is missing its centre

bifolium. It is nine folios in length and it is made up of a collection of 168 recipes, roughly

starting with illnesses of the head and moving down the body. The binding is from the

nineteenth century so there is now no way of knowing when the second quire was added, or if it

was originally bound in another order, without the second quire interrupting the flow of

Wysbech‟s work. The outer leaves on all the quires are faded to varying degrees, which suggests

that they spent some time unbound. The second quire is particularly faded and may have been a

later addition – perhaps a quire that Taylor copied himself and added to his book.41 Although the

book is presently encased in a nineteenth-century binding of green parchment over pasteboards,

it does have medieval flyleaves which, judging from the fading and wear on them, may have

been used as wrappers for the quires.42 These flyleaves are fragments of a liturgical manuscript,

possibly from the fourteenth century. They are extremely faded and only a few words are still

visible.

Wysbech‟s hand is distinguished from that of the anonymous scribe by the type of ink

used, the layout of the pages, some letter forms, and in the language used. Both scribes employ a

form of Anglicana with Secretary influence. Wysbech and the anonymous scribe show the

greatest difference in their forms of þ, y, and the 2-shaped r. An ink outline of the writing area is

39
Dutschke, Guide, 562.
40
My dates for this and for the rest of the manuscript are from Dutschke, Guide, 564.
41
A not uncommon occurrence, see for example Fayreford and Crophill‟s additions to their books.
42
An image of the cover and flyleaves, and of a number of other folios from HM 1336, are available online at the
Digital Scriptorium website.
 178

still visible on the Wysbech quires, whereas no bounding lines appear in the second quire. The

ink Wysbech used is still black, while much of the anonymous scribe‟s hand has faded to brown.

There is little decoration in the manuscript. There are no illustrations, although there are

some faces doodled in pen on the bottom margin of folio 13r.43 Both Wysbech and the

anonymous scribe have written the titles for each new text and recipe in red. Wysbech employs

more red throughout the quires he copied. For the herbal glossary he coloured each initial letter

in red, filled in the blank spaces with red line fillers, and placed small red notations beside each

new herb. In both quires the headings for medical recipes are written in red ink to divide the

recipes. Wysbech also begins each recipe on a new line, draws the line fillers in red, and puts a

small red notation mark in the outer margin beside each title. In contrast to this care with

rubrication, the medical recipes that Wysbech has written (folios 2v-18v, 29r-34v) are in no

particular order and often treatments for the same ailment appear in multiple places. For

example, recipes for jaundice appear on folios 4r, 13v, and 33r. Some recipes, however, such as

those for toothache on folio 12v, are grouped together. Most collections of medical recipes start

with illnesses of the head and work their way down the body, as those in the second quire do.44

Wysbech‟s unorganised approach is at odds with the presentation of the text and ultimately

makes it harder to find recipes.

The anonymous scribe‟s approach to copying seems to be concerned mostly with saving

space on the page. The recipes are short and include only the most essential information. Both

magical texts he includes are significantly shortened in comparison with other surviving copies

from the fifteenth century. When multiple recipes are included for the same affliction the scribe

titles them “Anoþer,” which can be confusing if the reader has to turn back pages to find out

43
This folio can be seen online at the Digital Scriptorium website.
44
Olsan, “Corpus,” 214.
 179

what the recipe is for. While the running of the recipes from the head downward makes it

relatively easier to navigate the recipes of the second quire than those of the first and third, the

shortcuts taken by the scribe work against this organisation. Additionally, the fore margins are

much smaller in comparison with the first and third quires (admittedly, this may be the result of

cropping). Recipes follow one another closely, without space between them – they are

delineated only by the red ink used to write the headings.

The choice of language and spelling forms of both scribes places them within the same

geographical area. Wysbech‟s spelling is firmly East Anglian, as seen through his use of the

forms “xalle,” “xuld,” “qwich,” etc.45 The anonymous scribe uses some vocabulary that is not

found in Wysbech‟s quires. The most prominent difference in his language is the use of “nyme”

[take]. His use of the forms “hem,” “how,” “yt,” and “whanne” places him within three possible

areas of England – including an area covering the borders of Norfolk, Suffolk, Ely, and

Cambridgeshire.46 Given the location of Robert Taylor, this seems the most likely location for

our anonymous scribe as well (assuming that he was not simply copying the word forms of his

exemplar).

Because of the modern binding we cannot say whether the second quire was added by

Taylor or by a later owner. If Taylor did own this second quire, then it was acquired (and

possibly used) separately from the quires composed by Wysbech. The use of pages from an

older medieval book as flyleaves is probably evidence that they were once used as the wrappers

for the book, which Dutschke suggests is the case here. Wrappers around loose quires may have

been meant as a temporary cover, to protect the quires before being bound.47 The wrappers were

45
Dutschke, Guide, 564.
46
Angus McIntosh, M.L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin, A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English, vol. 3,
Linguistic Profiles (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986), 92.
47
J.A. Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999), 286; Dutschke, Guide,
564.
 180

then appropriated for use as the flyleaves. The combination of the wrappers and the wear on the

outer leaves of the quires suggests that the quires of the book spent a fair amount of time

unbound and so Taylor may have also owned the second quire and kept it wrapped together with

the Wysbech quires. The insertion of the second quire between the first and third quires

(subsequently interrupting the text) may then be the result of misplacing the quire before the

manuscript was bound.

While I am hesitant to come to a definite conclusion about Taylor‟s ownership of the

second quire without further proof, the evidence at hand does suggest that he owned it. The

proposed date of its composition, the use of wrappers before binding, and the content of the quire

all suggest ownership by Taylor. Additionally, the language of the anonymous scribe places him

within the same area as Taylor and Wysbech. The contents certainly reinforce the image of

Taylor and his interests presented in the Wysbech-penned quires. Until and unless evidence

proving otherwise appears, I will be working under the assumption that Taylor owned both sets

of quires. However, I will at the same time treat the contents of the second quire with more

reserve than those of the first and third quires.

The Texts of HM 1336

The contents of HM 1336 are primarily medical. With the exception of some technical and trick

recipes, and prognostications based on thunder and the day the kalends of January fall, the book

is devoted to medical recipes and related texts. Taylor does not have any academic texts in this

book, choosing instead to include only immediately practical texts: a glossary of herbs, which

provides their English and Latin names; a large collection of medical recipes that make up the

bulk of the manuscript; a list of good days for bloodletting in each month; a list of the perilous

days; and a work on “goode gouernanse,” which lays out what food and drink is best consumed

in which month and the best times for bloodletting. This focus on practical texts is an important
 181

context to keep in mind for the magic texts of HM 1336 and the identity that is presented in the

manuscript.

The first text, apart from two medical recipes that may be a continuation of a lost quire, is

a Latin-English herbal glossary of approximately 130 entries (folios 1r-2v). It is written in two

columns with the Latin names for various herbs (acaliphe, vrtica) listed on the left side and the

English word on the right side (nettyle). Herbal glossaries are common parts of medical books.

There is one in Fayreford‟s book, Harley 2558; other examples can be found with the medical

texts of Digby 29 (folios 38r-44v), CUL Dd.xi.45 (folios 94r-116v), and Sloane 962 (folios 10v-

11v, 155r-v, 252r-259v). A brief perusal of these glossaries will show that every herb had

multiple names that could easily become confusing – a danger for someone trying to cure an

illness or heal a wound quickly. For example, in Plant Names of Medieval England, Tony Hunt

lists over a dozen variations for marjoram found in the manuscript record including marjoran,

mugwort, maythes, magiron, and hundefenyl.48 A glossary would thus be essential for any

medical practitioner.

Both Wysbech and the anonymous scribe have copied a large number of medical recipes

(folios 2v-18v, 19r-28v, 29r-34v). Like the medical recipes in TCC O.1.57 and Ashmole 1435,

there is no single source for these medical recipes. Some collections travelled as part of a

complete work, like the Liber de diversis medicinis49 or the Middle English Leechcraft studied

by Lea Olsan.50 However, even within those texts, recipes and charms were added and removed

as befitted the whims of each scribe. Even recipes that travelled in a work and in compilations

by the medical authorities of the day were amalgamations of knowledge passed on through the

48
Tony Hunt, Plant Names of Medieval England (Great Britain: D.S. Brewer, 1989), 166.
49
For more on this work see chapter one, pp. 86-87.
50
Olsan, “Corpus,” 214-237.
 182

centuries.51 As neither recipe collection in HM 1336 has a title or prologue, it is unlikely that

they were part of a text, but were gathered from a variety of sources.

The medical recipes also include entries on the virtues of herbs, including camomile,

borage, and betony (folios 20v, 33v). As in the examples studied in previous chapters, the texts

on virtues include both medical and magical characteristics. Most of the virtues listed here are

decidedly medical, such as those given for borage, which balances the humours and purges the

body of venom.52 In one instance, though, Betony is used as a talisman to keep away delusions

and delirium by wearing it around the neck.53 The line between magic and medicine appears

especially blurred here.

Among these medical recipes are recipes for inks and colours and some technical and

trick recipes. In the Wysbech quires there is a joke recipe on folio 5r to make “potage slippin out

of þe potte” using gunpowder.54 The bulk of the colour recipes, for red, green, yellow, and blue,

appear on folio 3v. On folio 15r there is a recipe for black ink and one for glue. Finally, there

are recipes for gunpowder on folios 3v and 33v. The trick recipes in the second quire are to

51
Getz, Healing and Society, xli-xliii.
52
Folio 33v: “Borage is a nobille herbe: it confortith alle humores of a mannis body, jt helpith meche þe cardiacle, jt
noscherithe blode, jt purgithe venym.” [Borage is a noble herb: it comforts all the humours of a man‟s body, it helps
heart pain a lot, it nourishes blood, it purges venom.]
53
Folio 20v: “Anoþer for þe virtu of betoyne. Betoyne ys an erbe ful of vertu and holy who so haþ fantasme and
dwelsyng hong yt abowte hys necke and yt schal gon a wey.” [Another for the virtue of betony. Betony is a holy
herb full of virtue and whoever has delusions and delirium [should] hang it about his neck and it shall go away.]
54
Folio 5r: “For to make potage slippinn out of þe potte. Take arnement and salt peter and spaynis sope and grynd it
alle in poudire and caste it in þe potte and alle þe potage in þe potte xalt rene out a warentise.” [In order to make a
stew slip out of the pot. Take vitriol and saltpetre and Spanish soap and grind it all into a powder and throw it in the
pot and all the stew in the pot shall run out, [I] guarantee.] A variation of this recipe can be found in the Liber cure
cocorum, a mid-fifteenth century cookery book in verse. The book begins with three trick recipes: two recipes to
make cooked food appear raw and to make it appear full of worms and the recipe to make food leap out of the pot.
The Liber cure recipe is designed as a trick to play on the cook: “Yf þe coke be croked or soward mane / Take sope,
cast in hys potage; / Þenne wylle þe pot begyn to rage / And welle on alle, and lepe in / þat licoure is made, noþer
thykke ne thynne.” [If the cook is a crooked or froward man, / Take soap, cast [it] in his potage, / Then will the pot
begin to rage / And well above all, and leap in. / That liquid is made, neither thick nor thin.] Text and translation
from Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,” 184. The De mirabilius mundi contains a version to make “a chicken or
other thing leap in the dish” using a combination of quicksilver and zinc carbonate. See Best and Brightman, Book of
Secrets, 98 and Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,” 177-178, 183-185.
 183

make writing that can only be read at night, to make an unbreakable egg, to make hens and

chicks seem dead, to make a man appear headless, and to make crows white (folios 27v-28r).

Practical joke recipes like the one for potage noted above, as we have seen in chapter

three, were one of two kinds of joke cooking recipes which were based on chemical reactions

(the other kind being parody recipes that used disgusting or absurd ingredients).55 Gunpowder

was often used in these joke recipes to make foodstuff move about as if it were alive (such as

recipes to make loaves jump about, examples of which can be found from the fifteenth century in

TCC O.1.57, Ashmole 1435, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1393).56 These tricks

often gave the perpetrator the appearance of special or magical powers, but without the threat of

performing real magic, as well as being a form of entertainment.

The joke recipes and the technical recipes for inks and colours are a brief break from the

medical theme of the book. Non-medical texts do appear in the books of medical practitioners,

such as in the notebooks of Fayreford (see chapter one) and the aforementioned Crophill, whose

book contained recipes for gunpowder, geomancy, and short verses in addition to the main

medical material.57 Medical compendiums sometimes included non-medical recipes, such as for

gunpowder, simply because they were useful to have on hand, as in John of Mirfield‟s

fourteenth-century work Breviarium Bartholomei.58 They were not necessarily thinking in terms

of genre, but of what was useful or interesting. As medical practitioners often worked part-time,

it makes sense that their books would reflect that part-time aspect of the work and contain

different kinds of texts. If this was the only book Taylor had made for his practical use, then it

55
Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,” 178, 180, 188.
56
For example, in TCC O.1.57, one of the headings in the Tricks of Solomon (folio 128r) is “Si vis facere panem
saltare super mensam” [If you wish to make bread dance over the table]. See Adamson, “The Games Cooks Play,”
183-188 and chapter three, n. 55.
57
Ayoub, “John Crophill‟s Books,” 191, 230; Jones, “Information and Science,” 109.
58
Getz, Medicine, 50-51.
 184

would make sense that he might ask Wysbech to include other texts that Taylor found appealing.

Moreover, this break from the medical texts shows again how magic texts could be interwoven

with the texts of everyday life.

The next set of texts, the prognostications, are typical of medical notebooks like this one,

indeed of personal notebooks in general.59 They are found in England from the Anglo-Saxon

period on.60 Prognostic texts vary widely in form, subject, and function. Some list only those

days in the year that are good for bloodletting; others offer predictions based on the day that

certain events occur, such as Christmas or the kalends of January (as in HM 1336). One

common type of prognostic gives predictions based on when it thunders – by month, day, hour,

or by the zodiacal position.61 It should be apparent that the term “prognostic” is an umbrella

term for a broad range of texts which do not always operate according to the modern definition

of prognostic (i.e., divining, foretelling, or even diagnosis). While many texts did offer glimpses

into the future (such as the thunder prognostications), many others instead give advice on the

best or worst days for bloodletting, or listed the lucky and unlucky days of the year.

The prognostic texts in HM 1336 come under the categories of advice and divination.

The first two prognostic texts (thunder prognostications (folio 34v) and according to what day

the kalends of January occur (folio 35r)) give indications of the upcoming year in terms of

weather, harvest, and society. Thunder in January, for example, means that there will be great

59
Laurel Braswell, “Utilitarian and Scientific Prose,” in Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors
and Genres, ed. A.S.G. Edwards (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984), 346; Jones, “Medicine and
Science,” 440.
60
In a text on the good days for bloodletting. Richard Shaw, “At the Borders of Medicine and Magic: A New Work
by Ælfric?” Unpublished paper presented at the Seventh Annual ASSC Graduate Student Conference, “Crises of
Categorization,” Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, February 12, 2011.
61
On thunder prognostications see Eric Shane Bryan, “Prognostications by Thunder in the Zodiac: MSS Trinity
R.14.52, Sloane 636, and PML M.775,” American Notes and Queries 19:4 (2006): 16-22.
 185

winds, an abundance of fruit, and great conflict.62 Thunder in May, however, signifies the onset

of a famine.63 The prognostications according to the kalends of January offer a bit more

information. If the kalends fall on a Monday there will be a good summer and winter, but great

frosts, sicknesses, and conflict.64

The last two prognostic texts are medical. There is a short text (folio 35r) on the good

and bad days to let blood, and which limbs should or should not be bled for different illnesses.

For instance, bleeding someone from their right hand on the seventeenth of March or from their

left hand on the eleventh day of April will prevent them from losing their eyesight that year.65

Conversely, bleeding someone from both arms on the fourth or fifth of May will induce fevers in

them.66 Texts on the best times for bloodletting were often predicated on the influence of the

moon on the earth. It was an accepted belief that it was better to bleed someone in the waning of

moon instead of in the waxing because the moon was thought to control both the tides and

blood.67 It followed then, that these days could be tracked and written down for future

reference.68 Different parts of the body were associated with different illnesses and parts of the

62
Folio 34v: “If it thundire in þe monthe Ianeuere it betoknyth gret wyndis and habundance of fruet and gret
batelle.” [If it thunders in the month of January it denotes great winds and abundance of fruit and great conflict]
63
Folio 34v: “If it thundire in þe monthe of maij it signifithe nede of frwte and gret hunger.” [If it thunders in the
month of May it signifies a lack of fruit and great hunger.]
64
Folio 35r: “If kalendes of januere falle on Monday we xalle haue a comyn wynter a good sumer may many waters
gret seknesse and gret bataille many wydows. gret frostes.” [If the kalends of January fall on Monday, we shall have
a normal winter, a good summer, much rainfall, great sickness and great conflict, many widows; great frosts.]
65
Folio 35r: “Hosoeuer blede on þe rith hande ye xvii day of marche and on þe lifte hande þe xj day of aprille he
xalle not lose þat ȝere his eye sith.” [Whosoever bleeds on the right hand on the 17 th day of March and on the left
hand on the 15th day of April, he shall not lose his eye sight.]
66
Folio 35r: “Also he so bled of both armis in þe ende of may in þe iiijday or in v þat ȝere he xall haue þe feuers.”
[Also, whoever is bled in both arms in the end of May in the fourth or fifth day, he shall have fevers that year.]
67
Getz, Medicine, 13
68
Discrepancies as the dates shifted were explained with the use of “astronomical days” composed of fewer hours in
the day, such as that proposed by the fourteenth-century writer Bartholomew of Bruges in his Aggregationes de crisi
et creticis diebus. Roger French, “Astrology in Medical Practice,” in Practical Medicine From Salerno to the Black
Death, ed. Luis García Ballester, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 51-53; Faith Wallis,
“Medicine in the Medieval Calendar,” in Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine, 120.
 186

zodiac, as illustrated through images of Zodiac and Phlebotomy/Vein Men.69 Illnesses could be

treated by bleeding from the limb that was associated with that ailment, or while under the

appropriate zodiac sign.

The last of the prognostic texts is a list of the perilous days (folios 35r-35v). It begins

with a warning that whoever falls sick on these days will die, whoever is born on these days will

die young, whoever sets out on pilgrimage on these days will not survive the journey, and

whoever gets married on a perilous day will not have a happy marriage. Then a straightforward

list of the perilous days in each month finishes the text. Lists of the perilous days, while having

some similarities to the text on bloodletting, are direct carryovers from the Egyptian Days in the

Roman calendar.70 As a result, the dates are arbitrarily set and are usually written in medieval

manuscripts without explanation. Lists of perilous or Egyptian Days were ubiquitous in

medieval calendars and especially so in medical books, despite the divinatory connotations

associated with them.71

The last text in the manuscript, titled How þe xalle be gouerend euery month in þe ȝere

(folios 35v-36r), gives advice on daily living. It contains elements of the previous prognostic

texts in that it gives advice on bloodletting and the best times to do it throughout the year. The

rest of the text is prescriptions for one‟s diet throughout the year. Dietary and regimen texts like

this one were of great interest to medieval readers. Part of the appeal of the pseudo-Aristotelian

Secretum secretorum, for example, seems to have derived from its advice on diet and health.72

Works on diet and regimen of health can be found written by the most notable names in

medicine: John of Ardene, John of Gaddesden, even Roger Bacon wrote on proper diet and

69
Such as those on folios 14v and 20v of TCC O.1.57, discussed in chapter two, p. 111. See also Wallis, “Medieval
Calendar,” 120; French, “Astrology,” 39-42; Bober, “The Zodiacal Miniature,” 1-34.
70
Wallis, “Medieval Calendar,” 117-118.
71
Wallis, “Medieval Calendar,” 118, 120.
72
Getz, Medicine, 53.
 187

regimen for health in his Opus Maius.73 Dietaries and works on the regimen of health were

important not just for general health, but also for preventing and treating illnesses.74 Although

HM 1336‟s version is truncated, it still contains aspects of the longer and more detailed texts that

populated the works of medical authorities.

All of these texts viewed together support the claim made above that Taylor was a

medical practitioner of some sort. Like Crophill‟s book, the texts are all of the sort used by

medical practitioners in the fifteenth century. Unlike the owners of TCC O.1.57, who included

medical texts as part of a more varied collection that was meant for household use, Taylor

confines his texts to what he might have needed to administer to his patients (with a few

exceptions). These texts epitomize Taylor‟s predilection for practical texts and highlight the

ordinary nature of the magic texts that are included in HM 1336.

Charms and Natural Magic

At the beginning of this chapter I alluded to some of the similarities that HM 1336 has with

Ashmole 1435 and TCC O.1.57 and the manner in which they all mix medical and magical

material. However, a distinction must be made at this point. Although these similarities do

highlight an important aspect of the use of magic and the appearance of magic in books, they do

not represent identical attitudes towards magic in all books. Each manuscript discussed so far

shows us how its owners have used magic in their own unique way. The Haldenby family used

magic in the creation of their identity as a lower gentry family. For the owner of Ashmole 1435

magic served as entertainment and as an expression of his masculinity. HM 1336 thus reinforces

how magic could be a part of people‟s everyday lives, while also presenting Taylor‟s own

73
Getz, Medicine, 42-43, 54-55.
74
John of Gaddesden, for example, believed that a proper regimen was important for treating stomach diseases.
Getz, Medicine, 43.
 188

distinctive interests. This will become apparent as we now come to the charms and natural

magic in HM 1336.

The anonymous scribe includes two texts that are of interest here. The first is a short

Flum Jordan charm to staunch blood, copied on the top of folio 24r, which reads, “Cryst was

borne yn bedlehem and flowyd yn þe flem Jordan; as þe fleme astode also astonde þy blode. Jn

nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti amen” [Christ was born in Bethlehem and baptised in the

river Jordan; as the river stood still, your blood also stand still. In the name of the Father and of

the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen]. The blood is commanded to stand still just as the waters of

the River Jordan did when Jesus was baptised. This version of the charm is severely shortened

and leaves out most of the details found in other versions.75 As we have seen in chapter one, the

Flum Jordan charm was one of the most common charm-types in fifteenth-century England, with

twenty-two known copies in the manuscript record (including this copy).76 With the exceptions

of the Longinus and Tres boni fratres charms, no other charms appear with such frequency. This

reinforces the impression of the ordinary quality of the charm and the pattern of use that was

proposed in the survey of chapter one. For the people who copied down these charms, healing

charms seem to have been no different from the medical recipes. We can see this in the way that

the charm is integrated into the rest of the text. It is not singled out, but neither is it camouflaged

as something other than a charm. It is surrounded by recipes for bladder problems, fevers, and a

recipe to stop hair from growing. In a long list of remedies the Flum Jordan charm is but one of

many options to choose from.

The second text of interest that the anonymous scribe includes is one that is on the border

between magic and divination. This is an abbreviated form of a divinatory charm to determine
75
Some versions also mention Saint John the Evangelist, invoke the blood in the name of the patient, or instruct the
performer to say the charm in the worship of the five wounds of Christ.
76
pp. 63-64. See also Rossell Hope Robbins, “Medical Manuscripts in Middle English,” Speculum 45:3 (1970):
405; Kieckhefer Magic, 71.
 189

whether a sick person will live or die (folio 27r). Lea Olsan includes it in her discussion of

Leechcraft charms and labels it as a charm.77 The version she examines includes a „conjuration‟

of vervain in the name of Christ, abd a recitation of five Pater nosters; it finally calls on the

patient to answer through the virtue of God.78 The HM 1336 version excludes all conjurations

and prayers and might be better called natural magic:

For to knowe wheþer a seke man schal lyue or deye. Nyme verueyne and
bere yt yn þyn hond and come to þe seek man and sey to hym þus scilicet
“how ys yt wyt þe” and ȝyf he answer and sey “wel” he schal lyue and
ȝyf he sey “euyle” or ony sweche þyng he schal deye.

[In order to know whether a sick man shall live or die. Take vervain and
bear it in your hand and come to the sick man, and say to him thus,
namely, “how is it with you?” and if he should answer and say, “well” he
shall live and if he should say, “evil” or any such thing he shall die.]
The anonymous scribe has continued his wholesale effort to save space and has removed what he

sees as non-essential. Medical divinations like this were common in medical books, as part of

the general interest with the prognostic texts discussed above.79 While this is more properly a

form of prognostication than a healing charm, it is nevertheless useful as an example of how

magic texts or texts with magical elements were changed in transmission, and how close the lines

between genres of magic were. Though the divinatory element of the Leechcraft charm remains,

77
See Olsan, “Corpus,” 219.
78
“For to weten if a sik man nogt wounded schal leue or deye Also. Take fiue croppes of verveyne with þi rigt hand
and ley in þi lefte and sey ouer hem .v. pater noster in þe worschip of þe .v. woundes of Crist and sey þus: I coniure
yow fiue croppes in þe vertu of þe .v. woundes þat + Crist suffred on þe rode tre forto bye mannis soule out of God
and of yow wheþer he schal leue or deye of þat siknesse. and bless hem .v. times and ley hem in þin rigt hand agen.
and tak þe sik be his rigt hand so þat he wete nogt of þe erbes. and what þu axest he schal telle soth of his stat.” [In
order to know whether a sick man not wounded shall live or day also. Take five sprigs of vervain with the right hand
and lay in the left and say over them five Our Fathers in the worship of the the five wounds of Christ and say thus: I
conjure you five sprigs in the virtue of the five wounds that + Christ suffered on the cross in order to buy man‟s soul
from God and of you whether he will live or die of that sickness; and bless him five times and put them in the right
hand again, and take the sick person by his right hand and so that he does not notice the herbs and what you ask of
him he will truthfully tell at once.] Olsan, “Corpus,” 219.
79
pp. 183-186.
 190

the power of the operation now resides solely in the properties of the vervain. It has been

stripped of its explicitly magical properties and what is left takes up less space and contains only

what the scribe saw as the most important elements, namely the power of vervain.

The magical texts in Wysbech‟s hand include a collection of charms and a natural magic

experiment to cure epilepsy (folios 8v-9r) (the only remedies for epilepsy in the manuscript).

The first two are similar procedures that require the practitioner to write the names of the three

Magi, Jasper, Melchior, and Balthazar, with the blood of the sick person‟s little finger:

Take blod of þe litille fynger of hym þat is seke of his rythe hande and
wryt þes iij namys þer with in parchemyn “Jaspare + Melch[iar] +
Baltizare +” and close it and hange it about his nekke and or þou close it
put þer in golde and mirre and frankensense, of ich o liche meche, and
bid him þat hathe þis euylle blessyn him qwan he rysithe out of his bedde
with þes iij namys and sey for his fader soule and his moder iij pater
noster and iij aues and iche day drynke þe rote of pione with stale ale.
And if it be a childe þat is an innocent drawe blode of þe same fynger
beforseid and wryt þes iij namys “Jasper + Melchizar (sic) + Baltizar +
In nomine patris + et filij + et spiritus sancti + Amen” and writ þis in a
maser with blode of þe childe and wasche it and lat þe child drynke on
þat kuppe and he xalle be hole with þe grace of god.

[Take [the] blood of the little finger from him that is sick from his right
hand and write these three names there with in parchment: “Jasper +
Melchiar + Baltizar +” and close it and hang it about his neck and before
you close it put in there gold and myrrh and frankincense, an equal
amount of each, and bid him that has this illness bless himself with these
three names when he rises out of his bed. And say for his father‟s soul
and his mother three Our Fathers and three Aves and each day drink the
root of peony with stale ale.
And if the patient is a child, that is an innocent, draw blood of the same
finger mentioned before and write these three names: “Jasper +
Melchizar + Baltizar + In the name of the Father + and Son + and Holy
Spirit + Amen”; and write this in a cup with the blood of the child, and
 191

wash it, and let the child drink from that cup, and he shall be whole by
the grace of God.]
The first set of instructions has the user write the three names on a piece of parchment, which is

worn about the neck. In addition, the sick person is to say three Pater nosters and three Ave

Marias every morning, and is required to drink the root of a peony mixed with stale ale. In the

second procedure the names are written inside a cup, the cup is washed, and then the child drinks

out of the cup; the charm works under the presumption that the healing powers of the three

names will be embedded in the cup even though the physical mark is gone.

The powers behind these charms are two-fold. First, the invocation of the names of the

three Magi, because they humbled themselves before Christ as servants, inverting their kingly

roles, serve as “curative archetypes” for the disease.80 Thus, the image of the three kings

bowing, kneeling, or falling down before the baby Jesus is brought to mind when their names are

written on the parchment or the cup. Likewise, the use of the three gifts of the Magi as an amulet

in the first charm serves as double reinforcement against the disease by reminding the patient of

the Magi in the days and weeks after the charm is performed. Second, the use of human blood

and the peony as a medicine against epilepsy can be traced back to the writings of Pliny,

although the medieval equivalent is much changed.81 Instead of a collapsed epileptic being

smeared with human blood, now his own blood is used as a preventative in the writing of the

names.82 Likewise, the ancient remedy of hanging peony in a piece of linen with coral and the

root of the strychnos plant is replaced with a drink of ale and peony.83

80
Olsan, “Medieval Memory,” 72.
81
Owsei Temkin, The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern
Neurology, 2nd ed. rev. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), 12-13, 102.
82
Temkin, Falling Sickness, 12.
83
Temkin, Falling Sickness, 13.
 192

Both of these charms are variations of the epilepsy charms found in the Leechcraft.84 The

differences are slight: the instructions for the first section changes viewpoints from addressing

the sick person to addressing the physician and the duration of the treatment is left more

ambiguous; the instructions for the child with epilepsy have been expanded at the beginning of

the HM 1336 version to repeat that the blood is to be taken from the little finger and this version

omits that the cup should be washed with ale or milk. The differences between these charms and

those in the Leechbook demonstrate the idiosyncratic nature of the transmission of charms. Most

copies of these charms from the fifteenth century survive with other charms in medical works

like copies of the Leechcraft, the work of John of Ardene,85 or the Liber de diversis medicinis.

That these two charms are found together in a large number of medical texts, including those of

the English medical writer John of Ardene, as well as on their own in miscellaneous medical

recipe collections illustrate the different ways that charms could be transmitted and how they

could end up on their own: picked piecemeal from larger texts, passed on orally, and taken from

their original context.

Like the Flum Jordan charm above, these variations that build up through the variety of

ways in which they are transmitted reinforce how widespread and common these charms were in

fifteenth-century England. Likewise, the everyday character of the epilepsy charms comes

through in these variations. These charms were adjusted for space, personal preference, or from

84
“Tak blod of þi litil finger of þi rigt hand and writ þerwith þese thre names + Iaspar + Melchior + Baltasar. and
close it an hang it about þi necke and put þerin gold and mirre and francencense of ech a litil. and each day whan þu
arist blesse þe with þese iii . names and sey for here fader soule and moderes iii pater noster and iii Aue. and ech day
a monthe drink þe rote of pyonie with stal ale and þu schal be hol sikerly. and if it is a child tak þe blod as it is a
foreseid and write þe thre names in a maser and wasch it with ale or melk and do þe child drink it and schal be hol.”
[Take [the] blood of the little finger from the right hand and write therewith these three names: “Jasper + Melchiar +
Baltizar +” and close it and hang it about his neck and put in there a little each of gold and myrrh and frankincense,
and each day when you wake up bless yourself with these three names and say for your father‟s soul and his
mother‟s three Our Fathers and three Aves and each day [for] a month drink the root of peony with stale ale and you
shall be healed quickly. And if it is a child take the blood as it is aforesaid and write the three names in a cup and
wash it with ale or milk and make the child drink it and he shall be healed.] Olsan, “Corpus,” 221.
85
Temkin, Falling Sickness, 111-112.
 193

misreading. Whether they are the result of textual or oral corruption, or deliberate changes, they

show that the charms were being actively passed on and adapted throughout the period. In HM

1336 they became part of the arsenal used by Taylor in his practice and their adaptation and

placement in the recipe collection reveals Taylor‟s practical bent. The change of address and the

expanded instructions in the second charm are potentially more useful to the reader. The

omissions, while they may be the result of scribal error, could also be deliberate omissions of

unnecessary information.

The final magical procedure against epilepsy copied by Wysbech is a natural magic

experiment (folio 9r) that immediately follows the charms: “Also, an oþer medicyne: take and

make a rynge on þe rythe fot on þe asse and lat þe seke bere it vp on hym” [Also, another

medicine: take and make a ring on [of?] the right foot on the ass and let the sick person bear it

upon himself]. There are no words of power to be written or spoken, and the healing rests on the

construction of a ring. However, the charm does not specify whether this is an actual ring that is

constructed or is merely a drawing on a piece of paper or parchment that is worn as an amulet.

It is unclear whether there is a connection between epilepsy and the ass, or even between

this animal and magical cures. In medieval folklore donkeys are more commonly associated

with punishments (usually being ridden backwards as a form of shaming) and sexuality rather

than for their healing powers.86 The use of the donkey in the HM 1336 cure may be derived

from Isidore of Seville‟s Etymologies, in which he claims the name of the ass (asinus) comes

from the word for sitting (a sedendo, taken as asedus).87 In that case, the association would be a

86
On their use as a form of punishment see Malcolm Jones, “Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art II: Sexist Satire
and Popular Punishments,” Folklore 101:1 (1990): 75-77. For the use of the ass in erotic imagery see Malcolm
Jones, “Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art III: Erotic Animal Imagery,” Folklore 102:2 (1991): 207-208. The use
of a donkey may be a confusion with the goat, which was traditionally associate with epilepsy in ancient sources.
See Temkin, Falling Sickness, 11, 14.
87
“Asinus et asellus a sedendo dictus, quasi asedus” [The ass and the young ass are named from sitting, as if
asedus]. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies: Livre XII, Des animaux, ed. and trans. Jacques André (Paris: Les Belles
Lettres, 1986), 65.
 194

similar one to the kneeling of the three Magi in the preceding charms. The sitting of the donkey

would act as a positive analogy for the patient to prevent him or her from falling during a fit.

The use of rings and circles in magic was common in ritual magic texts, as well as in the

realm of folk magic.88 Talismanic rings were worn for protection against illnesses and other

dangers, such as a fifteenth-century ring from Coventry made for protection that is a rare

survivor from England.89 This is a wide ring inscribed with a figure of Christ of Pity on the

outside and devotional phrases in English. The inside of the band contains devotional and

magical formulae, including the names of the Magi.90 It may have been a cramp ring like the one

described in Lincoln 91 (folios 297r-297v) that is to be made from the first pennies from five

parish churches, inscribed with the names of Jesus and the Magi and prayed over. These rings

were part of a larger tradition from at least the time of Edward II in which rings that had been

blessed by the king on Good Friday were used to heal cramp, epilepsy, and palsy.91 In a similar

fashion, circles were used in ritual magic to create a protective field in which the practitioner

performed his rituals.92 In folk magic, circles are frequently used in amulets, such as in a

collection of amulets in HM 64. These are diagrams of five circles against enemies (folio 17v),

against sudden death (folio 21v), for victory (folio 34r), for fire (folio 34r), and against demons

(folio 51r).93

88
See for example, the instructions on the creations of rings for the planets in the Liber de angelis, the making of a
ring of power in the Liber florum, and the numerous examples of magical rings and circles in necromancy, including
the use of a ring in the conjuration of a demon horse in Rawlinson D. 252 (folio 80r), and a gold ring in Clm 849
used to make a dead person appear living. Lidaka, “Book of Angels,” 46-49; FR, 42, 59, 61-63.
89
Edina Bozoky, “Private Reliquaries and Other Prophylactic Jewels: New Compositions and Devotional Practices
in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in The Unorthodox Imagination, 123.
90
Bozoky, “Private Reliquaries,” 123.
91
Frank Barlow, “The King‟s Evil,” The English Historical Review 95:374 (1980): 14.
92
FR, 42, 44-53, 84-85, 170-183; Skemer, Binding Words, 124, 118.
93
Skemer‟s study of textual amulets in Binding Words also discusses numerous items that use circles in their
imagery. See especially, 117-118, 213; Fig. 5, 6.
 195

Most talismanic rings (and other prophylactic jewellery) do not survive. They were lost,

stolen, dismantled for economic reasons, reused for non-magical purposes because of changing

fashions, or melted down.94 Subsequently, we must rely on the evidence from the few remaining

rings, the fortunately large number of medieval and early modern catalogues of royal collections

(which contained the more elaborate and expensive examples),95 and descriptions of rings in

manuscripts, where we get a hint at what sort of purpose rings were used for even if we do not

get a physical description of the ring itself. Many textual amulets as well do not survive simply

because they were handled so much that they fell apart.96

So far the charms in HM 1336 have been representative of the type of medical charms

and their contents put forward in the manuscript survey in chapter one and they have mirrored

the use of medical charms in the previous two chapters. Both Wysbech and the anonymous

scribe included the charms in the main text without special notice or concealment. Medical

practitioners, and even academic medical writers, used medical charms to treat disease and injury

in medieval England.97 These particular charms in HM 1336 cover two of the afflictions most

commonly treated with charms: bleeding and epilepsy. Every aspect of these charms is

something we have seen before: the reservation of Latin for Holy words, the use of semantic

motifs that link the disease and the cure, and the use of an amulet. This pattern of common use is

vital to understanding how ordinary charms could become in late medieval society. The repeated

appearance of these charms in similar contexts proves the ubiquity of magic, especially in a

medical context. This is strengthened by a recipe to staunch blood that is specifically intended to

be used after charms have failed.

94
Bozoky, “Private Reliquaries,” 115.
95
Bozoky, “Private Reliquaries,” 115.
96
Skemer, Binding Words, 2, 171-172.
97
Lea Olsan, “Charms and Prayers,” 343-366; Getz, Medicine, 41.
 196

On folio 30r Wysbech has copied the heading “For stawnchinge of blod qwan a maister

veyn is coruyne and wille not stanche with charmynge” [For staunching of blood when a master

vein is cut and will not staunch with charming]. The recipe that follows has the practitioner roast

a piece of salt beef over the fire until it is done and place it on the wound:

Take a pece of salt befȝ þe lene and not þe fatte þat þou supposist wille in
þe wonde and take and lei it in þe emerþ in þe fire and roste it tille it be
jnowe and alle hote thyrste it in to þe wonde and bynd it fast and it xalle
stawnche anoun and neuer streme after warentise.

[Take a piece of salt beef, the lean and not the fat, that you suppose will
[fit] in the wound and take and lay it in the embers in the fire and roast it
until it be enough and all hot; thrust it into the wound and bind it fast and
it shall staunch soon and never flow after, [I] guarantee.]
This is not a singular recipe unique to Taylor‟s manuscript. To date, I have found the same

heading and recipe in three other fifteenth-century manuscripts: two also at the Huntington

Library, HM 58 (folios 75v-67r) and HM 64 (folio 23r), and London, British Library, Additional

MS 33972 (folio 3r). In the two Huntington manuscripts the recipe is immediately preceded by a

charm to staunch blood that uses the Flum Jordan and Longinus motifs combined.98 The HM

1336 version omits the charm beforehand (although there is a charm to staunch blood in the

second quire, discussed above).

The absence of the Flum Jordan/Longinus charm from the copy in HM 1336 seems not to

be due to a reluctance to copy the original charm (as there was clearly a willingness to include

98
The text in both manuscripts bears only superficial differences in spelling and word choice. For example, the text
in HM 64 states: “A goode charme to staunche B Longinus miles latus domini nostri + ihesu + cristi + lancia
perforavit et continuo exiuit sanguis et aqua propter redempcionem nostrorum Adiuro te sanguis per Jhesum cristum
+ per latus eius + per sanguinem eius + Sta + Sta + Sta + Cristus + et Johannes descenderunt in flumine Jordani et
aqua obstupuit et stetit et sic faciat sanguis istius corporis in cristo nomine + et sancti Johannis baptiste Amen Et
dicetur iij pater noster Et 3 Aue maria Et una Credo” [A good charm to staunch b[lood]. The soldier Longinus
pierced the side of our + Lord + Jesus + Christ + with a lance and the blood poured out continuously for the sake of
our redemption, I adjure you, blood, through Jesus Christ + through his side + through his blood + stay + stay + stay
+ Christ + and John went into the river Jordan and he struck the water and it stopped, and may the blood of this body
do likewise in the name of Christ + and saint John the Baptist Amen. And say three Our Fathers and three Ave
Marias and one Creed.]
 197

charms and natural magic in the manuscript), but to a corruption in the line of transmission at

some point – whether the exemplar was missing the charm or Wysbech skipped over it when

copying the text. The heading for the recipe, that it be used when the bleeding “wille not stanche

with charmynge,” is a clear indication that the charm and the recipe were intended to travel as a

pair, and to have been used together.

The implication of this need to be addressed. The pairing of a charm and a medical cure

as a single unit demonstrates just how casually the categories of magic and medicine could

overlap. Although only three instances of this recipe have been found so far, they point to a

previously unknown practice that paired this specific charm and recipe together. As further

research brings more examples of this recipe and charm combination to light, we will be able to

speak of their use and context with more certainty. Nonetheless, if the current examples are any

indication, it is clear that some medieval people were willing to put magic cures on equal footing

with mainstream medicine by pairing this charm and recipe.

The heading of the recipe gives us an important glimpse into the thought processes

behind the use of charms versus medical recipes in the treatment of ailments. These instructions

assume that a charm was used first and had failed before attempting to heal the wound with more

natural means. This is further evidence for the mingling of magical and non-magical texts and

that distinctions between the two were less clear than in the post medieval world. An illness or

wound may have a natural cause, but it could be healed with supernatural means. With this

pairing of charm and recipe, the concern is to stop the bleeding with the most effective method,

not to worry whether the cure is natural or supernatural.

Just as important as this understanding of the use of charms is the insight we gain into the

steps taken when a cure failed. The emphasis in recipes and charms, when it is mentioned at all,

is on the proven ability of the procedure. Items in recipe collections (magical or not) will end
 198

with phrases like “probatum est” or “warantise” as guarantees of success. Like experimenta,

they relied on the authority of past experience over academic authority. The implications are that

someone has at some point in time created the hoped for effect with the recipe or charm.99

Charms in particular, will sometimes instruct the reader that they must recite the charm with full

faith or contrition.100

The failure of charms had to be attributable to some cause. In ritual magic texts, failure

was due primarily to the practitioner – whether because he had performed a ritual incorrectly (a

possibility if he had miscopied the text), did not have the proper reverence and respect, or

because he was not properly spiritually cleansed beforehand.101 A similar situation may have

occurred with charms, but to a lesser degree. Spiritual purity may not have been essential;

nevertheless, the right intent and reverence was important for both the patient and the performer

of the charm. The success of the charm was not automatic; charms were pleas not commands,

and there was always the possibility of refusal on the part of God or the petitioned saint.102

When a charm failed, what was the next step? The supplication of God or the saint had

not produced the desired result. The physician might try other charms or healing prayers instead;

however, in this case, it is not magic that is left to last, but the non-magical method – what

modern readers might think of as the more rational means to stop the bleeding. This is important

for our understanding of the place of charms in medical treatment. In other cases, charms may

be seen as a last resort, or as interchangeable with other medical recipes, but here it is placed in a

99
A more forthright example from a sixteenth-century manuscript states that a charm for epilepsy “At Broughton in
Leicershire proued good by a child of iij yer old, Deo gracias. Item, also of anoþer child in Scawfurth vnto hym, þat
it ett egges in Lenytn affter.” Keiser, “Epilepsy,” 235.
100
Such as the charm to heal wound using a plate of lead in TCC R.14.51 (folio 25r) that is to be said with good
intent and devotion, or the charms that are to be recited in the worship of the five wounds of Christ, as in one of the
charms to staunch blood in HM 64 (folio 158r). See Olsan, “Medical Theory and Practice,” 362.
101
Klaassen, “Learning and Masculinity,” 65-66; FR, 42-43.
102
Kieckhefer, Magic, 71.
 199

hierarchy above the recipes. Charms could be seen as a valid option to be chosen first, without

apology or comment.

The final magical procedure copied by Wysbech, another piece of natural magic (folio

13r), is the only magical text that is not medical in nature. It appears in the recipe collection

between recipes for toothache (folio 12v) and recipes for headache and clean teeth (folio 13r).

The text concerns the use of the hoopoe‟s occult virtues for protection from one‟s enemies and in

the marketplace: “vpapa is a byrde. If þou myt haue þat birdis eyen þou xuld ouer come alle þin

enmys (sic) and if þou bere þe birdis hedde in þin purse þou xalt not be deceuid of no

marchaunt” [The hoopoe is a bird. If you were to have that bird‟s eyes, you would overcome all

your enemies and if you were to bear the bird‟s head in your purse you would not be deceived by

any merchant]. We have already seen a similar description of the virtues of the hoopoe in

chapter two to make a profit in the marketplace and charms for protection from one‟s enemies in

chapter three.103 Many birds were thought to possess virtues, as we have seen in the previous

two chapters, but the hoopoe has a special place in the history of magic.

The hoopoe was frequently used in medieval magical operations, especially in those of

ritual magic. In magical procedures hoopoes were used for a wide variety of functions; for

example, the hearts of hoopoes were used to learn the language of birds;104 the Seal of God in the

Liber sacer was written in ink made with the blood of a hoopoe, a mole, a bat, and a turtle;105

and a hoopoe is sacrificed to demonic spirits in one of the necromantic operations in Clm 849

(folios 15r-18v).106 The use of hoopoes in magical operations can be traced back to the

Mediterranean in the fourth and fifth centuries in instructions to make a woman reveal her

103
pp. 122, 144, 148-149.
104
Richard Kieckhefer, “The Devil‟s Contemplatives: The Liber Iuratus, the Liber visionum and Christian
Appropriation of Jewish Occultism,” in CS, 251.
105
Kieckhefer, “Devil‟s Contemplatives,” 256; Hedegård, Liber iuratus Honorii, 69.
106
Kieckhefer, Magic, 6; FR, 47-49.
 200

secrets while sleeping using a hoopoe‟s heart that has been marinated in myrrh, which is then

wrapped in papyrus marked with the appropriate characters and placed on the woman‟s body.107

The use of the hoopoe‟s eyes and head for these particular purposes provides a glimpse

into Taylor‟s desires and hearkens back to his emphasis on practicality in the manuscript. Frank

Klaassen has argued that ritual magic texts allow modern readers to see the unfulfilled or sinful

desires of their practitioners laid bare, and here we see something similar.108 Taylor does not

seem to crave the sexual conquests or intellectual superiority of the ritual magic practitioner, but

the things that most people would wish to have – social advancement, protection from fraud. We

have seen similar desires revealed in the charms and experiments of Ashmole 1435, and in the

magical virtues of plants and animals in chapter two, as well as in the manuscript survey. These

texts thus reveal the everyday concerns that occupied the minds of medieval people.

The magical properties presented in the virtues of the hoopoe show that there was more

variety in magic dealing with money than was previously known. Most charms and magic rituals

to do with monetary matters are concerned with protection (either in general or against thieves)

or with treasure hunting and the return of stolen goods.109 However, the magical properties of

the hoopoe are distinct in offering protection specifically in the marketplace. While further

research needs to be done on the pecuniary aspects of natural magic, HM 1336‟s text and the

version in TCC O.1.57 are signs of a larger corpus that point to a broad range of solutions to the

concerns of medieval life.

107
Kieckhefer, Magic, 20.
108
See “Learning and Masculinity,” 61-62, and “The Middleness of Ritual Magic,” 152.
109
See for example, C.F. Bühler‟s publications of charms against thieves, “Middle English Verses against Thieves,”
Speculum 33:3 (1958): 371-372; “Middle English Verses against Thieves,” Speculum 34:4 (1959): 637-638; Davies
on cunning-folk and treasure hunting in Cunning-folk, 10-11, 94, 96-101; for treasure hunting in ritual magic see
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 7, 21-23; FR, 102-103, 114-115, 240-241, 244-247.
 201

The Wider Community of Readers

Up to now I have only briefly mentioned the manuscript context of the magic texts in HM 1336,

but now I want to address this context more fully. I have argued that HM 1336 was possibly

used as part of Taylor‟s work as a part-time medical practitioner; consequently, it may have been

seen by others as part of this work. As part of Taylor‟s external identity, the manuscript

becomes a means of highlighting his position in the community. The texts are arranged and

displayed in order to help the reader navigate the page. While this may have been a personal

preference (after all, what good is owning a manuscript if one cannot readily navigate it?), the

prominence of the names of Taylor and Wysbech at the end of the manuscript in particular is

indicative of the public aspect of the manuscript. Wysbech would have hoped that others would

see the manuscript and his colophon, and the nature of manuscript transmission in rural areas like

Boxford would have almost assuredly guaranteed that.110

The placement of Wysbech and Taylor‟s names in large letters on the last folio of the

book is a deliberate act on the part of Wysbech. He has filled up the blank space of folio 36r

with a rubricated colophon that immediately attracts attention. This colophon serves two

purposes in the manuscript. The first, which I mentioned above, is that it is an advertisement for

Wysbech‟s services as a scribe.111 The second is that it serves as an advertisement for Taylor as

well. The placement of Taylor‟s name with Wysbech‟s shows that Taylor was wealthy enough

to be able to pay a scribe to copy the book for him. If Taylor had used this book to practice

medicine or if he had passed it along to others to copy texts from it, the names would have been

seen by other people in the community. The colophon displays the wealth and standing that

Taylor has or wants to have in the community. It may not have the same impact as a gentry

110
On this aspect of manuscript transmission see chapter two, pp. 103-105.
111
See above, pp. 174-176.
 202

family‟s coat of arms or elaborate illuminations, but it does say something about Taylor‟s place

in the medieval world.

Scholarship on book ownership and public display therein has a tendency to focus on the

gentry and nobility for the simple reason that they were the principal owners and commissioners

of books in the later Middle Ages.112 However, that should not be to the detriment of book

owners outside of the gentry and noble ranks. With someone like Taylor, we can see that there

are displays of wealth and status, but within his means. Taylor does not have a coat of arms like

the Hopton family used to affirm their gentry ties (see chapter two), but he can hire a scribe to

write a book for him and can therefore use the colophon with his and Wysbech‟s name to show

his place in society as someone of moderate wealth.

From this we can gather that the manuscript was probably intended to have a part in

Taylor‟s life in the community; its contents would likely have been seen and read by others.

Moreover, the magical items were also part of this public use of the manuscript. Because they

were incorporated into the main texts they would have been read and passed on as part of the

medical recipes and others texts in the manuscript. The magic texts, rather than being hidden or

obscured, are part of the overall display. The texts deal with the concerns of daily life and while

we know that the medical magic had a wide appeal, the magical properties of the hoopoe would

certainly also have appealed to many people.

Therefore, the book becomes more than a repository of texts that Taylor found useful or

interesting, but also a means of establishing Taylor‟s identity in his community. Whether or not

Taylor wanted Wysbech to include his colophon, it works to Taylor‟s advantage as a signal of

his wealth. However, this is also moderated by Taylor‟s preference for practical texts and space-

saving (if we are to believe that the second quire was also owned by Taylor). The identity

112
Meale, “The Politics of Book Ownership,” 103.
 203

presented by HM 1336 is thus a complex one that is not entirely of his own construction, but

influenced by the whims of his scribe and the presence of the second quire.

Taylor‟s use of magic in HM 1336 is likewise complicated. The possibility that Taylor

might have used HM 1336 as a part-time medical practitioner offers further evidence of the links

between magic and medicine in the Middle Ages. The medical charms and natural magic are

wholly integrated with the medical recipes in HM 1336. The newly discovered recipe for

staunching blood furthermore hints at a preference in some cases for charms over non-magical

means, which emphasises the integration of magic in people‟s everyday lives. Additionally, the

concerns of daily life are revealed by the magical properties of the hoopoe. The use of natural

magic to deal with these sorts of issues gives us a greater understanding of natural magic and its

place in medieval society. Finally, the magic texts are part of Taylor‟s public identity. The

presentation and placement of his name in the manuscript seem to be designed for an audience

beyond Taylor‟s immediate use. The magic texts, as part of his main text, become part of

Taylor‟s public face and reflect back on him. They help him put forward an identity that

showcases his wealth, but wealth that is tempered by practicality and economy, in addition to his

role as a medical practitioner.

 204

Chapter 5
Richard Dove and the Ars notoria
Ever since Richard Kieckhefer first put forward the concept of the clerical underworld over

twenty years ago, the evidence for the reality of monastic magic has been steadily increasing. It

is no longer surprising to see magic used in a monastic context and is almost expected now. In

more recent years, Claire Fanger and Sophie Page have turned the discussion to specific people

and places. Their work has focused on some of the more extraordinary cases of magic. Sophie

Page has studied an entire community of monks at St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury, who used magic

within a framework of orthodox Christian ritual, while Claire Fanger has been studying the

curious case of the Benedictine John of Morigny and his attempt to refashion the Ars notoria as a

Christian ritual.1 In this chapter, I will be shifting the focus to a less extraordinary case of

monastic magic. Rather than a monastery full of magical texts or one monk who tried to create

his own unique blend of Christian ritual and magic, I will be looking at the case of one monk in a

small Cistercian abbey in Devon whose magical leanings escaped notice at the time (or at least

no evidence to the contrary survives). I will be exploring Richard Dove‟s relationship with the

Ars notoria in Sloane 513 and how he uses the ritual text as part of the identity that he sets forth

in his manuscript.

Dove uses Sloane 513 as part of his everyday life in the monastery and as a way of

participating in the intellectual world outside the monastery. By integrating the Ars notoria into

this manuscript context, Dove includes the ritual magic text in the double purpose of the

manuscript. There is an element of ordinariness to the magic in this manuscript, although I do

not want to stretch this point too far because the Ars notoria was a complex piece of ritual magic

1
On their work see pp. 6-10.
 205

that was repeatedly condemned by theologians in the Middle Ages.2 In no way was this text as

ordinary as the charms in TCC O.1.57 or in HM 1336. Nonetheless, as I will discuss below,

Dove‟s attitude towards his Ars notoria, a copy of the Ars brevis version of the work, continues a

tradition of monastic magic that had been developing in western Europe since the fourteenth

century, if not earlier.3 The monastic climate was ideal for the practice of magic; monks had the

time, resources, and skills that were necessary for ritual magic. The ordinariness of the Ars

notoria is dependent on its monastic setting.

However, unlike other monastic owners of the Ars notoria, Dove does not seem to be

interested in the devotional aspects of the ritual that drew other owners, but in its material

rewards. I argue in this chapter that the devotional aspects of the Ars notoria are incidental to

Dove‟s ultimate purpose, to use the Ars notoria as a vehicle for his intellectual pursuits. Thus,

the identity that Dove creates in this manuscript is one in which spirituality is pushed aside in

favour of more worldly interests. This appropriation of the ritual is due in part to the

positivization of magic in the later Middle Ages that Claire Fanger and Frank Klaassen discuss in

“Magic III: Middle Ages.”4 They argue that by the late Middle Ages, some intellectuals could

argue for the positive benefits of some theories and practices related to magic. The intellectual

climate had been altered by Arabic and Hebrew sources that expanded the definitions of natural

magic. Instead of conjurations of what would undoubtedly be demons, the practitioners of

natural magic took advantage of the marvellous occult powers in ways they argued were

2
Some theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae and Augustinus Triumphus in the Tractatus
contra divinatores et sompniatores addressed to Pope Clement V, were opposed to its use of notae and verba ignota.
See chapter one, p. 41. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 40, ed. and trans. Thomas Franklin O‟Meara and
Michael John Duffy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 2a2ae, 96, I; Augustinus Triumphus, “Il Tractatus contra
divinatores et sompniatores di Agostino d‟Ancona: introduzione e edizione del testo,” ed. Pierangela Giglioni,
Analecta Augustiniana 48 (1985): 93-95.
3
On the Ars brevis version of the Ars notoria see my initial discussion in chapter one, p. 41, and below, p. 231.
4
Fanger and Klaassen, “Magic III,” 724-731.
 206

acceptable. This shift in perception in some circles led to an expansion of what constituted

natural magic and was therefore safe to practice.5

Dove‟s use of the Ars notoria along with other texts in this manuscript offers a

perspective that has not been discussed in the secondary scholarship before. Dove places his Ars

notoria within a framework that heavily emphasises scientific learning. Whereas previously

studied users of the Ars notoria have deliberately grouped the text with religious works or have

attempted in some way to emphasise the Christian aspects of the rituals, Dove‟s Ars notoria is

the only work with religious content in Sloane 513. As a whole, Dove‟s compilation shows a

marked proclivity for the trappings of the secular world: scientific and pseudo-scientific texts,

French language instruction, monastic regulations, and the like. It is only from the later

Protestant owner John Shaxton that we find explicit comment on the religious content of the Ars

notoria – a point that has bearing on not only the study of the Ars notoria, but on the study of

ritual magic as a whole in the fifteenth century.

To demonstrate how Dove shifts the Ars notoria‟s meaning within the manuscript the text

must first be put into context. Therefore, this chapter will begin with an overview of the

manuscript‟s construction and a discussion of possible methods of compilation. This is followed

by an examination of Dove‟s life and a brief outline of Buckfast Abbey in the fifteenth century.

Once the manuscript has been contextualised, the chapter will continue with a discussion of the

texts in Sloane 513. Then I will examine Dove‟s Ars notoria within the manuscript context and

the Ars brevis within the wider tradition of the Ars notoria in order to understand how it becomes

used by Dove as part of his cultivation of a learned identity.

As part of this discussion, and in order to provide a clearer picture of the manuscript,

Appendix Five contains a full description of the manuscript. David Bell previously published a

5
Fanger and Klaassen, “Magic III,” 725-727.
 207

description of the contents of Sloane 513.6 However, his description contains some inaccuracies

and other items have been more properly identified since Bell‟s article was published.7 The most

important discrepancy for the current discussion is Bell‟s misidentification of the latter seven

folios of the eight-folio Ars notoria as “a miscellaneous collection of prayers, liturgical extracts,

and devotional materials.”8 The reliance of much subsequent scholarship on this incorrect

description distorted the presentation and interpretation of Sloane 513 in the secondary literature.

Thus, Appendix Five contains the first complete and accurate description of Sloane 513.

The Compilation of Sloane 513

Sloane 513 is a small notebook consisting of 221 folios. The manuscript was written in the first

half of the fifteenth century for Richard Dove with later marginal notations. A colophon

following one of the chiromancy treatises gives at least part of the manuscript a terminus post

quem of 1407.9 My assumption throughout has been that Dove was the original compiler of the

manuscript. Although it is in a modern binding, and thus there is no way of knowing for certain,

the frequent appearance of “quod Richard Dove Monachus Buckfast” and its variants throughout

the manuscript supports this assertion.

The manuscript was originally composed in booklets written by six, or possibly seven,

hands, any one of which could be Dove‟s own hand as well. All but one of the hands are

fifteenth-century Anglicana-Secretary hybrids; the other is a late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-

6
See David N. Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford: Richard Dove of Buckfast and London, B.L., Sloane 513,” Studia
Monastica 31 (1989): 80-87.
7
For example, one of the French instructional texts in the manuscript (folios 135v-136v) has been since identified as
an adaptation of Donatus‟s Ars minor. Brian Merrilees, “Donatus and the Teaching of French in Medieval England,”
in Anglo-Norman Anniversary Essays, ed. Ian Short, Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series,
no. 2 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1993), 273-292.
8
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 87.
9
Folio 131r: “Explicit opus admirable Cyromancie compilatus [erased] de Florencia anno domini millesimo CCCC
septimo die XXX I Januarius” [Here ends the admirable work of chiromancy compiled by [erased, presumably
Richard whose name appears earlier in the work] of Florence in the year of our Lord 1407 the 31 st day of January.]
 208

century Anglicana hand. A model of booklet production is evidenced by a number of features:

the variation in scribal hands throughout the manuscript, the variation of decoration style among

hands, short texts used to fill up a quire, and the variation in subject matter in different parts of

the manuscript.10 Some aspects of the manuscript suggest that Sloane 513, although written by a

number of scribes, was conceived as a single volume rather than collected piecemeal over time –

with the exception of the first quire, which was written in a fourteenth-century hand and seems to

be something Dove included from elsewhere. Many of the texts fit within single quire gatherings

and could have travelled separately, but the relative conformity of page sizes and page format

and the use of copious catchwords suggests that the booklets were intended for Dove‟s notebook

from the start. One of the scribal hands (hand F) seems likely to have been Dove‟s own hand.

One key clue is the frequent use of „R‟ instead of the more standard „N‟ when supplying spaces

for names in oaths in the monastic regulations.11 Additionally, the name Richard is written in the

dispensation for a novice to take a religious profession before the canonical age (folio 202r).

The booklet composition is an essential component in understanding how the Ars notoria

was incorporated into Sloane 513. The production of Sloane 513 would have occurred in

something like the following: texts would have been copied by the scribes as they became

available – from other monasteries, travellers, and perhaps during time as a student at Oxford.12

Dove would not always have had the ability to choose the exact titles to be copied, especially

those that came in with travellers, but he would have had to wait until texts that coincided with

his interests became available. Oxford was a major centre of manuscript production, so if he was

a student there he would have had a greater pool to choose from than later in his career at the

10
I am following the guidelines set out by Ralph Hanna from chapter one of Pursuing History.
11
This hand uses „N‟ as well, but with much less frequency.
12
See below, pp. 210-211, for my discussion of Dove‟s possible tenure as a student at Oxford.
 209

monastery.13 Only the quire written by Hand A seems to have not been expressly written for

Dove.

Richard Dove and Buckfast Abbey

Little information survives about Richard Dove‟s life although we do have some in addition to

his manuscript.14 The Episcopal Register of Exeter lists the dates of his ordinations from his

taking the tonsure in May of 1400 to his ordination to the priesthood in December of 1413.15

From these records, and from Dove‟s own notations in Sloane 513, we know that he was at

Buckfast Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Devon.16 There is some indirect evidence that Dove

was a student at Oxford, but this cannot be determined with any certainty because his name does

not appear in the biographical register for the University of Oxford.17 Beyond this information,

all we know about Dove comes from Sloane 513.

Dove‟s monastery, Buckfast Abbey, adopted the Cistercian model when its mother house

of Savigny in Normandy converted in 1147.18 The Cistercian Order was focused on self-

sufficiency and a cloistered lifestyle; because of this focus, they disseminated a number of

agricultural and industrial innovations such as fulling and tanning mills.19 Although they were

not academic giants like the Franciscans and Dominicans, they still fostered intellectual activities

13
Michael, “Urban Production,” 169, 175-183.
14
Bell incorrectly states that Sloane 513 is only source of information about Dove‟s life in, “A Cistercian at
Oxford,” 72.
15
He took the tonsure on May 13, 1400; he became an acolyte and sub deacon on December 17, 1407; he was
ordained a deacon on September 23, 1413; and was finally ordained to the priesthood on December 20, 1413. F.C.
Hingeston-Randolph, The Register of Edmund Stafford, (A.D. 1395-1419): An Index and Abstract of its Contents
(London: G. Bell, 1886), 425-6, 431, 440, 446, 453, 460.
16
Dove‟s colophons in Sloane 513 state that he was a monk of Buckfast, as in the colophon following the Practica
Geometrie on folio 15r: “Explicit practica geometrie quod Ricardus Dove monachus Buckfestrie.” [Here ends the
practica geometrie thus Richard Dove, monk of Buckfast]
17
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 72.
18
Glyn Coppack, The White Monks: The Cistercians in Britain 1128-1540 (Great Britain: Tempus, 1998), 47-8.
19
R.A. Donkin, The Cistercians: Studies in the Geography of Medieval England and Wales (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Medieval Studies, 1978), 172.
 210

to some degree. They had a small college in Oxford, St. Bernard‟s College, which housed only a

small number of students at a time.20 In 1245, the general chapter had urged that every abbey

should have facilities for study, if possible, and that each province should have a place for monks

to study theology year round.21 Later chapters expanded on these points by decreeing that

monasteries with forty or more monks should keep a lecturer in grammar and logic to teach the

younger monks.22

While it is possible that Richard Dove was one of those students at Oxford, his name

does not appear in the biographical register for the University of Oxford.23 Nevertheless, there

are a few pieces of evidence to support the argument put forward by David Bell that Dove was at

Oxford and may have compiled his manuscript there.24 The first piece of evidence concerns the

abbot at Buckfast during Dove‟s first years at the monastery, William Slade. Before joining the

community at Buckfast, William Slade had been successively a Fellow, Vice-Rector, and Rector

of Stapledon Hall, Oxford.25 He became abbot of Buckfast in 1400 and held that position until

his death in 1415. He continued his intellectual pursuits at Buckfast, as evidenced by the books

that he kept: four books of commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a copy of the

Flosculi Moralium, ten books of the Ethics of Aristotle, eight books of the Physics of Aristotle,

20
However, Dove would not have stayed there as it was not founded until 1438. Orme, Medieval Schools, 271.
21
Orme, Medieval Schools, 267.
22
Orme, Medieval Schools, 270.
23
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 72.
24
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 72, 74-75.
25
He became a Fellow in 1375, was promoted to Vice-Rector in 1378, and then to Rector in 1380, which position he
kept until 1385 when presumably he joined the monastery at Buckfast. John Stéphan, A History of Buckfast Abbey,
from 1018 to 1968 (Bristol: The Burleigh Press, 1970), 136-7; F.C. Hingeston-Randolph, The Register of Thomas de
Brantyngham, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1370-1394), Part I (London: G. Bell, 1901), 544.
 211

and a book on the questions of the soul.26 It is therefore possible that abbot Slade would have

encouraged the younger monks like Dove to further their education in Oxford.

The second and third pieces of evidence come from Dove‟s notebook. Among the

miscellaneous monastic texts recorded in the latter part of the book are two oaths that would

have been recited before leaving for a university (folio 201r).27 Dove also wrote a series of Latin

riddles, which Andrew Galloway believes possibly have ties to Oxford in part because of their

similarities to riddles in London, British Library, Harley MS 3362 and Cambridge, Gonville and

Caius College MS 230. There is an interdependence amongst the riddles in these three

manuscripts that suggest a sort of community of people sharing these sorts of texts.28 If Dove

spent time in Oxford and if he compiled at least part of his book there, it could explain the

presence of some of these texts in his notebook. Since it is impossible to place him in Oxford

26
David Bell, ed., The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines and Premonstratensians (London: The British
Library, 1992), 11-12.
27
The first is an oath for those leaving to study in general. The second is for those leaving to study theology:
“Juramentum scolaris mittendi ad studium Ego frater .N. electus scolaris huius monasterii beate marie de Bukfast
ordinis Cisterciensis iuro per ista sancta dei euangelia quod ab isto die inantea contra communia ordinis mei
priuilegia libertates et approbatas consuetudines atque statuta aliud clam vel palam per me vel per alium attemptare
impetare seu et in aliquo illicite siue proterue contraire non presumam vnum predictus ordo meus in parte vel in toto
dampnum aut scandalum incurrere valeat vel grauamen sic me deus et cetera.
Juramentum scolaris promouendi ad gradum scolasticum Ego frater N. monachus et scolaris monasterii beate marie
de bukfaste ordinis Cisterciensis iuro per ista sancta dei euangelia quod cum ad bacalariatum vel magistratum
theologice facultatis peruenero contra instituta ordinis mei priuilegia et libertates aliud in futuris non attemptabo per
me vel per alium seu alios nec quocumque doloso colore quesito procurabo seu per me procurri paciar impetando
contra instituta et libertates ordinis mei antedicto. Nec eidem presumam vel et procurabo per me vel per alium clam
vel palam infringere seu quomodo libet alias inpugnare sic me deus et cetera” [Oath of a student going away to
school. I brother N, the chosen student of this monastery of the Blessed Mary of Buckfast of the Cistercian order,
swear by these holy gospels of God that from that from this day forth, I will not presume to attempt to do anything
secretly or impudently, through me or through another, against the common privileges, freedoms, and approved
customs and statutes of my order, either illicitly or boldly in any direction. My aforesaid order alone is able to meet
with loss or temptation or trouble, in whole or in part. So [help] me God.
Oath of the student being promoted to the rank of scholasticus. I brother N, monk and student of the monastery of
the Blessed Mary of Buckfast of the Cistercian order, swear by that holy gospel of God, that when I reach the
baccalaureate or magistracy of the theological faculty, I will not attempt anything against the institutes, privileges,
and liberties of my order in the future, through me or through another or others, neither will I arrange with whatever
deceitful pretexts are sought nor will I allow those attacking the institutes and liberties of my aforesaid order to be
advanced through me. And I will not presume to the same or even to arrange through me or through another,
secretly or openly, to infringe upon or otherwise attack those things in any way. So [help] me God.]
28
Andrew Galloway, “The Rhetoric of Riddling in Late-Medieval England: The “Oxford” Riddles, the Secretum
philosophorum, and the Riddles in Piers Plowman, Speculum 70:1 (1995): 70, 72, 83.
 212

with any certainty, the next option is to look at the books that Buckfast Abbey had and to see in

what kind of intellectual environment Dove might have compiled his book.

Unfortunately, there is no surviving medieval library catalogue from Buckfast Abbey, if

there ever was one. The best we can do is to consult the fourteenth-century Registrum Anglie, an

early fourteenth-century catalogue compiled by the Oxford Franciscans of books in England,

Scotland, and Wales attributed to ancient, patristic, and early medieval authors,29 and the

sixteenth-century list of monastic library holdings compiled by the antiquarian John Leland after

the Dissolution. The scope of these catalogues is limited and does not present a complete picture

of the library of Buckfast; what they do show is a fairly typical Cistercian library.30 The

Registrum Anglie‟s catalogue of Buckfast‟s library shows a firm grounding in the Church fathers

as well as medieval writers like Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St. Victor. John Leland‟s list

highlights the philosophical climate fostered in the works of Abbot William Slade, including, for

example, questions on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and a work by William Slade on the

soul.31 It also reveals some of the non-religious texts owned by the Abbey such as Nicholas

Trevet‟s commentary on Seneca‟s tragedies. Unfortunately, most of the titles catalogued by

Leland are not extant so the contents of various texts he listed such as the Quaestiones Johannis

Sutton and the Quaestiones Gilberti Segrave remain unknown.32

Based on these catalogues, Dove was probably an anomaly at Buckfast. The Abbey

likely did not encourage his interests in science, and would not have encouraged his interest in

29
Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, eds., Registrum Anglie de Libris Doctorum et Auctorum Veterum (London:
British Library, 1991), xiii.
30
Bell‟s study of the libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines, and Premonstratensians shows that the Cistercians
libraries had a higher proportion of theological works than the Augustinian and Benedictine houses, for example.
The abbey also held many of the books that a Cistercian novice or monk should read, according to Stephen of
Sawley‟s Speculum novitii. Bell, Libraries, xxiv-xxv.
31
John Leland, Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii de rebus britannicis collectanea: cvm Thomae Hearnii praefatione notis
et indice ad editionem primam, vol. 4 (London: Benjamin White, 1774), 151.
32
Leland, Joannis Lelandi, 151.
 213

prognostication; those interests would probably have been developed outside the confines of the

Abbey. Buckfast would have owned some non-theological works that Dove could have used;

however, Cistercian houses in England overall had a lower proportion of non-theological works

like science and medicine than did the other monastic orders in England.33 This is a point in

favour of his studying at Oxford as it would have been far easier for him to acquire most of his

texts there than while at Buckfast. In addition, many of Dove‟s texts were not the standard texts

of a monastic library. Medieval catalogues show that books containing alchemy and

physiognomy did appear in monasteries, such as the physiognomy and chiromancy texts in MS

371 and MS 380 in the collection of John Erghome, the Austin Friar from York discussed in

chapter one, and the collection of alchemical texts in the library of St. Augustine‟s, however,

these are far outnumbered by books on theology.34

Neither does this manuscript show signs of having been used by other members of

Buckfast Abbey. Books held in monasteries often show signs of generations of readers through

marginal annotations and corrections. Many of the magical texts written in the fourteenth

century at St. Augustine‟s Canterbury have later annotations and corrections, such as Oxford,

Corpus Christi College MS 125, a manuscript containing medical works, recipes, magic, and

alchemy, which has corrections and insertions in two fifteenth-century hands.35 The later

additions and marginalia in Sloane 513, in contrast, are from the early modern period – in the

hands of two of its later owners, John Shaxton and Thomas Phelyps.

So far, I have only alluded to the contents of Sloane 513 and how it differs from other

monastic books. The following section will examine the contents in more detail and offer some

33
Bell, Libraries, xxv.
34
Barker-Benfield, St. Augustine‟s, vol. 2, 1448-1453; Humphreys, The Friars‟ Libraries, 92, 96.
35
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 25.
 214

speculation on how Dove organised his manuscripts and how he used these texts in his daily life

within and beyond the monastery.

The Contents of Sloane 513

In general, the manuscript is organised by topic. The notebook progresses from accounting texts

to a description of the astrolabe, astrology, weights and measures, mathematics, riddles,

physiognomy and chiromancy, French instructional materials, alchemical treatises, the Ars

notoria, and last, a collection of some monastic regulations. Broadly speaking, the texts of

Sloane 513 can be divided into two groups: texts to help in the running of the monastery and

texts for Dove‟s own personal use. Naturally, individual texts can overlap these designations,

but this does seem to be how the manuscript works overall.

Within the first group of texts are the works on weights and measures (of land), on the

making of wax, a juridical treatise on the keeping of accounts, miscellaneous French materials,

arithmetic, and statutes and other material related to the running of Buckfast Abbey. John

Stéphan imagines two possible roles for Dove from these texts: procurator and teacher.36 As

procurator for Buckfast, Dove would have needed the texts on wax making, accounts, and

weights and measures as essential tools for his job. If Dove was a teacher, he would have made

use of his texts on mathematics and French. If he had been a teacher at Buckfast, it is probable

that he was a novice master who taught the new recruits the practical matters of the monastery

such as the rule of the order and the traditions of the church. Subsequently, he would have

needed some of the texts that make up the statutes and regulations at the end of the manuscript.37

Whatever his job, it is clear that Dove compiled part of his notebook for use in some sort of

administrative role at Buckfast.

36
John Stéphan, Buckfast Abbey: Historical Guide, rev. ed. (Buckfast: Buckfast Abbey, 1923), 44-45.
37
For more on the role of the novice master see Orme, Medieval Schools, 266.
 215

The practical texts for household management like those on wax making and weights and

measures (all copied by Hand B) were common in medieval books.38 They were usually

included with medical texts in manuscripts for practical, everyday use, although short texts on

the measures of land do appear in accounting texts like the one discussed below.39 Dove could

have also used the texts on weights and measures for the operation of the markets that Buckfast

ran as well as for the abbey‟s agricultural operations.40

The next treatise, on the keeping of accounts, begins as a series of maxims in verse

(folios 3r-10v). These are instructions to the reader about the most important parts of his

accounting duties on an estate. The prose portion is a specimen account of the Winchester form

interspersed with rules for estate management.41 The accounts are a type of didactic literature;

instead of a treatise on accounting, forms are presented with false figures and totals inserted.

These would have served as guides for Dove and others involved in the management of the

abbey.42 They are written by Hand A, a fourteenth-century hand, and were probably not

originally written for Dove but acquired by him after the fact.

There are four mathematical texts in Sloane 513 copied by Hands C and D that range

from a simple correspondence of Roman and Arabic numerals from 1 to 4,009 (folios 58r-58v) to

38
Jones, “Scientific and Medical Writings,” 460; Jones, “Information and Science,” 109.
39
Dorothea Oschinsky‟s edition of agricultural treatises includes a similar text on the measure of lands as that found
on folio 25v of Sloane 513. See, Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 475.
40
Buckfast Abbey operated five markets from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries: Cheristow, Buckfastleigh,
Brent, Kingsbridge, and Buckfastleigh again. Donkin, The Cistercians, 17-18, 199.
41
The Winchester form is a form of estate accounting developed by the mid-thirteenth century on the estates of the
Bishop of Winchester. Acquittances and Loss of Rent were entered immediately after the rubric for Rents and were
deducted from the rent total. Arrears from the previous account were settled before the audit of the current account.
This form of accounting was very similar to that of the Exchequer Pipe Rolls. Oschinsky, Walter of Henley, 215,
224.
42
Oschinsky‟s edition includes an appendix with similar texts to the one in Sloane 513.
 216

the Carmen de algarismo metricus of Alexander of Villa Dei (folios 27r-43r).43 The first of

these texts is a proemium that introduces the reader to Arabic numbers and the seven species of

arithmetic (folios 26r-27r). This is followed by the mid-thirteenth century Carmen de algarismo

metricus, a text on algorismus, which was the precursor of modern arithmetic (folios 27r-43r).44

It is an introductory text on the seven partes of arithmetic: addition, subtraction, doubling,

halving, multiplication, division, and the extraction of roots. Dove‟s copy includes a

commentary by Saxton, whose identity is otherwise unknown.45 These mathematical concepts

had reached Western Europe via twelfth-century translations from Arabic.46 The final treatise on

mathematics (folios 43v-56v) is a series of arithmetic problems and solutions. As I noted above,

these texts could have been used by Dove as part of his duties in the monastery, but they could

also represent Dove‟s own interests.

The French texts in Sloane 513 (folios 134r-153v) form a mini-curriculum in the

manuscript. French was still the language of the law court at this time and would have been a

necessity for the running of the monastery.47 Dove‟s collection of French texts, copied by Hand

G, includes both introductory and advanced texts for the instruction of grammar and lists of

vocabulary and verb conjugations: essential texts for bilingual monks (i.e., Latin and English

speaking) who needed to conduct business for the monastery or even those who were familiar

with Anglo-Norman and wished to learn Continental French. Even if Dove had initially had

43
For an edition of this text see James O. Halliwell, ed., Rara Mathematica; or, A Collection of Treatises on the
Mathematics and Subjects Connected With Them, From Ancient Inedited Manuscripts (London: J.W. Parker, 1841),
73-83.
44
The term algorismus comes from the name of the ninth-century Arab mathematician Abu Ja‟far Mohammed Ben
Musa, otherwise known as al-Khowarazmi. R.T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1929), 93; Paul Acker, “The Emergence of an Arithmetical Mentality in Middle English Literature,” The
Chaucer Review 28:3 (1994): 293, 297.
45
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 82.
46
Gunther, Early Science, 92.
47
Paul Strohm, “Writing and Reading,” in A Social History of England, 1200-1500, ed. Rosemary Horrox and W.
Mark Ormrod (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 455.
 217

these texts copied for his own use, there was clearly a use for these texts at Buckfast Abbey – not

only for the teaching of novices, but for any member of the abbey interested in learning or

improving his French. These texts are also possible evidence for Dove‟s residence in Oxford

because the city was a centre for the study of the arts of business until the first half of the

fifteenth century. Students came there to be taught dictamen, accountancy, French, and the

intricacies of common law.48

This mini curriculum in French begins with a list of conjugations of verbs, a list of the

days of the week, and other miscellaneous vocabulary (folios 134r-135r). This is followed by

the first of three grammatical treatises, which is based on the Ars Minor of Donatus (folios 136v-

137v). Folios 137r-137v contain more lists of verb conjugations in between two of the

grammatical treatises.

The Ars Minor of Donatus is a fourth-century text for the teaching of Latin. Dove‟s text,

Le Donait (folios 135v-136v), is an adaptation of this text for the teaching of French in French.

This text, along with the Donait françois by John Barton and the Liber Donati by William

Kingsmill, is an important text in the study of French as a second language in England, as well as

the creation of the French grammar as a subject of serious study.49 On the surface, Dove‟s

version is not very close in substance or style to Donatus‟s work, but viewed in relation to the

other works and the convention of supplementary grammar texts that accompanied Donatus it is

a clear continuation of the tradition.50

48
Orme, Medieval Schools, 70-71.
49
Merrilees, “Donatus,” 273-275, 277; Orme, Medieval Schools, 76-77.
50
Merrilees, “Donatus,” 280-281, 285.
 218

The second French grammatical treatise is the last page of the Orthographia Gallica

(folio 139r), written circa 1300, which is sometimes attributed to Thomas Sampson.51 The

Orthographia provides rules in Latin for the teaching of correct Continental French spelling and

grammar. It assumes that those using it will be familiar with both Latin and Anglo-Norman; it is

clearly meant for intermediate or advanced students rather than beginners.52

The final grammatical treatise is an incomplete version of the Tretiz de Langage by

Walter de Bibbesworth (folios 139v-153v). It was originally written for an unknown patroness

to provide English landowners with French vocabulary for estate management. Of Walter de

Bibbesworth and his patroness, nothing is known beyond speculation. At best, scholarship dates

the composition of the work to the second half of the thirteenth century.53 The treatise is a list of

vocabulary in octosyllabic couplets that is ordered into categories ranging from the care of an

infant to the possessions and occupations of country life. The use of homonyms also brought in

a broader range of vocabulary.54 Dove‟s version is a mixture of the two recensions and is

incomplete at the end.

The monastic regulations (folios 200v-220v) are the clearest evidence that Dove used his

manuscript for an administrative role at Buckfast. Aside from the oaths to be recited before

departing to study (folio 201r) mentioned above, there is a variety of useful items for the running

of the monastery including a dispensation for making a religious profession while still under the

canonical age (folio 202r), oaths to be said by monks seeking absolution (folio 201v), regulations

for punishments (folio 203v), and regulations for elections (folios 205v-212r). This section of

51
Ruth J. Dean and Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-
Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series, No. 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), 162.
52
William Rothwell, “The Teaching of French in Medieval England,” The Modern Language Review 63:1 (1968):
42-3.
53
William Rothwell, ed., Walter de Bibbesworth „Le Tretiz‟, Anglo-Norman Texts Society Plain Texts Series, no. 6
(London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1990), 1; Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature, 160.
54
Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature, 160.
 219

the manuscript would have been useful for teaching novices, for Dove‟s own reference, and for

reference by the other members of the community.

The second group of texts in Sloane 513 are those that are the most likely to have been

copied for Dove‟s personal use, although these texts could also have been used by others in the

monastery. They consist of alchemical treatises and recipes, chiromancy, physiognomy,

mathematics, astrology, treatises on the astrolabe, riddles, prognostications, and the Ars notoria.

These works are important for our understanding of Dove and his interests beyond the

monastery. As we will see below, these texts demonstrate Dove‟s desire to engage with the

outside world of learning, and reflect broader trends in the intellectual climate of the fifteenth

century.

The first texts in this group comprise a large collection of alchemical texts, copied by

Hands B. Like mathematics, alchemy came to the Latin West via translations from Arabic in the

twelfth-century. Alchemy was predicated upon the Aristotelian concept of prime matter: the

world is made of prime matter; from this comes the form, or shape and specific properties of

things. The form gives rise to the four elements, each of which has unique qualities (such as hot

and dry or cold and moist) that the alchemist can alter to change one element into another.

Everything is composed of these four elements in different proportions; essentially, alchemy

works by changing the proportions of the elements in a substance.55 There is a multitude of

branches and approaches to alchemy, all fundamentally based on this Aristotelian framework.

Very generally, they can be divided into the theoretical and the practical. Within these groups

are countless texts with equally countless approaches: Paracelsus versus Rhazes; medicinal

55
For Aristotle‟s discussion of prime matter and form see Metaphysics, Book Z, especially chapter 3. Richard Hope,
tr., Aristotle‟s Metaphysics: Newly Translated as a Postscript to Natural Science with an Analytical Index of
Technical Terms (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952); E.J. Holmyard, Alchemy (Harmondsworth, Eng.:
Penguin Books, 1968), 21-3; Kieckhefer, Magic, 133-134; Bernard D. Haage, “Alchemy II: Antiquity-12th
Century,” Dictionary of Gnosis, 16.
 220

versus metallurgical; in some recipes the Philosopher‟s Stone is the goal; in others it is an

ingredient. When discussing alchemy, it is important to consider each text and what sort of

method it is using.56

Although alchemy had come to the Latin West via translations with the other great texts

of Arabic learning in the twelfth century and although it was associated with Aristotle, Albertus

Magnus, and Roger Bacon, alchemy had remained outside the official university curriculum.57

As a result, its practice was confined to those with the requisite time and resources: those at court

and those in the monastery. Until the fifteenth century, these were the only groups who had the

right combination of a proficiency in Latin, access to manuscripts, the financial means to acquire

all the necessary materials, and the time to conduct the experiments.58 However, in the fifteenth

century, the emerging urban middle class began to take an interest in the subject through the

spread of vernacular translations.59 As interest in alchemy grew, so did the criticism of it – not

against its theoretical basis, but against individual alchemists and the threat of deception and the

injury they could cause.60 Subsequently, the practice of alchemy was banned in England by

Henry IV in 1403/1404 and again by Henry VI in 1452.61

56
Lawrence M. Principe, “Alchemy I: Introduction,” in Dictionary of Gnosis, 13; Herwig Buntz, “Alchemy III:
12th/13th-15th Century,” in Dictionary of Gnosis, 35-37.
57
William Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages,” Isis 80:3 (1989): 425.
58
Buntz, “Alchemy III,” 37.
59
Jones, “Information and Science,” 98; Michela Pereira, “Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Languages in the
Late Middle Ages,” Speculum 74:2 (1999): 338. See also William Eamon on the effect of print on the dissemination
of alchemical texts among the middle classes in, “Alchemy in Popular Culture: Leonardo Fiorvanti and the Search
for the Philosopher‟s Stone,” Early Science and Medicine 5:2 (2000): 196-213.
60
For example, Geoffrey Chaucer‟s The Canon‟s Yeoman‟s Tale contains the story of a clerical fraud who “Ful
many a man hath he begiled er this, / and wole, if that he lyve may a while.” William Langland called alchemy a
science full of occultism, created for deception. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ed. A.C. Cawley
(London: Everyman, 1996), 506; William Langland, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman in Three
Parallel Texts; Together with Richard the Redeless, ed. Rev. Walter W. Skeat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886),
300-302.
61
Jones, “Information and Science,” 99; Buntz, “Alchemy III,” 35-37.
 221

Dove‟s alchemical texts are mostly practical works written in Latin, English, and French;

they contain very little theory, if any. The majority of the texts are ascribed to Albertus Magnus.

Around thirty alchemical treatises were ascribed to him in the Middle Ages.62 From Albertus‟s

discussion of alchemy in some of his works, most notably in book II of De Mineralibus, it is

clear that he was familiar with the subject.63 He called it the art closest to nature, although he

believed that the fundamental nature of metals was immutable and that transmutations were only

on the surface. Dove‟s Albertan treatises are an incomplete section from the Fundamentum

alchemiae (folios 154r-v), which sets out the necessary elements of alchemy: the importance of

the planets, the essential materials, and the types of apparatus used; extracts from the Semita

recta (folios 168v-178r); and parts two and three of the Myrrour of Lygtes (folios 155r-168r).64

In England, the Semita recta was perhaps the most common alchemical work attributed to

Albertus Magnus.65 Its imitation of Albertus‟s style and its practical approach to alchemical

processes seem to have been leading factors in its popularity. The Semita recta followed a

logical progression of setting out the introductory material necessary for alchemy, such as the

origin of metals and a discussion of furnaces and vessels, followed by a description of substances

and recipes, and theoretical and practical descriptions and applications for the various alchemical

processes such as sublimation and calcination. The text concludes with recipes for elixirs and

transmutation.66

62
Claire Fanger, “Albertus Magnus,” in Dictionary of Gnosis, 9.
63
Albertus Magnus, Book of Minerals, trans. Dorothy Wyckoff (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), Book II, tractate i,
chapter 1-chapter 2 (pages 153, 158).
64
Buntz, “Alchemy III,” 35; Fanger, “Albertus Magnus,” 9-12.
65
Every English Albertan alchemical work produced in the Middle Ages has some connection to the Semita recta.
See Peter Grund‟s article on this in “‟ffor to make Azure as Albert biddes‟: Medieval English Alchemical Writings
in the Pseudo-Albertan Tradition,” Ambix 53:1 (2006): 21-42.
66
Grund includes excellent descriptions of the Semita recta in his articles “‟ffor to make Azure‟,” 26; and “Textual
Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus‟s Semita Recta into the Mirror of Lights,” Ambix 56:3
(2009): 206.
 222

The Myrrour of Lygtes is a (probably) fifteenth-century redaction and adaptation of the

Semita recta. The purpose of the redactor seems to have been to make the Semita recta more

easily accessible and more comprehensive than the original text, while at the same time

defending alchemy as a true science. The redactor has rearranged the text of the Semita recta

and adopted scholastic dialectic techniques in the presentation of the text. He has applied a more

rigid structure to the work, with specific goals in mind by taking the five-part sequence of the

Semita recta and rearranging it into three parts with separate sub-categories. Like all English

versions, Sloane 513 contains only the second and third parts of the three-part treatise. The

second part is the more theoretical one; it establishes the three conditions necessary for alchemy

(material, formal, and preceptual [although the precepts are missing from the Sloane 513

version]).67 The third part contains practical recipes. The scholastic presentation of the text and

the rigidity of the structure implicitly gave a legitimacy to the Myrrour of Lygtes. This,

combined with the ease of use that the organisation of the text provided, made the Myrrour of

Lygtes an excellent primer and handbook of alchemy.68 The version of the Myrrour of Lygtes in

Sloane 513 identifies itself as a copy of the Semita recta in the explicit on folio 168r,

highlighting their close ties.69

Two of the alchemical texts are ascribed to Roger Bacon in Sloane 513. Like Albertus

Magnus, alchemical works were often ascribed to Bacon because of the favourable view he held

towards alchemy. Bacon discusses alchemy in the Opus Minus and the Opus Tertium in which he

distinguished between speculative and operative alchemy (equivalent to theoretical and

practical). In his opinion, operative alchemy was important for its medicinal applications,

67
The material conditions is a list of the required substances like salt or verdigris; the formal conditions are the
processes of alchemy like calcination and sublimation; the preceptual conditions are the seven precepts or
commandments of alchemy. Grund, “„ffor to make Azure‟,” 32.
68
For a more detailed discussion of this redaction see Grund, “Textual Alchemy.”
69
Folio 168r: “Explicit semita recta alkymye Alberti.” [Here ends the right path of alchemy of Albert.]
 223

specifically its ability to prolong life.70 This favourable view led to his continued association

with the genre throughout the Middle Ages.71 The Baconian texts that Dove includes are an

alchemical book of secrets called the Speculum secretorum alchemiae (folios 178v-181r) and an

untitled treatise that begins “Libelli huius series aquarum 12 splendet capitulis” (which was

usually ascribed to Aristotle or Albertus Magnus) (folios 181v-188v).

The “Libelli huius” begins by discussing the properties of twelve alchemical materials

such as sulphur and salt water. Immediately following this is a collection of recipes in Latin and

French that come from a wide variety of sources. As with the medical recipes discussed in the

previous chapters, it has not been possible for me to pinpoint the source of these alchemical

recipes, due in part to the lack of printed editions of alchemical works.72

The Speculum secretorum alchemiae (folios 178v-181r) is a short treatise running to only

a few folios in length. The anonymous writer of the Speculum begins with a refutation of

Avicenna‟s pronouncement that “sciant artifices alchymie species vere transmutari non posse”

[all craftsmen of alchemy know that it is not possible to transmute forms]73 and defends the

validity of alchemy. The writer then delves into a discussion of the basics of alchemy: the

principles upon which the art is based, the materials necessary, and the various operations, such

as calcination, that the alchemist will be performing. He ends the work by listing various

operations and which works contain instructions to execute them. 74 The anonymous writer of the

70
Claire Fanger, “Roger Bacon,” in Dictionary of Gnosis, 157; Buntz, “Alchemy III,” 35. See also Amanda
Power‟s essay for the continued association of Roger Bacon with life extending alchemy through the early modern
period in “A Mirror for Every Age: The Reputation of Roger Bacon,” English Historical Review 121 (2006): 657-
692.
71
Power, “A Mirror for Every Age,” 659.
72
Grund, “„ffor to make Azure‟,” 24.
73
This dictum comes from Avicenna‟s work Kitāb al-Shifā, known in Latin as De congelatione et conglutinatione
lapidum. Newman, “Technology and Alchemical Debate,” 427-429.
74
Robert Steele believed this to be a text written by Roger Bacon but there is no evidence that Bacon wrote anything
on alchemy outside of the Opus Minus and Opus Tertium. Dorothea Waley Singer, “Alchemical Writings Attributed
to Roger Bacon,” Speculum 7:1 (1932): 83.
 224

Speculum calls his work a book or mirror of secrets of alchemy. By using this sort of descriptor

the writer was attempting to give the contents of his work a certain level of attraction and

authority in a similar way to what we have seen in TCC O.1.57 (and Ashmole 1435 to a lesser

extent). The use of the term “secrets” in the title implied that the work contained some sort of

secret or special knowledge of alchemy.75 The writer of the Speculum supplemented this implied

authority by attributing his text to Roger Bacon.

The last of the alchemical works is the introduction to an anonymous treatise titled

Fundamentum alkimie (folios 189r-191v). The introduction is primarily a defence of alchemy as

a tool for medicine, repeatedly citing Geber and Avicenna as authorities as it explicates the

usefulness of various substances. This connection of alchemy with medicine in the

Fundamentum echoes Roger Bacon‟s defence of alchemy and it highlights Dove‟s overall

interest in the practical side of alchemy. His interest follows the general trend in England at this

time. Practical works of alchemy dominate the medieval record, especially those in English, and

this is mirrored in Dove‟s collection.76

Having a good grasp of astrology was essential to the practice of alchemy since the

movement of the planets were thought to influence metals and affect their potency. Dove‟s

alchemical treatises all stress the importance of the influence of the sun and moon in alchemy.

Sloane 513 includes three treatises on the planets (folios 19v-24r) copied by Hand B. All three

explain how the movements of each planet influence the earth and at what time it is propitious to

undertake certain endeavours. One text expounds on the arts and hours of each planet. The art

75
Eamon, Science, 42-45, 80-90. Eamon also discusses alchemy in books of secrets in the early modern period in
146, 164, 219.
76
Grund, “„ffor to make Azure‟,” 41.
 225

of Venus, for example is music and entertainment.77 None of the texts is very long but they

would have been very useful for any sort of astrologically based task like alchemy or medicine.

The manuscript record shows a general shift in England in the fifteenth century from an

interest in natural philosophy to practical medicine and alchemy.78 We have already seen some

evidence of this growing interest in medical texts in the previous chapters. The interest in these

sorts of texts was more focused on the practical than the theoretical, as Dove‟s alchemical texts

demonstrate. We can also see this increased interest in medicine and alchemy combined

throughout Dove‟s alchemical treatises, especially in the Fundamentum alkemie, and by Dove‟s

inclusion of works ascribed to Roger Bacon (whose advocacy of the medical uses of alchemy is

discussed above).

Likewise, physiognomy was part of this shift in interest, especially as a tool for diagnosis

in medicine.79 Both of Dove‟s physiognomy texts are astrologically based, describing the

influences of the planets on people. Texts like these physiognomies used natural signs to enable

people to know the best time for treatment, and how treatments would work based on a person‟s

appearance and characteristics.80 The appearance of these texts in Dove‟s notebook is a

reflection of the increasing interest in medical and scientific works at this time.

The first of Dove‟s physiognomy texts is a two folio astrologically based text copied by

Hand C (folios 75v-77v). This work, titled De disposicione hominis, describes the influence of

the position of the planets on one‟s personality at birth. In doing so the treatise also goes over

the characteristics of each planet. Men born under Mars, for example, are fruitful and bellicose

77
Folio 23v: “venus: est hoc cantator. et ludit instrumenta musice et iocos discit et diligit odoramenta et, vt breuiter
dicam, omnia ornamentorum mulierum” [Venus: this is the singer. And it plays musical instruments, learns jokes,
loves the perfumes, and even, as I would briefly say, all of the ornaments of women.]
78
Jones, “Information and Science,” 98, 100.
79
Jones, “Information and Science,” 109; Acker and Amino, “Book of Palmistry,” 145. For a general discussion of
physiognomy in the fifteenth century see chapter two, pp. 112-113.
80
Jones, “Information and Science,” 109.
 226

and their distinguishing features include a dark face and a long, bulging nose.81 The text is

similar to the longer physiognomy text ascribed to Aristotle that follows (folios 77v-83r).

This second physiognomy text (copied by Hand B) is the first 21 chapters of a 26 chapter

work.82 Chapter one gives the etymology of the word “physiognomy” [phisonomia]83 and

compares physiognomy to other diagnostic methods like astrology, reading the pulse, and

examining urine. The work moves on to the composition of the body in four humours, each of

which provides particular character traits, while chapters 3-10 shift the focus to the influence of

the planets on a person‟s character. However, planetary influence and physical characteristics

may contradict each other; thus chapter 11 lays out the order of importance of the bodily traits.

The rest of the work sets out the character traits revealed through the head, hair, forehead, and

other features of the face, stopping at the throat.84

As we saw in chapter two, chiromancy and physiognomy texts often travelled together

and Sloane 513 is no exception. Dove has two treatises on folios 84r-96r (copied by Hand D)

and 100r-134v (copied by Hand F). The colophon of the first chiromancy text attributes it to

Master Rodericus de Majoricis and claims that he wrote it in Oxford.85 If he was at Oxford, no

record of him survives there. According to R.A. Pack‟s edition, this work is partly a paraphrase

81
Folio 76v: “Qoucumque (sic) natus fuerit sub marte, siue diues fuerit siue pauper, ferax et bellicosus est...Signa
martis in humano corpore facies nigram et…nasus longus et gibbosus” [Whoever was born under Mars, whether he
was rich or poor, is fruitful and bellicose…the signs of Mars in the human body [are] a black face and a long and
bulging nose]
82
R.A. Pack, “Auctoris Incerti de Physiognomonia Libellus,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen
âge 41 (1974): 114.
83
Folio 77v: “phisnomia (sic) dicetur a phisios, quod est natura, et gnomos demonstratio” [physiognomy is [so]
called from phisios, which is nature, and gnomos, [which is] indication.]
84
Pack, “Auctoris Incerti,” 114, 118.
85
Folio 96r: “Eximie explicit tractatus cyromancie compilatus per Magistrum Rodericum de maioricis in
Universitate Oxonie.” [Here ends the remarkable treatise of chiromancy compiled by Master Roderick of Majorca at
the University of Oxford.]
 227

of another chiromancy, which quoted Aristotle and the Secretum secretorum.86 The first chapter

is a justification of chiromancy as a part of natural science because of the influence of the moon

on humanity. The second chapter is the adaptation of the pseudo-Aristotelian chiromancy and

does not mention lunar influences. The third chapter is a discussion of the parts of the hand.

The fourth and last chapter gives a list of characteristics. Some of the terms used are not

explained or are replaced partway through, which suggests that the original compiler used a

number of different sources.87

The second chiromancy is divided into two parts (folios 100r-108v and 109r-134v). This

treatise is attributed to Richard of Florence and the colophon gives us the terminus post quem

date of 1407 for the manuscript.88 As with Rodericus de Maioricis nothing is known of Richard

of Florence. Like the previous chiromancy, Richard‟s text contains an explanation and

justification of chiromancy. It explains how the lines on the hand represent different features of

the person‟s personality and how the planets influence those features. It includes eight

illustrations of hands to be used with the text.

Dove‟s interest in the practical applications of texts continues in the works on the

astrolabe and mathematics. There are two treatises on the astrolabe (folios 15v-19v) added by

Hand B that give a practical explanation of the different components and instructions on how to

use the instrument. The astrolabe was used to find the position of the stars and planets. While it

was mainly used for navigation, it was also used to make horoscopes and in other astrologically

based activities.89 Consequently, it would have been useful for the numerous astrologically

86
R.A. Pack and R. Hamilton, “Rodericus de Majoricis: Tractatus Ciromancie,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et
littéraire du moyen âge 38 (1971): 271.
87
Pack and Hamilton, “Rodericus de Majoricis,” 271-3.
88
See above, n. 9.
89
HMES I, 115, 702; HMES II, 68, 116.
 228

based texts included in Sloane 513 like the alchemical experiments and even the Ars notoria to

some degree. It gives us some sense of Dove‟s methods and his use of the manuscript.

Dove also includes a copy of the Tractatus de spera (folios 59r-75r) of John of

Sacrobosco or Holywood, copied by Hand C. Sacrobosco was a thirteenth-century

mathematician who taught at Paris. Tradition places his birth in Halifax in Yorkshire, but there

is no proof of this. The only known facts about his life are that he taught at Paris and was buried

there.90 His work was part of the university curriculum across Europe, which adds further

evidence to Dove‟s possible tenure as a student at Oxford. The Tractatus and Sacrobosco‟s other

extant works are elementary textbooks on astronomy and mathematics.91 The Tractatus explains

elementary astronomy and cosmology in four chapters with a short prologue. The first chapter

defines a sphere: its centre, its axis, the pole of the world, how many spheres there are, and the

shape of the world. The second chapter discusses the composition of the earthly and heavenly

spheres. The third chapter explains the rising and setting of the signs (that is, the stars) and the

phenomena caused by the rotation of the heavens. The fourth and final chapter deals with the

movement of the planets and the causes of eclipses.

The inclusion of the Tractatus in Sloane 513 further emphasises Dove‟s interest in

astrology, and its practical applications, as we have seen in the texts on the planets, the astrolabe,

physiognomy, and chiromancy. At the same time, the Tractatus is connected to Dove‟s interest

in alchemy through its links with medicine. These texts viewed together highlight Dove‟s desire

to participate in the broader intellectual culture of the fifteenth century. They all follow the

general trend of the fifteenth century to favour practical over theoretical texts. The fact that

90
Gunther, Early Science, 93; Olaf Pedersen, “Sacrobosco, John de (d. c.1236),” Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004), accessed May 6, 2010
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13631; Lynn Thorndike, The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 2.
91
The other three works are the Algorismus, the Compotus or De anni ratione, and the De quadrante. Thorndike
omits the last work from his list. Thorndike, The Sphere of Sacrobosco, 3; Pedersen, “Sacrobosco.”
 229

many of the texts depend on each other (e.g., the fact that many of the texts are astrologically

based) illustrates how closely related texts on astrology, medicine, and alchemy were at this time

and how easily interest in one led to interest in another.

The last two groups of texts we will look at before turning to the Ars notoria emphasise

Dove‟s interest in this area even further, as well as give some sense of Dove‟s interests in

prognostics and secret knowledge, which are important factors in his use of the Ars notoria.

Dove‟s prognostications are Latin medical predictions (folios 96v-97v) and Middle

English divinations in quatrains (folios 98v-99v). The medical prognostications predict a

person‟s chance of surviving an illness based on the day of the month on which the illness fell.

These are typical medical prognostications, similar to those in HM 1336.92 The Middle English

text offers divinations by the roll of dice, although it is incomplete: it only offers nineteen

combinations of three dice. For example, one forecast on 99v states: “þou þat y cast has syȝe

quatere and treye / þou ert y set in right gode weye / Bere þe wel and be of gode comfort / þou

schal be y loued and haue gret disport” [you that have cast six, four, and three / you are set in a

right good way / Bear you well and be of good cheer / you shall be loved and have great

pleasure]. The fortunes are generally vague: one combination will give you your desire, while

another combination foretells only disaster. The premise seems to rely on a goal already held in

the mind of the die caster, whose outcome is foretold. This method is somewhat unusual since

most of the surviving prognostics are based on the weather, lists of lucky and unlucky days,

divinations according to the Dominical letter, or the day on which Christmas falls.93

The riddles (folios 57v) that Dove has copied serve two functions. Their first function is

in relation to the teaching of rhetoric. As I mentioned above, they share similarities with those in

92
Jones, “Information and Science,” 109.
93
See chapter four, pp. 184-185.
 230

Harley 3362 and Gonville and Caius 230.94 Some of these riddles are also found in a book of

secrets called the Secretum philosophorum.95 In these books they fall under the branch of

rhetoric. Specifically, they exemplify the rhetoric trope of aenigma.96 In these manuscripts

Andrew Galloway discusses in “The Rhetoric of Riddling” riddles are presented as part of the

process of learning rhetoric, whether by explicit reference (as in the Secretum philosophorum) or

by association with other rhetorical models and materials. They are grouped with practical or

applied material such as recipes, medicine, arithmetic, and other sciences. The owners of these

texts are less interested in the lofty pursuits of theology and more concerned with day to day

matters to do with administration and bureaucracy.97

Second, riddles and other linguistic puzzles challenge readers to hone their analytical

skills.98 Possessing and presumably solving difficult riddles allowed their owner to show off

their intellectual superiority. As Galloway writes, “riddles provided a badge for the intellectual

identity and social authority of the writer, as well as of the reader who gained access to their

meaning.”99 Dove‟s riddles are particularly suited for this as they have no gloss and some are

still unsolved.100 Like a book of secrets, these riddles offer the reader elite knowledge to which

few people would have had access; thus, there is a measure of exclusivity inherent in the riddles

94
See above p. 211.
95
The Secretum philosophorum was divided into seven chapters corresponding to each of the seven liberal arts.
Each category contains recipes and experiments that relate back to each of the liberal arts in some way. The riddles
appear under the heading of rhetoric. For a description of this text and books of secrets in general see Friedman,
“Safe Magic,” 76-86.
96
In rhetoric, the trope of aenigma referred to a small matter, conundrum, or obscure wording. It was variously
included under the umbrella of metaphor or allegory from the Classical to the medieval periods. Donatus first listed
it as a species of allegory in the 3rd century AD. In the medieval period, it was used in the teaching of Christian
scripture and doctrine – most famously by Augustine in De Trinitate. Eleanor Cook, “The Figure of Enigma:
Rhetoric, History, Poetry,” Rhetorica 19:4 (2001): 349-378.
97
Galloway, “Rhetoric of Riddling,” 71-2.
98
Galloway, “Rhetoric of Riddling,” 68, 97.
99
Galloway, “Rhetoric of Riddling,” 84.
100
Galloway, “Rhetoric of Riddling,” 83.
 231

that entices the reader. By copying these riddles Dove suggests that he not only has access to

this elite knowledge, but that he has the skills to decipher it and is therefore worthy of possessing

it. The riddles are another way for Dove to enhance his image of himself as a learned man.

The Ars notoria

With this context in hand let us turn to the text central to our discussion: the Ars notoria (folios

192r-200r). As I mentioned in chapter one, the Ars notoria is a magic ritual that purports to offer

the user knowledge of the seven liberal arts as well as a stronger memory, eloquence,

understanding, and perseverance.101 Julien Véronèse has discovered five versions of the Ars

notoria and a gloss: the A version (or Flores aurei), the B version, a gloss to the B version, the

Opus operum (John of Morigny‟s reconfiguration), the Ars brevis, and the Ars Paulina.102 The

Ars notoria that Dove includes in Sloane 513 is the Ars brevis version, which first appears in the

manuscript record in the fourteenth century.103 The Ars brevis differs from the other versions of

the Ars notoria in its brevity, its lack of distinction between the Generals and the Specials, which

are major components of the other versions, and the absence of any reference to an ancient

author such as Solomon or Appollonius.104 It promises knowledge in five days and its main

focus is on memory. In addition to this, the Ars brevis includes the discovery of hidden treasures

and knowledge of secrets and the future.

Dove‟s Ars brevis comprises a number of different rituals for each of the goals listed

above. A list of precepts is set out that apply to each ritual: all are begun during the new moon,

because that improves men‟s senses and it is when men are most powerful; each prayer is to be

101
pp. 35-36; 40-42.
102
Véronèse, L‟Ars notoria, 18-21.
103
Véronèse, L‟Ars notoria, 21.
104
Véronèse discusses the differences between these versions in detail in the introduction to his edition, L‟Ars
notoria, 18-21.
 232

said with full contrition and devotion; and the operator must confess his sins and do penance.

Each ritual takes place over a number of days and angelic dream visions play a major role in the

acquisition of the desired object. A typical ritual is one to gain intellect and memory from God

(folios 192v-193r). The practitioner fasts on bread and water, gives alms, and wears clean

clothes. On the first day, he kneels before his bed and says a certain prayer three times with pure

contrition. On the second day, he recites the prayer upon waking, then kneels and holds his

hands like an open book (or if specific knowledge is sought, he takes the appropriate book and

holds it open). He then writes “Alpha et O” on his right palm and sleeps with that palm under

his right ear and learns what he desires in a dream. After this knowledge is acquired, the

practitioner says ten specified masses and recites certain prayers following each mass. Some of

the rituals vary by having notae consecrated beforehand, which are then placed under the

sleeping person‟s head, and the number and style of prayers and masses changes throughout.

Throughout the rituals, the text urges the reader to do all things with contrition, devotion,

cleanliness of the soul and body, and the proper intent. These are essential to the success of the

operation. They guarantee that the operator is spiritually cleansed and therefore worthy of

receiving the benefits the Ars notoria promises. The Ars notoria advises the reader at the end of

the text that he will only gain knowledge if he is worthy to know the secrets of God.105

Throughout the rituals of the Ars notoria there is an emphasis on ascetic practices and

affective spirituality. Richard Kieckhefer has noted that ritual magic texts often mirror

devotional and contemplative practices in their asceticism.106 Devout words are recited, alms are

given, and chastity and fasting are emphasised. In the Ars brevis, the practitioner likewise has to

be spiritually pure and chaste, do penance, and do all things with contrition and a pure heart.

105
Folio 200r: “si fuerit dignus scire secreta dei” [if he was worthy to know the secrets of God]
106
Kieckhefer, “Devil‟s Contemplatives,” 250-251.
 233

The practices of affective spirituality are also an important component in the rituals. Affective

spirituality focused on the emotion and suffering of the participant in contemplation and

imitation of the life of Christ (imitatio Christi), particularly on the Passion.107 The imitatio

Christi emphasised “humility, patience, and scorn for the world” as a means to enlightment.108

Many of the Ars brevis rituals emphasise this style of devotion. For example, during one of the

rituals, the user hangs by his hands from nails on the wall as though on a cross while he prays for

mercy.109 This is what Sophie Page refers to as “magic in a Christian framework.”110 The

operator adopts the imitatio Christi style of devotion by suffering just as Christ suffered.111

These practices are an essential part of the rituals of the Ars notoria and are necessary for the

successful completion of the operations.

The Ars brevis contains four notae that are labelled for memory, intellect, secrets, and

knowledge. In contrast to other versions of the Ars notoria, only two of the notae are meant to

be meditated upon: the figure of intellect (folio 197v) and the nota labelled “figura est de secretis

Magistri Alberti episcopi ratisponensis” [the figure of secrets of Master Albert, the bishop of

Regensburg] (namely, Albertus Magnus) (folio 199r). This first figure is the simplest of the

107
This defintion is of course simplistic and glosses over many of the intricacies of affective spirituality such as the
importance of women as practitioners of affective spirituality and the role of the body versus the spirit; nevertheless,
it highlights the features that are pertinent for the present discussion. For more nuanced discussions see Karma
Lochrie‟s Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 14-
47, for a good introduction to affective spirituality. Sarah McNamer‟s Affective Meditation and the Invention of
Medieval Compassion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), discusses the development of
affective spirituality and its role in the shift in medieval Christian devotion from fear of God to compassion for
Christ. For more on late medieval devotional practices see Richard Kieckhefer, “Major Currents in Late Medieval
Devotion,” in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt (New York: Crossroad,
1987), 75-108; and Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984).
108
Lochrie, Margery Kempe, 27.
109
Folio 194v: “vade ad parietem, pendens manus ad modum crucis habendo, clauiculos fixos in pariete quibus
manus sustentans dicendo hanc orationem” [go to the wall, hanging [your] hands in the manner of the cross, by
having small nails fixed on the wall on which to sustain the hands while saying this prayer]
110
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 156.
111
On this style of devotion see Lochrie, Margery Kempe, 14-15, 27-37. On the development of the imitatio Christi
and its role in the monastic world see Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin
Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 100-106; 199.
 234

notae. It is a small, apparently unfinished figure that has “Noue scribatur + dies . x . p . n . b . t .

k . g” written on the outer circles, while the inner circle is divided into quadrants with letters

written inside each one. Conversely, the last figure is the most elaborate of the notae, containing

orthodox names and symbols: crosses, the names of the disciples, holy women, saints, and the

Church fathers. Names of the Gospel writers and archangels encircle these lists in the outer band

of the circle.

The other two notae (for memory and the secrets of God) are to be slept on. The nota for

memory (folio 196v) is a double circle with two crosses with mysterious names written around

the edge. The nota for the secrets of God (folio 200v) is a circle that has a Tau cross in the

centre flanked by the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. Crosses and verba ignota are written on

the outer band. A later hand has erased one of the words and drawn in more crosses over top.

The concept of sleeping on the written word to absorb knowledge appears throughout the text.

In the other instances, noted above, the practitioner writes some variation of “Alpha et Omega”

on his right hand, which he is then supposed to place under his head while he sleeps. This way

of acquiring knowledge stems from the Old Testament story in which Solomon receives

knowledge and wisdom in a dream vision from God.112

Most of the previous scholarship on Dove and his Ars notoria has relied on David Bell‟s

description of the manuscript, which erroneously shortens the Ars notoria from eight folios to

one. Bell‟s description also incorrectly labels the remaining seven folios of the Ars notoria as “a

miscellaneous collection of prayers, liturgical extracts, and devotional materials.”113 As a result,

scholars‟ basic assumptions about the text have been flawed from the outset by Bell‟s

misidentification. As a case in point, Frank Klaassen classifies Dove‟s Ars notoria with another

112
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 156-7; see II Chronicles 1: 9-12; lI Kings 3: 11-12.
113
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 87.
 235

one page manuscript (Sloane 3008) and argues that these short versions may have been included

in manuscripts as novelties.114 However, one folio is easier to justify as a novelty or curiosity

than eight folios. The way scholars approach the Ars notoria changes when the manuscript

context changes; our perception of Dove‟s Ars brevis changes because of these new details.

The Ars notoria was written by the same hand (Hand F) that copied the monastic

regulations, and the chiromancy attributed to Richard of Florence. Like the other fifteenth-

century hands in Sloane 513, Hand F is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It has a

vertically compressed and angular aspect; the ink is sometimes inconsistent, which makes it

difficult to read. In contrast with this, however, the decoration is some of the more elaborate in

the manuscript. This is also the hand that could possibly belong to Dove himself (see my

discussion of this above).115

There are several features of Hand F that give some evidence for Dove‟s participation in

the positivization of magic in the later Middle Ages. Whether or not Dove was Hand F, that it

was the same hand which wrote the monastic texts is further evidence that Sloane 513 was

copied specifically for a monastic environment. This, as well as the prominent place Hand F

gives to Dove‟s name in the colophon of the Ars notoria, is indicative of Dove‟s role in the

positivization of magic. While the Ars notoria did not fall within the expanded definition of

natural magic that constituted this positivization, the representation of it in Sloane 513 reflects a

shift in attitudes and a new permissiveness about magic that was occurring in the later Middle

Ages.

This positivization of the Ars notoria is further demonstrated in its presentation in the

text. Like the rest of the texts in Sloane 513, the Ars notoria is written in a single column; the

114
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 16-17.
115
See p. 208. The evidence is not very strong, but it is a possibility that should nevertheless be kept in mind.
 236

bounding lines are still visible on some of the folios; the paraphs alternate between red and blue;

and the start of each ritual is signalled by blue initials with red flourishing. In addition, there is

evidence that a compass was used in the composition of the notae.116 None of the notae used in

Sloane 513 is particularly complex. Even the most elaborate one has been added by the same

scribal hand as opposed to a later decorator. As with the rest of the manuscript, the figures are

roughly drawn. They do not reach the same complexity or artistic expression as some of the

other surviving copies such as the fifteenth-century copy, Bodley 951, that was owned by Simon

Maidstone, or the thirteenth-century copy in London, British Library, Sloane MS 1712.117 The

Ars notoria has been copied with the same care as any other texts in the manuscript and has not

been singled out from the other texts in any way. The ordinary way that the text is treated is

indicative of its positivization. If the text could be seen as an acceptable form of magic then it

could be integrated with non-magical texts in the same way that charms and natural magic were

incorporated into the manuscripts examined in the previous chapters.

The manuscript context of this Ars notoria is not entirely unusual in comparison to other

surviving copies of the Ars brevis version. Only five other copies of the Ars brevis version

survive; one of these, a German manuscript from the late fourteenth century, now Krakow,

Biblioteka Jagiellonska, MS 551, is similarly otherwise lacking in religious content. It contains

numerous Alphonsine tables, treatises on the astrolabe and mathematics, astronomical texts,

works on pregnancy, health and wellbeing, the position of the stars, alchemical recipes, magic

recipes, a chiromancy, the secreta mulierum of pseudo-Albertus Magnus, as well as texts on rain,

116
There are small holes visible in the middle of the notae showing where a compass was used to draw the circles.
117
Klaassen, “English Manuscripts,” 16; images of some of these notae can be seen in Page, Magic in Medieval
Manuscripts, images 41-42.
 237

eclipses, urine, horoscopes, and an extract from Ptolemy‟s Centiloquium.118 Both compilers of

these manuscripts share similar interests in alchemy, chiromancy, prognostication, science, and

technology. A mid-fourteenth century copy, Erfurt, Wissenschasftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian

Collection, MS O.79, contains the secreta mulierum of pseudo-Albertus Magnus, secrets and

prognostications ascribed to Hippocrates, works on judicial astrology, natural philosophy, the

planets, and various works on medicine.119 The fragmentary copy of the Ars brevis in

Edinburgh, Royal Observatory Library, MS Cr.3.14, a French manuscript from the fifteenth

century, is found alongside a copy of the A version of the Ars notoria and works of image magic

ascribed to Ptolemy, Thebit ibn Qurra, and Hermes Trismegistus.120 By contrast, the copy of the

Ars brevis in Vienna, Schottenkloster, Scotensis-Vindobonensis MS 140 (61), copied in 1377,

contains prayers and a copy of the Liber florum by John of Morigny.121 Erfurt,

Wissenschasftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.28a, a fifteenth-century copy of the

Ars brevis, contains mostly devotional material such as a text on the passion and death of Christ,

but also a text on the art of speaking.122

Although I do not believe that Dove used the Ars notoria for its religious benefits, there

are elements of the Ars notoria that lent itself well to the monastic environment and may help

explain how Dove seems to have owned it without attracting unfavourable attention. Because

the ritual is made up of long prayers, requires numerous masses to be said, and depends on the
118
See the full list of titles in Sophia Włodek, Georgius Zathey, Marianus Zwiercan, Catalogus codicum
manuscriptorum Medii Aevi Latinorum qui in Bibliotheca Jagellonica Cracoviae asservantur, vol. 3 (Wratislaviae:
Institutum Ossolinianum: Officina Editoria Academiae Scientiarum Polonae, 1980-1982), 333-345.
119
Wilhelm Schum, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Amplonianischen Handschriften-Sammlung zu Erfurt
(Weidmannsche Buchhandlung: Berlin, 1887), 735-737; accessed March 15, 2011, http://www.manuscripta-
mediaevalia.de/hs/kataloge/HSK0495.htm.
120
Catalogue of the Crawford Library of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Published by the Authority
of Her Majesty‟s Government, 1890), 486, 491, 497.
121
A. Hübl, Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum qui in Bibliotheca Monasterii B.M.V. ad Scotos Vindobonae
servantur (Vindobonae, 1899), accessed March 15, 2011,
http://www.hmml.org/research2010/catalog/detail.asp?MSID=3854.
122
Schum, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Amplonianischen, 308-309.
 238

pious intent of the user, it had immediate appeal to a monastic reader who would have been

performing these kinds of activities in his daily life anyway. The emphasis on ascetic practice

and affective piety made a ritual that mirrored the devotional current of the period and could

blend in to an extent.123 In addition to the example noted above that requires the practitioner to

hang from nails in the wall in imitation of Christ, the prayers of the Ars brevis stress the sinful

and miserable nature of the practitioner, and there is a continuous emphasis on the devotion and

contrition of the practioner. For most monastic users of the Ars notoria, then, the devotional

elements could have appealed to them as complements to their own daily devotional life. Within

this monastic context, the Ars notoria could have escaped negative notice.

It follows that Dove would not have had the same qualms about owning this text as he

would if it were a necromantic manual or some other form of ritual magic, because there is

ample evidence that the Ars notoria was both created and transmitted in a monastic environment.

Virtually every name associated with this text in the Middle Ages is monastic: the Benedictine

monks John of London and Michael Northgate at St. Augustine‟s, Canterbury in the fourteenth

century; Simon Maidestone, who was at St. Augustine‟s in the fifteenth century; the Benedictine

John of Morigny who tried to adapt his own version; and the Cistercian Dove.124 For many of

these monks, the attraction was not just the promised knowledge but also the pious practices

within the Ars notoria – despite its condemnation. Page has argued that part of the appeal of the

Ars notoria was its usefulness as a tool in the journey to spiritual perfection. Underlying the

suspicious magical practices was a layer of Christian devotion and mysticism, with an emphasis

on spiritual cleanliness, affective piety, and other elements that were essential in the monastic

123
On these aspects see above, pp. 233-234.
124
Fanger and Watson, “Prologue,” 108-217; Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” chapter one; Klaassen, “English
Manuscripts,” 14-19.
 239

life.125 Memory has been argued to be a vital component in devotional practices, especially in

lectio divina, as a tool to be combined with imagination in the remembrance of Christ‟s suffering

and death.126 The prominence of memory as a goal in the Ars brevis makes it an even more

useful tool for spiritual meditation and contemplation. The rituals require such intense devotion

and belief that it is almost impossible not to imagine the operator getting some spiritual or

religious benefit from the many masses and prayers that each ritual in the Ars notoria requires.127

The other known monastic users all attempted to fit the Ars notoria into an orthodox Christian

context in some way: John of Morigny turned his version into a Marian ritual that he claimed

was authorised by the Virgin Mary herself; Michael Northgate‟s devotional works equated an

increase of holiness with pious practices. Page argues that John of London and Michael

Northgate viewed the Ars notoria as a devotional text and that they combined “popular

instrumental piety and more reflective and learned texts.”128

Given the highly devotional format of the Ars notoria in any version, it is significant that

most copies of the Ars brevis appear in such decidedly non-religious manuscripts. Most

discussions of the Ars notoria revolve around its religious content and the monastic context in

which it was developed, but what about when it is not paired with religious materials?129 What

drew Dove to the Ars notoria? Viewed in light of Sloane 513‟s manuscript context, the

devotional aspects of the Ars notoria does not seem to be what appeals to Dove. Whereas for the

other monastic users the Ars notoria may have been a part of the journey to spiritual perfection

125
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 160-169.
126
Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 156, 264; Lochrie, Margery Kempe, 27-32; Mary Carruthers, The Book of
Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 256-257.
127
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 158-161; 165-175.
128
Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 172.
129
On the Ars notoria and the pursuit of spiritual perfection see Page, “Magic at St. Augustine‟s,” 156-178. Claire
Fanger and Nicholas Watson discuss the Ars notoria in relation to the Liber florum of John of Morigny in Watson,
“John the Monk,” 163-215; Fanger, “Plundering the Egyptian Treasure,” 216-249; and Fanger and Watson,
“Prologue,” 108-125.
 240

(or was at least presented as such), for Dove the Ars notoria represents an opportunity to

participate in the broader intellectual community. The appeal would seem to be not the spiritual

benefits, but the worldly gains – memory, intellect, secrets, treasure – that the text promises. The

combination of texts in Sloane 513, prognostics, alchemy, French, and so on, helps us understand

how Dove viewed the Ars notoria and how it fit into his life.

In Dove‟s case I believe that he was drawn to the disparate subjects of Sloane 513 as part

of a desire, represented throughout the book, to engage with the wider world of learning and

ideas – the accumulated parts of the book reflect an accretive, cumulative attitude to knowledge.

The first purpose of the Ars notoria is the acquisition of knowledge of the seven liberal arts; the

Ars brevis version is particularly focused on the strengthening of memory, which was essential to

the medieval scholar.130 Dove‟s desire for knowledge as expressed in the Ars notoria is also

evident through the number of texts he has included that promise either illicit knowledge

(through the prognostications) or elite knowledge in general (through the riddles). Additionally,

the abundance of texts on the variety of topics in Sloane 513 present an image of a man

interested in intellectual pursuits. In contrast to Page‟s monks at St. Augustine‟s and John of

Morigny‟s reimagining, Dove gives no indication that he used the Ars notoria as part of a search

for spiritual perfection or anything beyond its material benefits. By deliberately placing the Ars

notoria with non-religious works in his notebook Dove makes it clear that he is not interested in

adapting or camouflaging it as a Christian ritual.

Dove makes no comment on the religious content of the Ars notoria, either implicitly or

explicitly, and it is only with the Protestant John Shaxton that we get explicit comment on the

religious content. Shaxton‟s hand (a mixed italic cursive that was especially prominent in

130
Mary Carruthers has explored the importance of memory in medieval culture, but see especially chapter one,
“Models for the Memory” of The Book of Memory for how memory was related to intellect. The ability to
memorize and repeat texts backwards and forwards was held up as proof that someone really knew and understood
the text.
 241

England from the later sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century) places him in the latter

half of the sixteenth century or later and thus firmly in a post-Reformation England. Shaxton‟s

issues with the Ars notoria seem not to be that it is a magic ritual, but that it is a Catholic magic

ritual. Shaxton makes only a few notations in Sloane 513: he writes his name a few times at the

beginning and end of the manuscript, along with a fragment of a sentence, and he defaces the Ars

notoria. Shaxton has erased a few lines of text on folios 193r and 194v and inserted “Lux mundj

Saluator noster” and “Maria Virginis Pac. Papist.” He has also written “Papist” in the margin of

folio 193r, and “Vbicumque vides miseria, relinque ea, et falsa hujus modj. J.S.” [Wherever you

see misery, relinquish it, and its false ways. J.S.] at the end of the Ars notoria (folio 200r).

Shaxton has crossed out some of the prayers, but very lightly so that the text is still readable.

Only one of the notae has been found objectionable: the figure for the secrets of God on folio

199v. Shaxton has erased one of the holy names and superimposed crosses on the outer band of

the circle.

Only Shaxton expresses any opinion of the religious content of the Ars notoria and that

makes Dove unique among the known monastic owners of the Ars notoria.131 The others

attempted to excuse it in some way, either by grouping it with devotional works, like Michael

Northgate did with his copy at St. Augustine‟s, or by explicitly commenting on it as John of

Morigny did in his autobiography and then reworking it to fit into what he saw as an appropriate

Christian framework. By placing the Ars notoria with non-religious texts in Sloane 513 and

131
This is not to say that he is unique among all owners of the Ars notoria in the Middle Ages. The Krakow, Erfurt,
and Edinburgh manuscripts, which I mentioned above, pp. 236-237, also show a lack of interest in pious content.
Other versions of the Ars notoria, such as Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.380,
which contains the A version, also has a text on geomancy. Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Clm 276, which
contains John of Morigny‟s Liber florum, has texts on subjects such as geomancy, phlebotomy, astrology, and
alchemy. See, Schum, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Amplonianischen, 638; Karl Halm, Georg von Laubmann,
and Wilhelm Meyer, Catalogus codicum latinorum Bibliothecae Regiae Monacensis, vol. 1, part 1 (Munich: 1868),
51. Some copies, like Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 1, a thirteenth-century copy of the A
version, are standalone copies and so give us no contextual clues to the mindset of its owners. Véronèse, L‟Ars
notoria, 30.
 242

through the repeated appearances of Dove‟s name and initials in the manuscript and the Ars

notoria, Dove demonstrates a lack of concern for the implications of owning a condemned magic

text that the other monastic owners at least gave a pretence of showing. The Ars notoria

represents Dove‟s desire to take part in an intellectual world that goes beyond the monastery. It

works with the other texts in Sloane 513 to provide knowledge, whether that is the ability to read

French, use an astrolabe, see into the future, or to possess the secrets of alchemy. The Ars

notoria can not only provide Dove with the skills to acquire this knowledge, but the knowledge

itself. In this way, the Ars notoria becomes an important component in the order of Dove‟s life

and a marker of his intellectual desires.

 243

Conclusion
At the beginning of this study I stated that I wanted to shift away from scholarship‟s current

interest in the clerical underworld and to look at magic as an element in everyday life. I wanted

to study magic as “normal” history, not as the esoteric subject it is often seen as, and to do so

through the books that people used in their day to day lives. My ultimate goal was to further our

understanding of the place of magic in late medieval English society by looking at how people

used magic in the shaping of their identities and how, as part of this shaping, magic became

ordinary and a part of people‟s everyday lives. The manuscripts that I have looked at in this

dissertation have demonstrated some of the variety of ways in which this identity shaping took

place and the different contexts in which magic could be ordinary.

By studying how people adapt and use magic in their books, we have been able to catch a

glimpse of each owner‟s distinctive goals and desires. In chapter two, we saw how the Haldenby

family used charms and natural magic in TCC O.1.57 as part of their attempt to establish

themselves within a sub-set of the gentry that was increasingly interested in medical and

scientific texts in the later Middle Ages. The Haldenby family included magic that highlights the

utilitarian nature of TCC O.1.57. The charms and natural magic address problems faced in

everyday life, such as headaches, illnesses, and fire. The natural magic in the manuscript also

highlights the education of the Haldenby family through its use of wonder, which reinforces the

learned image of the family set forth in the medical and scientific texts in the rest of the

manuscript.

Charms and natural magic were also used in Ashmole 1435, discussed in chapter three,

but in this case the anonymous scribe used them to create an image of quasi-clerical masculinity

in his personal notebook that reflects the anxieties and desires that underscore medieval

constructions of clerical masculinity. Many of the experiments show a preoccupation with

 244

controlling other people, especially women, and a desire for knowledge. Further bolstering the

quasi-clerical image being shaped in Ashmole 1435 is the presence of several experiments with

ties to ritual magic that have been stripped of their more transgressive elements. At the same

time, magic‟s ludic quality is an important component in the creation of this image of

masculinity. There are magic tricks that focus on the absurd, but also experiments that may have

entertained a medieval reader, which can seem cruel or misogynistic to a modern reader, that

fortify the image of masculinity being presented in the manuscript.

In chapter four, charms and natural magic appear in HM 1336 as part of the complicated

formation of Robert Taylor‟s identity that reflects not only his place in the community as

someone who could afford to commission a scribe to copy a book for him and who may have

been a part-time medical practitioner, but the choices the scribes of his book made as well. The

charms and natural magic are a reflection of Taylor‟s interest in medicine and reinforce the

pragmatic aspects of HM 1336 in a similar way as TCC O.1.57. However, unlike TCC O.1.57,

Taylor‟s use of magic is not for social mobility, but for professional growth. The colophon

added by his scribe Wysbech seems to be intended for an audience beyond Taylor and so the

manuscript, and the magic texts in it, become a part of Taylor‟s public image.

Finally, in chapter five we saw how Richard Dove used his copy of the Ars notoria in

Sloane 513 in an attempt to participate in the intellectual community beyond his monastic life in

Buckfast Abbey. Dove‟s relationship with the Ars notoria is unlike other known monastic

owners. Dove shows no concern over the unorthodox elements of the text, nor does he seem to

be interested in its religious elements, but its material benefits. The Ars notoria also serves as a

tool to be used along with the academic texts in the manuscript to take part in the broader

intellectual world. In all four case studies, therefore, we have seen what was important about

magic to people and how they adapted magic into their everyday lives.
 245

In my introduction to this study I put forth the argument from Douglas Gray that the line

between natural and supernatural was less clearly delineated in the later Middle Ages than it is

now and this can be seen in the ways that magical and non-magical texts have been interwoven

in these four manuscripts. The texts of virtues in TCC O.1.57, for example, mix natural occult

virtues with natural magic without distinguishing between the two. Likewise, the Ashmole

scribe makes no distinction between magical and non-magical texts in his recipe collection, but

freely mixes them. The charms and natural magic in HM 1336 are integrated in the recipe

collection without delineating between magic and non-magic. The Ars notoria in Sloane 513 is

not set apart from the other texts in any way, but is presented in the same manner as the other

texts in the manuscript. Clearly, however, these manuscripts have also shown that deciding

where to put the line between natural and supernatural varied from person to person.

Just as each of the manuscripts I looked at revealed unique identities from various aspects

of society, so too did they show subtle gradations in the presence and use of magic in their day to

day lives. These gradations are illustrated most clearly in the way that magic is used for

pragmatic purposes, as entertainment, and for learning. TCC O.1.57 and HM 1336 exemplify

the pragmatic aspects of magic by addressing the problems and concerns that people encountered

everyday such as wounds, illnesses, and thefts. For example, both manuscripts contain a natural

magic experiment using the eyes of the hoopoe for protection in the marketplace. This is the

lone piece of natural magic in HM 1336 amid Taylor‟s medical collection whereas in TCC

O.1.57 the experiment is part of a larger and varied collection of natural magic experiments and

natural occult virtues. These four manuscripts have also shown the entertaining side of magic

through tricks that use sleights of hand or chemical compounds, like the trick in TCC O.1.57 on

folio 127v to make fire run around the house, and through magical experiments that entertained

the reader, like the experiment in Ashmole 1435 to make a woman lift her skirts (pages 14-15).
 246

Magic is also used for learning, whether that is as an expression of the Haldenby‟s learning in

TCC O.1.57, or in Sloane 513 where the Ars notoria is not only provides the skills for acquiring

knowledge, but the knowledge itself.

The four manuscripts that I have focused on give only a small sampling of the ways in

which people used and adapted magic texts and other manuscripts can shed light on other areas

of magic use. For example, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 8 is an itinerant preacher‟s

manual from the turn of the sixteenth century that contains prayers, prognostications,

conjuration-like exorcisms, and various theological writings. As the manuscript of an itinerant

member of the secular clergy, Digby 8 is an example of how magical concepts and practices

could be spread and is potentially an important source of information on the use of magic by

members of religious orders outside the monastery. The case studies in this dissertation have

demonstrated that as more work is done with individual manuscripts our understanding of the use

of magic in the later Middle Ages will be enriched.

The manuscript survey of chapter one showed that there are many manuscripts like Digby

8 that have not yet been studied and which will undoubtedly offer further insight into the place of

magic in fifteenth-century English society. As more manuscripts are studied, the picture of

magic use that I have presented here will be refined and altered. Additionally, there are magic

texts that have not been adequately discussed in the secondary scholarship, as we have seen

throughout this study. There are still texts, like the sleep charm discussed in chapter two, or the

recipe to staunch bleeding discussed in chapter four, waiting to be discovered and studied.

Previously unidentified texts, like those that I examined in this study, can help scholars to

discuss the use of magic more precisely.

This dissertation has also raised topics and avenues of research that deserve more

thought. The distinctions between magic and non-magic should be examined more closely,
 247

especially with regard to magic‟s relationship with medicine, late medieval devotion,

entertainment, and other areas of medieval society. This study has shown that there were

connections between magic and many aspects of society that need to be studied more; the role of

magic in entertainment, for example, is an important area for magic scholarship, but one that has

been somewhat neglected. There are other aspects of magic I looked at that deserve more

research, such as natural magic. This genre of magic has not been studied as thoroughly as

charms and ritual magic, but the variety of techniques and purposes that we have seen in this

study illustrate the nuance that further research would add to our understanding of how magical

and non-magical texts overlapped and were distinguished from one another.

Another important area for more research is the connection with the continent – a

connection that I have only briefly touched upon in this study. One obvious example is the Ars

brevis version of the Ars notoria; apart from Dove‟s copy in Sloane 513, all the surviving copies

originated on the continent. How did this text come to England and what is its relationship with

the other surviving copies? Is there a connection between the six surviving copies? Is it possible

to see similar patterns of use on the continent with these other copies? These questions should

be applied more broadly as well, to other genres of magic that I looked at in this study. Can

similar patterns be seen, for example, in the use of natural magic on the continent? How is it

used in the Kassel manuscript that I briefly discussed in chapter three? Or the Dutch manuscript

that is now Wellcome 517? How is magic used in these manuscripts in comparison with TCC

O.1.57 or Ashmole 1435? Are there countries in which certain kinds of magic are more

prevalent than others? Spain, for example, has long been understood to be an important country

for the study of the transmission of ritual magic texts to western Europe in the twelfth century.

Sophie Page and Benedek Láng have recently begun to study the connections between England

and the continent, and western and eastern Europe respectively, but there are still many aspects
 248

of these connections that should be addressed in the future. The possible connections between

England and the continent that I have brought up in this dissertation will, I hope, be grounds for

further, fruitful, research.

The evidence presented in this study shows that the place of magic in books changed with

each scribe and each reader that encountered it; they adapted magic for different purposes and

used it to fit their own contexts. Throughout this dissertation we have seen how magic was used

by people in the presentation of their identities across four representative aspects of society: the

gentry household, the university, medicine, and the monastery. Magic was used to help establish

their position in the world and it was also an expression of private desires and goals. As magic

was being used for these purposes, it became an ordinary part of people‟s everyday existence.

Moreover, the manuscripts that I have examined here certainly show that magic belongs in

“normal” history and the avenues of further research I have suggested above support this

normalisation of the study of magic. To keep these texts marginalised is to do a disservice to

what magic can tell us about medieval society.

 249

Appendix One: Preliminary Survey of Fifteenth-century

Manuscripts of Magic
Other
Date & Name of any Charm,
Location, if Name of any medieval Ritual Natural Medical or not
Shelfmark known scribes owners Magic Magic Charm described
Aberdeen, Aberdeen
University Library MS France/Flanders; X
25 s.xvin (post 1406)
Aberdeen, Aberdeen
University Library MS X
258 s.xv
Boston, Boston
Medical Library MS X
18 England; s.xv
Cambridge, Gonville Johannes
and Caius College (plenus X
Library MS 383 (603) England; s.xv amoris?)
Cambridge, Gonville
and Caius College England; s.xv, X
Library MS 457 (395) s.xvi Whyston
John Walsh;
Thomas
Cambridge, Jesus Audley; Robert X
College Library MS Northampton?; Swann; John
46 Q.D.4 s.xv, s.xii-xiii John Thrope? Thrope
Cambridge, Pembroke Oysell
College Library MS (Hampshire?); William William X
S.p.19 (248) s.xiv, xv Hobyes Hobyes
Cambridge, Sidney Bristol?; s.xv (ca. X
Sussex College MS 80 1450)
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
R.14.32 (905) Essex?; s.xv
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS England; s.xiii, X
R.14.45 (916) s.xv
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X X
R.14.51 (921) England; s.xv Russell
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS England & Italy; Robert X
O.1.13 (1037) s.xv-xvii Jernegan?
Cambridge, Trinity Isham,
College Library MS Northamptonshir Haldenby X X X
O.1.57 (1081) e; s.xv-xvi William; John family
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
O.1.58 (1082) England; s.xv Bokenham
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
O.1.65 (1089) s.xvi, s.xv, s.xvii
 250

M. J. Norton of
Cambridge, Trinity Shropshire, Mycham?
X
College Library MS Chershire?; s.xv- (third part
O.2.13 (1117) xvii (8 parts) only)
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
O.2.16 (1120) s.xvex or xvi
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS Rochester?; X
O.2.49 (1153) s.xvmed (1451) Grene
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
O.7.23 (1351) England; s.xvex
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS England; s.xiv- X
O.8.29 (1404) xvi (in 6 parts)
Cambridge, Trinity
College Library MS X
O.8.35 (1410) England; s.xvex
Cambridge, Trinity Belonged to
College Library MS Canterbury; Christ Church, X
O.9.26 (1438) s.xiv, xv Canterbury
Cambridge, Trinity England & Italy;
College Library MS s.xiv-xv (in 5 X
O.9.39 (1451) parts)
Cambridge, Thomas Turke,
Cambridge University Winchester Fellow of
X
Library Additional College, Winchester
MS 5943 Hampshire, s.xvin College
Cambridge,
Cambridge University
X X
Library Additional England, s.xvin
MS 9308 (about 1400)
Cambridge,
Cambridge University X X
Library MS Dd.iv.44 England; s.xvin
Cambridge,
Cambridge University X X
Library, MS Dd.v.76 England; s.xv John Bradley? John Bintreth?
Cambridge,
Cambridge University Herefordshire?; X
Library MS Dd.vi.29 s.xiv-xv
Cambridge,
Cambridge University Lincolnshire?; X X
Library, MS Dd.xi.45 s.xv
Cambridge,
Cambridge University X
Library, MS Ee.i.15 England; s.xv Robert Steele?
Durham, Durham
University Library MS West Midlands?; X
Cosin V.iii.10 s.xv
Lincoln, Cathedral
Chapter Library MS Cheshire?; s.xv, X
88 (A.3.15) xivin
 251

Lincoln, Cathedral East Newton,

Chapter Library MS Yorkshire, s.xv Robert Robert X
91 (A.5.2) (ca. 1420-50) Thornton Thornton
London, British
Library, Additional East Anglia, John Leke of X X X
MS 12195 s.xvmed John Leke North Creake
London, British
Library, Additional X
MS 19674 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Additional Belonged to X
MS 33381 Ely; s.xiii, s.xv Ely priory
London, British
Library, Additional X
MS 33972 s.xv
London, British
Library, Additional England; s.xiv- X X
MS 33996 xv (ca. 1450)
London, British South of
Library, Additional England; s.xv X X
MS 34111 (1420-1450)
London, British
Library, Additional England; s.xv (c. X
MS 37786 1450)
London, British Derbyshire,
Library, Arundel MS Staffordshire?; X
272 s.xv
London, British
Library, Egerton MS North of X
833 England; s.xvex
London, British
Library, Harley MS North of X X
1600 England?; s.xvex
London, British
Library, Harley MS X
1735 East Anglia; s.xv John Crophill John Crophill
London, British Gloucestershire,
Library, Harley MS Somerset & Thomas Thomas X X
2558 Devon; s.xiv-xvin Fayreford Fayreford
London, British
Library, Lansdowne X
MS 680 Hampshire?; s.xv
London, British
Library, Royal MS X
17.A.III England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Royal MS 17. X
A. XXXII England; s.xvex
London, British
Library, Royal MS 12. England; s.xiv, X
B. XXV xv
London, British X
Library, Sloane MS 56 s.xiv?, xvmed
London, British X
Library, Sloane MS 75 s.xiv, xv
 252

London, British
Library, Sloane MS England; s.xv, X X X
121 xvi
London, British
Library, Sloane MS England; s.xvmed- X
ex
122
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
312 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
314 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X
374 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
382 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
389 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
405 England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X
468 England; s.xv
Richard
Devon; s.xvin, Dove?;
London, British except folios 3- Galfridus X
Library, Sloane MS 10, which are (plenus Richard Dove
513 s.xiv amoris?) of Buckfast
London, British
Library, Sloane MS Buckinghamshire X
747 ?; s.xvex
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
783B England; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS Nottinghamshire X X
962 ?; s.xiv-xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X X
963 s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X
1314 Derbyshire?; s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
1315 s.xvmed-ex
London, British
Library, Sloane MS Cheshire; s.xvmed- John Goodale X
ex
1986 family?
London, British
Library, Sloane MS England; s.xivex- X X
2457 s.xvin
 253

London, British
Library, Sloane MS England; s.xv (c. X X
2584 1450)
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
2721 s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X
3008 England; s.xvin
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X X
3160 England; s.xvex
London, British
Library, Sloane MS X X
3556 s.xv
London, British
Library, Sloane MS England; s.xv- X
3849 xvi
London, London
Society of Antiquaries England; s.xv- X
MS 39 xvi
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical Northumberland? John Clarke; John Clarke; X
Library, MS 225 ; s.xvin John Massy John Massy
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical John Thomas X
Library MS 404 England; s.xvex (in Ghent?)
North of England
London, Wellcome (Northumbria?)
X X
Historical Medical or Scotland;
Library, MS 405 s.xvin
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical Ireland?; s.xvin- X
Library, MS 406 xviex
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical X
Library, MS 407 England; s.xvin
John Stacy;
John
Hemslat(?) de
X
London, Wellcome Blakedone;
ex
Historical Medical England; s.xiv - Peater(?)
Library, MS 409 xvin Palling
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical England; s.xvin X
Library, MS 410 (ca. 1400)
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical M Thomas X X
Library, MS 542 Norfolk?; s.xvin Ryche
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical X
Library, MS 550 London?; s.xvin
London, Wellcome
Historical Medical X
Library, MS 552 England; s.xvmed
 254

London, Wellcome
Historical Medical X X
Library, MS 632 England; s.xvex
Canon Percival
of the
New York, The Premonstraten-
X X
Pierpont Morgan sian Abbey of
Library, Glazier MS Coverham, the Blessed
39 Yorkshire; s.xv Virgin Mary
Oxford, All Souls
College Library MS X
81 England; s.xv
Oxford, All Souls
College Library MS X
121 England; s.xv
Oxford, Bodleian Northamptonshir
Library, Ashmole MS e?; s.xvin (ca. X
1286 1400)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS X
1391 England; s.xv
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS England; s.xv (in X
1393 5 parts)
England; s.xvin
except the first
Oxford, Bodleian 16, the last 11, X X
Library, Ashmole MS and some other
1416 folios.
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS X X X
1435 Leicester?; s.xvex
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS X
1443 England; s.xv
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS England; s.xv (in X
1444 5 parts)
Devon? (one
Oxford, Bodleian part); s.xiv-xv
X
Library, Ashmole MS (many
1447 fragments)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS England; s.xv (in X
1450 7 parts)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS England; s.xiv or X
1451 xv (in 6 parts)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Ashmole MS England; s.xv- X
1477 xvii (in 12 parts)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Bodley MS X
266 England; s.xv
 255

Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Bodley MS England; s.xvmed- X
ex
832
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Bodley MS Simon X
951 England; s.xv Maidestone
Oxford, Bodleian X
Library, Digby MS 29 England; s.xvin
Oxford, Bodleian England; s.xii-xv X X
Library, Digby MS 37 (ca. 1400)
Lincolnshire, John Reynham
Norfolk, or of Merton
X
Oxford, Bodleian Rutland? (part 1); College,
Library, Digby MS 67 s.xv, xii, xiv, xiii Oxford (s.xiv)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Digby MS X
194 England; s.xv
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Digby MS England; s.xiv- X
228 xv
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Laud misc. Lincolnshire?; X
MS 685 s.xv?
Oxford, Bodleian Hereford?;
Library, Rawlinson s.xvmed-ex (after X
MS B. 173 1431)
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Rawlinson X
MS C. 506 England s.xvex
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Rawlinson X
MS D. 252 England; s.xv
Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Rawlinson Plymouth, X
MS D. 328 Devon; s.xv Walter Pollard
Oxford, Bodleian, Acle, Norfolk;
X X X
Tanner MS 407 s.xvex Robert Reynes Robert Reynes
Oxford, Corpus Thomas Sprot,
Christi College England; s.xiii- Clement of Thomas de X
Library MS 125 xv Canterbury Wyvlesburgh
Oxford, Corpus
Christi College X
Library MS 132 England; s.xv
Oxford, Corpus
Christi College X
Library MS 291 Norfolk; s.xv
Oxford, Lincoln
College Library MS X
130 England; s.xvmed
Oxford, St. John's
College Library MS England; s.xivin, X
108 s.xvin
Oxford, St. John's Westminster
College Library MS Abbey/London; X
179 s.xvin
 256

Oxford, Merton
College Library X
(Medieval) MS 999 s.xv
Oxford, Merton
College Library X
(Medieval) MS 1053 s.xv
Oxford, Trinity
X
College Library MS 9 s.xv
San Marino,
Huntington Library X X X
HM 58 England; s.xvex
San Marino,
Huntington Library John Eccam or X X X
HM 64 England; s.xvex Ekam
San Marino,
Huntington Library T. Werken (ff. X
HM 142 England; s.xvmed 49-60)
Yorkshire (West
San Marino, Riding),
X
Huntington Library Lancashire?;
HM 148 s.xvmed, s.xvin
San Marino, East Anglia; Robert Taylor
Huntington Library s.xvmed Symon of Boxford X X
HM 1336 Wysbech (Suffolk)
San Marino, England; s.xvin-
Huntington Library xviex X X
HU 1051 Rotger?
Stockholm, Royal Norfolk; s.xvmed
Library, MS Holm X. (c. 1425-1450) X X X
90
Yale, Beinecke Rare England; s.xvmed,
Books Library MS s.xiv X X
163
York, York Minster England; s. xivex-
Library MS XVI.E.32. xvin X
 257

Appendix Two: Description of Cambridge, Trinity College

Library MS O.1.57 (1081)1
Written in English and Latin in the first half of the fifteenth century in Northamptonshire, with
later additions.

Size/Material: Parchment. 178 x 140mm. 101ff. The prickings are still visible on some

folios. Writing is in one column of varying lines to the page. Varying number of lines to a page.

Collation: The collation, as given by M.R. James, is: a4 | 110 210 312 | 412 58 612-812 98 (2
canc.). Folios 33-68 are missing. They appear to have contained folio 33, Tractatus algorismi;
folio 55, Spera pictagore; folio 57, Tractatus de cautelis algorismi. Catchwords are used on
folios 88v, 100v, and 112v.

Foliation: Numbering is done by two modern hands. The first hand numbers the first four

folios in pen. The second hand restarts the numbering at the calendar in pencil. It skips 108 in
its numbering. The numbering was done before folios 33-68 went missing.

Scripts: The manuscript is written in many hands. All except for the marginal additions are

fifteenth century.

Hand A is an Anglicana facile/currens with some Secretary influence. It writes the genealogical
entries at the beginning and end of the manuscript and the two medical recipes on fol. 20r. It has
a slightly spiky, square aspect. It uses two-compartment a, fully looped e, looped d, Textualis 8-
shaped g, one forked ascender on l, sigma and long s, double-bowed w, and short-shouldered and
v-shaped r. As is characteristic of Secretary hands the descender on y curves right. The hand
uses more elaborate loops and the descenders extend and loop back further than the other hands.

Hand B writes the material from the calendar to the phlebotomy man (folios 1r-16v). It is an
Anglicana Formata currens with a few Secretary features. The main strokes are broader than the
subsidiary and the letters are generally of an even height, except for a. It has a cramped, upright,

1
This manuscript was originally described in James, Trinity, 54-58. The description is also available online at
http://rabbit.trin.cam.ac.uk/James/O.1.57.html.
 258

and angular aspect. It has the following identifying characteristics: broken strokes, two-
compartment a above minim height, Textualis 8-shaped g, s longa, 8-shaped s in final position,
looped d, t with the ascender rising above the cross-stroke, 2-shaped r, and it rarely uses a
complete loop reverse e. Its Secretary features are a long approach on initial v, hairline strokes
connecting letters, and a spur approach on p. There is little space to distinguish between words.
The hand is horizontally compact and there is little space between lines. The descenders are
quite short and do not have seriphs.

Hand C is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes the treatise on colours and the
recipes for glue (folios 17r-19r). It has a cramped, spiky aspect that looks very similar to
Textualis. It uses the pointed one-compartment a and looped d with a broken stroke in the lobe
characteristic of the Secretary influence on Anglicana. The hand uses s longa, sigma s in final
position, and it sometimes uses B-shaped s in final position. The main strokes are broader than
the subsidiary ones. It has tapered descenders and no seriphs. The hand adopts a more Textualis
style of script for one of the headings. It distinguishes new paragraphs with elaborated,
unflourished, capital letters that extend up through the line above. Its headings are surrounded
by roughly drawn boxes. The lines are close together causing descenders to often overlap with
letters in the line below.

Hand D writes the philosophical argument on folio 19v and the list of the seven liberal arts on
20r. It is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. Its Anglicana characteristics are: looped d, v-
shaped r, 8-shaped g, sigma s, and t with the ascender rising above the cross stroke. Its Secretary
aspects are: a flat topped c that is sometimes horned, pointed e and o, and a pointed one-
compartment a. It has a round-square aspect, tapered descenders, and the main strokes are
broader than the subsidiary ones. The words and lines are more widely spaced than the previous
hand (due, in part, to the lack of visible lines on this folio).

Hand E writes the computus manualis (folios 21r-31v). It is an Anglicana-Secretary currens

hybrid with a horizontally compressed, square aspect. It has a pointed one-compartment a, two-
compartment a, looped d, Textualis 8-shaped g, s longa. It uses flat-topped c, initial v with a
hooked approach stroke, and B-shaped s in the final position from Secretary. There is no tapering
of descenders and hairline strokes connect the letters. Its minims are thicker than the other hands.
 259

Unlike the other hands, Hand E‟s capital I is written like a modern capital J with a distinct cross
stroke. It frequently shifts to a Textualis hand for emphasis.

Hand F writes the serpentium corius; the thunder prognostications; the treatises on the virtues of
herbs and animals; and the medical recipes and charms in the manuscript (folios 69r-80v). It
uses an Anglicana-Secretary hybrid currens script for writing in English. There are no forked
ascenders and the minims have hooks. The hand uses one- and two-compartment a, looped d,
Textualis 8-shaped g, and a double-bowed w. The loop on h descends below the line of writing.
The ascender of the t rises above the cross-stroke. This hand uses paraphs of alternating colours
and it adds some of the corresponding colour to the accompanying initial letters. The hand is
fairly large and well-spaced, using 24 lines per page. When writing in Latin the script
characteristics are the same as above with the addition of the 2-shaped r and occasional use of
the fully looped e. The hand has a spiky-rounded aspect.

Hand G is an Anglicana-Secretary facile hybrid that writes the treatise on siphons and the
treatise on the houses of the moon (folios 81r-95r). The script uses one- and two-compartment a
at minim height, looped d, Textualis 8-shaped g, 8-shaped s, short-shouldered r, and the 2-
shaped r. There are no lozenges on the feet, the letters are broken, and there is a pronounced
difference between thick and thin pen strokes. There is no tapering on descenders. It has a
rounded-square aspect. The hand is quite compact in comparison with the other hands. It varies
from 28 to 30 lines per folio.

Hand H is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid that writes the treatises on physiognomy,

chiromancy, and the somniale danielis (folios 95v-124r). It uses one-compartment a, Textualis
8-shaped g, looped d, 2- and v-shaped r, and the ascender of t rises above the cross stroke. It
occasionally uses the fully looped e in final position. The hand uses the B-shaped s from
Secretary. P sometimes has a curved approach stroke. The pen strokes are of a similar width,
the descenders taper, and there are no seriphs. It has a pointed aspect.

Hand I writes the later recipes, magic tricks, gunpowder recipes, list of Latin words, and the
tricks of Solomon (folios 124r-125r; 127r-128v). It is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid
with a spiky aspect. The hand uses a pointed one-compartment a, v-shaped r, s longa, a flat
topped c that is sometimes horned, reverse looped e, looped d with a broken stroke on the lobe,
 260

the descenders on y curve back to the right, the descenders on h extend below the line of writing,
initial v has a hooked approach stroke, and the ascender on t extends above the cross stroke. It
has a unique form of capital A. It is very similar to Hand A, albeit with simplified loops and
descenders. Because of this similarity, it may be Hand A writing at a different time.

Hand J is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid used to write the charm to catch a thief (folio
126v). It has a spiky, angular aspect. It has the tapered descenders of Anglicana. It uses a
Textualis 8-shaped g, sigma s, looped d, one- and two-compartment a, and a double-bowed w of
Anglicana. As is characteristic with Secretary hands the descenders on y curve back to the right
and the hand uses B-shaped s in the final position. There is clear spacing between words and
lines. There is a very subtle difference in aspect distinguishable between the script in Latin and
English.

The later marginal additions (Hand K) are made in a cursive Secretary hand with a few
Anglicana influences. It uses the following identifying letter forms: s longa, tailed g with small
horns, and single-bowed w. It uses two-compartment a for capitals; otherwise it uses single-
compartment a. There is a spur approach on p. There is little variation in width. There is some
looping on ascenders. It has a cramped, relatively round aspect. The use of straight-backed c
without a foot, squared v-shaped r, two-stroke e, and double-looped h place the hand in the
sixteenth century.

Decoration: Initials are written in blue and flourished with red ink throughout most of the
manuscript. Where it is present the decorative pen work often extends down the entire left side
of the folio. Paraphs alternating red and blue are used throughout the manuscript. The style of
headings varies throughout: the majority of the texts use flourished initials to signal the
beginning of a text or section; the headings of the medical recipes and ink recipes are centred on
the page with a box drawn around. Folios 1r-20v are ruled 40 lines per page in pen. Bounding
lines in pen are visible on some of the folios. There are two pen drawings of animals, described
below, on folios 2v and 3r. There are illustrations of hand for chiromancy on folios 118v, 129v,
130r. On folio 10v is a drawing of a zodiac man; he is mirrored by a drawing of a phlebotomy
man on folio 16v. The zodiac man has been elaborately painted with gold illumination on the
scales of Libra, the horns of Capricorn, and the jugs of Aquarius; the phlebotomy man, in
contrast, has been simply painted in flesh tones. Gold illumination is also used on the calendrical
 261

tables to indicate the phases of the moon. These drawings alternate using pink and blue ink to
fill in the rest of the diagram. On folios 81r and 82r-90v there are rough drawings of apparatus
to be used in the distillation of alcohol and related enterprises. There is an abstract drawing
(possibly a monogram) on the bottom of folio 126v done in black and red ink.

Contents:
1. fols. 1ar-2ar: Blank.2

2. fols. 2av-3ar: Drawings of animals in ink. On folio 2v is a stag in front of a tree with a
squirrel and an owl in the tree. There is also a hare and a bird with a blank label in its beak.
On folio 3r is a picture of a stag standing in front of a tree with a coronet and chain around its
neck. A hound is about to take down the stag. A squirrel and bird sit in a tree behind it.
There is a rabbit in a hole.

3. fol. 3av: Easter tables for the years 1567-1617.

4. fol. 4ar: Easter rhyme. Inc. “In Marche aftur the first C. / Tho nexte prime telle thou me…”

5. fol. 4ar: Genealogical entry concerning the deaths of John Mortemer and his son, John, in
1453 and 1454 respectively. Inc. “Memorandum quod Johannes mortemer filius et heres
Johannis mortemer de Grendoni et Agnetis vxoris…”

6. fol. 4av: Table of contents. Inc. “Memoratio de contentis in isto libro.” There are
interpolations added in a modern hand. This modern hand also records the folio number for
each item. Presumably, this occurred before the folios went missing.

7. fols. 1r-6v: Calendar. Includes additions for the obits of John Haldenby (March 15th), Robert
Haldenby (June 4th), and Matilda (June 10th). Also includes birth notices of William
Haldenby (March 30th, 1420), and Robert Haldenby (July 15th, 1433); both are sons of
William Haldenby of Isham.

8. fol. 1v: Charm for fire. Inc. “pro igne sessandi scribatur ad euangelium in festo sancte Agathe
et iactatur super ignem”
2
To prevent confusion between the first four folios and the folios of the next quire that are also numbered 1-4, I
have distinguished these first folios with the letter a.
 262

9. fol. 7r: Table of eclipses of the sun. Inc. “Tabula eclipsius solis pro primo ciclo…”

10. fols. 7v-8r: Table of eclipses of the moon. Inc. “Tabula eclipsium lune pro primo ciclo…”

11. fols. 8v-9r: Table of dominical letters. Inc. “Littere bisextiles / littere dominicales”

12. fols. 9v-10r: Table of phases of the moon. Inc. “Tabula ad sciendum etatem lune et eius
signum omni die…”

13. fol. 10v: Zodiac man. Inc. “Aries. Cave ab inscisione in capite vel in facie et ne...”

14. fols. 11r-15r: Tables on the length of shadows. Inc. “Longitudines vmbrarum cuiuslibet
hominis stature 6 pedum in horis de clok.”

15. fols. 15v-16r: Text on phlebotomy. Inc. “Municio aliqua fit per methathesim alia…”3

16. fol. 16v: Phlebotomy Man. Inc. “Vena cepha…” At the bottom the inscription, “Wodeman ad
Haldynby,” in an unknown hand.

17. fols. 17r-19r: Treatise on colours titled De Coloribus. Inc. “Sequitur de coloribus”4

18. fol. 19r: Four recipes for pumice and glue. Inc. “Sequitur pumice et glutinime”

19. fol. 19v: Philosophical argument proving all men are fools. Inc. “[Secundum] Aristotelem.
Ego pono istum casum quod hic sint tria animalia…”5

20. fol. 20r: List of the seven sciences. Inc. “Hic sunt septem sciencie in istis duobus…”

21. fol. 20r: Two medical recipes. Inc. “For the scabbe and for brekyng oute of hondes…”

22. fol. 20r: Charm added in a later hand. Inc. “To know who shalbe his wiffe or her husband…”

23. fol. 20v: Recipe for the stone. Inc. “For the stone. To breake the stone within man or
woman…”

3
TK, 875.
4
TK, 1689.
5
TK, 491.
 263

24. fols. 21r-31v: Compotus manualis secundum usum Oxoniensem for determining the dates of
Easter and other movable feasts by means of the hands and fingers. Inc. “Filius esto dei
celum bonus accipe grates…”6

25. fols. 32r-32v: Blank.

26. fols. 33-68: Missing. Contained folio 33, Tractatus algorismi; folio 55, Spera pictagore;
folio 57, Tractatus de cautelis algorismi.

27. fols. 69r-70r: Experiments using snake skin titled Serpentium coris. Inc. “Ego Johannes
paulus cum essem in ciuitate Alexandrina…”7

28. fols. 70r-70v: Alfraganus on prognostications by thunder. Inc. “Alfraganus de signis

tonitruum…”

29. fols. 71r-71v: Treatise on the virtues of Betony. Inc. “Betonica animas custodit et corpora qui
secum portauerit demon…”8

30. fols. 72r-74v: Treatise on the virtues of herbs. Inc. “Est quedam herba que aput caldio
vocatur yreos…”9

31. fols. 75r-76v: Treatise on the virtues of birds and animals. Inc. “Bubo est volucris cuius cor,
cum dextro pede, super dormientem…”

32. fol. 76v: Charm to treat a sore. Inc. “<A charme> for þo felun. In nomine patris et filii et
spiritus sancti Amen…” “A charme” has been scraped off and is now only visible under UV
light.

6
TK, 561. No edition has been made, but an early printed version is available on Early English Books Online.
Compotus manualis ad vsu[m] Oxonie[n]siu[m] (Oxford, 1519), Early English Books Online, accessed April 19,
2011, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:11051.
7
TK, 295; edited in J.W.S. Johnsson, “Les „Experimenta Duodecim Johannis Paulini,‟” Bulletin de la Société
française d‟histoire de médecine XII (1913): 257-267.
8
TK, 177.
9
TK, 512. Thorndike suggests this might be extracts from the Herbarium of pseudo Apuleius Platonicus, an herbal
probably from the sixth century. HMES II, 804.
 264

33. fol. 76v: Two recipes added in a later hand. Inc. “For women that have a dead childe within
them…”

34. fol. 77r: Recipe to make hair grow added in a later hand. Inc. “To make heare grow: take and
burne a mouse to powder…”

35. fol. 77r: Tres boni fratres charm. Inc. “Tres boni fratres ibant ad montem oliveti bonas herbas
querentes…”

36. fol. 77r: Charm for sleep. Inc. “Domine ihesu christe qui sompno deditus in mari…” Expl.
“Þis is <a charme> for a man that may not slepe.” The words “a charme” have been scraped
off and are only visible under UV light.

37. fol. 77r: Several recipes added in a later hand. Inc. “That no heare grow. Take the seede of
redde nettels and grind it…”

38. fol. 77v: Recipe for an abscess added in a later hand. Inc. “Ad rupedu apostema, id est a
botche. Aut ossa quicumque possunt…”

39. fol. 77v: Two recipes for azure. Inc. “To make asure. Si vis facere asorium optimum: pone in
ampulnam...”

40. fol. 77v: Recipe for a canker added in a later hand. Inc. “For a canker. Take dwale and
stampe it and wasshe the sore therwith…”

41. fols. 77v-80v: Middle English medical recipes. Inc. “Here folowing bygynne medicine ful
gode. For þo dropesye…” Twenty recipes follow, with many recipes written in the margins
by a later hand.

42. fols. 81r-84v: Treatise on siphons and the conduction of water. Inc. “Philosophi naturales
dixerunt vas vacuum non esse sed aere…”10

10
TK, 1040. They title it Tractatus ad deducendam aquam diversimode.
 265

43. fols. 84v-95r: A treatise on the houses of the moon. Inc. “Cvm lune cursus recte scire
volueris, scito primo questio…” Colophon: “Iam sequitur tractatus de phisignomia secundum
Aristotelem cum causis et experitis probantibus propositum. quod Haldenby Amen”

44. fols. 95v-106r: A treatise on physiognomy from the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum

Secretorum titled Physiognomia. Inc. “Natura occulte operatur in hijs et cetera.”11 Expl.
“Explicit liber Aristotelis de phisionomia cum causis et experimentis probantibus
propositum.”

45. fols. 106r-110v: Treatise on physiognomy. Inc. “Hanc igitur in nomine christi et in opere
nostro primo…”

46. fols. 110v-118v: Treatise on chiromancy. Inc. “Cum omni humane creature sane disposite in
sit natura…” Colophon: “Explicit libellus compositus a magistro Johannes. Iste liber constat
Haldynby”

47. fols. 119r-124r: Treatise of dream interpretations titled Somniale danielis. Inc. “Hic incipiunt
sompnia danielis, qui fecit in diebus regis…”12

48. fols. 124r-125r: Six recipe for trick inks, such as for invisible writing. Inc. “Item, si cum aqua
scribere volueris in calibe recipe vnam vnciam de salpeter…”

49. fol. 125r: Short poem by William. “Si mea penna valet melior mea litera fiet / Nomen
scriptoris Willemus plenus amoris / Omnibus omnia non mea sompnia dicere possum / Dum
calor est et pulcra dies formica laborat”13

50. fol. 125r: Note on women‟s urine added in a later hand. Inc. “Yf a woman be with childe her
water is white yf she have…”

51. fol. 125v: Note on conception added in a later hand. Inc. “Ad conceptionem. Accipe
matrinem leporis desiccatam et puluerizetur et mulieri…”

11
TK, 902.
12
TK, 621, 141; Martin, Somniale Danielis.
13
A possible first attempt can be seen on folio 130v: “Si mea penna va<let> melior mea lata Fiet”
 266

52. fol. 126r: Blank.

53. fol. 126v: Charm to catch a thief. Inc. “Item pro rebus ablatis. Recipe vnum panem et fac
inparte inferiori…”

54. fol. 127r: Recipe for worms in the teeth. Inc. “Pro uermibus in dentibus alicuius. Accipe
ceram virgineam et tus france et semen quod vocatur henbane…”

55. fol. 127r: Virtues of chamomile. Inc. “Camamilla est herba que si teneatur manu…”

56. fols. 127r-127v: For knowing three men and three things. Inc. “Ad sciendum de tribus
hominibus et tribus res quis illorum. Acciperit optimam rem quis sciendam…”

57. fol. 127v: Recipe for a magic trick to make a house appear to be filled with water. Inc. “Ad
faciendum domum apparere plenum aque. Accipe ouum alique…”14

58. fol. 127v: Recipe to make fire run around a house. Inc. “Ad faciendum ignem currere circa
domum. accipe encensum…”

59. fol. 127v: List of Latin words and English translations from the grammarian, John Leyland.
Inc. “Fimare stercorare . arare . seminare . erpicare…”

60. fols. 128r-128v: The Tricks of Solomon (incomplete). Inc. “Hic dicendum est de ludis
salamonis. De igne tonitruo volante super cordam. De igne volante in aiere (sic)…”15

61. fol. 128v: Recipe for gunpowder. Inc. “Ista tria debent fieri de vno puluere, scilicet de
salepeter…”16

14
cf. Experimenta anonymous in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 86. Dorothea Waley Singer, Catalogue of
Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland: Dating From Before the XVI Century,
vol. II, 721.
15
HMES, II, 792-793; there may be some textual connection to the Salomon rex ad reginam found in Singer,
Catalogue, vol. II, 711; cf. London, British Library, Harley MS 2378; Sloane 121; Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Rawlinson MS C. 486.
16
This may be from the same text as Oxfordshire, Ewelme Almshouse, MS A.1; it may also be from Puluis ad
ignem grecum iactandum ita fiet found in TCC O.2.45; Royal 12 B.XXV; and Sloane 282. Singer, Catalogue, vol II,
632, 635. Some of the headings bear similarities to those in the De mirabili mundi, edited by Best and Brightman in
Book of Secrets.
 267

62. fol. 128v: Recipe for alcohol. Inc. “De aqua ardenti accipe sextarium vini id est pondus
duarum librarum et sonus et pone inter…”

63. fol. 128v: Recipe for a burning mirror. Inc. “De speculo ardenti. Accipe veni speculi et
suppone lamina stagni et argentum viuum et habebit speculum ardens…”

64. fol. 128r-v: A continuation of the Tricks of Solomon. Inc. “Si vis facere pannum et faciem
alicuius ardere sine lesione. Accipe classam…”

65. fol. 129r: Genealogical and related entries. Inc. “Laurencius henkoc alias dictus laurencius
Clerke habuit exit Thomam…”

66. fol. 129v: Illustration of a left hand.

67. fol. 130r: Illustration of a right hand for use in chiromancy.

68. fol. 130v: Later notes (illegible)

69. fol. 131r: fifteenth-century note (illegible)

Provenance: The manuscript was originally owned in the fifteenth century by the Haldenby
family of Isham, Northamptonshire, who were members of the gentry.17 Genealogical notes on
the Haldenby and Mortemer families give the manuscript a terminus post quem of 1454.18

It was donated to Cambridge Trinity College Library by Roger Gale as part of the Gale
Collection in 1738.
17
In addition to the calendar entries and genealogical notes there are two notes of ownership on folios 95r, “Iam
sequitur tractatus de phisignomia secundum Aristotelum cum causis et experitis probantibus propositum. Quod
Haldenby Amen” [Now follows the treatise of physiognomy according to the plan of Aristotle with causes and
experiences approved. Thus Haldenby Amen], and 118v, “Explicit libellus compositus a magistro Johannes. Iste
liber constat Haldynby” [Here ends the little book composed by master John. This book is Haldenby‟s].
18
Folio 4ar: “memorandum quod | Johannes mortemer filius et heres Johannis mortemer de Grendoni et Agnetis
vxoris sue obijt apud parvam Fyllyng xiiius die Augusti decima hora post horam nonam in nocte anno domine
millesimo. CCCCius. quinquagesimo tercio littera dominicale tunc .g. Et Johannes mortemer filius et heres eius
procreatus de Anna filia Georgij longbyle obijt quarto decimo die Augusti proximi sequenti anno supradicto”
[Remember that John Mortemer, son and heir of John Mortemer of Grendon and Agnes his wife, died at little Filling
on the 13th day of August in the 10th hour after the 9th hour in the night in the year of our Lord 1453 when the
dominical letter was G. And John Mortemer, his son and heir born from Anna, daughter of George Longbyle, died
on the 14th day of the next August in the year following the [one] mentioned above [1454]]. There are also
references in the calendar to the births of William Haldenby in 1420 (folio 1v) and Robert Haldenby in 1433 (folio
3r).
 268

Appendix Three: Description of Oxford, Bodleian Library,

Ashmole MS 14351
Written in English and Latin in the fifteenth century.

Size/Material: Paper. 220mm x 140mm. Written area: in long lines; varies widely;
approximately 150mm x 110 mm. Modern binding of light brown leather on pasteboard.
Stamped on the spine is “Ash: 1435” and a laurel with a coat of arms in the middle with a Fleur
de lise in the upper left quadrant. Pencil ruling is rarely visible. The first twelve pages show
considerable signs of wear and tear, especially the first three folios, which have been almost
completely torn out.

Collation:2 vii, 118, 216, 320, 418, 510, 620, 716, 812+1, 96+1, 1016, 118, vii3

Foliation: vii + 318 + vii. Numbering done by modern hand in ink. Switches from foliation

to pagination after folio 4v. Seven paper flyleaves.

Watermarks: There are several watermarks that I have not been able to identify in Briquet‟s
Les filigranes. All are partially obscured by the binding. The first depicts what appears to be the
top of mountain. The second is an animal of some sort, possibly a lamb, with its head turned to
the right. The third is a cross. The fourth is another animal, unidentified.

Scripts: One hand that varies in neatness. For the most part it is a very rough cursive

Anglicana-Secretary hybrid. It is noticeably neater and smaller on pages 49-103. It is

characterised by reverse looped e, a looped d that leans heavily to the left, single-compartment a,
occasional use of a two-compartment a at minim height, flat-topped c, looped d, a long hooked
approach stroke on initial v, v-shaped r, some use of 2-shaped r, s longa and sigma s, looped

1
This description is an elaboration of the description in William Henry Black, A Descriptive, Analytical, and
Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts Bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole, Esq., M.D.,
F.R.S., Windsor Herald. Also of Some Additional mss. Contributed by Kingsley, Lhuyd, Borlase, and Others
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845), 1175-6.
2
The fifth gathering appears to have been inserted into the middle of the fourth gathering.
3
It is difficult to distinguish where one quire ends and where another begins and so I make no pretensions to
perfection in this regard.
 269

ascenders, long tapered descenders the ascender of the t rises above the cross-stroke, a more or
less 8-shaped textualis g, and almost exclusive use of the complete loop reverse e. The
distinction between thick and thin varies with the neatness of the hand: the messier the less
distinction there is. The hand takes very little care with corrections; incorrect words or phrases
are hastily crossed out in pen. The proportion of Anglicana features in this script places it
somewhere in the first three quarters of the fifteenth century. After 1475, Secretary features
would be expected to be more predominant, along with greater influence from the French lettre
Bastarde.4

The hand shifts once mid-text to a cursive that favours Anglicana, with occasional Secretary
features that is more formal in its duct and aspect. This occurs on page 222 to the first six lines
of page 223. This script is also used for the titles on page 282. This script is more compressed
vertically, with less space between lines. The aspect is much squarer than the rest of the
manuscript. There is more variation between thick and thin as well as more broken strokes on
the minims. The script uses two-compartment a at minim height, pointed single-compartment a,
looped d with a broken stroke on the lobe, an approach stroke on v that curves up from the right,
flat topped c, 2-shaped r, short-shouldered r, s longa, looped ascenders on b, h, and l, some
hooks on the feet of minims, and tapered descenders.

Decoration: Nearly no decoration. Some flourished initials on pages 258 to 267 and a space

left for an initial S on page 53. The ink varies from black to brown throughout the manuscript.

Contents:
1. fols. 1r-pg. 28: A collection of over 180 recipes, many of which are magical or medical. The
first 12 pages show considerable signs of wear and tear – especially the first three folios,
which are mostly torn away. Inc. “Accipe capi…et dormi…Accipe…”

2. pgs. 29-59: The first section of Henri de Mondeville, Chirurgia.5 Inc. “Quoniam valde
sumptuosum est et graue cuilibet cyriurgico librum habere, quem de medicina edidit

4
See Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands, xxi-xxii.
5
A French translation of this was published in 1893 by E. Nicaise under the title Chirurgie de Maitre Henri de
Mondeville: Chirurgien de Philippe de Bel, Roi de France. An English translation of Nicaise‟s edition was
published as Leonard D. Rosenman, tr., The Surgery of Master Henry de Mondeville: Written From 1306 to 1320.
There is another French translation published in 1897 by A. Bos as La chirurgie de maître Henri de Mondeville;
traduction contemporaine de l auteur, publiée d apres le ms. unique de la Bibliotheque nationale par le Dr. A. Bos
 270

Avicenna.” On page 49 the hand abruptly becomes noticeably smaller and neater for the
remainder of the treatise.

3. pgs. 60-64: Short tract on plague. Inc. “Jn nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti amen.
Tempore quo regnat iste morbus pestilencialis, homo debet vitare porros ceras allium et
omnia alia que maximus calefaciunt.”6

4. pgs. 65-66: Blank.

5. pgs. 67-103: Continuation of Henri de Mondeville. This section begins with the anatomy of
the jaw. Inc. “Anathomia mandubularum. Mandubula, gena, maxilla idem sunt. Homo
quatuor habet mandubulas…”

6. pg. 104 – Four medical recipes. Inc. “Pro dolore capitis. Recipe ouum nouiter ponitum et
ossa quousque fuerit…”

7. pgs. 105-115: Petrus Hispanus, Commentum ysagoge Johannitii ad tegni Galeni.7 Inc. “Sicut
dicit Calcidius in Themeo8 (sic) quod eciam auctoritate multorum aliorum philosophorum
comprobatur…”

8. pg. 116: Blank

9. pgs. 117-120: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. Inc. “Notandum secundum auctoritatem

quod quatuor sunt compositiones, id est humores…”

10. pgs. 121-124: Blank

11. pgs. 125-140: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. Inc. “Secundum auctoritatem 5 sunt modi
flegmatis.”

(Paris: Firmin Didot et cie, 1897). TK, 1309, lists only one manuscript with this incipit in Utrecht, Bibliotheek der
Rijksuniversiteit MS 680.
6
An edition of this text appears in K. Südhoff, “Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie das
„schwarezen Todes‟ 1348,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin XVII (1925): 136-138. It is also briefly discussed in
Claude de Tovar, “Contamination, interférences et tentatives de systématisation dans la tradition manuscrite des
réceptaires médicaux français le réceptaire de Jean Sauvage,” Revue d‟histoire des Textes 3 (1973): 155-6.
7
Joke Spruyt, “Peter of Spain,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007), accessed October 20, 2010,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peter-spain/. TK, 1482, list three other surviving copies from the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.
8
calcidius in themeo – a reference to Calcidius, who translated the Timaeus into Latin.
 271

12. pg. 141: Blank

13. pgs. 142-146: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. On page 146 a modern hand has written
“vade ad f. 151” in pencil. Inc. “Tres sunt species virtutis, scilicet virtus naturalis, virtus
spiritualis, et virtus animalis…”

14. pg. 147: Insertion of a separate text on the stomach and digestion. Inc. “Virtus appetentia
stomachi vigentem per calidum habet…”

15. pgs. 148-150: Blank.

16. pgs. 151-180: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus from page 146. A modern hand has written
“vade ad f. 146” in pencil. Inc. “Alijs membris a corde ad ipsa v influeret seu infunderet
huius…”

17. pgs. 181-237: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. Inc. “In nomine patris et filij et spiritus sancti
Amen. Videndum est de colore ipsius cutis et eius diuersitate.”

18. pgs. 238-252: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. Inc. “Vitrimum magis se extendit ad
pallitem…”

19. pgs. 253-272: Continuation of Petrus Hispanus. Inc. “In nomine patris et filij et spiritus
amen. Cum secundum autores (sic) 24 sunt colores vrine…”

20. pgs. 273-275: Short medical treatise. Inc. “Jn regionibus vbi sit defectus specierum hijs
contentus sit medicus que necessaria sunt ad digestium laxacionem vel purgacionem…”

21. pgs. 275-280: Table of useful medicines. Inc. “Incipit tractatus vtilis de diversis medicinis
conferentibus corpori humano…”

22. pgs. 281-284: Medical tract. Inc. “Jncipit compendium Salarnie de medicinis quibus membris
valent aut nocent…”

23. pgs. 284-302: Medical treatise on the preservation of limbs. Inc. “Capitulum de
preservacione cuiuslibet membri debilis. Secundum intencionem galieni inde morbo et
accidente membra…”

24. pg. 304: Nonsense verse. Inc. “Al . lac . glan . larapes . subpal . pal . drota…”
 272

25. pg. 305: Record of witnesses in a Coventry defamation case. Inc. “Vniuersis christi fidelibus
present<i>bus litteris testimonialibus…”

26. pg. 306: Blank

27. pgs. 307-317: Twenty seven medical recipes in English and Latin. Inc. “In nomine patris et
filij et spiritus amen. Pro reumate in capite. Laua pedes cum aqua calida in nocte cum…”

28. pg. 318: Blank

Provenance: The manuscript was originally written in the first three quarters of the fifteenth
century, based on the script. The reference to King Henry on page 305 could date this
manuscript to nearly any point in the century.9 Otherwise there is no indication of the date of
composition. Elias Ashmole donated it to the University of Oxford as part of the large collection
of items that comprised the origins of the Ashmolean Museum in the late seventeenth century.

9
Page 305: “datum apud leycestrensis Tercimo (sic) decimo die mense februaris anno regni regis henric” [Given at
Leicester on the thirteenth day in the month of February in the year of the reign of King Henry.]
 273

Appendix Four: The Recipe Collection in Oxford, Bodleian

Library, Ashmole MS 1435
While I have attempted to make this list as complete as possible, there are numerous items
(mostly from the first three folios) that are not listed here because the greater portion of the
experiment is obscured or missing.
Folio/
Category Descriptive Title Incipit Page
Virtues On stinging nettles (incomplete) Vrtica est her<ba> 1r
Psychological To make love and peace between ...et fient amici et optima pax inter 1r
people (incomplete) eos
Miscellaneous Monetary experiment (incomplete) bursa post…riandi et…non possit 1v
Illusions To make an egg look like a crystal Accipe albedinem oui sine coctum 1v
Metallurgy Water to dissolve metal (incomplete) Aqua addissoluendum metalla pone 1v
salpeter
Miscellaneous Recipe for green ink (incomplete) Si viridis color sic fit 2r
Animals To make flies flee a house Ad fugandum muscas de domo 2r
(incomplete)
Animals To capture a serpent Ad capiendum serpentem vnum 2r
sinere nocumento
Metallurgy To make copper appear silver Ad faciendum argentum apparere 2r
(incomplete) cuprum
Metallurgy To make a copper ring Ad faciendum annulum de cupro 2r
Divination Using an egg to find silver <A>ccipe ouum et fac post paruum 2r
foramen
Illusions A trick using a hollow ring ...per se accipe annulum concauum 2v
(incomplete)
Illusions A trick to make an egg jump about <A>ccipe ouum et fac post paruum 2v
(incomplete) foramen et extrahe
Animals To catch fish using mullein Ad capiendum pisces 2v
Psychological To make a man sleep Vt homo dormiat vel semper vel 2v
semina
Psychological When you wish to exalt over your Cum volueris exaltari super 3r
enemy inimicum tuum
Psychological To make a woman love and follow Si quis pullas eius acciperat eos 3r
you
Virtues Virtues of Mariuus(?) Mariuus autem cancer si aut fluualis 3r
Psychological To make someone sleep Si vis facere aliquem dormire da ei 3r
Psychological To make someone dance without Vt alius ped<…> vel tripidet 3r
ceasing
Divination To know the day of someone's death Si vis scire diem mortis 3r
Illusions To make a chicken jump about <...> to turne þespyt by hym selfe 3v
(incomplete)
 274

Illusions To make two eggs fight Ad faciendum duo oua pugnare fac 3v
vnum paruum foramen
Psychological If you wish to have the love of Si vis habere amorem alicuius scribe 3v
someone
Medical For conception Nota conceptum gillti politam 3v
Medical To cure a wicked blow Ad plagam male sanatam 3v
Psychological To make someone not sleep Si vis alias non dormiat scribe 3v
exurgat deus
Divination Using the head of a blackbird to see Et si caput ponatur sub capite 3v
visions in dreams dormientis
Virtues Virtues of the peacock De pauone lapis autem qui est in 4r
capite pauonis
Virtues Fostering love with the heart of a Cor cornicis gestatum concordiam et 4r
crow and other occult properties amorem
Psychological Controlling a woman with the bones Accipe talpam et pone in olla 4r
of a mole
Medical If someone wants to get rid of all Si quis vult abicere pilos tocius 4v
their hair corperis
Medical Curing leprosy and other skin Sperma hominis abstergit morpheam 4v
diseases with the sperm of a man et inpetiginem
Medical Various cures using blood (including Sanguis eligendhem de animalibus 4v
menstrual) sanis
Medical Using faeces to cure illnesses Stercus hominis combustum et 4v
puluerizatum cum melle
Illusions To turn a red rose white Vt rosa rubea fiat alba tene eam 5
Miscellaneous To inebriate a man Ad inhebriandum hominem fac 5
lignum aloe
Illusions For a crystal that illuminates a house De cristallo domum illuminante 5
accipe
Medical To make a blemish on a face De macula in facie facienda 5
Psychological To make someone sleep using Vt alias dormiat accipe semen 5
henbane jusquiam
Cooking To make meat appear raw Ad faciendum carnes accipe 5
sanguinem hirci…et videbuntur esse
crudas
Cooking To make meat appear full of worms Vt appareant plene vermibus 5
Illusions To make serpents appear in the Vt serpentes appareant in doma 5
house
Medical For a woman in labour with a Si mulier laboret cum paruo mortuo 6
stillborn baby
Medical To staunch blood Si vis refrenare sanguinem alicuius 6
Psychological To make a man sleep through his Si vis hominem dormire per totam 6
whole life vitam suam
Divination If you want to know whether a Si vis scire mulier sit virgo an non 6
woman is a virgin or not accipe lape<dem>
Divination If you want to request something Si vis aliud de domino vel de domina 6
from your master or mistress petere scri<be>
 275

Miscellaneous If you want to break jars Si vis frangere ollas accipe aliquam 6
partem
Divination To know the day of someone's death Sume linguam serpentis et pone in 7
(incomplete) aqua
Illusions To become invisible Ad faciendum invisibilem accipe cor 7
nigri
Divination To learn secrets Vt hec narret secreta 7
Divination So that a woman reveals her secrets Vt mulier reuelet secreta sua accipe 7
Psychological If you want a woman to appoint Si vis ut mulier disceaperte 7
openly? (unclear) (sic) disponat
Psychological If you want to make women dance in Si vis facere mulieres in domo 7
the house saltare
Psychological To make a woman do your will Emastica gloris vero est herba nigra 7
Virtues The virtues of vervain Hic autem herba ut referunt magi 8
calerta in arieta
Animals Using vervain to capture birds in Et si predictam ponatur in columbari 8
your hand omnes ibi congregabuntur
Animals Using vervain to increase the number Et si ponatur vel iactetur in loco vbi 8
of birds homines habitant
Animals To capture birds in the hand Vt aues capiantur manu frumentum 8
in fetibus
Medical For a dirty ear Ad sorditate[m] aurum accipe 8
medullam
Cooking To boil an egg in cold water Ad faciendum ouum in aqua frigita 8
/de\coquatur
Cooking So that an egg never boils Ad faciendum ut ouum numquam 8
decoquatur
Illusions To make a perpetual light Ad faciendum lumen perpetuum 8
Illusions If you wish to hold glowing coals Si vis tenere carbones Ardentes in 8
manu tua
Medical To whiten a face Ad dealbendum facies accipe fabas 9
Miscellaneous If you wish to always have money in Si vis semper h<abere> denarium in 9
your purse bursa tua
Medical For a bleeding nose For þe bledyng at þe nese take barbe 9
of hesyll
Medical For a broken nose Item yf a woman be broke in þe nose 9
Medical To extract a fly or flea from the ear Si lanam lacte intinctem in aurem 9
Medical To extract teeth Ad extrahendum dentem quod non 9
fallit
Animals To catch foxes and other beasts Ad vulpes et alias bestias capiendas 9
Medical To restore speech <A>d restaurandum loquelam 10
perditam
Illusions To burn fingers without injury Vt ardeat digitus sine lesione 10
Miscellaneous For wax Ad ceram accipe virgam coruli 10
 276

Illusions To make letters that can only be read Ad faciendum litteras que legi non 10
at night and in a secret place possunt nisi de nocte et in obscuro
loco
Medical A recipe for a wound Recipe rosam mariam et coque in 11
albo vino
Miscellaneous To make an oil for the liturgy Habeantur liturgiam probatum 11
Psychological For the love of a man or a woman Ad amorem hominis vel mulieris 11
Psychological Another for the love of a man or a Jtem ut sis grasiosus et amabile 11
woman
Psychological So that no one can harm you Vt nemo tibi malum faciat 12
Psychological For thieves Item pro furtu scribe in pane et casea 12
Miscellaneous To shoot arrows with great accuracy Si vis ut aliquis sagittet prope 12
limitem
Divination If you wish to know what cutthroats Si vis scire quid jugulares faciunt 12
do
Illusions To become invisible Vt sis inuisibile vade ad nidum 12
Animals To make all fish come to you Vt facias omnes pisces in stagno 12
venire
Illusions So that your hand burns without Vt manus tua Ardeat sine lesione 12
injury
Animals To make a black horse from a white Ad faciendum de equo nigro equum 13
one album
Animals If you wish to make a sparrow have Si vis facere passerem habere tres 13
three wings alas
Miscellaneous If you want to make jars fight Si vis facere ollas pugnare accipe 13
puluereum
Illusions If you want to make the house and Si vis domum apparere rubeam et 13
things in it look red quamlibet rem in ea
Psychological To prevent someone from eating or Si habeas inimicum in communo 13
drinking clude vervenam in manu tua
Bonds To fasten something Vt infixus multum plaret vnge 13
corpus eius
Bonds To break a chain/bond Ad frangendum vinculum accipe fel 13
piscis
Miscellaneous To make gold pigment For to make gold color 13
Medical If you want a white face and body Si vis esse albus in facie vel in 13
corpore
Animals If you want to burn the head of a <Si> vis ut caput apri ardeat 14
boar
Psychological If you want to make a woman follow Si vis ut mulier sequatur [te] 14
you
Bonds To break a chain/bond Ad frangendum vinculum accipe 14
Miscellaneous To uncover wax (on a seal?) Ad aperiendum ceram dic hunc 14
psalmum
Bonds If you wish to enter someone's house Si vis intrare domum alicuius 14
Psychological If you want to make a woman raise Si vis ut mulier leuat pannos suos 14
her skirts
Illusions A trick to make a penny remain For to make a peny to remane And 15
nomon schal wytte how
 277

Illusions A trick with bare feet For to go oun a stede bare fete 15
Illusions To grow an apple in a glass For to make an appell grow in A 15
glace
Cooking To make salt potage fresh For to make salte potage fresche 16
Animals To remove a mole hill from a For to remeue maldy warpys owte of 16
meadow a medw
Psychological To make men and women dance For to make men and whomen to + 16
dawnce
Illusions To make the sea appear in a house Ad faciendum mare apparere in 16
domo
Psychological To have the love of a woman Ad amorem mulieris habendum 16
Psychological Instructions for a protective talisman Si aliquis istas litteras super se 16
habuerit
Psychological If you want all men to honour and Si vis omnes homines darent tibi 17
love you honorem et te diligant
Psychological If a woman doesn't want to give Si mulier non vult dare gratis tibi 17
freely to you
Psychological If you want to make someone strip Si vis facere aliquam se nudare et 17
and dance tripidare
Bonds To open a door using vervain Pone herbam veruenam super portam 17
Miscellaneous To put out a fire Scribantur isti versus et proiceatur 17
Psychological To evade thieves Ad euadendum latrones dic istas 17
versus
Medical To remove teeth Si vis deponere dentes accipe 18
radicem mulberis
Animals To capture chameleons Ad capiendum camoilos (sic) 18
Animals Labelled as “the same” but offers Ad idem. Take a mele (sic) and a 19
instructions on catching rabbits female
Psychological To make a virgin follow you Si vis ut virgo sequatur te 19
Psychological To make a virgin follow you Ad idem accipe tres capillos 19
Animals To make a horse take a bridle well For to make an hors to brydye well 20
Medical To extract teeth Vt dentes extrahente 20
Medical For tooth barb For þe toþe barbe 20
Medical For warts So do away wertys 20
Medical For toothache For þe teþe hache 20
Medical To close the breast For to claus þe breste 20
Unknown Using bile Fel quo vis vti sic seruabis 21
felliculum
Virtues The virtues of the crow Oua e vero eorum denigrant capillos 21
Virtues The virtues of the hoopoe Decellantur pulli eius et fundantur et 21
fit ex eis emplastrum super cancrum
Divination Hoopoe used to see the future in Cor ypapa supponatur sub capite 21
dreams dormientis et sompniabit futuram
Psychological A bat used to prevent sleep Si quis autem caput eius cum panno 21
nigro
Illusions If you want someone to appear to be Si vis ut aliquis appareat ut mortuus 22
dead
 278

Psychological To make animals sleep Et si in eodem coxeris frumentum 22

Divination To know if someone is a virgin or Ad cognescendum (sic) virgines 22
not ungant (sic) super maluam
Divination To make someone reveal secrets in Radex (sic) rauri supposita capiti 22
sleep facit verum
Psychological To make someone sleep Accipiatur jusquianus albus et fiat 22
fumigium
Psychological If you want him to waken Et si vis eum sussitare pone 22
Psychological If you wish to send anyone out Si vis aliquem emittere 22
Medical An ointment Accipe aquam que currit de vite (sic) 22
Medical For puffed up knees and pain Ad genua inflata et dolencia 22
Medical To whiten the face Ad faciem dealbandum 22
Psychological For sleep Ad dormiendum fer tecum cor 23
cornicis
Medical Protection against illness Si aliquis ambulauerit inter egros 23
Animals To capture birds in your hand Vt aues manu capiantur frumentum 23
Medical To extract a tooth Ad extrahendum dentem 23
Animals To gather fish Accipe grana rosarum et grana 23
sinapis
Metallurgy To write on iron or steel For to wrytte on yrne or stele 23
Animals Using vervain to catch fish Est herba veruena si ponatur in aqua 23
Miscellaneous To uncover wax (on a seal) Si voluerit apperire ceras accipe 23
flores violete
Illusions To extinguish candles with your Ad extinguendum candelas cum 23
open hand manu aperta
Illusions To make water appear on a torch Ad faciendum aqua aparere fac tibi 24
Animals Using a crow to make snakes and Coruis est animal si acciperas 24
vermin flee
Medical Using the hare to cure toothache and Caro leporis valet contra dolorem 24
the bloody flux dentium
Medical To make a woman sterile Ad faciendum mulierem sterelem 24
Psychological To make a woman sleep Vt facias mulierem dormire pone 24
maluam
Illusion An illusion to make serpents appear Ad faciendum festiuas /esse\ 24
in the house that begins confusingly serpentes accipe serpentem et assa ad
ignem
Divination To know if a man will die within the Experimentum mirabile si homo 24
year or beyond debeat mori infra annum
Divination To make someone sleeping tell Accipe argentum viuum et pone 24
secrets super caput
Cooking To make an uncookable egg Si vis ut oua non possunt decoqui 25
Cooking To make an uncookable egg Sicut pone argentum viuum 25
Illusions So that you can touch hot lead with Vt plumbum calidum poteris monere 25
your finger cum digitu tuo
Divination To know if a woman is a virgin or Si vis scire an mulier sit corrupta an 25
not non
 279

Cooking To make cooked meat look raw Vt carnes si<c> decoquentur sume 25
radices rubie (sic) vrtice
Illusions If you wish to become invisible Si vis esse inuisibile accipe vnum 25
canem mortuum
Psychological To make a woman sleep Ad faciendum mulierem dormire 25
accipe capud
Psychological To make love between a man and a Ad faciendum amorem inter virum et 25
woman mulierem
Illusions To become invisible Take iiij hers of A dedman 25
Metallurgy To soften and harden steel Ad mollificandum calibem (sic) 25
Psychological To make a woman do your will Accipe bosonem et pone in ollam 26
nouam
Illusions To make a man wak in a fire and Experimentum mirabile quod facit 26
carry fire without injury hominem ire in igne sine lesione et
portare ignem
Animals So that animals congregate safely Vt carnes munitissime incise 26
congregantur
Illusions To make a loaf run about the house For to make a /lowfe\ to renne roun a 26
abowte
Miscellaneous To make a glue which dissolves in Ad faciendum vissum qui nec 26
neither fire nor water dissoluitur nec igne nec aqua
Illusions To make an apple move over the Ad faciendum pomum mouere super 27
table tabulam
Animals To know which egg will produce a Ad sciendum quem ouum producet 27
rooster and which a hen gallum et quem gallinam
Illusions To change an egg's colour Ad mutandum vnum accipe 27
cinereum
Medical To know whether someone has Ad sciendum vtrum quis sit leprosus 27
leprosy or not vel non
Metallurgy To increase mercury Ad multiplicandum mercuriam 27
Illusions To make egg white look and feel like Ad faciendum cacabrum accipe 27
amber albumen oui
Miscellaneous To grow cherries without stones Vt sarasus (sic) seresa (sic) gerat 27
(sic) sine lapidem
Animals An experiment to get magical stones Vt lapides yrundinis apperiantur 27
from a swallow accipe yrundinem per viscum
Metallurgy If you want all metal to appear silver Si vis facere omne metallum appare 28
argentum
Divination If you want to know who has your Si vis scire quis habet rem tuam 28
goods
Psychological A powder to make women love you Take rote þat men calle valareaum 28
Metallurgy To make gold writing Ad faciendum scripturam auream 28
Metallurgy For gold writing Item alio modo accipe cristallum 28
subtiliter
Cooking Hard eggs De ouo durato pone primum in aseto 28
 280

Appendix Five: Description of London, British Library,

Sloane MS 5131
Written in English, French, and Latin in the fifteenth century (and possibly part in the late
fourteenth century) for Richard Dove, a monk of Buckfast, with later marginal notations and
additions.

Size/Material: Parchment. 165 x 125 mm. 221 fols. c. 23-34 lines per page. Written area:

115 x 84 mm. Modern binding done by the British Library. There is a notable difference in the
parchment between folios 10v and 11r, distinguishing between the fourteenth- and fifteenth-
century texts.

Collation: v, 110, 214, 310, 412, 510, 612, 79, 814, 98(-3), 10-1112, 1210, 138(-1) 148, 154, 16-1712,
1812, 1912, 2010, 218, vii. Catchwords are used on folios 22v, 36v, 48v, 58v, 70v, 80v, 94v, 111v,
123v, 142v, 167v, 179v, and 215v.

Foliation: Numbering is done in a modern hand. Between folio 139 and 140 a piece of paper

has been inserted that is not counted. Another hand incorrectly numbers folios 192r to 221r as
200 to 230. These have been crossed out and corrected in pencil.

Scripts: Written in numerous hands with red and blue initials throughout.

Hand A is a facile Anglicana that writes the accounting maxims in verse (folios 3r-10v). It has
forked and looped ascenders and a pronounced difference between thick and thin. The hand uses
8-shaped Textualis g, left-leaning looped d, s longa, and 8-shaped Textualis s. It occasionally
adopts a left leaning double-compartment a for capitals. The descender on h loops to the left and
back up the ascender. There are some influences from Secretary: single-compartment a, v-
shaped r with a long descender, and 2-shaped r. It has long tapered descenders. The initial Q at
the beginning of the tract is the most elaborate in the manuscript. The initial letters are
1
Bell has a description of the contents of Sloane 513 in “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 80-87; my description goes into
more detail concerning the physical composition of the book and the different hands that write in the book. In
addition to the misidentification of the length of the Ars notoria noted in chapter five, advances in scholarship have
identified some of the French texts in the manuscript that Bell leaves untitled.
 281

calligraphic. Abbreviation strokes are thick and often elaborate. The hand has an upright,
angular aspect. It makes frequent use of the punctus. The combination of elements from
Anglicana absent in the later Anglicana-Secretary hybrids (particularly the forked ascenders
paired with the use of single-compartment a) places this hand at the end of the fourteenth century
or the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Hand B is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes the treatise on geometry (folios 11r-
15r), two treatises on the astrolabe (folios 15v-19v), four treatises on the planets (folios 19v-24r),
a recipe for wax (folio 24r), a treatise on weights and measures (folios 24v-25v), the
Physiognomia of Pseudo Aristotle (77v-83r), the Speculum secretorum alchemiae of Roger
Bacon (178v-182r), and some of the alchemical treatises and recipes (folios 154r-178r, 181v-
191v). Unlike Hand A, there is little distinction between thick and thin. It uses looped d, 8-
shaped Textualis g, sigma s, s longa, the ascender of the t rises above the cross-stroke. It uses a
reverse looped e in final position. Its Secretary features are a spur approach on p, flat-topped and
open-tailed g, single-compartment a, flat-topped c, v-shaped r, and 2-shaped r. The descenders
on y and ɔ often extend back to the right. The descenders on h extend below the line of writing.
The descenders rarely taper and there are no seriphs. Initials are simple with no otiose
flourishes. It has a squared aspect.

Hand C is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes the Proemium titled Arithmetica

(folios 26r-27r), the Carmen de algorismo metricus of Alexander of Villa Dei (folios 27r-43r),
the treatise on spheres by John Sacrobosco (folios 59r-75r) and an astrological treatise (folios
75v-77v). The hand uses Textualis 8-shaped g, sigma s, s longa, and 2-shaped and v-shaped r.
The stem on t rises above the cross stroke. Its Secretary characteristics are the open-tailed g,
looped d with a broken stroke on the lobe, flat-topped c, and an approach stroke on p and v. The
initials for Hand C are flourished with pen decorations extending up and down the left side of the
page. The main strokes are much broader than the subsidiary ones. There are no seriphs and
tapered descenders. The ascenders on b, h, and l are looped. Hairline strokes connect the letters.
The hand has a very angular, cramped aspect.

Hand D is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes a mathematical treatise (folios 43v-

56v), the accounting interpolations (folios 48r-51v), a treatise on chiromancy (folios 84r-96r) and
 282

the prognostics based on the days of the month (folios 96v-97v). It is a thick hand, with little
difference between thick and thin strokes. The hand has tapered descenders, hooked minims.
The hand employs tapered descenders, reverse looped e in final position, Textualis 8-shaped g,
v- and 2-shaped r, sigma s, and s longa. Double-compartment a is used for capitals. Its Secretary
features are a single-compartment, pointed a, flat-topped c, looped d, approach strokes on p and
v. The aspect is fairly cramped and the ascenders and descenders go beyond the line of writing.

Hand E is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid that writes the Middle English prognostic
verses (folios 98v-99v). This may be a variation of Hand D. The descenders on h, y, and z
extend to the right. It has looped ascenders and the double-bowed w characteristic of Anglicana.
The hand uses v- and 2-shaped r, s longa, sigma s, and flat-topped c. There is an approach stroke
on p. The script‟s characteristics include the use of a tironian note with a bar across the top,
horns on the open-tailed g. A, e, and o are pointed. Hairline strokes connect the letters. The
script has a square-round aspect that is somewhat angular.

Hand F is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes two of the treatises on chiromancy

(folios 100r-108v, 109r-134v), the Ars notoria (folios 192r-200r) and the monastic regulations
pertaining to Buckfast (folios 200v-220v). The hand uses pointed single-compartment a, reverse
looped e, Textualis 8-shaped g, a spur approach on p, v-shaped r, sigma s, s longa. The stem on t
extends above the cross-stroke. The looped d almost has a broken lobe. There is a spur on the
stem of s longa and f. The aspect is angular and laterally compressed. There is a clear
distinction between thick and thin strokes. The ascenders on b and l are looped and the
descenders taper. There are no seriphs. Hairline strokes connect the letters. This hand uses a
different style of paraphs than the other hands. It also uses a highly stylized capital N.

Hand G is an Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid that writes the miscellaneous French materials
(folios 135r-138v, 139r-153v). The hand uses double compartment a for capital letters, Textualis
8-shaped g, sigma s, and s longa. Its Secretary features are single compartment a with a pointed
lobe, flat-topped c, a pointed, open-tailed g, a spur approach on p, 2-shaped and v-shaped r. The
ascenders on b, h, and l are looped. Some descenders taper and there are no seriphs. There is
some distinction between thick and thin strokes. The hand has a squared, pointed aspect. The
 283

hand uses the same stylized capital N as Hand F. The letters are slightly cramped horizontally
and laterally.

Hand H is a messy Anglicana-Secretary currens hybrid. It writes the fragment of monastic

accounts at the end of the manuscript (folios 221r-v). The hand employs a double compartment
a, left leaning looped d, reverse looped e, s longa, and sigma s in initial position. Its Secretary
features are a flat-topped c, 2-shaped and v-shaped r, and an approach stroke on v. The hand uses
a long i that extends far below the line of writing. The descender on h curves back up to the left.
There is wide spacing between words and lines. The hand has tapered descenders and no
seriphs. It has a rounded aspect. The text is sideways and part of the bottom line of text has
been cut off, which suggest this folio was inserted into the manuscript later.

Two later hands make additions throughout. The first is the hand of John Shaxton, who has
erased some of the lines of the Ars notoria, written “papist” in the margins, and has lightly
crossed out some of the prayers and notae. This is a mixed italic cursive hand that is
characterised by its high, curved ascenders (particularly on Shaxton‟s name), epsilon e, single
compartment a, short-shouldered r, and sigma s. The top loop on the capital S is distinctly larger
than the bottom. There is little to no distinction between thick and thin strokes. The script has a
right leaning aspect and seriphs on descenders. This style of the italic hand is consistent with the
testeggiata form that was popular in England from the later sixteenth century until the middle of
the seventeenth century.2 Shaxton has written his name twice along with an unreadable sentence
fragment on folio 222r.3 He has also written his name on folio 1r (in the table of contents) and
written “Vbicumque vides miseria, relinque ea, et falsa hujus modj. J.S.” [Wherever you see
misery, relinquish it, and its false ways. J.S.] at the end of the Ars notoria (folio 200r).

The other hand is that of Thomas Phelyp who has written unrelated notes in the margins of some
of the pages. This is possibly Thomas Phelips of Montacute, Somerset (c. 1500-1590) who was
a grazier in Somerset and Dorset. He was also at one time a servant to Thomas Cromwell and
Protector Somerset. His son was Sir Edward Phelips, speaker of the House of Commons in the

2
Anthony G. Petti, English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden (London: E. Arnold, 1977), 19.
3
Part of it is readable as “John Shaketons hand Johannes Shaxton.”
 284

early seventeenth century.4 It may also be Thomas‟s father, also named Thomas, who died in
1565. In one of the annotations that supplies Phelyp‟s name (folio 34v) there is also a Robbart
Pynne mentioned.5 A Robert Pyne married Jane, sister of Thomas Phelyp senior, which lends
some support to the hypothesis that the manuscript was owned by the Phelips family.6
Whichever Thomas it is he writes in a sixteenth-century Secretary hand. In addition to the note
giving his name, he also writes a short verse on the cost of goods (folio 136r), another notation
giving his name (folio 138v), and a fragmentary sentence (folio 148r). The following
characteristics can be seen in his hand: long tapered descenders, a descender on y that curves to
the right, a peculiar hook to the right on the descender of g, an h that is typical of later sixteenth-
century Elizabethan Secretary, v-shaped r, reverse looped e, and a diamond-shaped o. The hand
has an angular, spiky aspect with hairline subsidiary strokes, which is a feature of Secretary
hands from the second half of the sixteenth century.

Decoration: The amount of decoration varies depending on the hand. Some hands, like Hand

B, use very simple initials that have no otiose embellishment. Hand A has the most elaborate
style with an initial Q that extends well above the first line of text and extends down the left side
of the page with red decoration. This hand also highlights the text throughout with red. Hands C
and F have flourished initials and pen decorations extending from the letters up and down the
side of the page. The decoration for Hand D is incomplete: there are spaces left for initials with
the letter to be inserted written in the margin. Paraphs of different styles and alternating red and
blue are used throughout the manuscript.

On folio 1r there is an elaborate initial U in black ink (now faded to brown). This is unrelated to
anything on the page.

On folio 21v there is a diagram of a circle with the names of the zodiac signs and corresponding
numbers accompanying the treatise on the planets.

4
Merrilees, “Donatus and the Teaching of French,” 284; Rebecca S. More, “Phelips, Sir Edward (c.1555–1614),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004), accessed May 8, 2010,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22089.
5
The note reads, “Thys <..> Thomas Phelyps <….> of his bocke Record of Robbart pynne and and of Jon Fox and
of w Wyllyam [erased]wne” This note is very faded and difficult to read.
6
This is noted in Sir Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain &
Ireland, vol. 2 (London: Harrison, 1871), 1085.
 285

The chiromancy attributed to Richard of Florence (folios 100r-134v) is followed by drawings of

seven hands. The first hand is blank; the rest are heavily diagrammed. On folio 108v is another
labelled illustration of a right hand for chiromancy.

Folio 169r contains rough drawings of apparatus for use in alchemy at the bottom of the page.

The Ars notoria (folios 193r-201r) contains illustrations of notae for use in the ritual on folios
196v, 197v, 199r, and 200v. These consist of circles with various phrases and holy names
inscribed inside.

Contents:
1. fol. 1r: A partial table of contents in a later hand. There is an elaborately decorated U that
predates the table of contents.

2. fol. 1v: Blank.

3. fol. 2r: Virtually unreadable. Bell labels this as “Formulae epistolarum monasticarum ad
preces pro defuncti instituendas.”

4. fol. 2v: Blank.

5. fols. 3r-10v: Treatise on keeping accounts, partly in verse. Inc. “Quid, de quo, quantum,
quando, cur, ista notato / In quibus expendis, quando, cur, testis is hiis fit.”7 Probably the
“juridical treatise on the keeping of accounts or the administration of the Abbey manors”
mentioned by John Stéphan.8

6. fols. 11r-15r: Treatise on geometry titled Practica Geometrie. Inc. “Sciendum est de
mensuris communibus, et primo de artimetrica, et de mensuracione rerum altitudinum”9

7
TK, 1240; cf. Cambridge, St. Catherine‟s College Library MS 9 (G. v. 69), fol. 77r-v, mentioned in Report of the
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Issue 4 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1874), 427.
8
Stéphan, Buckfast Abbey, 44.
9
TK, 1392. S.H. Thompson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 1235-1254 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1940; repr., New York, 1971), 271, “notes that Bale, Pitts, and Wood attribute to
Grosseteste a Praxis Geometriae with this incipit, but that it does not appear in the location cited by Wood (Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 76, fol. 30).” Quoted in Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 81.
 286

7. fols. 15v-16r: Treatise on the astrolabe titled Ad discernenda membra astrolabii. Inc.
“Primum membrum est armilla suspensoria ad capiendam altitudinem”10

8. fols. 16r-19v: Practica astrolabii. Inc. “Cum volueris scire gradum solis” Continuation of the
previous treatise.11

9. fols. 19v-20r: Treatise on the planets. Inc. “In capiendis altitudinibus si perpendiculum cadat
in dextra parte tabule”12

10. fols. 20r-21v: Treatise on the planets titled De fortitudine planetarum. Inc. “Nunc autem in
signis sunt quedam fortitudines que dicuntur dignitates planetarum”13 Continuation of the
previous treatise. Colophon: “Expliciunt canones kalendarii planetarum quod Ricardus Dove
Monachus de Bukfast.”

11. fols. 22r-23v: Treatise on the movement of the planets. Inc. “Septem sunt planete, scilicet
Saturnus, Mars, Iubiter (sic), Sol, Venus, Mercurius, et Luna.”14 Colophon: “Explicit
tractatus de motibus planetarum et eorum affectibus in istis inferioribus quod R. D. M. de B.”

12. fols. 23v-24r: Treatise on the arts of the planets titled De artibus planetarum. Inc. “Saturni
ars est laborare ortos vineas terram et omne quod facit cum labore operatur.”15 Colophon:
“Explicit quod Ricardus Dove Monachus B.”

13. fol. 24r: Recipe to make ten pounds of wax out of two. Inc. “Si vis facere x libri cere de
duobus.”

14. fols. 24v-25r: Treatise on weights titled De ponderibus. Inc. “Memorandum quod le sother
plumbi continet 24 pedes.”16 Colophon: “Quod Ricardus Dove Monachus de Bukfast.”

10
TK, 1119. Part i of John of Seville‟s Latin translation of Māshā‟allāh‟s Kitāb sana‟at al-asturlāb wa‟l-„amal bihā.
See Gunther, Early Science, 195-231.
11
TK, 356. Part ii of the previous treatise.
12
TK, 665.
13
TK, 961.
14
TK, 1433.
15
TK, 1380.
16
TK, 864.
 287

15. fol. 25v: Treatise on measures titled De mensuris. Inc. “Corus 30 modios continet.”17
Colophon: “Quod R. D. M. B.”

16. fol. 25v: Treatise on measures titled De mensura terre. Inc. “Nota quod 3 grana ordei in
longitudine.”18 Colophon: “Quod R. D. M. de B.”

17. fols. 26r-27r: Proemium titled Arithmetica. Inc. “Consequenter scias quod sunt tres species
numerorum.”19

18. fols. 27r-43r: The Carmen de algorismo metricus of Alexander of Villa Dei with the
commentary of Saxton. Inc. “Addere si numerum numero vis ordine tali.” The commentary
begins on folio 27v. Inc. “Si vis addere numerum numero, et scire quid ex tali additione
resultat.”20 Expl. “Explicit tractatus algorismi cum satis brevi et bono commento secundum
Saxton. Qui scripsit carmen sit benedictus amen. Nomen scriptoris Galfridus plenus amoris.”

19. fols. 43v-56v: Treatise on mathematics by Pseudo-Alcuin, Propositiones ad acuendos

iuvenes. Inc. “Limax fuit ab irundine (sic) invitatus ad prandium infra leugam (sic) unam.”21

20. fols. 48r-51v: Interpolation of anonymous accounting exercises. Inc. “Si tres fratres habeant
sororem maritandam…”22

21. fol. 57r: Blank.

22. fol. 57v: Riddles in verse form. Inc. “Filia sum solis et sum cum luce creata / Sum decies
quinque sum quinque decemque vocata.”23

17
TK, 271.
18
TK, 941.
19
TK, 251, 503.
20
See Halliwell, Rara Mathematica, vi, 73-83.
21
TK, 829. It is edited in Menso Folkerts, Die älteste mathematische Aufgabensammlung in lateinischer Sprache:
Die Alkuin zugeschrieben Propositiones ad Acuendos Iuvenes (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, 116. Band, 6. Abhandlung; Wien, 1978).
22
TK, 1447.
23
TK, 561; Galloway discusses this text and its relation to rhetoric and the Secretum philosophorum in, “The
Rhetoric of Riddling,” 68-105; a transcription of these riddles is on pp. 101-102.
 288

23. fols. 58r-v: Correspondences of Roman and Arabic numerals from 1 to 4009. Inc. “Numerus
qui dicitur algorismus…”24

24. fols. 59r-75r: Treatise on spheres by John of Sacrobosco titled Tractatus optime de spera by
a later hand. Inc. “Tractatum de spera in quatuor capitulis distinguimus.”25

25. fols. 75v-77v: Astrological treatise titled De disposicione hominis. Inc. “Incipit paruus
tractatus de disposicione hominis. Sciendum quod si quis nascatur in aliqua hora diei.”26

26. fols. 77v-83r: Physiognomia of Pseudo-Aristotle. Ends incomplete. Item hic incipit parvus
tractatus de disposicione hominis. Inc. “Elegans est nature cognicio que per exteriores
formas interiors investigat qualitates.”27 Colophon: “Explicit tractatus de phisnomia quod
Ricardus D. M. B.”

27. fol. 83r: Extract from a treatise on physiognomy titled De pa[l]mestria. Inc. “Sequitur nunc
de pa[l]mestria. Quod idem Ricardus dove. Angulus rectus.”

28. fol. 83v: Blank.

29. fols. 84r-96r: Treatise on chiromancy by Rodericus de Majoricis. Inc. “Chiromancie

requiritur cognicio in lune cognicione.”28 Colophon: “Eximie explicit tractatus cyromancie
compilatus per Magistrum Rodericum de maioricis in Universitate Oxonie.”

30. fols. 96v-97v: Medical prognostications according to the day of the month on which the
illness begins. Inc. “Salkanus in libro decimo dixit, quisquis prima die cuiuslibet mensis in
infirmitate ceciderit.”29

31. fol. 98r: Blank.

24
TK, 960.
25
Same as TK, 1577, although Sloane 513 is not listed. Edited in Thorndike, The Sphere of Sacrobosco.
26
TK, 1399. I have also found a copy not mentioned by TK in Cambridge, St. John‟s College MS E.6, fol. 86v – a
fifteenth-century manuscript owned by Thomas Betson, a monk of Syon.
27
TK, 495. Edited in Pack, “Auctoris Incerti,” 113-138; see M.R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and
Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), 489.
28
TK, 225. Edited by Pack and Hamilton, “Rodericus de Majoricis,” 271-305.
29
TK, 1250.
 289

32. fols. 98v-99v: Prognostications by the casts of dice. Ends incomplete. Inc. “þou þat hast y
cast tre syses here / þou schalt haue þy desere þis same ȝere / Hold þe stable and varye þou
noght, / For þou shalt haue after þy þought.”30

33. fols. 100r-108v: Treatise on chiromancy by Richard of Florence. Inc. “Benedictus deus
omnipotens qui machinam mundanam et creaturas absque exordio condidit.”31 Colophon:
“Quod R. D. M. B.”

34. fols. 109r-134v: Treatise on chiromancy. Second part of the previous treatise following
diagram of a hand. Inc. “Secuntur science inter se quemadmodum res de quibus res ars ex
quibus sciencie sunt.” Colophon: “Explicit opus admirable Cyromancie compilatus [Richard]
de Florencia, anno domini millesimo CCCC septimo die XXX I Januarius”

35. fols. 135r-136r: Miscellaneous French materials. Inc. “Je suis, on suy, tu ez, cil est, nous
sumos…” Colophon: “quod ricardus dove”

36. fol. 136r: English verse proverb about the cost of goods added in the hand of Thomas Phelyp.
Inc. “Cost of goods grevyste me full sore…”

37. fols. 136v-137v: Le Donait. Conjugations of French verbs corresponding to Donatus‟s list
of Latin verbs. Inc. “Cy comence le donait soloun donce franceis de paris.” Colophon:
“Quod Richardus Dove Monachus de Bukfast”32

38. fols. 138r-138v: Conjugations of vouloir and pouvoir. Inc. “Jeo veule, tu veullez, cil vuet,
nous volons, vous voylez, ceny voilont…”

39. fol. 139r: Orthographia Gallica. Rules in Latin for teaching correct Continental French
spelling and pronunciation. Incomplete. Inc. “omnia nomina terminancia in ge vt lange in
plurali recipiunt s vt langes.” Colophon: “Quod Ricardus Dove Monachus de Bukfast”33

30
Rossell Hope Robbins and J.L. Cutler, Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington: University of
Kentucky Press, 1965), 414 no. 3694.3.
31
TK, 176.
32
This is the only witness of this text. Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature, 165. Brian Merrilees has
published an edition of this text as an appendix to “Donatus and the Teaching of French,” 285-292.
33
Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature, 162. See also Jakob Stürzinger, ed., Orthographia Gallica: Ältester
Traktat über Französische Aussprache und Orthographie (Heilbronn: Verlag von Gebr. Henninger, 1884), VI.
 290

40. fols. 139v-153v: Tretiz de Langage of Walter of Bibbesworth. Ends incomplete. Inc. “Cher
sire, parce que vous me priastes que jeo meisse en escript pur voz enfantez ascune aprise en
Fraunces.”34

41. fols. 154r-154v: Alchemical treatise ascribed to Albertus Magnus titled Fundamentum
alchemiae. Inc. “Principium alkemie consistit in materie elleccione de qua, per quam, in qua
intenditur operari.”35

42. fols. 155r-168r: The second and third parts of the Myrrour of Lygtes. Inc. “In scheching owt
þe soþenes of þis craft þat men clepud alkonomyȝe in many condicions þat ben noted.”36

43. fol. 168r: Miscellaneous recipes in English. Inc. “Tak a <some words erased> and powne as
þynne as hit may hold togeþer and then chyppe hit smal.”

44. fols. 168v-178r: Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, Semita recta. Ends incomplete. Inc. “Nunc
videndum est quomodo fiunt furnelli et ad hoc quod sint necessaria ad hoc sciendum.”

45. fols. 178v-181r: Speculum secretorum alchemiae attributed to Roger Bacon. Inc. “In nomine
Domini nostri Ihesu Christi. Ad instruccionem multorum circa hanc artem studere
volentium…”37

46. fols. 181v-188v: Alchemical treatise and miscellaneous alchemical recipes in Latin and
French ascribed to Roger Bacon. Inc. “Libelli huius aquarum series xij pendet causis.”
Colophon: “Explicit semita recta alkemie secundum Magistrum Rogerum Bakun. Quod R. D.
M. B.” (partially erased)38

34
Dean and Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature, 160-161. This text has been edited by Rothwell, Walter de
Bibbesworth.
35
TK, 1126; Pearl Kibre, “Alchemical Writings Ascribed to Albertus Magnus,” Speculum 17 (1942): 508, no. 12.
36
Singer, Catalogue, vol. II, 159-160; Kibre, “Alchemical Writings,” 508, no. 14; Pearl Kibre, “Albertus Magnus on
Alchemy,” in J.A. Weisheiple, ed., Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1980), 187-202.
37
TK, 47; Kibre, “Alchemical Writings,” 515-516 no. 26; Singer, Catalogue, vol. I, 178.
38
TK, 817; Kibre, “Alchemical Writings,” 504-505 no. 3; HMES II, 798; Singer, Catalogue, vol. II, 707.
 291

47. fols. 189r-191v: Introduction to anonymous alchemical treatise titled Fundamentum alkimie.
Inc. “Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum desursum est descendens a Patre
luminum…”39

48. fols. 192r-200r: Ars notoria. Inc. “Hic incipit ars notoria ad intelligendum omnes artes et
secreta tocius mundi.” Colophon: “Amen . Amen . Amen quod Ricardus Dove Monachus
Bukfestre.”40

49. fols. 200v-220v: Statutes issued by the abbot of Buckfast on February 3rd (the day after the
feast of the purification of the Virgin) after his visitation of the monastery. Inc. “Anno
domini millessimo et cetera ¶ In crastino purificacionis beate marie virgine completa
visitatione in monastico de Buckfast per patrem abbatem statuta sunt ea que secuntur fuerunt
obseruanda”41

50. fols. 221r-v: Fragments of monastic accounts plus later scribbles.

Provenance: The manuscript was originally made in the fifteenth century for Richard Dove
of Buckfast, which is attested by the numerous references to him throughout the manuscript.
David Bell dates this to between 1407-1460/70. The earlier date comes from a colophon at the
end of the chiromancy by Richard of Florence, which states “Explicit opus admirable
Cyromancie compilatus [erased] de Florencia anno domini millesimo CCCC septimo die XXX I
Januarius”.42 I do not know the basis for his end date.43

At some point the manuscript was owned by a John Shaxton, apparently a Protestant, judging by
his notations of “papist” in the margins of the Ars notoria.44 It appears to have also been owned

39
Singer, Catalogue, vol. I, 323-324.
40
TK, 48, 618. This is a copy of the Ars brevis version of the Ars notoria. Julien Véronèse‟s edition of the Ars
notoria does not include this version of the Ars notoria, although he does briefly discuss it in the introduction to his
edition. Véronèse, L'Ars notoria.
41
There is a transcription of some of these items in Appendices B and C of J. Brooking Rowe, Contributions to a
History of the Cistercian Houses of Devon (Plymouth: W. Brendon and Son, 1878), 131-137. The transcription
leaves the contractions as is. See my discussion of these statutes and of Abbot William Slade on pp. 210-211.
42
Folio 131r.
43
See Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 72.
44
Bell, “A Cistercian at Oxford,” 80. Shaxton‟s name appears on folio 221r.
 292

by a Thomas Phelyp, possibly a Thomas Phelips who lived in the sixteenth century (see above in
the description of the hands).

This manuscript is from the Sloane collection, which was bequeathed to the British nation by Sir
Hans Sloane in 1753.
 293

Bibliography
Manuscripts
Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Library MS 258
Boston, Boston Medical Library, MS 18
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library (Medieval Catalogue) MS UC19.19
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 141
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 230
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 383
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Library MS 457
Cambridge, Jesus College Library MS 46 Q.D.4
Cambridge, St. John's College Library MS K.49
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.57 (1081)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.58 (1082)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.1.65 (1089)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.2.13 (1117)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.2.16 (1120)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.2.45 (1149)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.8.29 (1404)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.8.35 (1410)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.9.26 (1438)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.9.39 (1451)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.30 (903)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.32 (905)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.45 (916)
Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS R.14.51 (921)
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Additional MS 5943
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Additional MS 9308
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Dd.iv.44
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Dd.v.76
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Dd.xi.45
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Ee.i.15
Cambridge, St. Catherine‟s College Library MS 9 (G. v. 69)
 294

Cambridge, St. John‟s College MS E.6

Canterbury, St. Augustine‟s (Medieval) MS 209
Canterbury, St. Augustine‟s (Medieval) MS 1616
Canterbury, St. Augustine‟s (Medieval) MS 1791
Dover, St. Martin‟s Priory (Medieval) BM 1.323
Dover, St. Martin‟s Priory (Medieval) MS 323
Edinburgh, Royal Observatory Library, MS Cr.3.14
Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS O.79
Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.221
Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.28a
Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Amplonian Collection, MS Q.380
Kassel, Murhardsche und Landesbibliothek Codex Medicus 4˚10
Krakow, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, MS 551
Leicester, Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary de Pratis (Medieval) A20 862
Leicester, Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary de Pratis (Medieval) A20 1160
Leicester, Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary de Pratis (Medieval) A20 1163
Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter Library MS 91 (A.5.2)
London, British Library, Additional MS 31042
London, British Library, Additional MS 33381
London, British Library, Additional MS 33996
London, British Library, Arundel MS 272
London, British Library, Arundel MS 342
London, British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian B.xxiii
London, British Library, Egerton MS 823
London, British Library, Egerton MS 833
London, British Library, Egerton MS 840
London, British Library, Egerton MS 847
London, British Library, Harley MS 1600
London, British Library, Harley MS 1735
London, British Library, Harley MS 2378
London, British Library, Harley MS 2558
London, British Library, Harley MS 3362
London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 680
 295

London, British Library, Royal MS 8 B.XIX

London, British Library, Royal MS 12 B.XXV
London, British Library, Royal MS 17 A.VIII
London, British Library, Royal MS 17 A.XLII
London, British Library, Sloane MS 121
London, British Library, Sloane MS 122
London, British Library, Sloane MS 282
London, British Library, Sloane MS 312
London, British Library, Sloane MS 313
London, British Library, Sloane MS 374
London, British Library, Sloane MS 468
London, British Library, Sloane MS 478
London, British Library, Sloane MS 513
London, British Library, Sloane MS 962
London, British Library, Sloane MS 1314
London, British Library, Sloane MS 2584
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3008
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3160
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3826
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3847
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3849
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3854
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3883
London, British Library, Sloane MS 3885
London, Clarenceux King of Arms (Medieval Catalogue) MS 54
London, College of Arms, Arundel MS 6
London, Society of Antiquaries of London MS 39
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 225
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 404
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 405
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 406
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 517
London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library MS 542
 296

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 1877

Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Clm 276
Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Clm 849
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS G24
Oxford, All Souls College Library MS 121
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1416
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1435
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1477
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 144
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 266
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 951
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 8
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 37
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 67
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 86
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 194
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby MS 228
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce MS 291
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud misc. MS 685
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS C. 486
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS C. 506
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 252
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D. 939
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 407
Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library MS 81
Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library MS 125
Oxford, Merton College Library, (Medieval) MS 999
Oxford, Merton College Library, (Medieval) MS 1053
Oxford, St. John's College Library MS 108
Oxford, St. John‟s College Library MS 150
Oxford, Trinity College Library MS 9
Oxfordshire, Ewelme Almshouse, MS A.1
 297

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 9336

Princeton University Library, Garrett MS 141
San Marino, Huntington Library HM 58
San Marino, Huntington Library HM 64
San Marino, Huntington Library HM 1336
San Marino, Huntington Library HU 1051
Soissons, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 48
Stockholm, Royal Library, MS Holm X. 90
Syon Abbey (Medieval) MS 78
Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale MS E.V.13
Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit MS 680
Vienna, Schottenkloster Scottensis-Vindobonensis MS 140 (61)
Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 1
Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 163
Yale, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library MS 229
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 361
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 362
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 364
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 375
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 383
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 385
York, Austin Friars (Medieval) MS 452

Catalogues
Ayscough, Samuel. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum Hitherto
Undescribed: Consisting of Five Thousand Volumes; Including the Collections of Sir
Hans Sloane, Bart. the Rev. Thomas Birch…. Vol. 2. London: Printed for the compiler by
J. Rivington, Jun., 1782.
Barker-Benfield, B.C., ed. St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. 3 vols. Corpus of Medieval British
Library Catalogues. London: British Library in association with the British Academy,
2008.
Bell, David N., ed. The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines and Premonstratensians. Corpus
of British Medieval Library Catalogues. London: British Library in association with the
British Academy, 1992.
 298

Black, William Henry. A Descriptive, Analytical, and Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts
Bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., Windsor
Herald. Also of Some Additional mss. Contributed by Kingsley, Lhuyd, Borlase, and
Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845.
Catalogue of the Crawford Library of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Published
by the Authority of Her Majesty‟s Government, 1890.
Coxe, Henry O. Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Bodleianae pars nona codices a
viro clarissimo Kenelm Digby. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883.
Digital Scriptorium Huntington Catalogue Database. The Regents of the University of
California, 2006. Accessed February 14, 2011.
http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/dsheh/heh_brf?Description=&CallNumber=HM+1336.
Dutschke, C.W. Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library.
With the assistance of R. H. Rouse, et al. Vol. II. San Marino, CA: The Library, 1989.
Gillespie, Vincent, ed. Syon Abbey. Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues. London:
British Library in association with the British Academy, 2001.
Halm, Karl, Georg von Laubmann, and Wilhelm Meyer. Catalogus codicum latinorum
Bibliothecae Regiae Monacensis. Vol. 1. Part 1. Munich: 1868.
Hübl, A. Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum qui in Bibliotheca Monasterii B.M.V. ad Scotos
Vindobonae servantur. Vindobonae, 1899. Accessed March 15, 2011.
http://www.hmml.org/research2010/catalog/detail.asp?MSID=3854.
Humphreys, K.W. The Friars‟ Libraries. Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues.
London: British Library in association with the British Academy, 1990.
James, M.R. The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1903.
---. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College.
Vol. 1, Nos. 1-354. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907.
---. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College
Cambridge. Vol. 3, Containing an Account of the Manuscripts Standing in Class O.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902.
Leland, John. Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii de rebus britannicis collectanea: cvm Thomae Hearnii
praefatione notis et indice ad editionem primam. Vol. 4. London: Benjamin White, 1774.
Powicke, F.M. The Medieval Books of Merton College. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.
Salter, H.E., ed. Registrum Annalium Collegii Mertonensis, 1483-1521. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1923.
Schum, Wilhelm. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Amplonianischen Handschriften-Sammlung zu
Erfurt. Weidmannsche Buchhandlung: Berlin, 1887. Accessed March 15, 2011.
http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs/kataloge/HSK0495.htm.
Singer, Dorothea Waley. Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great
Britain and Ireland: Dating From Before the XVI Century. 3 vols. Brussels: M. Lamertin,
1928-31.
 299

Stoneman, William P., ed. Dover Priory. Corpus of Medieval British Library Catalogues.
London: British Library in association with the British Academy, 1999.
Thorndike, Lynn and Pearl Kibre. A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in
Latin. Revised and augmented edition. Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of
America, 1963.
Voigts, Linda Ehrsam and Patricia Deery Kurtz. Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and
Middle English: An Electronic Reference. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,
2000. Accessed December 2, 2010. http://cctr1.umkc.edu/cgi-bin/search.
Webber, T. and A.G. Watson, eds. The Medieval Libraries of the Augustinian Canons. Corpus of
British Medieval Library Catalogues. London: The British Library in Association with
the British Academy, 1998.
Willetts, Pamela J. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Society of Antiquaries of London. Great
Britain: D.S. Brewer, 2000.
Włodek, Sophia, Georgius Zathey, and Marianus Zwiercan. Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum
Medii Aevi Latinorum qui in Bibliotheca Jagellonica Cracoviae asservantur. Vol. 3.
Wratislaviae: Institutum Ossolinianum: Officina Editoria Academiae Scientiarum
Polonae, 1980-1982.

Printed Primary Sources

Augustine. De Doctrina Christiana. Edited and translated by R.P.H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1995.
Ayoub, Lois. “John Crophill‟s Books: An Edition of British Library MS Harley 1735.” PhD
diss., University of Toronto, 1994.
Albertus Magnus. Book of Minerals. Translated by Dorothy Wyckoff. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1967.
---. Speculum astronomiae. Edited by Stefano Caroti, Michela Pereira, Stefano Zamponi. Pisa:
Domus Galilaeana, 1977.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Edited and translated by Thomas Franklin O‟Meara and
Michael John Duffy. Vol. 40. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 13, 2011.
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/ms229.html.
The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus of the Virtues of Herbs, Stones and Certain Beasts. Also
a Book of the Marvels of the World. Edited by Michael R. Best and Frank H. Brightman.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.
Bos, A. La chirurgie de ma tre Henri de Mondeville traduction contemporaine de l auteur,
publiée d apres le ms. unique de la Bibliotheque nationale par le Dr. A. Bos. Paris:
Firmin Didot et cie, 1897.
Brewer, D.S. and A.E.B. Owen, eds. The Thornton Manuscript: (Lincoln Cathedral MS. 91).
London: Scolar Press, 1975.
 300

Bühler, Curt F. “Middle English Verses against Thieves.” Speculum 33:3 (1958): 371-372.
---. “Middle English Verses against Thieves.” Speculum 34:4 (1959): 637-638.
Calendar of Close Rolls. Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III, A.D. 1476-1485. London: H.M.
Stationery Office, 1954.
Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VI. 6 vols. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1933-47.
Calendar of Close Rolls. Henry VII. Vol. 2, 1500-1509. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1963.
Calendar of Fine Rolls. 22 vols. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1911-1962.
Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1399-
1422. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1916.
Calendar of Patent Rolls. Henry IV. 4 vols. Great Britain: Public Record Office, 1903-1909.
Calendar of Patent Rolls. Henry VI. Vol. 1, 1422-1429. Great Britain: Public Record Office,
1901.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Edited by A.C. Cawley. Revised by Malcolm
Andrew. London: Everyman, 1996.
Compotus manualis ad vsu[m] Oxonie[n]siu[m]. Oxford, 1519. Early English Books Online.
Accessed April 19, 2011. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-
2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:image:11051.
Copland, William. A boke of the propreties of herbes called an herball wherunto is added the
time [the] herbes, floures and sedes shold be gathered to be kept the whole yere, wyth the
vertue of [the] herbes when they are stilled. Also a generall rule of all maner of herbes
drawen out of an auncyent booke of phisyck. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan,
Digital Library Production Service, 2001. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A03040.0001.001.
CORSAIR, Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts. New York: Pierpont Morgan
Library. Accessed May 13, 2011.
http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/single_image2.cfm?page=ICA000110613&imagena
me=g24.018v.jpg.
D‟Alverny, Marie-Therese and F. Hudry. “Al-Kindi. De Radiis.” Archives d‟histoire doctrinale
et littéraire du Moyen Age. 41 (1974): 139-259.
Denifle, Henricus and Aemilio Chatelain, eds. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis. Vol. 1.
Paris: Delalain Bros., 1889.
Evans, J. and M.S. Serjeantson, eds. English Mediaeval Lapidaries. English Early Texts Society.
Vol. 190. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1933.
Halliwell, James O., ed. Rara Mathematica; or, A collection of treatises on the mathematics and
subjects connected with them, from ancient inedited manuscripts. London: J.W. Parker,
1841.
---., ed. The Thornton Romances: The Early English Metrical Romances of Perceval, Isumbras,
Eglamour, and Degrevant: Selected from Manuscripts at Lincoln and Cambridge.
London: Printed for the Camden society, by J.B. Nichols and Son, 1844.
 301

Hedegård, Gösta, ed. Liber iuratus Honorii: A Critical Edition of the Latin Version of the Sworn
Book of Honorius. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, 2002.
Hieatt Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch: English culinary manuscripts of
the fourteenth century (including the Forme of cury). London: Published for The Early
English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.
Hingeston-Randolph, F.C. The Register of Edmund Stafford, (A. D. 1395-1419): An Index and
Abstract of its Contents. London: G. Bell, 1886.
---. The Register of Thomas de Brantyngham, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1370-1394). Part I. London:
G. Bell, 1901.
Hope, Richard, tr. Aristotle‟s Metaphysics: Newly Translated as a Postscript to Natural Science
with an Analytical Index of Technical Terms. New York: Columbia University Press,
1952.
Høyrup, Jens, ed. and tr. Jacopo de Florentia, Tractatus algorismi (1307), The Chapter on
Algebra. Roskilde: Filosofi og Videnskabsteori På Roskilde Universitetscenter, 1999.
Hunayn ibn Ishaq. Questions on Medicine for Scholars. Translated by Paul Ghalioungui. Cairo:
Al-Ahram Center for Scientific Translations, 1980.
Isidore of Seville. Etymologies: Livre XII, Des animaux. Edited and translated by Jacques André.
Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1986.
Johnsson, J.W.S. “Les „Experimenta Duodecim Johannis Paulini.‟” Bulletin de la Société
française d‟histoire de médecine XII (1913): 257-267.
Langland, William. The vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel
Texts; Together with Richard the Redeless. Edited by Rev. Walter W. Skeat. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1886.
Mannying of Brunne, Robert. Handlyng Synne. Edited by Frederick J. Furnivall (London:
Published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1901.
Martin, Lawrence T., ed. Somniale Danielis: An Edition of a Medieval Latin Dream
Interpretation Handbook. Frankfurt am Main: P.D. Lang, 1981.
Mathers, S. Liddell MacGregor. The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis) Now First
Translated and Edited from Ancient MSS. in the British Museum. 1888. Reprint, London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.
McNeill, John T. and Helena Gamer, eds. Medieval Handbooks of Penance: A Translation of the
Principal “libri poenitentiales” and Selections from Related Documents. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1990.
Morris, Richard ed. Liber cure cocorum. England: Published for the Philological Society by A.
Asher & Co., 1862.
Nicaise, E. Chirurgie de Maitre Henri de Mondeville: Chirurgien de Philippe de Bel, Roi de
France. Paris: Auguste Aubry, Libraire, 1893.
Oschinsky, Dorothea. Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and
Accounting. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
 302

Pack, R.A., ed. “Auctoris Incerti De Phyiognomia Libellus.” Archives d‟histoire doctrinale et
littéraire du moyen âge 41 (1974): 113-138.
Pack, R.A. and R. Hamilton, ed. “Rodericus de Majoricis: Tractatus Ciromancie.” Archives
d‟histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 38 (1971): 271-305.
Pettit, Edward. Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley
585, The Lacnunga. 2 vols. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
Phillips, Richard L. In Pursuit of Invisibility: Ritual Texts from Late Roman Egypt. Durham,
North Carolina: American Society of Papyrologists, 2009.
Reynes, Robert. The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle: An Edition of Tanner MS
407. Edited by Cameron Louis. New York: Garland, 1980.
Rosenman, Leonard D., trans. The Surgery of Master Henry de Mondeville: Written From 1306
to 1320. 2 vols. Philadelphia, PA: XLibris Corp., 2003-2004.
Rothwell, William. Walter de Bibbesworth, Le Tretiz. Anglo-Norman Text Society Plain Texts
Series. No. 6. London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1990.
Rouse, Richard H. and Mary A. Rouse, eds. Registrum Anglie de Libris Doctorum et Auctorum
Veterum. London: British Library, 1991.
Salter, H.E. ed. Registrum Annalium Collegii Mertonensis, 1483-1521. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1923.
Südhoff, K. “Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie das „schwarezen Todes‟
1348.” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin XVII (1925): 136-138.
Stürzinger, Jakob, ed. Orthographia Gallica: Ältester Traktat über Französische Aussprache und
Orthographie. Heilbronn: Verlag von Gebr. Henninger, 1884.
Thorndike, Lynn, ed. The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1949.
Triumphus, Augustinus. “Il Tractatus contra divinatores et sompniatores di Agostino d‟Ancona:
introduzione e edizione del testo.” Edited by Pierangela Giglioni. Analecta Augustiniana
48 (1985): 5-111.
Véronèse, Julien, ed. L'Ars notoria au Moyen Ages. Introduction et édition critique. Firenze:
SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007.
Viard, Jules, ed. Les Grandes Chroniques de France. Vol. 9. Paris: Librairie ancienne Honore
Champion, 1937.
Woolgar, C.M. Household Accounts from Medieval England. Vol. 1, Introduction, Glossary,
Diet Accounts (i). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Secondary Sources
Acheson, Eric. A Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth-century, c.1422-c.1485.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
 303

Acker, Paul. “The Emergence of an Arithmetical Mentality in Middle English Literature.” The
Chaucer Review 28:3 (1994): 293-302.
Adamson, Melitta Weiss. “The Games Cooks Play: Non-sense Recipes and Practical Jokes in
Medieval Literature.” In Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. Edited by Melitta
Weiss Adamson. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1995.
Aston, T.H., G.D. Duncan, and T.A.R. Evans. “The Medieval Alumni of the University of
Cambridge.” Past & Present 86 (1980): 9-86.
Bailey, Michael. “The Age of Magicians: Periodization in the History of European Magic.”
Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft 3:1 (2008): 1-28.
Barlow, Frank. “The King‟s Evil.” The English Historical Review 95:374 (1980): 3-27.
Bartlett, Robert. The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008.
Bell, David N. “A Cistercian at Oxford: Richard Dove of Buckfast and London, B.L., Sloane
513.” Studia monastica 31:1 (1989): 69-87.
Bellamy, John. Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1973.
Berthelot, Pierre. La chimie au moyen âge. Vol. I. Paris, 1893. Reprint, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller
and Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1967.
Bishop, Edward L. “Book History.” In The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and
Criticism. Edited by Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman. 2nd ed.
Baltimore, 2005. Accessed April 1, 2011. http://litguide.press.jhu.edu.
Bober, Harry. “The Zodiacal Miniature of the „Tres Riches Heures‟ of the Duke of Berry – Its
Sources and Meaning.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948): 1-34.
Borchardt, Frank L. “Magus as Renaissance Man.” Sixteenth Century Journal 21:1 (1990): 57-
76.
Boudet, Jean-Patrice. Entre science et nigromance: Astrologie, divination et magie dans
l‟Occident médiéval (XII-XV siècle). Histoire ancienne et médiévale 83. Paris:
Publications de la Sorbonne, 2006.
Boudet, Jean-Patrice and Julien Véronèse. “Le secret dans la magie rituelle médiévale.”
Micrologus 14 (2006): 101-150.
Braekman, Willy. Magische experimenten en toverpraktijken uit een middelnederlands
handschrift. Ghent: Uitgave van het Seminarie voor Volkskunde Blandijnberg 2, 1966.
Braswell, Laurel. “Utilitarian and Scientific Prose.” In Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to
Major Authors and Genres. Edited by A.S.G. Edwards. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1984, 337-388.
Brooking Rowe, J. Contributions to a History of the Cistercian Houses of Devon. Plymouth: W.
Brendon and Son, 1878.
Bryan, Eric Shane. “Prognostications by Thunder in the Zodiac: MSS Trinity R.14.52, Sloane
636, and PML M.775.” American Notes and Queries 19:4 (2006): 16-22.
 304

Burke, Sir Bernard. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain
& Ireland. Vol. 2. London: Harrison, 1871.
Burnett, Charles. “The Earliest Chiromancy in the West.” In Magic and Divination in the Middle
Ages. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1996, 189-195.
Burnett, Charles and W.F. Ryan, eds. Magic and the Classical Tradition. Warburg Institute
Colloquia 7. London: Warburg Institute, and Turin: Nino Aragno, 2006.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. “Wonder.” American Historical Review 102:1 (1997): 1-26.
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol. 2, 1100-1400 and Vol. 3, 1400-1557.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998-2008.
Carruthers, Mary J. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Clanchy, M.T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1993.
Clark, James G. ed. The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism. Woodbridge, Eng.: Boydell
Press, 2007.
Connolly, Margaret. John Shirley: Book Production and the Noble Household in Fifteenth-
century England. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
Cook, Eleanor. “The Figure of Enigma: Rhetoric, History, Poetry.” Rhetorica 19:4 (2001): 349-
378.
Coppack, Glyn. The White Monks: The Cistercians in Britain 1128-1540. Great Britain: Tempus,
1998.
Coss, Peter. “Aspects of Cultural Diffusion in Medieval England: The Early Romances, Local
Society and Robin Hood.” Past & Present 108 (1985): 35-79.
---. “The Formation of the English Gentry.” Past & Present 147 (1995): 38-64.
---. The Origins of the English Gentry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Curley, Michael J. “John Ergome (1385–1386).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed March 9, 2011.
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14856.
Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of Books?” Dædalus 111:3 (1982): 65-83.
Daston, Lorraine and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750. New York:
Zone Books, 1998.
Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon and
London, 2003.
Dean, Ruth J. and Maureen B. M. Boulton. Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and
Manuscripts. Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series, No. 3.
London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999.
Delaurenti, Béatrice. La puissance des mots = Virtus verborum: débats doctrinaux sur le
pouvoir des incantations au Moyen Âge. Paris: Cerf, 2007.
 305

de Tovar, Claude. “Contamination, interférences et tentatives de systématisation dans la tradition

manuscrite des réceptaires médicaux français le réceptaire de Jean Sauvage.” Revue
d‟histoire des Textes 3 (1973): 115-191.
Donkin, R. A. The Cistercians: Studies in the Geography of Medieval England and Wales.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1978.
Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, 2nd ed.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005.
Dunning, G.C. “Late Medieval Jugs With Lettering.” Medieval Archaeology 11 (1967): 233-241.
Eamon, William. “Alchemy in Popular Culture: Leonardo Fiorvanti and the Search for the
Philosopher‟s Stone,” Early Science and Medicine 5:2 (2000): 196-213.
---. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Easton, Robert. “Thornton, Robert (b. in or before 1397, d. in or before 1465?).” Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed
December 19, 2010. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27360.
Fanger, Claire, ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic. University
Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1998.
---. “Things Done Wisely by a Wise Enchanter: Negotiating the Power of Words in the
Thirteenth Century.” Esoterica 1 (1999): 97-131. Accessed December 12, 2010.
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Fanger.html.
---. “Sacred and Secular Knowledge Systems in the Ars Notoria and the Flowers of Heavenly
Teaching of John of Morigny.” In Die Enzyklopädik der Esoterik: Allwissenheitsmythen
und universalwissenschaftliche Modelle in der Esoterik der Neuzeit. Edited by Andreas
B. Kilcher and Philipp Theisohn. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2010, 157-175.
Fanger, Claire and Nicholas Watson. “The Prologue to John of Morigny‟s Liber Visionum: Text
and Translation.” Esoterica 3 (2001): 108-217.
Fass, Paula. “Cultural History/Social History: Some Reflections on a Continuing Dialogue.”
Journal of Social History 37 (2003): 39-45.
Febvre, Lucien and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-
1800. Translated by David Gerard. London and New York: Verso, 1976.
Finlayson, John. “Reading Romances in Their Manuscript: Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript 91
(“Thornton”).” Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 123:4 (2006): 632–666.
Folkerts, Menso. Die älteste mathematische Aufgabensammlung in lateinischer Sprache: Die
Alkuin zugeschrieben Propositiones ad Acuendos Iuvenes. Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, 116. Band, 6.
Abhandlung; Wien, 1978.
Forbes, Thomas R. “Verbal Charms in British Folk Medicine.” Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 115:4 (1971): 293-316.
 306

French, Roger. “Astrology in Medical Practice.” In Practical Medicine From Salerno to the
Black Death. Edited by Luis García Ballester, Roger French, Jon Arrizabalaga, and
Andrew Cunningham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 30-59.
Friedman, John B. Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages.
Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Fulton, Rachel. From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Galloway, Andrew. “The Rhetoric of Riddling in Late-Medieval England: The “Oxford”
Riddles, the Secretum philosophorum, and the Riddles in Piers Plowman.” Speculum
70:1 (1995): 68-105.
Getz, Faye, ed. Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the
Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1991.
---. Medicine in the English Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Gillespie, Alexandra. “Books.” In Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature. Vol. 1,
Middle English. Edited by Paul Strohm. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 86-103.
---. “The History of the Book.” New Medieval Literatures 9 (2007): 245-286.
Gillespie, Alexandra and Daniel Wakelin, eds. The Production of Books in England 1350-1500.
Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011.
Glick, Thomas, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, eds. Medieval Science, Technology, and
Medicine: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Gray, Douglas. “Notes on Some Middle English Charms.” In Chaucer and Middle English
Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins. Edited by Beryl Rowland. London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1974.
Griffiths, Jeremy and Derek Pearsall, eds. Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-
1475. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Grund, Peter. “„ffor to make Azure as Albert biddes‟: Medieval English Alchemical Writings in
the Pseudo-Albertan Tradition.” Ambix 53:1 (2006): 21-42.
---. “Textual Alchemy: The Transformation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus‟s Semita Recta into the
Mirror of Lights.” Ambix 56:3 (2009): 202-225.
Gunther, R.T. Early Science in Oxford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929.
Hanegraaff, Wouter, ed. Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. In collaboration with
Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Hanna, Ralph III. “The Growth of Robert Thornton‟s Books.” Studies in Bibliography 40 (1987):
51-61.
---. “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity: Conditions of Literary Production in Late Medieval
England.” In The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany. Edited
 307

by Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press, 1996, 37-51.
---. Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1996.
The History of the University of Oxford. 8 vols. Edited by T.H. Asten. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984-2000.
Holmyard, E.J. Alchemy. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1968.
Horrox, Rosemary, ed. Fifteenth-century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval
England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Horstman, C., ed. Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole. Vol. 1. London: Swan
Sonnenschein, 1895.
Hughes, Barnabas B. “‛De regulis generalibus‟: a Thirteenth-Century English Mathematical
Tract on Problem Solving.” Viator 11 (1980): 209-224.
Hunt, Tony. Plants Names of Medieval England. Great Britain: D.S. Brewer, 1989.
---. Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England: Introduction and Texts. Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1990.
Ivy, G.S. “The Bibliography of the Manuscript-Book.” In The English Library before 1700.
Edited by Francis Wormald and C.E. Wright. London: Althone Press, 1958.
Jewitt, Llewellynn. “A Paper on Encaustic Tiles.” Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan
Architectural Society 4 (1853): 79-85.
Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1998.
Johnson, Ian R. “John Metham, Amoryus and Cleopes: Prologue and Ending.” In The Idea of the
Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520. Edited by
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans. University
Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, 50-56.
Johnston, Michael. “A New Document Relating to the Life of Robert Thornton.” Library 8:3
(2007): 304-313.
Jones, Malcolm. “Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art II: Sexist Satire and Popular
Punishments.” Folklore 101:1 (1990): 69-87.
---. “Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art III: Erotic Animal Imagery.” Folklore 102:2 (1991):
192-219.
Jones, Peter Murray. “Fayreford, Thomas (fl. 1400–1450).” In Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Accessed December 19, 2010.
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45762.
Jones, Peter Murray and Lea Olsan. “Middleham Jewel: Ritual, Power, and Devotion.” Viator 31
(2000): 249-290.
Keiser, George R. “Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91: The Life and Milieu of the Scribe.”
Studies in Bibliography 32 (1979): 158-179.
 308

---. “More Light on the Life and Milieu of Robert Thornton.” Studies in Bibliography 36 (1983):
111-119.
Kelly, Henry A. The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1985.
Kennedy, Ruth. “The Evangelist in Robert Thornton‟s Devotional Book: Organizing Principles
at the Level of the Quire.” Journal of the Early Book Society 8 (2005): 71-95.
Kibre, Pearl. “Albertus Magnus on Alchemy.” In J.A. Weisheiple, ed. Albertus Magnus and the
Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980,
187-202.
---. “Alchemical Writings Ascribed to Albertus Magnus.” Speculum 17 (1942): 499-518.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer‟s Manual of the Fifteenth Century.
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
---. Magic in the Middle Ages. 1989. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
---. “Magic Manuals” in Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and
Customs. Edited by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara, and John Lindow. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002, 253.
---. “Major Currents in Late Medieval Devotion.” In Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages
and Reformation. Edited by Jill Raitt. New York: Crossroad, 1987, 75-108.
---. Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1984.
Kirsch, J.P. “St. Agatha.” In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company,
1907. Accessed February 15, 2010. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01203c.htm.
Klaassen, Frank. “Learning and Masculinity in Manuscripts of Ritual Magic of the Later Middle
Ages and Renaissance.” Sixteenth Century Journal 38:1 (2007): 49-76.
---. “Medieval Ritual Magic in the Renaissance.” Aries 3:2 (2003): 166-199.
Kruger, Steven F. Dreaming in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Kwakkel, Erik. “A New Type of Book for a New Type of Reader: The Emergence of Paper in
Vernacular Book Production.” The Library 4 (2003): 219-248.
Láng, Benedek. Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of
Central Europe. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.
Leader, Damian Riehl. A History of the University of Cambridge. Vol. I, The University to 1546.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Lochrie, Karma. Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Louis, Cameron. “Reynes, Robert (d. 1505x12).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Accessed December 19, 2010.
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/93682.
 309

Luria, Maxwell S. and Richard L. Hoffman, eds. Middle English Lyrics. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 1974.
Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays. Edited by Margaret R. Schleissner.
Garland Medieval Casebooks, 8. New York: Garland, 1995.
Matheson, Lister M., ed. Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England. East Lansing, MI:
Colleagues Press, 1994.
McIntosh, Angus, M.L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval
English. Vol. 3, Linguistic Profiles. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986.
McNamer, Sarah. Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Meale, Carol M. “The Politics of Book Ownership: The Hopton Family and Bodleian Library,
Digby MS 185.” In Prestige, Authority and Power in Late-Medieval Manuscripts and
Texts. Edited by Felicity Riddy. York: York Medieval Press, 2000, 103-131.
Merrilees, Brian. “Donatus and the Teaching of French in Medieval England.” Anglo-Norman
Anniversary Essays. Edited by Ian Short. Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional
Publications Series. No. 2. London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1993, 273-292.
Migne, Jacques-Paul. Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina. Vol. 17. Sancti Ambrosii,
mediolanensis episcopi, opera omnia. Migne, 1879.
More, Rebecca S. “Phelips, Sir Edward (c.1555–1614).” Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edition, Jan 2008.
Accessed May 8, 2010. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22089.
Newman, William. “Technology and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages.” Isis 80:3
(1989): 423-445.
Olsan, Lea T. “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice.” Social History of
Medicine 16:3 (2003): 343-366.
---. “The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books.” In Charms,
Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan
Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 214-237.
---. “The Inscription of Charms in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts.” Oral Tradition 14:2 (1999): 401-
419.
---. “The Language of Charms in a Middle English Recipe Collection.” American Notes and
Queries 18:3 (2005): 29-35.
---. “Latin Charms in British Library, MS Royal 12.B.XXV.” Manuscripta 33:2 (1989): 119-128.
---. “Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition.” Oral
Tradition 7:1 (1992): 116-142.
Orme, Nicholas. Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England. New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Overty, Joanne Filippone. “The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in
England, 1300–1483.” Book History 11 (2008): 1-32.
 310

Page, Sophie. “Magic at St. Augustine‟s Canterbury, in the late Middle Ages.” PhD diss., The
Warburg Institute, 2000.
---. Magic in Medieval Manuscripts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
---, ed. The Unorthodox Imagination in Late Medieval Britain. Manchester and New York:
Manchester University Press, 2010.
Pahta, Päiva. “Code-Switching in Medieval Medical Writing.” In Medical and Scientific Writing
in Late Medieval English. Edited by Irma Taavitsainen and Päiva Pahta. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004, 73-99.
Parkes, Malcolm B. English Cursive Book Hands, 1250-1500. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
---. Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes. Great Britain: Ashgate, 2008.
Pearsall, Derek. “The Whole Book: Late Medieval English Manuscript Miscellanies and their
Modern Interpreters.” In Imagining the Book. Edited by Stephen Kelly and John J.
Thompson. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005, 17-30.
Pedersen, Olaf. “Sacrobosco, John de (d. c.1236).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edition, Jan 2010. Accessed May 6,
2010. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13631.
Pereira, Michela. “Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Late Middle Ages.”
Speculum 74:2 (1999): 336-356.
Peters, Edward. The Magician, the Witch, and the Law. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1978.
Petti, Anthony G. English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden. London: E. Arnold, 1977.
Pingree, David. “The Diffusion of Arabic Magical Texts in Western Europe.” In La Diffusione
delle Scienze Islamiche nel Medio Evo Europo. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei,
1987, 57-102.
Pollard, Graham. “The Company of Stationers Before 1557.” The Library 18:1 (1937): 1-38.
Power, Amanda. “A Mirror for Every Age: The Reputation of Roger Bacon.” English Historical
Review 121 (2006): 657-692.
Rawcliffe, Carole. Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England. Stroud, Gloucestershire: A.
Sutton, 1995.
Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Issue 4. London: H.M. Stationery
Office, 1874.
Rider, Catherine. Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006.
Robbins, Rossell Hope. “Medical Manuscripts in Middle English.” Speculum 45:3 (1970): 393-
415.
Robbins, Rossell Hope and J.L. Cutler. Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse.
Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965.
Roper, Jonathan, ed. Charms and Charming in Europe. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
 311

Rosenwein, Barbara H. “Worrying About Emotions in History.” The American Historical

Review 107:3 (2002): 821-845.
---. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press:
2006.
Rothwell, William. “The Teaching of French in Medieval England.” The Modern Language
Review 63:1 (1968): 37-46.
Rubin, Joan Shelley. “What is the History of the History of Books?” The Journal of American
History 90:2 (2003): 555-575.
Salzman, L.F. ed. The Victoria History of the County of Northampton. Vol. 4. Victoria History of
the Counties of England. London: A. Constable, 1937.
Scott, Kathleen. “Caveat lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustrations of Fifteenth-
Century English Manuscripts.” English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700 1 (1989): 19-63.
Scribner, Robert W. “The Reformation, Popular Magic, and the „Disenchantment of the World.‟”
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23:3 (1993): 475-94.
Shaw, Richard. “At the Borders of Medicine and Magic: A New Work by Ælfric?” Unpublished
paper presented at the Seventh Annual ASSC Graduate Student Conference, “Crises of
Categorization.” Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, February 12, 2011.
Sheldon, Suzanne Eastman. “The Eagle: Bird of Magic and Medicine in a Middle English
Translation of the Kyranides.” Tulane Studies in English 22 (1977): 1-20.
---. “Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts.”
PhD diss., Tulane University, 1978.
Singer, Dorothea Waley. “Alchemical Writings Attributed to Roger Bacon.” Speculum 7:1
(1932): 80-86.
Skemer, Don. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.
Smallwood, T.M. “„God was Born in Bethlehem…‟: The Tradition of a Middle English Charm.”
Medium Ævum 58 (1989): 206-223.
Spruyt, Joke. “Peter of Spain.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007. Accessed October
20, 2010. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peter-spain/.
Stéphan, John. Buckfast Abbey: Historical Guide. Revised and enlarged edition. Buckfast:
Buckfast Abbey, 1923.
---. A History of Buckfast Abbey, from 1018 to 1968. Bristol: The Burleigh Press, 1970.
Strohm, Paul. “Writing and Reading.” In A Social History of England, 1200-1500. Edited by
Rosemary Horrox and W. Mark Ormrod. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006,
454-472.
Szirmai, J.A. The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999.
Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings
of Modern Neurology. 2nd edition revised. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press,
1971.
 312

Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Century England. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.
Thompson, John J. “The Compiler in Action: Robert Thornton and the „Thornton Romances‟ in
Lincoln Cathedral MS 91.” In Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England:
The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study. Edited by Derek Pearsall. Great Britain:
D.S. Brewer, 1983, 113-124.
---. Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript, British Library MS Additional
31042. Great Britain: D.S. Brewer, 1987.
Thompson, S. H. The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 1235-1254. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1940. Reprint, New York, 1971.
Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York: Macmillan,
1923-1958.
Travaglia, Pinella. Magic, Causality and Intentionality: The Doctrine of the Ray in al-Kindi.
SISMEL: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1999.
Voigts, Linda Ehrsam. “The Character of the „Carecter‟: Ambiguous Sigils in Scientific and
Medical Texts.” In Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and
Manuscripts. Edited by A.J. Minnis. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989, 91-109.
--- “The Latin verse and Middle English Prose Texts on the Sphere of Life and Death in Harley
3719.” The Chaucer Review 21:2 (1986): 291-305.
Wace, Henry. Dictionary of Christian Biography & Literature to the End of the 6th Century A.D.,
With an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies. London: Murray, 1911.
Wilson, Stephen. The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe.
London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2000.
Wood, A.C. List of Escheators for England and Wales. Vol. 72. London: List & Index Society,
1932.
Wright, Susan M. The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth-century. Chesterfield: Derbyshire
Record Society, 1983.
Zambelli, Paola. The Speculum astronomiae and its Engima: Astrology, Theology and Science in
Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries. Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1992.