Volume XXVII: The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia

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Volume XXVII: The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia

This manuscript, written in the early eleventh century and combining the Herbarius Apuleii with the so-called Medicina de quadrupedibus, is a magnificient example of the common pharmacopoeia of the high Middle Ages which was in use until the expansion of the great medical Schools of Salermo and Montpellier. Of the several manuscripts of the Old English translation that survive, it is the only illustrated copy. The Old English descriptions are accompanied by no less than 184 illustrations of plants and forty-seven of animals and serpents. The Illustrator was a highly gifted artist who had access to a late-antique or Carolingian text which reproduced much more beautiful and naturalistic late-classical material than survives in any extant Latin codex, as is demonstrated by more than fifty reproductions of comparative illustrations from other sources. Most of the plants can be identified and a large number are still in use by today’s herbalists for the same medical conditions.

From the publisher's website: http://www.rosenkilde-bagger.dk

11v Full page miniature. 

12r-18v col.1, line 1 Table of contents

19r Full page miniature

19v Full page miniature

20r-74v OE version of three Latin texts that make up the "Herbarius"

    a. 20r col.1, line 1-21v col.1 line4 "De herba vettonica liber"

    b. 21v col.1 line 14-58r col.2 line 11 "Herbarius"

    c. 58r col.2 line 11-74v col.2 line 31 "Liber medicinae ex herbis femininis" and "Curae herbarum"

75r-82v col.2 line 20 OE version of three Latin texts that make up the "Medicina de quadrupedibus"

    a. 75r col.1 line 15-75v col.2 line 14 "De taxone liber"

    b. 75v col.2 line 15-76r col.2 line 8 "A treatise on the healing powers of the mulberry tree"

    c. 76r col.2 line 17-82v col.2 line 20 "Liber medicinae ex animalibus"