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Detailed record for Sloane 56

Author John Arderne
Title Liber Medicinarum
Origin England
Date 1st quarter of the 15th century
Language Latin
Script Gothic cursive
Scribe Willelmus de Seton
Decoration Large initials in red. Paraphs in red. Highlighting of letters in red. Line-fillers in red. Drawings in brown, red, yellow and/or green, 1 also with blue (f. 85v), often of plants or body parts, or surgical procedures.
Dimensions in mm 265 x 145 (185 x 100)
Official foliation ff. 100 ( +3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end)
Form Parchment codex
Binding BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1970.
Provenance Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector; acquired by him in 1693 for £1 2s (see his list of manuscripts in Sloane 3972C; M. A. E. Nickson, 'Hans Sloane, Book Collector and Cataloguer, 1682-1698', British Library Journal, 13 (1987), 52-89 (p. 67) (his manuscript no. 59).
Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly founded British Museum in 1753.
Select bibliography Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Sloanianae (Manuscripts 1-1091), ([London: British Museum], no date), no. 56.

Karl Sudhoff, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter: Graphische und textliche Untersuchungen in mittelalterlichen Handschriften, 2 vols (Leipzig: Barth, 1914-1918), I, Studien zur Geschichte der Medizin, pp. 10, 58, pl. XII.

Treatises of Fistula in Ano: Haemorrhoids, and Clysters by John Arderne, ed. by D'Arcy Power, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 139 (London: Early English Text Society, 1910), p. xxxiv.

Loren MacKinney, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 5, 2 parts bound together (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965), Part I, Early Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts, no. 87B, fig. 87B; with Thomas Herndon, Part II, Medical Miniatures in Extant Manuscripts: A Checklist, no. 70.

Peter Murray Jones, ‘Sicut hic depingitur . . . : John of Arderne and English Medical Illustration in the 14th and 15th Centuries’, in Die Kunst und das Studium der Natur vom 14. zum 16. Jahrhundert, ed. by Wolfram Prinz and Andreas Beyer (Cologne: Acta humaniora, 1987), pp. 103-26 (pp. 117-19, 122, 124 n. 17, 125 n. 19, 21, 25-26, 28, 30-32, 35, p. 126 n. 39, figs 7, 17-18).

Peter Murray Jones, ‘Four Middle English Translation of John of Arderne’, in Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. by A. J. Minnis, York Manuscripts Conferences: Proceedings Series, I (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1989), pp. 61-89 (pp. 66 n. 20, 68-69, 71, 76).

A. I. Doyle, ‘Book Production by the Monasatic Orders in England (c. 1375-1530), in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 1-21 (p. 18 n. 56).

Peter Murray Jones, 'British Library MS Sloane 76: A Translator's Holograph', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 21-39 (p. 39 n. 18).

Carole Rawcliffe, Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1995), pl. on p. 143.

Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), I, 72 n. 22, 75 n. 59; II, 199, 201.

Peter Murray Jones, ‘Staying with the Programme: Illustrated Manuscripts of John of Arderne, c. 1380-c. 1550’, in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 204-27 (pp. 207-08, 214-19, pls 1, 4, 5, 7, 8; as 'S').

Lea T. Olsan, 'Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice', Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 343-66 (p. 346).


Images
* * *
 
Bell

f. 2
Bell
Plant

f. 4
Plant
Hand

f. 11
Hand
 
Genitals

f. 30
Genitals
Leg

f. 31v
Leg
Surgical procedures

f. 44
Surgical procedures
 
Owl

f. 54v
Owl
Drawings

f. 59v
Drawings
Detail

f. 60v
Detail
 
Head

f. 65
Head
Animals and head

f. 65
Animals and head
Hand and plant

f. 66
Hand and plant
 
Feather and instrument

f. 70
Feather and instrument
Text page

f. 72v
Text page
Coat of arms

f. 73v
Coat of arms
 
Plant

f. 81
Plant
Detail

f. 83
Detail
Chaplain

f. 84
Chaplain
 
Chaplain

f. 84
Chaplain
Man

f. 84v
Man
Man

f. 84v
Man
 
Man

f. 85v
Man
Man

f. 85v
Man
Man on crutches

f. 86v
Man on crutches
 
Detail

f. 86v
Detail

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