Now that I’ve lured in new followers with cat pictures, it’s time for a lesson on medicine and magic in #medieval #manuscripts! Shown are 2 pages from a 12th c. manuscript, now Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.36, which includes St. Bernard's "De Consideratione" and a history of Ireland. - ThreadSky

winstonblack.bsky.social • 19 days ago

Now that I’ve lured in new followers with cat pictures, it’s time for a lesson on medicine and magic in #medieval #manuscripts!
Shown are 2 pages from a 12th c. manuscript, now Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.36, which includes St. Bernard's "De Consideratione" and a history of Ireland.

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winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

The professionaly written copy of De Consideratione ends in the first column, fol. 41ra. It's followed by two and a half columns of medical recipes in two or more shaky hands, and then a nicely written "Susanna Charm" in a tight pretty script, all added later 12th century.

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

The scribes, probably monks at an English monastery, knew the difference between natural remedies and a magical spell, and kept them separate. The "natural section includes cures for fleas and lice and arthritis, recipes for myrtle oil and pennyroyal oil, an opium compound, and for making starch.

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

The "charm" shows the overlap between medicine, religion, and magic in this period. It gives instructions in Anglo-Norman for a ritual against worms and fistulae. After going to Mass, the patient says a lengthy charm, including "The gout is dead. The abscess is dad. The worm is dead...May it be."

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

Katherine Storm Hindley gives a full transcription and translation of this charm in her excellent book, Textual Magic: Charms and Written Amulets in Medieval England (Chicago, 2023), 161-162.

And the manuscript is digitized here, https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/B.15.36/

radicalgremlin.bsky.social•7 days ago

📌

stonkers.bsky.social•19 days ago

Poor dad, catching Anglo-Norman strays

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

Oops, "dead" of course! Typing too quickly.

stonkers.bsky.social•19 days ago

haha, I assumed. But also, you never know, maybe throwing shade at dad was a vital part of the ritual!

leoba.bsky.social•19 days ago

psst @viktorathelstan.bsky.social

viktorathelstan.bsky.social•17 days ago

Thank you for tagging me in this!

leoba.bsky.social•17 days ago

It looked like something you'd appreciate <3

rogerday.bsky.social•19 days ago

I'm curious about how the scribing worked, forgive me if my question is a little broadly scoped

What's the history of that script?

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

Good question! The scribes are all using versions of scripts showing the transition between "Caroline minuscule" and "Gothic" bookhand. The pro scribe on the left is using an English "protogothic" developed in the 12th century, but the recipe writers are using less formal "late Caroline" scripts.

winstonblack.bsky.social•19 days ago

Here's a good site on the development of medieval book scripts: https://www.adfontes.uzh.ch/en/tutorium/schriften-lesen/schriftgeschichte/spaetkarolingische-und-fruehgotische-minuskeln/

radicalgremlin.bsky.social•7 days ago

📌

rogerday.bsky.social•19 days ago

Thank you

I was imagining a kind of a book network connecting European monasteries

The mechanics of that network worked is probably lost

rogerday.bsky.social•19 days ago

There a comp sci joke about bandwidth being defined by a van full of tapes

Here it's a caravan of donkeys:)

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