Lost Manuscript

Babel MS 25

The fragments identified to date all come from a relatively short work and presumably sat within a larger volume, perhaps a copy of the ars medicinae known as Articella. The glossing of the text, clarifying the meaning, suggests that this was a copy intended for practical purposes. It may not have been consider useful for very long, however: the doodled coats-of-arms added to H.b.25 ii suggests that in the fourteenth century at least one owner was not concentrating on the text.Three bifolia survive, which, judging from the text they provide, come from two separate quires.

Textual information

Subject: 
Medicine
Author of work: 
Isaac Israeli (trans. Constantinus Africanus)
Title of work: 
Liber urinarum
Language: 
Latin

Palaeography

Type of script: 
Gothic
Script detail: 
Textura Currens
Place of production: 
England
Date of production: 
s. xiii 1

Material information

Material: 
Parchment
Layout: 
Long lines with glossing in two defined columns and lower margin
Decoration: 
Section headings are rubricated.
Ruling: 
ruled in plummet for text and gloss, with two sets of out double binding lines

Dimensions

Page: 

?275 (206++)mm (h) x 193+mm (w)

Number of lines: 
28
Number of columns: 
1 + 2 cols of gloss
Height of minims: 
2mm
Space between lines: 
5mm
Height of written space: 
135+mm
Width of written space: 
75/80mm
Lower margin: 
71+mm
Inner margin: 
37+mm
Width of text 1: 
20/25mm
Reservation 1: 
3mm
Reservation 2: 
3/5mm
Width of text 3: 
23/25mm
Outer margin: 
18+mm
Height of minims (gloss): 
1mm

History and further information

Information on dismantling: 

The dismantling can be dated with some precision: that the bifolia come from separate quires demonstrates it must have pulled apart at the binder's and the binder can be named as George Chastelaine, who worked in Oxford, with these bindings date from between 1502 and his death in 1513.

Number of folios represented: 
6 (as 3 bifolia)
Bibliography: 

POxBo, 29.

On the Articella generally, see Cornelius O'Boyle, Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Copies of the Ars Medicine (Cambridge, 1998), a listing which does not include fragments.

Date last updated: 
Thursday, April 22, 2021 - 16:46