The notebook of John Crophill, a part-time medical practitioner in Wix in northeast Essex and bailiff for Wix Priory, a small community of Benedictine nuns. Harley 1735 was originally two separate books bound together. The first book is made up of prognostications and cooking recipes from the first half of the fifteenth century. The second book contains astrological and medical texts copied for Crophill in the second half of the fifteenth century. Crophill’s notebook also contains charms and a list of patients he treated.
Date: s. xv
Scribes: John Crophill
Medieval owners: John Crophill
Original location or linguistic profile: Essex/Norfolk
Magic Category: charms, medical
Specific magic texts: Charms for wounds (fol. 52v) and for childbirth (fol. 40r).
Charm motifs: Sancta Maria peperit
Tres boni fratres
Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV
Digitised: Yes, on the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts page
Bibliography: Lois Ayoub. “John Crophill‟s Books: An Edition of British Library MS Harley 1735.” PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1994.
Laura Mitchell. “The Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-century England.” PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 2011.
Late Medieval English Magic 