London, British Library, Sloane MS 1314

Date: s. xv

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile: Derbyshire

Magic Category: charms, medical

charms, protection

Specific magic texts: Medical charms for fevers (2), the hawe, toothache (2), bloody flux, longinus miles, flum jordan, whether a person will live or die, sleep, childbirth, worm in the ear, falling evil, tres boni fratres, wounds (2), against wicked spirits.

Charm motifs: Coniuro te vermiculum?
Flum Jordan
Longinus miles
Tres boni fratres

Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV

Digitised: No.

Bibliography: 

London, British Library, Sloane MS 468

Contains the Leechcraft discussed by Lea Olsan (see below)

Date: s. xv

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: medical charms

protection charms

thief charms

Specific magic texts: Medical charms mostly: for the hawe, bloody flux, two charms for toothache, to staunch bleeding, whether a patient will live or die, for childbirth, for worm in the ear, two charms for wounds, against wicked spirits, four charms for fevers, falling evil, and against thieves.

Charm motifs: flum jordan
Longinus miles
tres boni fratres
Coniuro te vermiculum?

Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV

Digitised: No

Bibliography: Lea T. Olsan. “Charms in Medieval Memory.” In Charms and Charming in Europe. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 59-90.

T.M. Smallwood. “The Transmission Charms, Medieval and Modern.” In Charms and Charming in Europe. Edited by Jonathan Roper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 11-31.

London, British Library, Sloane MS 374

Contains notes on uroscopy (fol. 5v) (cf. Harley MS 1735), the Leechcraft discussed by Lea Olsan (see below) (fol. 14) and cookery recipes.

Date: s. xv

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, medical

charms, protection

charms, thieves

Specific magic texts: The medical treatise contains 23 charms for fevers (2), hawe, toothache (2), to stop bleeding, sleep, childbirth, worm in the ear, falling evil, wicked spirits, and thieves. As Olsan notes, all of the charms have been censored with thick, heavy lines so that only the headings and a few words to identify the charms remain.

Charm motifs: Ante portam
Coniuro te vermiculum
El elþe
Five wounds
Flum Jordan
Iesus sedebat
Iesus that was in
In Bedlam God
Jaspar Melchior Balthasar
Longinus miles
Pater est
Sancta Maria peperit
Stabat Iesus
Toby
Tres boni fratres
Virgo Apollonia
Ysmael

Online Information: Entry in the Middle English Compendium Hyperbibliography

Entry in the DIMEV

Digitised: No

Bibliography:  Lea T. Olsan. “The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books.” In Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 214-237.

London, British Library, Harley MS 2558

The commonplace book of Thomas Fayreford, a fifteenth-century physician who worked in Gloucestershire, Oxford, Somerset and Devon. This manuscript is notable for including a list of his patients and medical cases.

Date: s. xvⁱⁿ

Scribes: Thomas Fayreford

Medieval owners: Thomas Fayreford

Original location or linguistic profile: Gloucestershire, Oxford, Somerset and Devon

Magic Category: charms, medical

natural magic

Specific magic texts: Charms for blessing an herb; wounds; pain of head, abscess, gout; spot in the eye; nosebleed; toothache; bone caught in the throat; sore throat; poison; paralysis and epilepsy; excessive menstrual flow; childbirth; conception; epilepsy; demon; fevers; staunching blood; bite or puncture; spasm; gout; a miracle cure. There is also directions to fix a toothache using natural magic.

Charm motifs: Adonay. Emanuel
Ananizapta
Caro caruce
ecce crucem
ililir.ilililr.ilililr.
Jaspar Melchior Balthasar
Longinus miles
Pater est
Recede demon
Rex Pax Nax
St. Nicasse
Tres boni fratres
Virga Apollonia

Online Information: A detailed record from the BL Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts

Digitised: Yes, on the British Library Digitised Manuscripts site

Bibliography: Laura Mitchell. “The Cultural Uses of Magic in Fifteenth-century England.” PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 2011.

Peter Murray Jones. “Harley MS 2558: A Fifteenth-Century Medical Commonplace Book”. Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine: A Book of Essays. Ed. Margaret R. Schleissner. Garland Medieval Casebooks, 8 (New York: Garland, 1995), 35-54.

—. “Thomas Fayreford: An English Fifteenth-Century Medical Practitioner”. Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease. Ed. Roger French and others (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 156-83 (pp. 166-67).

—. “Witnesses to medieval medical practice in the Harley collection.” Electronic British Library Journal 8 (2008): 1-13.

Lea T. Olsan. “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice.” Social History of Medicine 16:3 (2003): 343-366.

—. “Charms in Medieval Memory.” In Charms and Charming in Europe. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 59-90.

London, British Library, Harley MS 2378

A collection of medical, culinary and alchemical texts and recipes, possibly compiled by its 15th-century owner, Nicholas Spalding.

Date: s. xiii-xviii

Scribes: Nicholas Spalding

Medieval owners: Nicholas Spalding; Johannes Lundon or Luverdon

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, medical

magic tricks

natural magic

recipes and experiments

secrets

Specific magic texts: 17th c. charm to extract a thorn (fol. 16v); 15th c. charm against toothache or wounds in 21 couplets (fols. 143v-144r); 14th c. charms relating to bleeding and bloodletting in French and Latin; a text of magic tricks titled Ludi nature regis Salomonis (fols. 182v-183); Johannes Paulinus, De corio serpentis, a text on the magical properties of snakes. It also contains the Secreta Alberti on herbs, stones, and animals.

Charm motifs: Flum Jordan
Tres boni fratres

Online Information: Entry in the Middle English Compendium HyperBibliography

Digitised: Yes, available on the British Library Digitised Manuscripts site

Bibliography: Rossell Hope Robbins. “Medical Manuscripts in Middle English.” Speculum 45:3 (1970): 393-415.

Bruno Roy. “The Household Encyclopedia as Magic Kit: Medieval Popular Interest in Pranks and Illusions*.” The Journal of Popular Culture 14:1 (1980): 60-69.

London, British Library, Harley MS 1735

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.

London, British Library, Harley MS 1600

A copy of the “Leechcraft” discussed by Lea Olsan in “The Corpus of Charms” (see below).

Date: s. xv

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, medical

charms, protection

charms, thieves

Specific magic texts: Medical charms for fevers (3); the hawe; whether a patient will live or die; worm in the ear; toothache; falling evil; wounds (2, one in verse); and a charm against thieves

Charm motifs: Christus tonat
Coniuro te vermiculum
El elþe
Five croppes
In Bedlam God
Jaspar Melchior Balthasar
Pater est
St. Susanne
Toby
Tres boni fratres
Virgo Apollonia
Y conjure

Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV

Digitised: No

Bibliography: Lea T. Olsan. “The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books.” In Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 214-237.

Suzanne Eastman Sheldon. “Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts.” PhD diss., Tulane University, 1978.

London, British Library, Additional MS 33996

A copy of the “Leechcraft” discussed by Lea Olsan in “The Corpus of Charms” (see below). Contains a copy of John of Gaddesden’s Rosa Medicinae. Contains texts in Latin, Middle English, and Anglo Norman.

Date: s. xiv-xv (c. 1450)

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, animal

charms, medical

charms, protection

talismans

Specific magic texts: Charms to staunch bleeding; fevers (4); hawe; bloody flux; live or die; childbirth; worm in the ear; toothache; falling evil; wounds (2, one in verse); wicked spirits. Charms appear on fols. 76v–148v. Contains instructions for an amulet for conception that can be tested by suspending it over a tree to make it bear fruit (fol. 153v). Also has a charm for the farcy (a form of glanders) following the leechcraft.

Charm motifs: Ante portam
Christus tonat
Coniuro te vermiculum
El elþe
Five croppes
Flum Jordan
Iesus sedebat
Iesus that was in
Longinus miles
Pater est
St. Susanne
Stabat Iesus
Toby
tres boni fratres
Virgo Apollonia
Y conjure
Ysmael

Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV

Digitised: No

Bibliography: Tony Hunt. Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England: Introduction and Texts. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990.

Lea T. Olsan. “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice.” Social History of Medicine 16:3 (2003): 343-366.

—.“The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books.” In Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 214-237.

—. “Latin Charms of Medieval England: Verbal Healing in a Christian Oral Tradition.” Oral
Tradition 7:1 (1992): 116-142.

Suzanne Eastman Sheldon. “Middle English and Latin Charms, Amulets, and Talismans from Vernacular Manuscripts.” PhD diss., Tulane University, 1978.

T.M. Smallwood. “Conformity and Originality in Middle English Charms.” In Charms, Charmers, and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan Roper. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 87-99.

London, British Library, Additional MS 33972

Medical manuscript with Middle English recipes and texts on bloodletting,

Date: s. xv

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, medical

Specific magic texts: A charm for wounds and to see whether a patient will live or die.

Charm motifs: Tres boni fratres

Online Information:

Digitised: No

Bibliography:

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 1477

Twelve manuscripts bound together. The first manuscript contains a copy of the Leechcraft discussed by Lea Olsan (see below). Charms are crossed out, but still visible.

Date: s. xv-xvii

Scribes:

Medieval owners:

Original location or linguistic profile:

Magic Category: charms, medical

Specific magic texts: Charms for the hawe; toothache; bloody flux; whether someone will live or die; sleep; childbirth; fevers (2); falling evil; wounds (2)

Charm motifs: Christus Tonat
El elþe
Five Croppes
Flum Jordan
Iesus Sedebat
Longinus Miles
Stabat Iesus
St. Susanne
Toby
Tres Boni Fratres
Ysmael
Y conjure

Online Information: Entry in the DIMEV

Online copy of the Ashmole Manuscript Catalogue

Digitised: No

Bibliography: Lea T. Olsan. “The Corpus of Charms in the Middle English Leechcraft Remedy Books.” In Charms, Charmers and Charming: International Research on Verbal Magic. Edited by Jonathan Roper. Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 214-237.