Anglo-Saxon Medical Manuscript

The verso is blank, except for two lines of verse in a hand of s.xi, and, repeated, s.xii: 'Psallere qui docuit dulci modulamine sanctis / Nouerat iste deceem legis qui uerba dedisset'. These are the first two lines of a poem ascribed to St Jerome (M. Ihm, Epigrammata Damasi, 1895, no. 63).

At other repositories:

The Bodleian Library, Oxford: this leaf was part of a volume of manuscript fragments labelled B.12.26, now Bodleian Library MS. Lat. Misc. b.17, purchased in 1963.

Lanhydrock, Cornwall: the printed school book into whose binding this leaf was incorporated (see Custodial History) remains in the library at Lanhydrock (shelfmark D.7.34), now in a 19th century binding.

Translation

For heartache, take broad-bishopwort, field-bishopwort, great-wort, comfrey, sweet-gale, hindheal, organe, stichwort, horehound, sage, alehoof, agrimony, cinqeufoil, black hellebore, gentian, mugwort, southernwood; pound all together; make an ale. Drink of it when you have need.

For lung disease, henbane, mulberry, horehound, betony; boil into an ale and [let the patient] drink at times as he has need. Let him take afterwards an eggshell-full of melted butter; then cover him up warm, and let him then rest.

To make yourself an ointment for tumours, one shall take pure honey, such as is used to lighten porridge, boil it to almost the thickness of porridge; take radish, elder, wild thyme, cinquefoil, pound them as well as you can; and when it is almost done mix in a good measure of garlic and put to it as much pepper as you think.

A salve against tumours, water cucumber, a handfull of spearmint, dittany, woodwax, mulberry; boil in malt-ale; squeeze through a linen-cloth, boil in honey-droppings; taken then clean spring-barley, grind [it] in a handmill; then take madder, dry it in [an oven]; grind a handful of red-cabbage seed in a peppermill; boil all together, not too hard. Use it three times a week, as is most convenient. This salve is good for tumours and for the bleeding piles. But it should be stirred up, lest it should be spoiled.

For liver disease, take liverwort; let it be carried home under your knee; boil it in milk from a cow of one clour and mix butter with it.