A Trilingual Medical Compendium from Medieval Oxford, Now in the Collection of the State Library Victoria.

Abstract

A previously unstudied trilingual medieval medical manuscript, ca. 1400, RARES 091 M31, has been in the State Library Victoria, Melbourne, since 1862. The texts in this codex reveal the pedagogical and personal interests of a compiler from the world of Oxford colleges, halls, and libraries in the late fourteenth century. It contains academic medical texts as well as writings of a personal nature-charms, verses, prayers-in Latin, French, and Middle English. It appears to have been associated with Henry Beaumond (d. 1415), whose name appears in the codex. Beaumond was a physician with a problematic association with Exeter College, Oxford University. A good deal of information survives about Beaumond and his books, as well as his association with the influential cleric at New College, Oxford, Walter Awde (d. after 1404), who is also named in the manuscript. This study provides images and a full physical description of the manuscript.