Edurne Garrido-Anes (ed.). 2020. A Middle English Version of the Circa Instans. Edited from Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13. Middle English Texts 59. Heidelberg: Winter, lvi + 212 pp., 2 illustr., € 70.00.

Claudio Cataldi

doi:10.1515/ang-2021-0049

Abstract

Article Edurne Garrido-Anes (ed.). 2020. A Middle English Version of the Circa Instans. Edited from Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13. Middle English Texts 59. Heidelberg: Winter, lvi + 212 pp., 2 illustr., € 70.00. was published on September 1, 2021 in the journal Anglia (volume 139, issue 3).

Highlights

This volume offers the first complete edition of the Middle English version of the medical treatise known as Liber de simplici medicina
Rather than attempting a reconstruction of a critical text based on all known versions, GarridoAnes has identified four manuscripts belonging to a common recension which is deemed representative of the full Middle English translation of the Circa instans and has based her edition on the best version, the one in Cambridge, University Library, Ee.1.13 (s. xv), providing variants from the other manuscripts of the same recension
Apart from the copy of the Middle English Circa instans, CUL Ee.1.13 features a treaty on urines;1 works related to agriculture, including the tract on planting and grafting of trees by Nicholas Bollard, of which at least ten other copies survive;2 medical recipes, three of which are related to gynaecology;3 and recipes about dyeing

Summary

Introduction

This volume offers the first complete edition of the Middle English version of the medical treatise known as Liber de simplici medicina (or Circa instans, a name derived from its opening words). The Circa instans was translated into a number of European vernaculars, including English.

Results

Conclusion