Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 129
Siobhán Barrett
Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 129, fol. 11v: Volvelle illustrating the signs of the zodiac (reproduced with permission of Corpus Christi College, Oxford)
This month’s manuscript is Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 129, which contains medical, astronomical and veterinary material. While most of the material is written in Irish, the manuscript also includes some Latin texts. It is the work of one scribe, An Gilla Glas Ó Caiside, who has written his name in several places throughout the manuscript. Ó Caiside is the family name of the physicians associated with the Maguires of County Fermanagh. An Gilla Glas includes many interesting snippets of information; for example, he names four locations of writing: Carraig O Chuanig can be identified as Carrigoguonagh in County Limerick; Cillin na nEala is now known as Killeenagallive, the site of a Franciscan Abbey near Emly, Co Tipperary; Cill tSibneáin (also Cill Teimhneáin) is now called Kiltinan, Co Tipperary; and Mainisdir na nAcaidech in Caisel na Righ is Hackett’s Abbey, the Franciscan Friary in Cashel, Co Tipperary (Ó Cuív 2001, 283). The scribe acknowledges that he is copying the work of other scholars, including Diarmaid O Siriden, Seaan mac Math(g)amna mic Diarmada Duibh, Semuis mic Davidh mic Muiris and Cormac Mac Duinnshléibhe. He also includes dates of writing between 1515 and 1527. He even comments on the state of his examplar:
Mese In Gilla Glas o Kcd do scribh so as an encairt as mesa do chonacc riam a Carraig O Chuanaig anno domini .mo. 5o. 18. (fol. 41r31)
(I am In Gilla Glas Ó Caiside who wrote this from the worst manuscript I ever saw in Carrigoguonagh in the year of our Lord 1518).
The greater part of this manuscript is made up of medical material but there are several astronomical texts too. The most visually striking pages are two beautifully illustrated volvelles or wheel-charts that contain rotating vellum discs, one of which calculates in which sign of the zodiac the sun and moon are on any given day (see above).
Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 129, fol. 11r: Volvelle used to calculate moveable feast days (reproduced with permission of Corpus Christi College, Oxford)
The second illustration calculates moveable feast days. I suspect that the robed figure in the centre of the rotating disc is a depiction of an astronomer with four stars in the background representing the heavens or the four cardinal points; north, south, east, and west. He is holding an instrument, a ‘tool of his trade’ in his left hand, perhaps an astrolab. A banner crossing his body contains the words: Digitus ostendit tempus precens pes uero preteritum et apsens [sic] (The finger points to the present time, the foot, however, to the past and the future).
The medical texts in this manuscript include: Isaac Judaes, Diete Particulares; John of Parma, Practica; a Quid pro quo; and two texts of Bernard of Gordon, De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum and definitions from the Lilium Medicinae (on which see further here). The longest text in this manuscript is what Ó Cuív (2001, 291) describes as a ‘medico-botanical glossary alphabetically arranged’. This is an Irish translation of a selection of entries from Simon of Genoa’s Clavis sanationis. It contains around 680 medical ingredients, ordered alphabetically by the Latin name with very many English and Anglo-Norman names but with very few Irish names; however, descriptions of the materials are in Irish.
Further reading:
- Barrett, Siobhán (forthcoming), ‘An Gilla Glas Ó Caiside and an Irish version of Symoin Ianuensis’ Clavis Sanationis’, in Medicine in the Medieval North Atlantic World. Vernacular Texts and Traditions, ed. by Deborah Hayden and Sarah Baccianti (Turnhout: Brepols)
- Nic Dhonnchadha, Aoibhinn (2019), ‘Michael Casey’s Medical Transcripts in Gilbert MS 147’, Éigse 40: 43–114
- Ó Cuív, Brian (1985), ‘Fragments of Irish Medieval Treatises on Horses’, Celtica 17: 113–22
- Ó Cuív, Brian (2001), Catalogue of Irish Language Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Oxford College Libraries, 2 vols (Dublin: DIAS)
- Ó Muraile, Nollaig (2016), ‘The Hereditary Medical Families of Gaelic Ireland’, in Rosa Anglica: Reassessments, ed. by Liam P. Ó Murchú, Irish Texts Society Subsidiary Series 28 (London: Irish Texts Society), pp. 85–113
Very good.