Dublin, National Library of Ireland MS G 414
Siobhán Barrett
Figure 1: Dublin, National Library of Ireland MS G 414, p. 473: The final page of an Irish version of the Dispensatorium of Valerius Cordus, showing the date, location of writing, the name of the owner of the examplar and a scribal signature. Image courtesy of Irish Script on Screen.
This paper manuscript was signed and dated by its scribe, Eoghan Ó Beitheacháin, in 1594. He writes that the location in which he was working was in Ballybrittas, Co Laois and that he has copied this text from an exemplar owned by Risdeard mac Muircheartaigh (Ó Conchubhair), who was the principal scribe and owner of Dublin, RIA MS 3 C 19 (Nic Dhonnchadha 2006, 26; see also Deborah Hayden’s blog here). A leaf that was inserted into the manuscript lists the names of four of its later owners: Ó Siadhail 1673; Silvester O Halloran MD, F.R.S., MRIA & accouchier, of Limerick; Sir Séamus Mac Coitir; and Séamus Ó Casaide. Unfortunately, the first 180 pages of the manuscript have been lost, but 354 remain.
This manuscript contains an Irish version of the Dispensatorium of Valerius Cordus, a 16th-century German physician, botanist and pharmacologist. Another copy is found in Dublin, TCD MSS 1437, while Dublin, TCD MS 1357 contains an extract. NLI MS G 414 includes an index for the 275 recipes which would originally have been included in this manuscript. These are for medicinal products grouped under headings, such as ointments, pills, plasters, electuaries, syrups, juleps, and oils. Following the list of ingredients and their measurements, which can sometimes run to several pages, are instructions for the preparation of the remedy. Short descriptions of some of the ingredients are included; for example, on page 426 we are told that a herb called ‘crasula’ grows on walls and on roofs of houses and, with a nod to the text’s origins, the author explains that the Germans call it ‘fettehenne’ or ‘donerkraut’.
Further reading:
- Nic Dhonnchadha, Aoibheann (2006), ‘The Medical School of Aghmacart, Queen’s County’, Ossory, Laois and Leinster 2, 11–43
- Ní Shéaghdha, Nessa (1986), Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the National Library of Ireland, Fasciculus IX (Dublin: DIAS), pp. 59–60
- Walsh, Paul (1933), ‘Scraps from Irish Scribes’, Gleanings from Irish Manuscripts (Dublin: At the Sign of the Three Candles), pp. 123–52