Medieval European Medical Manuscripts

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Upcoming Meetings

There are no currently scheduled upcoming events.

Past Meetings

  • February 25, 2021

    Our next meeting on 25.2.21 will be hosted by Laure Miolo. a Cambridge
    University Fellow who completed her Phd in Medieval History in 2017 based on
    scientific medieval manuscripts of the Collège de Sorbonne, their owners and
    users from the 13th century to the early 16th century.

    Autograph and authorial astronomical/astrological manuscripts

    This paper will focus on a specific aspect of manuscript studies, which is
    the autograph, whether it is autograph notes or a whole manuscript. Although
    a large number of medieval manuscripts contains marginal annotations, short
    texts, or other additions due to external readers, the identity of these
    hands remains often unknown. However, in some cases, the historian and
    paleographer is lucky enough to distinguish a specific hand and put a name on
    it. In fewer cases, the signature of the medieval scholar appears, and the
    identification is easier. As others, medieval astronomers and/or astrologers
    have left records in codices, and for some of them their handwritings are
    clearly recognisable. Although marginal autograph annotations and texts are
    less studied, they deserve more attention as they reveal scientific
    practices, working methods, habits, and readings. The study of
    practitioners’ autographs allows a better understanding, not only of their
    practices, but of the elaboration of their texts and private libraries. I
    shall focus here on three case studies of astronomers/astrologers at work and
    their manuscripts, ranging from the late 13th century to the late 15th
    century. Their autograph productions include a wealth of information for the
    history of science but also for the history of the book.

    We look forward to seeing you soon.  A reminder with the link to join will be
    sent before the meeting.

    For our March meeting we are considering running a session oriented around
    teaching using medieval manuscripts. If you have any perspectives you would
    like to share with the group on how you have used manuscripts as objects in
    classes, please get in touch with me (j.nurse@wellcome.org) or any of the
    group owners. We are looking for a mix of practitioners/scholars who could
    share 10 minutes on top tips.
  • January 28, 2021

    28th January:     Setting the scene: the Osler’s François II de Rohan manuscript and Wellcome Western MS. 626 (Mary Yearl, Anna Dysert, Faith Wallis, Elma Brenner, Julia Nurse). To view the digitized manuscripts, see:
    Osler: https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-osl_medical-recipes-health-regimens_WZ240F825m1515-18875
    Wellcome: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/eu3ym7su/items?canvas=5&langCode=fre&sierraId=b1879175x&source=viewer%2Fpaginator
    Agenda:
    Overview (Elma): Presentation of the working group and its aims (5 minutes)
    Introductions (all members): (10 minutes)
    Osler MS (Faith): Preliminary presentation on the Osler MS and Francois de Rohan (10 minutes)
    Wellcome MS (Julia and Elma): Preliminary presentation on the Wellcome MS, its herbal content and images (Julia) and recipes (Elma) (10 minutes)
    Discussion

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Group Conveners

  • elmabrenner's picture

    Elma Brenner

    Elma Brenner (PhD, LMS) is a Research Development Specialist at Wellcome Collection and Co-Editor of Social History of Medicine. At Wellcome Collection she supports research on the medieval and early modern European collections and leads on work with early career researchers. Her own research focuses especially on health and religious culture in late medieval France and in 2020 she received a Dr. Edward H. Bensley Research Travel Grant from the Osler Library to study the Osler’s newly acquired French manuscript that is a focus of this working group. Her publications include Leprosy and charity in medieval Rouen (2015) and ‘From medieval embroidery to human skin: engaging with remarkable objects from the Wellcome Library’ (2016), and she is co-editor of Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages: from England to the Mediterranean (forthcoming 2021).

     
  • annadysert's picture

    Anna Dysert

    Anna Dysert is an associate librarian at McGill University Library, where she works as a cataloguer and metadata specialist for rare materials. She holds an MA from the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, and an MLIS in Archival Studies from McGill’s School of Information Studies. She is currently working on a doctoral project on the 12th-century Latin manuscripts of Isaac Israeli’s Universal and Particular Diets.

     
  • rossmacf's picture

    Ross MacFarlane

    Ross has worked on cataloguing archives, in outreach and engagement and designed numerous object and collections-based teaching and learning sessions, for a wide range of visiting groups at Wellcome Collection. At the core of his work is a close understanding of archives and other historical sources and a desire to promote the collections at Wellcome to the widest possible array of researchers.

     
  • j.nurse's picture

    Julia Nurse

    Julia Nurse is a Research Development Specialist at Wellcome Collection who currently runs the Exploring Research Seminar programme. With a background in art history and museum studies, her interests focus on the interaction of medicine, science and art within the context of print culturei n the Early Modern period. She sits on the committee of the Herbal History Research Network and has in recent times been focusing on research around the use of plants within herbals from the Medieval to Early Modern periods. She has contributed to numerous exhibitions and digital articles at Wellcome Collection, notably one on Plant Portraits which focused on one of the manuscripts at the heart of the research of this working group. Previously, Julia worked within the Prints and Drawings department at the British Museumas an Assistant Curator.

     
  • faith.wallis@mcgill.ca's picture

    Faith Wallis

    Professor Faith Wallis (Ph.D. Toronto 1985) is Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Classical Studies and the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University. Her research focuses on the textual and manuscript transmission of medical and scientific knowledge (particularly computus) in the Middle Ages. Her anthology of translated sources, Medieval Medicine: a Reader, was published by University of Toronto Press in 2010. She is presently editing the writings of Bartholomeus ‘of Salerno’, a key figure in the emergence of academic medicine in the twelfth century: Bartholomeus' Isagoge Commentary appeared with SISMEL in 2022. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

     
  • MKKYearl's picture

    Mary Yearl

    Mary Hague-Yearl (MLIS, PhD) is the Osler Librarian at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and an Associate Member of McGill’s Department of Social Studies of Medicine. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the medical and spiritual functions of regular bloodletting in medieval monastic life. In 2020-2021, she has resumed her research as a Folger Institute Fellow, pursuing a project entitled “Bloodletting in the first 150 years of printing: a window into vernacular medicine.” In her work at the Osler Library, she often engages in lessons about representation in medicine; medical ethics; and subcultures of medical knowledge. It is related to this last area that she is most interested in engaging with this working group to discover new approaches to the study of the Library’s recipe books.

     

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