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Duke Humphrey and His Medical Collections*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Vern L. Bullough*
Affiliation:
San Fernando Valley State College
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Extract

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, has long been recognized as the leading patron of the new learning in England in the fifteenth century. His collection has been called ‘ … the most important in England at his time. Other libraries, such as Christ Church, Canterbury, St. Albans, or Peterborough, may have exceeded it in numbers, but Duke Humphrey's books could display a greater variety of subjects, and included many works to be found nowhere else in the country.' Unfortunately, few MSS are still extant which can be identified as having belonged to him. We do have, however, a good indication of the scope of his library from the surviving lists of books which he gave to Oxford University.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1961

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Footnotes

*

Research assisted by a grant-in-aid from the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

References

1 See for example, Weiss, R., Humanism in England During the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1941), p. 39 Google Scholar; Caspari, Fritz, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 20 Google Scholar; Ullman, B. L., ‘Manuscripts of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester', English Historical Review, LII (1937), 6772 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vickers, K. H., Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1907)Google Scholar, passim.

2 Weiss, op. cit., p. 61.

3 See Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (London: Office of the Royal Historical Society, 1941), pp. 79 f.Google Scholar; Weiss, R., ‘An Unnoticed MS of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester’, Bodleian Library Record, V (1955), 123124 Google Scholar; Vickers, , op. cit., pp. 426 Google Scholar ff.; and Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957-59), II , 983984 Google Scholar, for the extant manuscripts.

4 See Wood, Anthony à, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, 3 vols, in 2 (Oxford: 1792-96), II, i, 914 Google Scholar.

5 Anstey, H., ed., Epistolae Academicae Oxon., 2 vols., Oxford Historical Society Publications, vols, xxxv and xxxvi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), 1, 179184 Google Scholar, 197-198, 204-205, 232-237. An alphabetical listing based on Anstey was prepared by H. H. E. Craster, ‘Index to Duke Humphrey's Gifts to the Old Library of the University in 1439, 1441, and 1444', Bodleian Quarterly Record, 1 (1915), 131-135, which has served as my guide.

6 Ullman, , op. cit., pp. 6772 Google Scholar. Whether the medical works were typical or atypical is a matter of conjecture. The other titles in the donation were not particularly standard in other parts of the curriculum so that I see no reason to suppose that the medical ones might have been given for this reason. There is also no indication of a shortage of these particular titles in the university although the Duke's gifts were certainly very much appreciated. There are of course many titles which never reached Oxford (see Weiss, , op. cit., pp. 6667 Google Scholar) and the Duke's contribution to Cambridge is unknown.

7 In general, the works are the standard medical works of the thirteenth-century curriculum. The Arabic works were translated by Constantine the African, Gerard of Cremona, and others. For a thirteenth-century list see Charles Homer Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 374-375, while a good example of a fourteenth-century list at Oxford is found in the will of Simon Bredon who died in 1372. See Powicke, F. M., The Medieval Books of Merton College (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), pp. 8186 Google Scholar. The only names on the present list who might cause difficulty in identification are Theodosius presbyter and Vincentius. I am not sure that the Passionarium is a medical work but it is listed among a group of medical works (Anstey, op. cit., 1, 182). If it is a medical work, it could be by Theodorus Priscianus, physician to the Emperor Gratianus, 367-383, who wrote a book on therapeutic prescriptions. The Vincentius might well refer to Vincent of Beauvais, French Dominican and encyclopaedist, whose work included a section on medicine.

8 See Ker, N. R., ‘The Chaining, Labelling, and Inventory of Manuscripts, Belonging to the Old University Library’, Bodleian Library Record, V (1955), 176180 Google Scholar, and Emden, , op. cit., n, 1069 Google Scholar.

9 Peter of Capestang was a French physician (ca. 1299-1313) at Montpellier who wrote questions on Hippocrates Regimen acutorum. I have been unable to identify Jo. de Corpo, fifexcept for the reference to his Quaestiones super Hippocratis Prognostica, mentioned in Lynn Thorndike and Kibre, Pearl, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (Cambridge, Mediaeval Academy of America Pub., XXIX, 1937), col. 688Google Scholar.

10 John of Gaddesden was a fourteenth-century English physician who had received his doctor of medicine degree from Oxford by 1332. See Emden, op. cit., n, 739.

11 Peter Tussiano can probably be identified as Petrus de Tossignano (died ca. 1407). He was a professor at both Bologna and Padua and wrote on the plague, on therapeutics, and materia medica.

12 Powicke, , op. cit., pp. 8186 Google Scholar.

13 Teodorico Borgognoni was an Italian surgeon and physician, the son of Hugh of Lucca.

14 Lanfranc (died ca. 1305) was an Italian surgeon, trained at Bologna, who practiced in France.

15 Henry of Mondeville was a French surgeon of the first part of the fourteenth century.

16 Thaddaeus Alderotti (1215-95) was an early leader of the Bologna medical school.

17 These works are not listed in the will of Bishop Rede nor in the catalogue of theological books which he gave to New College ( Powicke, , op. cit., pp. 87 Google Scholar ff.) but they are included in a Bodleian MS which bears his name—E. Museo MS 19 (ibid., pp. 166-167).

18 Roger of Parma is probably Roger of Salerno, the famous twelfth-century Salernitan surgeon who was sometimes called by this name. It might also be the thirteenth-century Roland of Parma.

19 John of Jametz was a thirteenth-century Italian surgeon.

20 Erotianos was a Greek philologist and lexicographer of the first century who compiled a lexicon of Hippocrates.

21 Emden, , op. cit., II, 1149 Google Scholar.