Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 130 (27609) Pseudo-Apuleius "Herbarium," Pseudo-Dioscorides, Placitus, etc.

Abstract

351. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodi. 130 (27609)

Pseudo-Apuleius "Herbarium," Pseudo-Dioscorides, Placitus, etc.

[Ker 302, Gneuss 549]

HISTORY: Bodley 130 contains botanical, medical, and zoological texts, all in Latin apart from a few plant names and glosses which are noted below. McLachlan (1986: 35-36, 332-33) dates the manuscript, apart from the indices on ff. 73-75, from the earliest years of the 12c in the scriptorium of Bury St. Edmunds. Its origin in Bury St. Edmunds is confirmed by the pressmark 'M. 44' and a very faint inscription of the 14c on f. 1r 'Herbarium Dioscorid de armario monachorum Sancti Edmundi.' A second inscription on the same folio in a 16c hand notes that the book was given to Augustine Styward by Thomas Knyvett. It later became the property of Dr. Edward Tyson, zoologist and anatomist at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, who gave it to the Bodleian in 1706, shortly before his death.

Most of the material in Bodley 130 is found in other manuscripts in texts which are generally called the enlarged "Herbarium" and "Medicina de quadrupedibus." Here the texts are imperfect, lacking many chapters and ordered differently, apparently deriving from a different tradition from the OE "Herbarium" as seen, for example, in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C. iii [253] (see Hollis and Wright 1992, esp. 325). Gunther (1925), in addition to his description and facsimile of most of the manuscript, gives charts of correspondences in Appendices I-IV between the chapters in Bodley 130 and those in some other manuscripts and printed editions. The OE versions are discussed and edited by de Vriend (1984).