The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist IX

Book excerpt: A catalogue of Middle English texts, largely relating to heraldry and the sciences of the time. More than 700 manuscripts reflect Ashmole's life-long passions: heraldryand the sciences of his day: astrology, alchemy, geomancy, medicine;well over 100 contain items in Middle English. There are manuscriptsof great interest, such as the Ashmole Bestiary, but the importantitems in Middle English are no less noteworthy. Here we find the uniquecopy of an English translation of Bernard of Gordon's Lilium medicinae; a codex, Ashmole 59, entirely in thehand of John Shirley; a Wycliffite Bible and a copy of the Pore Caytif. Along with many anonymous pieces of popular astrology, there is an English translation of John Ashenden's Introductory, several copies of Johnof Burgundy's plague tract, and an elegant copy of Henry Daniel's Liber uricrisiae. There are also two copies of The Brut, and anthology manuscripts collecting vast arrays of herbal medicine, astrological techniquesand alchemical procedures. L.M. ELDREDGE was formerly Professor in the Department of Englishat the University of Ottawa.