medical recipes, including one to reduce swelling of the testicles through applying a paste made of boiled mint and pigeon-droppings.the archers of each English shire, in French (f.a Middle English prose treatise on how to ‘undrestand what thi dreme betokenes’ using the letters of the psalter (f.the fees and lands of the knights of Yorkshire.What else did this person value? From the contents of his miscellany, we can discern an interest in medicine, law, and history. However, the miscellany as a whole suggests that the pilgrimage texts were valued by whoever brought the book together in its current binding probably in the fifteenth century. On the reverse of this leaf is a short Latin extract, in the same hand as the itinerary, with an excerpt from the political prophecy of ‘Sixtus of Ireland’ (which includes the prophecy that the cities of Jerusalem and Acre will be retaken by a Christian prince). We don’t know who its medieval owners were the book has been much reorganised and the Middle English text is on a single leaf – the other pages it was originally with have been cut out. So was Rylands Latin MS 288 a pilgrim’s book? Sadly, it’s impossible to say. At the end of the Middle English itinerary a charm has been added. The mileages given here are not the same as in the Latin text, and the two texts are written in different hands. The Middle English text is perhaps more likely to represent an actual journey undertaken, suggested by the late-medieval toponyms and its greater detail. Rylands Latin MS 228: Middle English itinerary from Venice to Jaffa and the River Jordan Summa milliarium de venecia usque Jherusalem et deinde usque fflome jordane ii milia ccc iiiixx I millaria. Curfu standys in Cypris and Albany standys in the tother syde within the torke. Fro Venice to Jaer CCl mille ffor the town of Jaer to Corslake ciiiixx x mil ffor Corslake to Ragosa iiiixx mil ffro Ragosa to Curfu CCC mil ffrom Curfu to Modyn CCC myle Ffrom Modyn to Candy CCC myle ffrom Candy to þe Rodes CCC myle ffor Baffe to Jaffe CCC myle ffor Jaffe to Rames x myle ffor Rames to Emax xxv myle ffor Emax to Jerusalem xvi myle from Jherusalem to Fflome iordan xxxti myle. There’s no evidence from this short Latin text that it was used by an actual pilgrim. Then follows some notes on the relics and indulgences of Rome, and some historical notes on Saladin and the history of Jerusalem. In fact, it contains a few notes on the distances from Rome to Naples, from Venice to the Holy Land, from Jaffa (‘Portiaff’) to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, from Bethlehem to the River Jordan, and from Jerusalem to ‘Monte Synay’, Mt Sinai, and the tomb of St Katherine there. 43v-44r) is headed ‘Itinerarium terre sancta’. Moreover, Latin MS 228 contains two texts that relate to pilgrimage to Jerusalem, one in Latin and one in Middle English. The binding is also important because it represents the moment at which someone put the book’s current contents together: that is, the moment of the book’s binding can reveal what was valued at that particular moment in time. It would have been highly portable, and the back of the binding even has a flap in which to store loose leaves or other items. It has a beautiful binding, dating from c. Latin MS 228 looks, on first sight, like it could be a pilgrim’s manuscript. In the case of some manuscript miscellanies, their development seems to be organic, taking place over many years, and with many different owners adding – and deleting – contents, according to changes ideas of what was useful or desirable. It is neither always apparent that a miscellany has an organising principle, nor is it often clear when the manuscript was organised. Latin MS 228 is a miscellany, and represents a very common kind of medieval manuscript, in which ‘useful information’ – legal documents, recipes, poetry, medical writing, and many other types of text – were gathered together. A good case in point is a book I recently inspected in the beautiful John Rylands Library, Manchester from its record in the Index of Middle English Prose, I had thought that this manuscript (now Latin MS 228) might be a Jerusalem-bound pilgrim’s manuscript. Blog-post author Professor Anthony Bale, Birkbeck, University of London bibliographic remnants of medieval pilgrimage are often haphazardly or imprecisely catalogued one can rarely rely on caalogues and handlists, without inspecting a book itself, to understand what the medieval source is.
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