Pepys Digital Library

"This manuscript contains a large number of medical treatises, and medical recipes alongside instructions of a magical, cosmetic, practical, equestrian, and horticultural nature." -- Dr Clarck Drieshen, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R. : Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

"[Pepys Library 911] is a beautifully illustrated example of a type of medieval book known as a 'sortes' manuscript, essentially a genre of medieval book concerned with various aspects of what we now describe as divination, prognostication, and fortune-telling. Sortes manuscripts seem to have been quite a popular genre of medieval book, and among those that were made in medieval north-western Europe the majority of the surviving sortes manuscripts contain various combinations of a core group of texts attributed (spuriously) to illustrious Classical figures such as Pythagoras and Cicero." -- Dr Sarah Gilbert, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R. : Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

"This manuscript contains a large collection of medical and culinary recipes in Middle English. It also contains a compilation of selections from the instruction manual in Middle English prose and verse that was known as the The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms or The Boke of St Albans." - Dr Clarck Drieshen, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R.: Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

This manuscript contains science and liturgy. The music in this manuscript is attributed to a number of composers who were active in or had connections with Kent during the 1460s and 1470s.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R.: Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

"This compact manuscript ... is, for the most part, a redaction of the popular medical text known as the Antidotarium Nicholai. The manuscript also contains a shorter and extensively reorganised version of the information in the Antidotarium Nicholai and a treatise on uroscopy that is part of the 'Dome of Uryne' group of texts identified by M. T. Tavormina." - Dr Sarah Gilbert, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R.: Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

"This manuscript of medical treatises, recipes, and charms consists of five parts that were separately produced in the first half of the 15th century but probably joined together at an early stage. That the five parts were produced in the same milieu and perhaps always intended to be joined together is indicated by that fact that the manuscript was decorated throughout by the same hand, except for quires I, II, and IX (these three quires have all been copied by the same scribe and decorated by a different hand)." - Dr Clarck Drieshen, Project Cataloguer, Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries.

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult Cambridge University Digital Library or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Mckitterick R. and Beadle, R.: Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Volume 5, Manuscripts, Part i, Medieval. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992.

The Pepys Library holds a number of manuscripts and printed book fragments. In 1700 these fragments were deliberately collected and arranged by Samuel Pepys into his 'Calligraphical' albums, with added written commentary by Pepys's associate Humfrey Wanley. The appearance of the fragments in the album is much like a scrapbook, and they are arranged in chronological order to demonstrate how handwriting styles changed over time. The introductory pages to this album give additional contextual information about how the album was put together and its contents.

Pepys Library 2981, pages i-viii, 1-20: My Calligraphical Collection Vol. 1

For more detailed catalogue information, please consult the Fragmentarium website or the printed catalogue of the Pepys Library: Latham, R.: Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Volume 4, Music, Maps and Calligraphy. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989.