Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia Facsimile Edition

The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia is a section of seventy-five folios bound together with other medieval material by Sir Robert Cotton in the early seventeenth century. It contains a collection of herbal and medical texts translated into Old English sometime in the early eleventh century with sections describing various plants and animals. 219 in-text illustrations show details of most of the plants with three additional full-page miniatures, one of which depicts Asclepius, Plato, and Chiron the centaur.

Bright pigments of blue, red, and green are used throughout for both the pictures and the colorful initials. The copper-oxide base of one of the green colors has since corroded the underlying parchment resulting in significant damage to portions of the manuscript. Additional damage occurred to the top of the pages during the Ashburnham House fire of 1731. Despite this, the Pharmacopoeia is an important record of early English medical knowledge and practice. Its ongoing use demonstrates the significance the text held.

A Medical Text Used Throughout the Middle Ages

Medieval medical knowledge was a combination of experimental practice and beliefs drawn from magic and miracles. Much of it had origins in classical Greek and Roman civilization. Other information was passed through correspondence, such as that between King Alfred the Great of Wessex and the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Yet other cures came from local wisdom.

Reflecting this, the Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia is a compilation of at least seven separate texts augmented by additional recipes and spells. It contains a remarkable breadth of knowledge. Information was rarely discarded as ineffective. For this reason, the manuscript remained in use throughout the Middle Ages, evidenced by numerous translations and annotations in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English added by various hands through at least the fourteenth century.

Recognizable Plants and Animals

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia is the accuracy with which many of the plants and animals are depicted. The artist was careful to include details that would allow someone using the text to identify the various medicinal plants. Presented in a typically medieval fashion with their root structures exposed, the plants are shown with their specific characteristics such as leaf shapes, fruits or berries, and flowers. Plants with distinctive features, such as the gladiolus and mandrake, are readily identifiable.

Origins in Southern England

The scriptorium responsible for the Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia is unknown, but stylistic comparisons suggest it was made either at Canterbury or Winchester. Ownership before the fifteenth century is unknown. Both the names Richard Hollond and Elysabet Colmore were inscribed into the book before it entered the collection of Sir Robert Cotton in the seventeenth century. It was bequeathed to the public as part of the Cotton collection and was part of the foundation collection of the library of the British Museum.