A Middle English Version of the ‚Circa Instans‘

Edited from Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13


1. Edition, 2020
209 Pages

ISBN: 978-3-8253-4766-6
Product: Book
Edition: Softcover
Subject: Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Series: Middle English Texts, Volume No.: 59
Available: 17.09.2020

Keywords: Mittelenglisch, Mediävistik, Mittelalter, Matthaeus Platearius, Arzneikunde, Medizin, Salerno, Überlieferungsgeschichte, Textgeschichte, Kommentar, Botanik, Anatomy, Wortgeschichte, 12. Jahrhundert


Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13 contains a Middle English version of the ‘Liber de Simplici Medicina’ (‘Circa Instans’), a treatise on ‘materia medica’ attributed to the twelfth-century physician Matthaeus Platearius. The relevance and popularity of this Latin work composed at the renowned medical School of Salerno extended over time and space. Its encyclopaedic presentation of ‘simples’ of vegetable, animal, and mineral nature – with allegedly curative virtues – was the core of botanical works until the sixteenth century, and has survived, in various forms – treatise, remedy book, auxiliary tables – in a substantial number of manuscripts in Latin and the vernaculars.

This is the first edition of the complete version of the ‘CI’ in Middle English. The introduction, commentary, and glossary not only provide a context for reading the text, but also contribute to an understanding of the emergence and development of a language and culture of medicine in medieval England. The glossary is an extensive compilation of the anatomical, medical, and botanical terminology used.

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Claudio Cataldi in: Anglia, 139.3 (2021), 602-605

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in: Medioevo Latino, XLIV (2023), 505 [4329], URL: www.mirabileweb.it/mel/a-middle-english-version-of-the-circa-instans-edit/798504

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S. Morrison in: Scriptorium / Bulletin Codicologique, LXXV / 2 (2021), 145 [389]

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Agnès Blandeau in: Le Moyen Âge, CXXVIII.2 (2022), 571-572

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Laura Esteban-Segura in: The Medieval Review, 22.01.11, URL: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/33858/37343