The present essay has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (grant number FFI217-88060-P). This grant is hereby gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank the editors and the two anonymous reviewers of Variants for their feedback and remarks, which have definitively helped me develop an improved version of the essay. Finally, I would also like to express my appreciation to Professor Javier Calle-Martín and Dr Jesús Romero-Barranco for their support and valuable comments on previous drafts of the paper, as well as to Miss Fiona Neale and Mr Robert MacLean (Glasgow University Library) because of their generosity and kindness in providing me with helpful information about the volume when I requested it.
- 1 According to Arber, the philosophical approach to botany is said to have owed its commencement in t (...)
1Extending back into at least the epochs of Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Galen, among others (see Hunt 1989, xxxvii-xliii; also Moreno Olalla 2018), a herbal may be defined as a manual on medicinal plants and herbs generally designed for an experienced audience of doctors and apothecaries, written to “enable them to know which plants to use for medical purposes, and how to identify them in the field” (Elliott 2011, 24; also Herbal 2012). Even though the study of plants has been traditionally regarded as an essential part of natural philosophy,1 different varieties of herbs have also been used as healing agents throughout history and, as such, it has been necessary to analyse them in detail so as to discriminate the types employed for several utilitarian purposes (Arber 1953, 1–6; also Neville 2022, 19–21).
2Most likely boosted by the significance of the printing press in Europe, the utilitarian use of herbals reached its height during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, when most botanists aimed at recovering the authentic descriptive essence of the classical works, whilst releasing them from the stored accumulation of periods of mythology. As a successor of Leonard Fuchs, founder of the initial standards for plant description which most later authors attempted to meet, Rembert Dodoens is one of the most renowned herbalists from the perspective of descriptive botany as, apart from writing a herbal as conventionally assumed, he contributed to lay the foundations of the modern regional flora due to the terrific popularity of his work (Elliott 2011, 24–26).
3To compose and illustrate his famous piece, Dodoens acquired the use of the woodblocks employed in the octavo edition of Fuchs’ De historia stirpium, to which he included some new engravings. Under the title Cruydtboeck, the herbal was originally published in Flemish and printed in Antwerp in 1554 by Jean van der Loë. The text had a tremendous impact on many medicinal botanists of the period insomuch that, only three years after its publication, a French translation effectuated by Charles de l’Écluse (commonly known as Clusius) came out with the abbreviated title of Histoire des Plantes, and six years later another Flemish edition, for which Dodoens himself took the opportunity to provide some additional information included in the French issue, was released again by van der Loë (Arber 1953, 82; also Barlow 1913; Elliott 2011).
4In English, the Cruydtboeck came to light in 1578, twenty-four years after the production of the original text, by means of a translation of de l’Écluse’s French edition. Entitled succinctly as A Niewe Herball or Historie of Plants, this translation was carried out by the herbalist and antiquary, Henry Lyte, “the thirteenth lineal descendant of that name and family — a family which still flourishes, and can count among its modern representatives the Rev. H. F. Lyte, author of ‘Abide with me’, and Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte, the historian” (Arber 1953, 125; also Lyte, Henry (1529?-1607) and McConnel 2004). Much of Dodoens’ remembrance in the history of English botany is owed to Lyte, since his translation was well-accepted in the country. It was deemed a better-quality piece in terms of arrangement and popularity compared to the works of William Turner and Matthias de L’Obel, among other eminent botanists (Barlow 1913, 138).
5Although Lyte’s translation has at times incorrectly been assumed to having been published in London by Gerard Dewes (presumably on account of the inscription “at London, by me Gerard Dewes” that appears on the title page), it was in fact first printed in Antwerp. This was done so that he could make use of the woodcut figures which were in possession of the Antwerp printer and, more importantly, so that Dodoens could keep in touch with the edition at first-hand. The imprint was performed by Henry Loë, whilst Dewes’ involvement with the text was constrained to selling, a task he accomplished at London in Powels Churchyard (Barlow 1913, 139–40). Given the outstanding popularity of this translation, three additional English editions without illustrations were thereafter issued in London in 1586, 1595 and 1619 by the printers Ninian Newton, Edmund Bollifant, and Edward Griffin, respectively. At the same time, other printed versions are thought to have been published in 1589, 1600, and 1678, albeit no vestige of these have been hitherto found (Barlow 1913, 141).
- 2 The images reproduced in this essay are a part of MS Ferguson 7 (front cover, back cover and ff. 23 (...)
6Despite its high popularity in printing, the tradition of the piece is virtually absent in manuscripts since, to my knowledge, Glasgow University Library MS Ferguson 7 (ff. 23r–48v; 59r) (hereafter FER7) stands as the only handwritten copy encompassing descriptions of a selection of the plants included in the English printed edition. This considered, the present contribution aims to analyse the physical characteristics of this unexplored witness, paying attention to a number of codicological and palaeographic elements. Similar to most papers of this class, the essay has been conceived in order to suggest its most possible date of writing and, if accomplished, a scholar interested in this text may find it a reliable piece of data for both synchronic and diachronic analyses inside a research context. In addition to this, the article also attempts to present a minute account of all those constituents under review. Where possible, the specific elements are illustrated with a figure,2 so that they can eventually be used as input for various types of inquiry within manuscript studies, or any other interrelated academic field such as historical linguistics.
7In terms of structure, the essay has been organised into three different sections. Section 2 introduces the object of study, providing a succinct overview of its origin coupled with a description of how the scribe amasses and personalises it, both in terms of the amount of the contents and regarding the nature of these. Section 3 focuses on the codicological description of the volume, addressing some of its external characteristics. Section 4 analyses the text from a palaeographic viewpoint, inspecting elements that are normally tackled in the majority of manuals and guidebooks on the field (i.e., scripts, abbreviations, numerals, and marginalia). Finally, section 5 offers the conclusions of the entire examination, followed first by some final remarks on how the proofs may be used as source of evidence for various forms of investigation, and secondly by outlining the philological research of the present work that I intend to develop in the future.
8With reference number GB 247 MS Ferguson 7, FER7 forms part of the collection of manuscripts from the private library of Professor John Ferguson (1838, Alloa, Scotland — 1916, Glasgow, Scotland) (Ferguson, John (1838–1916) 2004, 1–3), a Scottish chemist and bibliographer author of the well-known Bibliotheca Chemica, a catalogue of the alchemical, chemical, and pharmaceutical books in the collection of the late James Young (Ferguson 1906). During his lifetime, he collected a large personal library of around 18,000 volumes. The principal part of this library was purchased by the Special Collections Department of the University of Glasgow in 1921. The collection contains 118 incunabula and 317 manuscripts of alchemical interest, many of them including copies of works by authors such as Constantinus Africanus, Albert Magnus or Roger Bacon (“Biography of John Ferguson,” n.d.; Ferguson, John (1838–1916) 2004, 3; “Ferguson Collection,” n.d.).
9As far as the contents of the herbal are concerned, all plant accounts are taken from Lyte’s original 1578 translation, as suggested in the title of the treatise (‘Taken out of Doctor. Rembert dodoens phisitian to þe Emperour. his herball made anno domini. 1578.’, f. 23r). Labelled as Niewe Herball in the online catalogue of Glasgow University Library,3 the manuscript copy displays a small segment of the printed pieces insofar as, out of the 571 plants with their diverse subspecies described in the original, only 198 are recorded in FER7, that is, approximately 35% of the total held in the English printed edition. Together with the number of omitted species, the scribe also ignores all the illustrations, figures and the table of contents provided in Lyte’s translation, as well as other information beyond the scope of medicinal botany. This material refers to i) a dedication to Queen Elizabeth I; ii) an address to “the friendly and indifferent Reader”; iii) some commendatory verses addressed to Lyte by W. B., Thomas Newton, Wm. Clowes and John Harding; iv) a portrait of Dodoens; v) the preface and epistle to the reader, and the appendix; and vi) the colophon (see Barlow 1913, 139).
10The printed translation, in a similar fashion to the primary Flemish edition, is organised into six books, each of them covering a specific topic of explanation. The scribe of Niewe Herball provides descriptions from all of these, though he seems to be more interested in those of the first book, as more than a quarter of the total incorporated in the manuscript are taken from it. Table 1 illustrates the topic of every part of the printed text and the number of species described in them, along with the figure included in the handwritten copy.
Table 1: Number of plant descriptions in the six books of the printed edition and in the manuscript
CC-BY the author
11In addition to the number of medicinal herbs selected, the scribe customises the text of the copied contents idiosyncratically in order to suit his own needs (see (Cruz Cabanillas 2020); also (Barbierato 2011)). The printed book systematically offers detailed descriptions of the plants in different paragraphs, including miscellaneous information such as their physical characteristics, the sub-kinds existing within the same species, their names in diverse languages, their nature, the place where they may be found, the time when they grow, and their medical virtues (see (Dodoens 1578, 137–38)), whereas in the manuscript the scribe summarises this information and systematically shapes it when copying, as shown in (1). Therefore, depending on the plant described, the scribe just takes those parts of the original in which he is interested and adjusts them in short paragraphs.
(1) “Burnett or pimpinell. Pimpinella maior wild burnet. side-
ritis altera. pimpinella. minor, garden burnett. bipennula. pampi-
nula. sanguisorba. siccus. 3º. gradu. et frigidus. 2º. and astringente.”
(f. 31r)
- 4 The photographs were uploaded to the official website of the Málaga Corpus after having paid the co (...)
12The following two sections, as mentioned above, discuss the physical description of the handwritten text, taking note of a sequence of both codicological and palaeographic attributes. From a methodological standpoint, the physical description is informed by three sources: i) the computerised photographs of FER7, currently constitutive elements of the Málaga Corpus of Early Modern English Scientific Prose (Calle-Martín et al. 2016), from which the images in the figures have been taken and adapted;4 ii) certain information from the volume’s electronic catalogue entry (see footnote 4); and iii) some evidence kindly offered via email by various staff members of the Archives and Special Collections Section of Glasgow University.
- 5 In the most limited sense of the term, codicology does not encompass a general survey of handwritte (...)
13Codicology refers to the study of manuscripts in its diverse external aspects, i.e., the materials from which they were constructed, their structural composition, their quiring, binding, decoration, and the form in which the texts were laid out on the pages, to name but a few (Beal 2008, 78–79; Mathisen 2008, 141; Nyström 2014, 112).5 The present section, therefore, analyses the codicological aspects of the text, including the material, dimension, ink, quiring, binding, ruling, and foliation.
14FER7 is a manuscript consisting of 64 folios and two paper flyleaves with a dimension of approximately 22.2 cm in length and 15.2 cm in width, the Niewe Herball treatise comprising almost half of them as it consists of 26 folios (about 40.63% of the total). Besides parchment, paper already began to be in use among scribes as a material for books in the thirteenth century, although it was not until the second half of the fifteenth century that volumes made of this material became relatively numerous (Derolez 2003, 31). According to Da Rold, by the end of that century, paper was regarded as a merchandise that could be used either in the more private spheres or in professional contexts, “such as an artist’s workshop as a tool to dry pigments as an alternative to parchment” (Da Rold 2020, 56). Even though parchment was more durable and resistant under varying conditions of humidity and heat, the significant cheapness of paper, together with the need for bulk quantities of writing material after the establishment of printing, caused that parchment was largely replaced by paper, “remaining in use only for high-quality books or other specialized uses, such as modern ‘sheepskins’, a word still applied to school diplomas” (Mathisen 2008, 144; also Petti 1977, 5). Excepting ff. 47v and 48r, slightly stained with red ink (Figs. 1 and 2), the document is in an almost excellent state of preservation insofar as it presents minor deterioration caused by the course of time, especially significant considering the aforementioned low quality of paper in comparison with parchment.
Figure 1: 47v stained with red ink.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 2: 48r stained with red ink.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
15A sort of dark brown ink is somewhat erratically employed in the reproduction of Niewe Herball, and some degrees of variation in the tint and thickness may be noticed throughout the folios as well as throughout the lines of a same page (Figs. 3 and 4), a fact leading us to deduce — tentatively — that the ink used to write the treatise was black iron-gall ink which might have discoloured by both the scribal irregular application of it and, more importantly, the passing of time. On technical grounds, the production of this sort of ink involved the combination of the tannin acids obtained from oak-galls with a ferrous sulphate, known as copperas, which may require added gum as a thickener. This permanent black iron-gall ink, whose fading over the centuries to a rust brown colour is a consequence of the chemical reactions produced in ink, “became the standard European black ink until the nineteenth century” (Mathisen 2008, 149–50; also Petti 1977, 7; De Hamel 1992, 32).
Figure 3: Variation in tint and thickness in Niewe Herball (24r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 4: Variation in tint and thickness in Niewe Herball (33v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
16Once the task of copying a text was accomplished, the next step in the manufacturing of a volume was “the sewing of the quires into the sewing supports in the spine of the book”, either by the scribe himself or by a specialist of the scriptorium (Romero-Barranco 2017, 285; also Petti 1977, 6; Clemens and Graham 2007, 49). FER7 presents a quarto size (hereafter 4to) made up of a first quire of 16 leaves, followed by a second one of 12 leaves, a third one of 24, and a final quire of 12 leaves. The collational formula can be then summarised as follows: 4to: 116 212 324 412. However, as shown in Figure 5, the last of these gatherings comprised initially 16 leaves but its four final leaves are now lost, which means that the manuscript would have comprised of 68 folios if the final quire were intact.
Figure 5: Lost folios at the end of FER7.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 6: Front binding of FER7.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 7: Back binding of FER7.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
- 6 This has been adapted from the data available at the electronic catalogue and some information give (...)
17Next, the quires were bound together, normally with boards on the front and back for protective purposes (Johnston 1944, 310; Mathisen 2008, 159). In Middle English, the binding of a manuscript normally involved a series of bands in cord or leather, to which the quires were sewn, attached to two wooden boards covered with a piece of leather in natural colour or stained (Derolez 2003, 44). The Early Modern English binding, while less luxurious, was more elegant and made in a larger variety of material, although leather was the most common. This period also witnessed a significant development in decoration with gold tooling, “which was practised in Italy in the 15th century and introduced in England just before the middle of the 16th century” (Petti 1977, 7). FER7 stands as a prototypical example of this sort of decoration as the title is provided in gold on the spine. Notwithstanding this, the binding of the manuscript is not the primary one insofar as the original card boards, which were produced at some point in the eighteenth century from layered print waste coated by blue paper, are included in boards of quarter straight-grained goatskin with comb-marbled paper sides and decorated with maroon leather spine produced in the late nineteenth century.6
18Scribal methods for supplying a frame for the writing area and ruling the pages to maintain straight lines have varied over time (Petti 1977, 6). Until the eleventh century, most manuscripts were ruled in drypoint (also hard-point), a technique consisting in pressing into the page with the back of a knife or a stylus made of metal or bone, where just one side of a page needed to be ruled. In the twelfth century, drypoint ruling was progressively replaced by leadpoint ruling, which was distinguished by its grey and reddish-brown colour and required the ruling of both sides of a page. This technique was in vogue until the end of the fourteenth century, when it was replaced by ink ruling, often of the same colour as that used for the text, though this practice became less fashionable in the late fifteenth century and, from then on, only frame ruling remained (De Hamel 1992, 23; Clemens and Graham 2007, 16–17; Calle-Martín and Lorente-Sánchez, 2023).
Figure 8: Ruling in Niewe Herball (f. 30v).
19Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
20Niewe Herball presents traces of frame and line ruling, albeit the second of these methods has almost vanished through the course of the centuries. As for frame ruling, a vertical greyish frame is systematically applied to both sides of the written area so as to delimit both the inner and the outer margins of the pages.
21The foliation of bound volumes was an erratic practice until the end of the Middle Ages, yet other forms of numbering, such as quire-marks, signatures, and catchwords, were commonly witnessed (Petti 1977, 6; Derolez 2003, 33–34; Romero-Barranco 2015, 5). The first type consists of a Roman numeral, sometimes surrounded by some sort of decoration, written in the lower margin of the first or the last page of a quire. The second is a numbering system that indicates the order of the quires and of the bifolia within each quire. The third involves the writing of the word(s) with which the first page of the next quire began in the bottom margin of the last page of a quire (Derolez 2003, 33–34; Clemens and Graham 2007, 49).
Figure 9: Foliation in Niewe Herball (f. 44r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
22In Niewe Herball, excepting f. 59r, foliation is observed in the top right corner of all folios rectos using Arabic numerals (Fig. 9), conceived as a mechanism for their ordering (see Romero-Barranco 2017, 286). This task might have been carried out either by the scribe or by a later owner of the text since, according to Petti, “much of the foliation and pagination found in manuscripts were added much latter, the 19th-century librarians being especially fond of foliating” (Petti 1977, 38; also Denholm-Young 1954). The form of the numbers in the manuscript, however, suggests that the foliation process has been performed by the scribe himself, as they are identical to those in the text (see section 4.3).
23Palaeography focuses on the analysis of historical manuscripts to read their contents, identify their scripts and determine their dates of composition (Mathisen 2008, 140). The field is thoroughly associated with codicology, being even considered as its subdiscipline, even though some scholars regard them as separate fields of study. This is due to the fact that palaeography may also provide some information about those aspects of manuscripts that do not directly belong to the text itself, such as its layout on the pages, the marginal annotations, and the glosses, among others (Gruijs 1972, 93; Derolez 2003, 9–10). This section is devoted to the palaeographic analysis of Niewe Herball in order to examine its scripts and to propose an approximate date of writing. Abbreviations, numerals, and marginalia are also considered.
24The history of English handwriting in Early Modern English is characterised by the coexistence of two cursive scripts, which arose from the need for a widely acceptable hand incorporating aesthetic appeal and simplicity with smoothness and facility in execution (Petti 1977, 16). The first, known as secretary hand, developed from the traditional gothic script and soon became the mundane hand among English scribes of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century (Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 8; also Petti 1977, 16). The second, the italic hand, emerged as a revival of the Carolingian tradition and marked a new trend in the Tudor age that eventually resulted in the establishment of a completely new style of handwriting (Fairbank and Wolpe 1960, 20; Preston and Yeandle 1999, viii; also Petti 1977, 18).
25The secretary script came from Italy by way of France and was in use in England for governmental and private businesses, diverse forms of records, correspondence, literary pieces, and scientific compositions, among others (Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 8–9; Preston and Yeandle 1999, viii). This handwriting was considered the major script of the Elizabethan period and “its gradual evolution from the medieval ‘court hand’ may be seen in any series of deeds covering the period from 1450 to 1600” (Schulz 1943, 414; also Jenkinson 1927). In this respect, Petti identifies three phases of development of this script to indicate its features and to differentiate them from the fifteenth-century secretary. These are the early Tudor secretary, from 1485 to the later years of the rule of Henry VIII; the mid-Tudor secretary, from the mid-1530s to the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign; and the Elizabethan secretary, from about 1560 to the first half of the seventeenth century (Petti 1977, 16–18).
26The italic script, then, paved its way to English documents towards the second half of the fifteenth century, where it experienced a slow process in establishing a position and existed thenceforth side by side with the secretary hand (Fairbank and Wolpe 1960, 28; Preston and Yeandle 1999, viii). Its origin derives from the dissatisfaction of some Florentine scholars with the gothic book hands that caused an attempt to create a new simple script shaped on the Carolingian minuscule. The new handwriting was known as littera antiqua or lettera anticha, used in three basic categories, i.e., formata, corsiva, and corrente (Morison 1943, 6; Petti 1977, 18). After the second half of the sixteenth century, italic gained some popularity due to its simplicity and legibility, and its grace and beauty, “which from the beginning attracted calligraphers” (Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 9).
27These two scripts were sometimes blended depending on the scribes’ preferences. Both in the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth century, scriveners of the secretary hand usually used the italic script so as to highlight certain elements, such as titles and quotations, or to indicate emphasis (Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 9; also Fairbank and Wolpe 1960, 29).
Figure 10: ‘galen’ (f. 45r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 11: ‘Sengrene’ (f. 29r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
- 7 The combination of these two scripts as can be seen in the manuscript is a common practice in the s (...)
28In this same vein, Niewe Herball seems to have been written in the early seventeenth-century — possibly at some point in the period circa 1600–1630 — as it is reproduced with a cursive mixed script made up of a neat Elizabethan secretary hand and some scattered features of the italic script,7 the latter restricted to indicate certain proper nouns and the names of some plants, as shown in Figures 10 and 11, respectively. If compared with other scripts used in previous stages of the history of English handwriting (see Calle-Martín 2011), these two hands were distinguished by their higher degree of thickness, angularity and, above all, cursiveness, leaving overall more writing space for running words per page while permitting scribes to carry out their duties with a significantly greater velocity.
Figure 12: Elizabethan secretary letterforms in Niewe Herball
Image reproduced with permission from the copyright holder
Figure 13: Secretary capitals in Niewe Herball.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
- 8 These letterforms are also used to represent the letter thorn as this rune became indistinguishable (...)
29Figure 12 shows the inventory of Elizabethan secretary letterforms employed in the text, where the following stand out (Byrne 1925, 202–5; Tannenbaum 1930, 27–91; Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 13–16; Petti 1977, 17; also Preston and Yeandle 1999; Beal 2008): the letter <a> either preceded by a diagonal descending flourish over it (2) or appearing open-topped with an inverted semioval or an oblique stroke preceding it (3); the letter <e> reproduced in three different ways: the open reversed <e> (8), the epsilon variety of <e> (9), and the ‘two-stroke’ <e> (10), the third easily confused with the letter <r>; the letter <h> written similarly to our present-day form (14), or with a looped body, the supralinear loop always reduced to a simple bow and the first semioval either fully straight or dispensed with (15 and 16, respectively); the letter <k> rendered with a curl resembling a 2 or a lower-case <z> to the right of its middle part (18), or with the 2-like stroke converted into an indistinct flourish which may be easily mistaken for a <b> (19); the letters <m> and <n> written in multiple forms: with slightly rounded traces in initial and medial position (21 and 25), as a simple wavy line in final position (22 and 26), with an upward and backward stroke word-finally (23 and 27), and with a rounded terminal minim carried below the line at the end of some words (24 and 28); the traditional secretary, the left-shouldered version, and the 2-like form of <r> (34, 35 and 36, respectively); the letter <s> with a twofold representation depending on the position: the hooked <s> both at the beginning and the middle of words (37), and the sigma <s> in final position (38); the n-form of <u> (42); the letters <v> and <w> written in their traditional shape (43 and 46) and with a left-handed curl over the line (44 and 47); the letter <x> resembling a sort of secretary <p> (48); and the letter <y> reproduced with a rounded head and a curved tail to its right (49 and 50).8
- 9 Possibly used for decorative reasons, capital letters are likewise witnessed in the title of the tr (...)
30Apart from minuscules, capital letters also deserve some deal of attention, not only for their high incidence (563 cases of majuscules), but also because of their textual importance in Niewe Herball, given that they are employed to mark the beginning of the different passages or sections.9 Based on the fifteenth-century hybrid secretary script (see Petti 1977, 17–18), these capitals employed cursive embellished forms and included, among others: a rounded variety of <C> with a curved cross-stroke (3); the letter <E> resembling a contemporary <C> with an Arabic 2 set within it (5); the double <F> (6); the letter <H> rendered with an initial left-handed curve with an ornamental dot below it (8); the letter <K> represented as an <L> with a 2-like curl across the middle (10); the letter <P> generally represented with a downstroke, a horizontal stroke, and a right-handed bow (15); the letter <Q> rendered as a capital <O> complemented with a curl converging the right side of the base and some vertical crossbars (16); and the letter <S> written as the double curve of the roman equivalent, with the lower part continued round to form a sort of cover over the top (18) (McKerrow 1927, 31–36; Tannenbaum 1930, 95–118; Dawson and Kennedy-Skipton 1966, 13–16; Petti 1977, 17–18).
Figure 14: Distribution of abbreviations in Niewe Herball.
CC-BY the author
31Incorporated from Latin documents, adopting both their rules and symbols, the main functions of abbreviations in English writings were to save time and to conserve the maximum space “in writing on expensive materials like vellum (coupled with the necessity of aligning or ‘justifying’ the right-hand margins by varying the length of words)” (Greetham 1994, 218; also Tannenbaum 1930, 119; Petti 1977, 22; Calle-Martín 2021, 115). Chronologically speaking, however, the adoption was not straightforward, as some variations may have resulted from changing practices over time. The early Middle Ages, for instance, displayed an abbreviation system that could differ in terms of the place where they were produced, the typology of the text, and, more importantly, the idiosyncratic practices of scribes (Petti 1977, 22; Derolez 2003, 187; Clemens and Graham 2007, 89). The mechanisms of Late Middle English and Early Modern English, by contrast, were fairly uniform and constrained to reasonable boundaries, “presenting few problems other than whether or not a symbol which usually signifies omission is, in context, simply a meaningless flourish” (Petti 1977, 22). According to most sources on historical palaeography, abbreviations can be divided into five different categories: contraction, suspension, brevigraphs, superscript letters, and elision. Niewe Herball contains instances of all of them; the following subsections give examples for each category. For reasons of clarity, abbreviations are expanded with the supplied letter(s) italicised.
32Contraction involves the omission of one or more letters word-medially. Its use in the text is confined to a tittle or tilde (see Tannenbaum 1930, 119–20; Calle-Martín 2021, 118), which in most cases represents the letters <m> or <n> (279 and 400 instances, respectively), as illustrated in Figure 15. In 18 cases the tilde stands for other letters such as <c> or <t>, as in Figure 16.
Figure 15: ‘sommer’ (f. 36r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 16: ‘benedicta’(f. 36v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
33Suspension, in turn, involves the omission of the letter(s) at the end of a word (Tannenbaum 1930, 124). It is indicated in Niewe Herball by means of a tilde over the final letter (Fig. 17), by a curved stroke first turning up and then inclining leftwards (Fig. 18), and by a period next to the abbreviated unit (Fig. 19). The first two of these techniques only denote the consonants <m> or <n> (181 and 88 occurrences in the treatise), whilst the third is used to represent a higher number of letters (143 occurrences).
Figure 17: ‘whervpon’ (f. 47r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 18: ‘tertiam’ (f. 27v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 19: ‘Doctor’ (f. 23r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
34Brevigraphs refer to special sings that represent either two letters or an entire syllable, depending on the letter to which they are attached and their word-position (Petti 1977, 23). This variation in significance is strongly associated with the fact that some of these signs “derived from the shorthand system known as Tironian notes, believed to have been developed by Cicero’s secretary, Tiro, to record his master’s speeches, [whilst] others originated in the Roman system of legal shorthand known as notae iuris” (Clemens and Graham 2007, 89). Niewe Herball contains a significant amount of brevigraphs, most of them comprising different combinations of <r>- and <s>-related clusters (see De la Cruz-Cabanillas and Diego-Rodríguez 2018, 172).
35As far as <r>-related clusters are concerned, the following stand out:
-
The cluster ‘er’ indicated by means of “an ascending flourished stroke, curved leftwards and placed over the preceding letter” (Calle-Martín 2021, 119) in those cases where the character going immediately before it is a <þ>, <u> or the pair <th> (88 occurrences in total) (Fig. 20), by a diagonal stroke through the letter <v> (10 instances) (Tannenbaum 1930, 131) (Fig. 21), or by a superscript graph resembling a specific variant of <r> (127 occurrences) (Fig. 22), the latter also standing for the group ‘ur’ (82 instances), as shown in Figure 23.
-
The clusters ‘par’, ‘per’ and ‘pur’ (which occur respectivly 37, 15 and 6 times in Niewe Herball) represented by a mark below the letter <p> going from left to right with a convex flourish across its stem, as in Figures 24, 25 and 26, respectively. The last of these, however, is also observed as a curved stroke after the <p> which shifts to the left and terminates in a short descender over it, as in Figure 27 (see Tannenbaum 1930, 128–29).
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The clusters ‘pro’, ‘pre’ and ‘pri’ (35, 9 and 9 instances), the first represented with a hollow flourish through the stem of the letter <p> (Fig. 28), whereas the other two are rendered with a curved stroke going up to the left from the lower part of the consonant and ending in a vertical descender above it (Figs. 29 and 30).
36The <s>-related brevigraphs comprise of abbreviations of letters either in initial, middle, or final position. Both word-initially and word-medially, when rendered with a 2-like trace appended to its stem, the traditional long hooked <s> is employed 4 times in Niewe Herball to represent the cluster ‘ser’, as shown in Figure 31. This consonant, however, also appears in a single instance with a stroke over the last letter of a word in order to represent ‘es’, as in Figure 32. Word-finally, the most common forms involve a variety of <s> akin to an elongated sort of <c> with a closed arc at its top as an equivalent of the group ‘es’ (596 occurrences) (Fig. 33), and a q-like graph as indicator of the cluster ‘us’ (22 examples), as in Figure 34.
37Apart from the previous symbols, other brevigraphs and the letters they represent in the text include ‘and’ (1,006 occurrences), ‘Christ’ (3 occurrences), ‘etc.’ (2 instances) and ‘half’ (7 occurrences), as illustrated in Figures 35–38 below.
Figure 20: ‘togiþer’ (f. 26r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 21: ‘vertues’ (f. 26v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 22: ‘rounder’ (f. 36r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 23: ‘colour’ (f. 25r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 24: ‘parched’ (f. 41r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 25: ‘temperate’ (f. 26v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 26: ‘purslane’ (f. 46v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 27: ‘purgeth’ (f. 23v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 28: ‘prouoketh (f. 24v)
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 29: ‘primrose’(f. 30r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 30: ‘preserueth’ (f. 25r).
38Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 31: ‘conserue’ (f. 23r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 32: ‘roses’ (f. 23r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 33: ‘burstinges’ (f. 26r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 34: ‘venimous’ (f. 25v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 35: ‘and’ (f. 37r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 36: ‘Christi’ (f. 30v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 37: ‘etc.’ (f. 41v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 38: ‘half’ (f. 39r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
39Superscript letters consist of the addition — or the raising — of one or more letters above any part of a word so as to indicate the omission of some letter(s) within that same unit. This abbreviation method was à la mode in the sixteenth century, becoming relatively common for modes of address, numerals, relative and possessive pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions (Tannenbaum 1930, 134; Petti 1977, 24). In the text, as well as in most English documents (see Calle-Martín 2021, 119), the superscript letters for the words þat, with and which (Figs. 39, 40, and 41) present the highest rate, with 38, 157 and 95 occurrences, respectively. In addition, there are other 49 instances where a different word is affected, as in Figure 42.
Figure 39: ‘þat’ (f. 34r).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 40: ‘with’ (f. 34v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 41: ‘which’ (f. 26v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 42: ‘gradu’ (f. 26v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
40Finally, elision differed from traditional mechanisms of abbreviation insofar as it was not generally used to save time or space, but it was “usually made for metrical and linguistic reasons and affects the pronunciation of the words concerned” (Tannenbaum 1930, 121; also Petti 1977, 25). Elision may take place in any part of a word. In initial position, the abbreviation entailed the loss of a syllable (aphaeresis) or vowel (aphesis), and was primarily intended to link the word to the preceding or succeeding word. Medial elision (syncopation), in turn, was outstandingly common in poetry, especially where the letters <e> and <v> were concerned. Finally, elision at the end of a word (apocope) enabled it to run on to the following unit when this began with a vowel or aspirate (Tannenbaum 1930, 121–2; Petti 1977, 25). Niewe Herball only includes apocopes (18 instances), occurring at all times with the definite article, as reproduced in Figure 43.
Figure 43: ‘thabouesaid’ (f. 29v).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
41As a piece of Early Modern English writing, Niewe Herball includes the two mechanisms of numeration employed in the period, that is, Roman numbers and Arabic numbers. The former predominated in English texts until the beginning of the sixteenth century, with an array of variations and extensions in their forms, while the latter did not fully pave their way into English documents up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, despite being comparatively popular abroad long before (Jenkinson 1926, 266; Petti 1977, 28). Arabic numerals, however, already began to gradually surpass the Roman system for the marginalia, the quires and the numeration of the folios in the fifteenth century, and soon after, they became as frequent as Roman numbers for general purposes (Tannenbaum 1930, 153; Petti 1977, 28).
42Amounting up to 70 occurrences in the text, Roman numerals are used to show the quantity of stalks, flowers, leaves, or stems that a particular plant possesses, as in (2), and to reveal the diverse types existing within the same species, as in (3). In relation to their forms, the equivalents for numbers 2 and 3 stand out over the rest of numerals since they are twofoldly represented (see Fig. 44): i) made up of i’s and j’s only (i.e., ij and iij, as in A and C); and ii) accompanied by a sort of superscript <o> (i.e., ijº and iijº, as in B and D). This superscript unit, however, does not have a specific meaning with Roman numerals in the treatise; in all cases it denotes a cardinal number.
(2) […] it hath great brode leaues, not round, but with manye corners, or indented angles, with manye vaines, like to a horse foote, vj or vij leaues springing out of one rote […]
(f. 23v)
(3) Iuye, is of iijº sortes. white yvie, vnknown to us. black yvie, hedera nigra: dyonisia. hedera mas.
(f. 34r)
Figure 44: Roman numbers in Niewe Herball
Image reproduced with permission from the copyright holder
Figure 45: Arabic numbers in Niewe Herball
Image reproduced with permission from the copyright holder
43Arabic numbers, in turn, are more regularly witnessed (105 occurrences). Besides being used for the same purposes as Roman numerals, this system of numeration is likewise employed for the marginal notes (see section 4.4), to number some of the folios (see section 3.5), to indicate dates, as in (4), and to specify the degrees in which plants are boiled, dried, cold or moist, as in (5). When it comes to their shape (see Fig. 45), Arabic numerals are rendered in almost the same form as at the present days. An exception is formed by the number 1, which is reproduced either in almost the same manner as our lower-case <i> (A) or undotted (B), “with its head to the left and foot to the right, [which] may easily be confused with [number] 2” (Jenkinson 1926, 268) .
(4) Taken out of Doctor. Rembert Dodoens phisitian to þe Emperour. his herball made anno domini. 1578.
(f. 23r)
(5) […] the great and small sengrene, frigidum. et siccum. 3º gradu. the great and small stone crop, calidum. et siccum. fere 4º.
- 10 Note that, as opposed to Roman numbers, Arabic numerals with a supralinear <o> are always used to indi</o> (...)
(f. 29v)10
44Marginalia are manual annotations in the margins of manuscripts, added either by the scribes themselves or by latter owners. In early English, marginalia served different purposes: they could be used, among others, to point to relevant information and to refer back to previous information, or they could merely act as simple adornments of a text (Criado Peña 2019, 35; also Beal 2008, 247). The Niewe Herball contains eight instances of marginalia, serving three different purposes:
-
to enumerate the typology of the plants within several of the species described in ff. 29v, 30r, 34v, 36v, 37r and 47v (Fig. 46);
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to show that specific virtues of the herb radish have been tested and proved true by means of symbols resembling crosses (Fig. 47);
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to provide the name of a likely former owner of the volume (Fig. 48).
45As for the second function, this type of mark “was frequently used in the margins of accounts as a sort of check mark, perhaps as the equivalent of our ‘O.K.’ ” (Tannenbaum 1930, 134). Thus, the utilisation of these symbols in Niewe Herball means that either the scribe himself or a later user of the treatise might have checked that certain medical benefits and qualities of the plant in question were real, and so they could have employed the cross signs to leave an explicit record of it. The use of these marks also proves, as Criado-Peña claims, that “the [text] was certainly consulted and written for practical purposes” (Criado Peña 2019, 35).
- 11 His biographical information appears to be non-existent in both printed and electronic biographical (...)
46Apropos the last usage, in accordance with the data offered in the online catalogue of the University of Glasgow, the possible early holder of the manuscript refers to an individual called John Lewis Babrac, better known as Bawbrac, whose name and alias can also be read clearly in a manuscript engraving of nine lines inside the original back board of the volume,11 together with the short personal handwritten notes found in the margins of f. 32r. In this inscription, the author addresses the eventual reader as a traveller and requests him/her to explicitly direct attention to the words appearing in it, where special emphasis is placed on the figure of Bawbrac and on his remarkable personality. This suggests that either he wrote the text at the end of the volume in his own hand — considering the abovementioned marginal annotations — or that another individual composed it as a tribute to Bawbrac’s memory.
Figure 46: Marginal notes in f. 30r.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 47: Marginal notes in f. 45v.
47Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
Figure 48: Marginal notes in f. 32r.
Image reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Library
48The present paper carried out a physical description of Glasgow University Library, MS Ferguson 7 (ff. 23r–48v; 59r), which is, up until today, the only known handwritten volume comprising a portion of the English translation of Rembert Dodoens’ A Niewe Herball or Historie of Plants, a highly appreciated herbal in the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. The paper paid attention to some of its codicological and palaeographic features, including, among others, the material, ink, foliation, scripts, abbreviations, and marginalia. Based on an examination of the combination of these elements, this essay is able to suggest the most probable date of composition, permitting the research community to use it as a faithful input for distinct manners of analysis, either synchronic or diachronic. In doing so, a scholar may consider it appropriate to use the present description as a reference to evaluate whether the appearance of a particular feature is a recurrent procedure of a period or context, for instance. On the whole, the examination of the manuscript enabled me to propose the early seventeenth century — presumably around 1600–1630 — as date of writing, as the treatise is rendered with a rather readable cursive mixed hand, arising from the blend of the Elizabethan secretary script, together with some characteristics of the italic hand.
49Furthermore, although certain points deserve further looking into — for instance regarding the actual ownership of the treatise — this work has opened the door for possible forthcoming analyses, both quantitative and qualitative, as it has, where possible, provided the specific occurrence of the text’s scrutinised elements. To name but one example, the detailed figures could be used to test, if any, the variation between different text-types and/or registers with regard to the function of two kinds of numeration of the period.
50From a personal perspective, the examination of the physical characteristics of this unique piece of Early Modern English handwriting serves as a guide, and hence a starting point, to create a scholarly edition of the text. This edition will allow for a fine-grained examination of the scribal usage of English at different linguistic levels, as well as for an analysis of the similarities and differences of the language used in this treatise and the printed edition from which it derives. All in all, future research on these issues will contribute to several philological subareas, such as manuscript studies and historical linguistics, and cast new light on the early use of English from an interdisciplinary standpoint.