Leechbook Fragment (Harley 55)

To better demonstrate the ways in which Old English texts were compiled from multiple sources, a discrete text is presented from London British Library Harley 55, the ‘Leechbook Fragment’, which preserves text closely matching the capitulary entry for Bald's Leechbook ii.59, which is now lost. The Old English text draws from two principal sources: the Liber tertius and the Synopsis of Oribasius, but this is augmented with long digressions from other sources, such as the procedure for administering a radish emetic from Synopsis I, alongside a recipe for oxymel which is possibly adapted from Dioscorides, De materia medica. Where Oribasius offers only the most perfunctory dietetic advice, the Old English text lists those foods with the required qualities, quite possibly relying on Synopsis II for that information. There are further resonances of the Liber Esculapii in other passages, such as the use of aromatic pine resin.

Because it is obvious that the Leechbook was drawn from the New Latin text of Oribasius, that is the text which was chosen. The text is not without its problems, however. What is presented is based on Stuttgart, Wurtembergische Landesbibliothek HB XI 8, fol 201v–202r. While this reading is superior to Molinier's transcript of Laon 424, it is nevertheless quite difficult to make sense of the text as it stands. The presented translation therefore also takes account of the Old Latin reading and the Greek. The surviving portion of Leechbook ii.56 on dysentery then follows, supplemented by its probable sources, illustrating a similar compilation technique from multiple sources.