Unfortunately for us, medieval manuscripts are not usually dated. The Library is lucky to have one, Macer Floridus’ De virtutibus herbarum (1493, call no. 10a 159) in which the scribe has not only written the date it was completed, but also his name (check out this earlier blog post here). The Library’s copy of Lilium medicinae is also dated: 20 June 1348, the day after the feast of Corpus Christi. That’s 669 years ago, tomorrow.
Fuit scruptus iste libe Anno incarnacionis domini Mo.CCCo.xlo.viiio. Die veneris proxima post festum corprois Christi.
Completo libro sit lause et gloria Christo.
Explicit lilum medicine.
What’s the big deal about June 1348? The plague – in bubonic form – arrived in southwestern England that summer:
In this year, 1348, in Melcombe in the county of Dorset, a little before the feast of St John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol, came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence, and through him the men of that town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected.
– Grey Friar’s Chronicle, Lynn
(The feast of St. John the Baptist is 24 June.)
It travelled throughout England, turning into a virulent pneumonic form as winter set in. It reached Scotland in late 1349 or early 1350 before diminishing, but would reoccur in 1361-64, 1368, 1371, 1373-75, 1390, and 1405. More on the “Black Death” next week.
Sources:
Ibeji, Mike. “Black Death.” British History, Middle Ages. BBC. 10 March 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml
Kidd, Peter. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in the Library of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia. 2015.