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Early Modern, Manuscripts, Networks of Knowledge, Posts, Women and Gender

Exploring CPP 10a214: The Wilmer Connection

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

In her last post on College of Physicians manuscript 10a214 (26/09/2013), Rebecca Laroche examined the collection’s attributions to one “Dnam Yelverton” to explore the varying statuses of women who contributed to the volume. This entry not only continues that line of exploration, but incorporates a new geographical twist that allows us to make some exciting new connections among the manuscript’s compliers.

Page 61 of the CPP manuscript contains three recipes, the first and third attributed to Mistress Wilmer of Bowe – “To cause to avoyde grauell” and “To driue away small pocks or measles.” The second recipe, which uses dead dead bees to provoke urine, is labeled as “per Eliza: Downing.”

While Mistress Wilmer is not the only contributor to be directly linked with a place, her association with Bowe is particularly interesting. After all, if it is fair to associate Bowe with the area of London once known as Stratford-at-Bow, then the geographical scope of our volume grows even wider. As we noted in an earlier post (20/06/2013), the parish of Hackney on London’s west side, as well as the town of Stamford, can already be associated with the manuscript.

Mistress Wilmer, however, adds to the network in a second, even more interesting way. According to Charles Wilmer Foster’s The History of the Wilmer Family, George Wilmer earned a degree at Cambridge, married Margery Thwenge before 1606, and resided at Stratford-le-Bow.[1] George died in 1626, and Margery remarried prior to 1630.[2]

George Wilmer’s will, however, is what offers us the most tantalizing connection to the CPP manuscript. The document’s fourth witness is one E. Layfield, whom Foster connects to Edmund Layfield, preacher at the nearby St. Leonards-Bromley. The will was proved on 26 May 1626, just short of three years before Layfield delivered a subsequently published sermon entitled The mappe of mans mortality and vanity at St. Leonards.[3]

As Rebecca Laroche will show in the next post, Edmund Layfield is very likely the husband of Anne Layfield, who stakes the only direct claim to the CPP manuscript. The inscription “Anne Layfield, her Booke of Physicke and Surger, 1640” appears on the flyleaf, and, thanks to Mistress Wilmer, we can be more certain than ever as to the nature of the networks in which she moved.

But this connection between the Wilmers and the Layfields introduces new challenges as well. If, as we have been positing, the first section of the CPP manuscript, where Mistress Wilmer’s recipes appear, can be associated with Calybute Downing and his mother Elizabeth, how might they fit into the network? The Downings certainly must have enjoyed a connection to the Layfields, since the book eventually made it into Anne’s possession. The positioning of Mistress Wilmer’s recipes, however, suggest that the Downings must have had their own connection to her east end household, the exact nature of which remains to be uncovered.

[1] Charles Wilmer Foster and Joseph A. Green, The History of the Wilmer Family (Leeds, 1888), 114. The book is available via the Internet Archive, at https://archive.org/stream/historyofwilmerf00fost#page/n11/mode/2up.

[2] Foster, 117.

[3] The mappe of mans mortality and vanity. A sermon, preached at the solemne funerall of Abraham Iacob Esquire, in the church of St. Leonards-Bromley by Stratford-Bow. May. 8. 1629. By Edmund Layfielde Bachelour in Divinity, and preacher there.

British Studies, Early Modern, Manuscripts, Research and Writing

Exploring CPP 10a214: Who is “Me”?

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

In her last post about our work with College of Physicians manuscript 10a214, Rebecca Laroche reported her discovery that the handwriting in the text’s early pages did not match that of a letter at the British library attributed to Calybute Downing .(06/08/2013)[1] The mismatch at first led us to doubt whether the CPP manuscript note “probatum per me Cal. Downing” (24) could point to the mid-17th century divine Calybute Downing (1606–1644) as a compiler. The extreme clarity of the CPP manuscript’s italic hand, however, has raised for us the possibility that a scribe might have been involved in its production, thereby explaining the recipe book’s contrast with the British Library manuscript.

The situation, however, raises a larger question: How confident can we be in identifying who a manuscript’s “me” is? In the case of the CPP’s “probatum per me Cal. Downing,” there initially seemed no reason to doubt that “me” is indeed Downing. But does that mean that Downing had to write “me” on the manuscript page himself?

Other recipe books support the notion that a scribe may have put these words on the page for Downing, adopting his voice. Lady Anne Fanshawe’s book, for example, begins with this explicit note from a scribe: “Mrs: Fanshawes Booke of Receipts… written the eleventh day of December 1651. by Me Joseph Auerie”.[2] This note changes the way readers interpret the collection. When readers turn the page, they see the beginning of a recipe “For Melancholy and heavenes of spiretts,” in Avery’s hand, attributed to “My Mother”; underneath that marginal note appears a second name, “A Fanshawe,” in what seems to be different script (4r).[3]

FanAttrib1
Wellcome Western Manuscript 7113, fol. 4r.
© Wellcome Library

But whose mother? The phrasing suggests that Avery identifies the source from Anne Fanshawe’s viewpoint, or as she had written it down in a previous copy; the “my,” then, is likely Fanshawe’s even though her pen does not touch the paper. That raises the question, however, of who writes “A Fanshaw” as the second attribution. Luckily, page 2r offers an answer through another inscription (in a hand that matches the second attribution) which reads “K: Fanshawe. Given mee by my Mother March th 23. 1678.” In the volume’s opening, then, we have three instances or “me” or “my,” each pointing explicitly to a different person. Most importantly, these pages suggest a method of indicating explicitly who “me” and “my” refer to — within at least this portion of the manuscript.

Yet Fanshawe’s manuscript is not always so explicit. The profusion of unidentified hands certainly contributes to this confusion, but it seems a tendency toward exact copying may be to blame as well. See, for example, Fanshawe manuscript’s “An Oile for a Bruise in ye Eye, or for any other bruise proved by Me of a woman, that had lost her Eye by a bruise, and recovered it againe” (30v).[4]

FanshaweEye
Wellcome Western Manuscript 7113, fol. 30v
© Wellcome Library

The “me” here could certainly be Anne Fanshawe, and the “lady who her lost her eye by a bruise” could be Lady Butler, whose name appears in the margin as an attribution. Then, the note in Katherine Fanshawe’s writing could be indicating that she associates the recipe with her mother.

But it is worth noting that the Townshend family manuscript (Wellcome MS.774), dating between 1636-47, records a very similar recipe, with the same use of “me,” on 88v:[5]

Townshend
Wellcome Western Manuscript MS 774, fol. 88v.
© Wellcome Library

There is no Lady Butler here, and neither Fanshawe appears either. So who is the “me” to whom the recipe is recommended?

The appearance of the same rhetoric in both appearances of the recipe – one certainly recorded by a scribe, and the other in a volume with multiple hands – makes determining this particular “me” a hazardous proposition. Conscientious copying of personal testimony, from a source that seems impossible to determine, thus obscures even more thoroughly the identity of the manuscript’s compiler, burying the “me” in multiple levels of vagary.

The “me” in “probatum per me Cal. Downing” need not involve so many people. Luckily, it is the only instance of pronoun in the opening section of CPP 10a214. The seeming lack of other potential compilers in this section keeps the pool of potential referents narrow, allowing us to continue our investigation into which Calybutes could be involved in the manuscript’s creation.

This is the seventh of a series of monthly posts on this topic.

[1] Other earlier blog entries on this topic appeared on 20/06/2013, 21/05/2013, 09/04/2013, 12/03/2013, 20/2/2013.

[2] Wellcome MS.7113 http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/recipebooks/MS7113/MS7113_0004.pdf

[3] http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/recipebooks/MS7113/MS7113_0005.pdf. Elaine Leong blogged about the manuscript’s different compilers, the scribe and Fanshawe among them, on 11/09/2012.

[4] http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/recipebooks/MS7113/MS7113_0023.pdf

[5] Wellcome MS.774. http://archives.wellcomelibrary.org/recipebooks/MS774/MS774_0088.pdf

Family and Household, Ingredients, Manuscripts, Medicine, Networks of Knowledge, Posts, Remedies, Women and Gender

Exploring CPP 10a214: Recipes in Transit

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

In recent months, as part of our continuing exploration of an understudied manuscript at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Rebecca Laroche and I have been examining the nature of recipe sources in the collection.  The manuscript incorporates references to print authorities like Gerard’s Herbal (21/05/2013) aswell as to domestic practitioners whose expertise is praised but less easily traced (09/04/2013).   This month, I’ll be concentrating on the manuscript’s suggestion that a more personal, if not face to face, variety of collaboration might be indicated in its pages as well.

In its first section alone the manuscript names more than thirty-five people as sources for its recipes, and many of those credited are associated with faraway places, at least in terms of seventeenth century English travel.  Rebecca’s research (12/03/2013) associates the collection with Calybute Downing, a Protestant minister who, in the years surrounding the manuscript’s composition, lived in London, Essex, and the parish of Hackney on the northern outskirts of London.[1]  While it’s currently not possible to pinpoint where he was living when working on the manuscript, the collection’s inclusion of a recipe attributed to “Mrs. Twayne of Hackney” hints that Downing had at least begun to establish himself in that area at the time.  It’s curious to note, then, that many of the recipes identified with places far from this suburban location.

Three recipes in the opening section, for example, are associated with “Dr. Waters,” who, in his initial citation, is called “Dr. Waters of Stamford.”  Given his title, it’s no surprise that his recipes are among the collection’s most intricate.  His instructions for “A diett bagge for any infirmity in the eyes,” for example, require more than ten ingredients to be assembled, then steeped in ale. His treatment to “strengthen the backe and comfort the stomake” involves marinating a leg of mutton in sugar, butter, rosewater and two kinds of wine before eventually squeezing the roasted meat between two plates to extract its medicinal juice.  This recipe ends with the notation “probatum per doctor waters /
Eliza: Downing,” thus associating the treatment with Calybute’s mother Elizabeth, and allowing us to picture her as a mediating source for the Waters cures.

How did these recipes from Dr. Waters find their way to Elizabeth Downing and her transcribing son?  The town of Stamford is almost a hundred miles from Hackney, using modern highways; even driving at today’s legal limit, the journey takes over an hour, passing through Cambridge on the way. Where (and even if) Elizabeth was living during Calybute’s work on the manuscript is unclear; we do know, however, that her husband was lord of the manor of Sugarswell in Tysoe, Warwickshire at the time of her son’s birth.  Yet this does little to close the gap, since Tysoe is almost 90 miles west of Stamford. The recipes could have covered this distance in written form, or they may have been passed from hand to hand as members of households undertook they smaller, more routine journeys.

But digging deeper into Downing history may hold the answer.  Elizabeth Downing married her son’s father in 1604 at Tinwell, Rutland,[2] a small town identified as B below, just over two miles from Stamford (E).


View Larger Map

This much-reduced distance lets us see the recipe emerging from a different sort of community, one where face-to-face, local transmission would be far more likely.  From its origins in Stamford, the recipe nonetheless has covered a great deal of territory, presumably moving west to Warwickshire with Elizabeth Downing and then back east with her son in the London area.  In the process, the journey of Dr. Waters’s treatments shows what we suspect is the case for many such shared cures: that the most direct route of their travels may not be the most likely one.

This is the fifth in a series of monthly posts on the topic.

[1]Barbara Donagan, ‘Downing, Calybute (1606–1644)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7980, accessed 9 June 2013]

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calybute_Downing

Apothecaries, Early Modern, Ingredients, Manuscripts, Material History, Medical Practitioners, Medicine, Posts, Printed Books, Remedies, Research and Writing, Women and Gender

Exploring CPP 10a214: The Compiler and the Countess

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

Last month, Rebecca Laroche (12/03/2013) examined the first recipe in a manuscript owned by Anne Layfielde and dated 1640, housed at the Medical Historical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.  The section of the manuscript compiled by one “Cal: Downing” contains a remarkable number of attributions, many to Elizabeth Downing – a woman who, Rebecca suggested, could be the “Mistress Downing” whose recipes appear in the printed Natura Exenterata: Or Nature Unbowelled (1655).

I’d like to consider another woman whose name appears repeatedly in the Layfielde manuscript as well as in printed medical manuals: the Countess of Exeter.  Seven references to the Countess of Exeter appear in CPP 10a214.  While the manuscript never says so specifically, this is most likely Frances Cecil (1580-1663), who married Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter in 1610.[1]  The Countess’s reputation in matters of health proved weighty enough that she is named in the dedications to a number of early modern printed books, though, curiously, her recipes are not part of those books (and male physicians’ are). Thomas Bonham dedicates The Chyrurgians Closet to the Countess because he finds “amongst men (to me known) none so much affecting this noble Science as I could wish.”[2] Her reputation as a model household manager led Gervase Markham to dedicate the 1623 edition of Country Contentments, or The English Huswife to her; his assertion that the Countess’s endorsement could make his “weak and disable[d]” book “strong in the world” underscores her long-standing reputation as a practitioner of household medicine.[3]  Thus, even though the Countess’s recipes themselves are not included, or at least not credited, in these books, their authors rely on her popular reputation as a medical practitioner to situate their writings.

Downing’s manuscript section calls on the Countess’s authority as well, naming her as a source for recipes for ailments ranging from “looseness of the body” to sudden swellings.  And even more interestingly, the manuscript labels four recipes as “probatum per Countess of Exeter.”  A recipe for “the Ulcer or stone in the bladder” goes so far as to specify that the medicine was “made by Mr Whatton apothecary of Stamford, probatum per Countess Exeter.” This endorsement carries a personal ring, suggesting that the compiler’s contact with the Countess is more immediate than with the apothecary.  The manuscript, as a result, conjures images of the compiler and the Countess in personal conversation about their medical work.

While written testimonials could certainly follow along with well-travelled recipes, the Layfielde manuscript’s many references to the Countess raise tantalizing questions about the compiler’s medical connections.  How closely did the compiler know the Countess?  Did they exchange recipes in person?  If not, how did her recipes end up in the CPP manuscript?  The answers to these tantalizing questions could offer us a greater understanding not just of how recipes travel, but of how manuscript and print worked together to lend practitioners like the Countess a reputation for medical prowess.

[1] Alastair Bellany, ‘Cecil , Frances, countess of Exeter (1580–1663)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/70625, accessed 23 March 2013]

[2]  Thomas Bonhman, The Chyrurgians Closet (London, 1630).

[3]  Gervase Markham, Country Contentments, or The English Huswife (London, 1623).

This is the third in a series of monthly posts on this topic.