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Early Modern

Exploring CPP 10a214 – Five Years On: Of Binaries and Collaboration

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Editorial: This is the eighth of a series of reflection posts from Recipe Project contributors and editors.

By Rebecca Laroche and Hillary Nunn

When we began this blog project in February 2013, we did not know where it was going to take us. We always saw our work with College of Physicians of Philadelphia Manuscript 10a214 as a work in progress, a work on progress. Given our different backgrounds and interests, we had a sense of the themes that may emerge, but in reading back through our collaborative endeavor, we can clearly see our efforts to locate the College of Physicians manuscript in time and place, but we also have seen how avenues of inquiry have permeable definition and numerous overlaps, can evolve and change. In particular, we have seen how working with recipe books requires a different sense of textual identity, that the individuals involved are not simply individuals – fixed identities tied to one lifespan and contained geographical boundaries – but rather entities that exist together as an interrelated network of being across time and space.

After all, this is a do-si-do book: on one side a collaborator who seems to have died for the Parliamentarian cause, and on the other, likely a man who was imprisoned as a Royalist. There are two compilers, but to treat them as being in binary opposition is misleading. Furthermore, extending these political differences to their wives and mothers, named as authorities and owners of the book, would be a mistake. There are also numerous people who probably never saw the book but who nonetheless are cited within it and who therefore influenced its creation. How these voices came to be captured within one collection is part of its mystery, but it is clear that these disparate elements are not oppositional, but rather in conversation with each other. The result is a multivocal, overlapping mixture of concerns.

To say that the two of us are working in a binary structure is also a temptation, with Rebecca concentrating on the textual history and Hillary working from a different angle on the geopolitical history. But this is not actually true. Looking at source material, from John Gerard’s Herball to Lancelot Andrewes’s Private Devotions, and imagining recipe exchanges between Anne Dacre and Elizabeth Downing illuminates a text that is many texts, spanning over a century of production, at once. Similarly, finding out more about those less famous people who contributed their recipe knowledge to the manuscript brings a different sense of how domestic practices were communicated outside of print in the time period. In the course of our research, which is indexed here, we have pursued timelines of personal history for those named in the manuscript (birth to death, marriage, children, and occupational appointments), religio-political history (particularly around the English Civil War), and textual history. While most of the relevant dates fall between 1606 (birth of Calybute Downing) and 1680 (death of Edward Layfield), the cross generational circulation of recipes and the staying power of print mean that the earliest associated dates extend well back into the 16th century and forward into the 18th. What we have discovered is that our seemingly separate topics are embedded in interconnected networks. Our efforts have helped us locate the text, but we have come to realize that we may never pinpoint it, and that doing so would be inaccurate and falsely stable. In fact, we have come to see that recipe manuscripts challenge that very desire for stability.

Furthermore, our work has been influenced by a collection of other scholars and texts in a mode that no doubt mirrors the circulation that gave rise to the CPP manuscript. Numerous postings to the Recipes Project blog itself have leaked into our thinking – as have our monthly conversations with Early Modern Recipes Online Collective steering committee members. As a result, Elaine Leong’s name occurs several times in these postings, for example. But there are certainly conversations that we’ve had that have less clear-cut trails through our thinking as well. Attempting to trace these networks is at the heart of our collaborative efforts, even though there will always be elements that escape our recognition.

This is not to say that we have made no progress in articulating the complicating connections embodied in the CPP manuscript. We have realized that, while we first hoped to discover how a Parliamentarian text fell into Royalist ownership, our terminology was unhelpfully confining. Instead, we now hope to articulate how people with such seemingly different views occupied the same, or overlapping, networks. In doing so, we hope to also complicates similar ideological categorizations that might hinder our readings of other texts. In the end, we may have to ask how the fluid nature of recipes and their circulation break apart/open the historicist project.

Without the Recipes Project and the collaborative possibilities it offers, articulating these observations would have been far more difficult. Having the space, and opportunity, to report our research in increments has enlivened our project, allowing room for serendipitous discoveries in the archives, as well as in conversations with colleagues. Our work with the CPP manuscript has already taken us in some surprising directions, and our continued engagement with the text will no doubt bring other unexpected possibilities. And we can’t wait to report them all here in the coming months.

Early Modern, Medicine, Posts, Religion, Remedies, Series: Transcription

Exploring CPP 10a214: Close Textual Ties

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By Rebecca Laroche with Hillary Nunn

Hillary Nunn’s discoveries about the identification of the Layfield hand of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia (CPP) manuscript with Edward Layfield, Archdeacon of Essex, has had me reconsidering earlier entries in this series having to do with religion and the recipes, in particular the exclusion of the “angel” from Elizabeth Downing’s version of the “Flos Unguentorum, or the Flower of Ointments.” [1]

The Historical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Manuscript 10a214, page 1. Personal photo included with permission

In my research I have found that other examples of this recipe appearing throughout the English Civil War era call this ointment “The Angel Salve,” others still the less evocative “Yellow Salve,” but there are only a handful of pre-1700 versions that include an expansion on the origin myth of the salve in which an angel descended on a “religious house” in Germany to exclaim the many virtues of the ointment. The most notable of these expansions is found in Philatros’ Natura Exenterata (1655), [2] a recipe which is likely to come from Anne Dacre Howard (1557/8-1630), a rough contemporary of Elizabeth Downing, mother of Calybute, and this version of the recipe, of the more than thirty recipes I have examined, remains the closest to Elizabeth Downing’s.  This entry looks at these two versions with relation to another pre-Civil War example in an attempt to hone the nature of their connection and to bring another print text into the network of the CPP manuscript.

The third pre-1640 example is from an anonymous text, A booke of soueraigne approued medicines and remedies, first published in 1577. [3] Ultimately, my argument is that the 1577 version is the source text for the Dacre recipe, as it is very close to it in many details. The ways that the Downing example diverges from Soueraigne approued medicines are in line with the Natura text, but then the Downing adds further variances and eliminates expansions, which suggests that the Dacre manuscript is its source, not vice versa.

The first page of A booke of soueraigne approued medicines and remedies (1577)

As I have mentioned before one major difference between the Natura Exenterata and the Downing recipe is where the virtues appear relative to the recipe, where the print text lists the many virtues first before giving the recipe and the manuscript lists them on a page following the recipe.  This is the one way in which the Natura diverges from its source in a significant way in that Approued medicines lists the virtues on the verso of the first folio of the text, just as the Downing version lists the virtues on the recto opposite the recipe. This correspondence and the manuscript’s use of “powder” (found in the 1577 text) rather than “pounded” as transcribed in the Natura Exenterata would suggest that the Downing is closer to the 1577 text, but in interpreting this information, we must remember that there is at least one missing text, the Dacre manuscript from which Natura was derived, and “pounded” suggests a mistranscription in the move into print from the minims of “poudred.”  Similarly, the transposition in making the virtues first may have been a choice of the printer.  The real evidence of the sourcing of the texts is the way that Natura embellishes on the 1577 version, expansions which then are contracted, replicated, or left out by the Downing manuscript.

The most conspicuous of these expansions is the way that Dacre fills in the myth, which in the 1577 version is only “Thys Intret is called Flos vnguentorum for that it is supposed for hys vertues to haue come to knowledge by revelation.” In Natura Exenterata, the context of the revelation is given details in “this intreat is called flos unguentorum, for it cometh of Jesu Christi by an Angell to a house of Religion at the red hill in Almayn, which wrought there many marvails, and never had other medicine but this.”  Also, a phrase from the 1577 “it healeth faster than any other” becomes in Natura “it healeth more in a sevenight then any other in a Month.”  The Downing version includes neither of these, either in their short or long version, which as it would give the Dacre nothing from which to expand, indicates that the Downing is derived from the Dacre. Other changes made in Natura from the earlier print text that appear in Downing imply at least a close relation between the 1640 manuscript version and the manuscript source of the Natura.  In the 1577 version, the ingredient is “Harts talow,” but in Natura it is “Harts suet,” which becomes “Deares suett” in the Downing version. The 1577 “searce it and boyle them all together” becomes in Natura “finely searsed, and boyle them over the fire,” which is then clarified in Downing’s “and being finely searsed, boyle them ouer the fire.” A direction in the anonymous text about making sure that the Camphire and Turpentine be added only when the rest is “cold as blood” or else “all is lost” is found in the list of virtues, which Dacre moves to its rightful place in the recipe, transformed to “no hotter than blood” or else “it marreth all your stuffe,” a move replicated in the Downing, becoming “but blood warme” and “it marres all.” The anonymous text calls the “Flower of Ointments” “one of the purest salues that can be made,” and the Dacre text changes to the “best and most precious salve that can be made,” which Downing shortens to “a most pretious salue.” The combination of the expansions in the Natura and the terse language in the Downing thus suggests that the Dacre has a closer proximity to the 1577 text, and that the Downing recipe is derived from the Dacre.

Of course, as is getting to be the case in this series, there is a third possibility in that alongside the print texts from 1577 and 1655, and the 1640 manuscript and the implied Dacre manuscript source for Natura, we should consider the other implied manuscript, the one from which Calybute Downing copied his mother’s recipes. After all, it may be from Elizabeth Downing’s own receipt that words were mistranscribed, expansions were left out by some and copied faithfully by others, orders were changed, and phrases were clarified and confounded.  We can determine, however, that the Downing and the Dacre recipes have an affinity, one that complicates and nuances the networks in front of us.

[1] The Historical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Manuscript 10a214, pp. 1–2.

[2] Philatros, Natura Exenterata, London 1655, p. 332.

[3] Anonymous, A booke of soueraigne approued medicines and remedies, fol. A2r–A2v.

 

 

 

 

 

British Studies, Manuscripts, Records, Documents and Notes, Remedies, Series: Johanna St John, Women and Gender

Exploring CPP 10A214: Enter Lady Honywood, Continued; Getting it on Paper

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

Elaine Leong’s posting about paper’s use as a medical tool inspired me to look more carefully at instances of paper in the Layfield manuscript, which Rebecca Laroche and I have been examining in this series. What I found was much more than I expected. It turns out that concentrating on paper highlights some of the embedded puzzles about recipe transmission that have been lurking in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia manuscript, and even in the Recipe Projects blog itself. My exploration also brings us back to Lady Honywood, proving once more Rebecca’s observation that “one just has to take advantage of a name like ‘Lady Honywood’ if it’s given to you.”

Rebecca and Elaine both have written substantially about Lady Honywood (or Honeywood) in Recipe Project posts before. This past March, Elaine pointed out that Joanna St. John’s 1680 recipe book contains a remedy attributed to Lady Honeywood “for a cancer,” where the medicine is spread on paper and then laid on the sore. Not surprisingly, Lady Honeywood’s name rang a bell for me, since almost two years earlier, Rebecca had devoted two posts to Lady Honywood’s presence in the Layfield manuscript. Lady Honywood’s recipe for the gout, Rebecca showed, hinted that the compiler of the CPP manuscript’s second section had a particular need to treat that ailment since seven cures for gout appear there.

But it turns out that Elaine and Rebecca were talking about the same recipe, or so I found out when I searched for mention of paper in the CPP manuscript. While St. John labels the recipe as a cancer treatment, the Layfield manuscript identifies it as “The Lady Honywood: receite for the Goute, running & swellinge.”

Layfielde_MS Honywood
[1]

The Layfield manuscript mentions the concoction’s effectiveness against cancer as an afterthought, but it is nonetheless there – as is paper as mode of administration. The ingredients are identical as well, with two notable variations. First, the Layfield manuscript walks the user through the process of rendering juice from its herbal ingredients, while St. John begins with the juices:

Wellcome4338Honywood

Otherwise, the only difference is that St. John’s version calls for “bean flower” while the Layfield manuscript calls for “wheaten flour.”

The variation in recipe titles is not uncommon, of course, and it certainly highlights Rebecca’s point about the importance of local needs in the organization of these manuscripts. At the same time, it underscores how easily categorization schemes can obscure connections among texts and contributors. Lady Honywood and her recipe, variant title or no, forge a connection between two manuscripts, the St. John and the Layfield, that otherwise show no obvious overlap. And, ironically enough, a search for paper helped bring to light what had been an unidentified link within this very blog. The overlap between manuscripts, and the one between blog entries, hints further at what connections lie just beyond the reach of our current digital tools. Just more evidence that we need a searchable database of these manuscripts!

Notes:

[1] Below is a transcription for the Layfield hand:

Rx. one handfull of Fetherfew, salladine, smalledge, &
Rhew, of each a handfull, pick them cleane, wash them &
drie the water out cleane, & beate them in a mortar very
small, & then straine the Juce of it into a dish, &
thicken it with wheaten-flower; & put into it the
yelke of anew-laid egg, & as much honey as [that] con-
taines too, all beaten together, & spread it vpon capp
paper, or Grossers browne-paper, & apply it to the
place pained; & as the paine remoues, or moues so
follow it with this medicine –
2. this same also will helpe the Ague in a womans breast
or any bruise, the bloode beinge setled, or kill a felon
or the Kings euell, if it be swellinge or runninge.
If it be runninge lay adrie peece of paper vpon the
soare, & the plaister vpon it, by Gods blessinge it will
do all these cures

Manuscripts, Posts, Religion

EXPLORING CPP 10A214: A New Candidate for the Layfield Hand, Part 2

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By Hillary Nunn with Rebecca Laroche

In my last posting, I reported on a possible new match for the Layfield hand that appears in CPP 10A214. It looked so promising that my collaborator Rebecca Laroche and I immediately began exploring how a new identity for Layfield would change our understanding of the manuscript. If Edward Layfield, Archdeacon of Essex, was behind Hand 2, rather than Edward Layfield (rector of Wakes Colne) or Edmund Layfield (the first candidate we considered) what would that mean?

A great deal, it turns out. Both letters bearing Edward Layfield’s signature carry the date 1660, and he is identified with the title Archdeacon of Essex in both. If this Edward is linked to the CPP manuscript, his associations with the Church of England, both before and after the Civil War, would indicate that the book ended up in a Royalist home. That would be significant, since Calybute Downing, the manuscript’s first compiler, ended up siding with the Parliamentarian cause.

The Edward Layfield who became Archdeacon of Essex was nephew to Archbishop Laud, and Joseph Maskell identifies him as vicar of the church at Allhallows Barking on London’s eastern edge (147). We know he fits the CPP manuscript’s story in a significant way: in 1637, he was married to a woman named Ann. According to Maskell’s nineteenth century history of Allhallows Barking, the couple’s daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized in 1637 (68).[1]

In 1642, after dissent from a faction of puritans within the congregation, Layfield was “taken into custody as a Royalist and voted unfit to hold any ecclesiastical preferment.” According to the editorializing Maskell, no charges of “moral or intellectual unfitness” were required; “it was sufficient that he was … a friend of the King, and a relative of the Archbishop.” Other churchgoers petitioned on Layfield’s behalf, to no avail. During the Interregnum, he was “confined in most of the gaols about London, and on one occasion, with other clergy, taken on board ship, clapped under the hatches” and purportedly threatened with being sold into slavery (148).

If the manuscript’s Layfield is the archdeacon, though, then we have to wonder what happened to his wife and family during his time in prison. We know the archdeacon’s estate was confiscated, but we cannot immediately tell where his wife Anne lived during his imprisonment. Church records indicate that she died in 1678, and her archdeacon husband died two years later.

How does this all come back to recipes? Well, if the Anne Layfield who owned the CPP manuscript in 1640 is the archdeacon’s wife, the book’s history becomes even more remarkable. How would she have gotten the book from Calybute Downing, who died in 1644 while firmly aligned with the Parliamentarians? How would the book have crossed this political divide to end up in a Royalist household? Or did the book follow a friendlier path, moving among friends whose political and religious divisions lay a few years in the future? With luck, more archival research will eventually help us find out.

[1]Maskell, Joseph. Collections in Illustration of the Parochial History and Antiquities of Ancient Parish of Allhallows Barking in the City of London. London, 1864.