LS G 12

Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in National Library of Ireland

G 12

Medical

Early 16th cent. Vellum. 86 pp. Mainly 29.5 × 21 cms. (pp. 57-8, an intercalated leaf, and pp. 81-5 are of lesser dimensions).

The pagination is modern. Three separate fragments in three different hands, now occupying pp. 79-85, did not originally form part of the main manuscript but seem to have been added at the time of binding. The main manuscript, pp. 1-78, which is imperfect at the beginning and the end, is the work of three scribes, two of whom are unidentified.

The scribe of pp. 25-58 is identified in an addition to a previously incomplete colophon on p. 30 as Giolla Padraig mhac Giolla na Naomh mhic Muireadhaigh Í Chonchubhair. This identification is further evidence of the activity of a group of medical scribes of the Ó Conchubhair family at Aghmacart, Co. Laois, of which Fr. Paul Walsh (IER 5 ser. xx) and Mackinnon (Cat. Gaelic Mss. Scotland, p. 275) have given some notice. Donnchadh Óg Ó Conchubhair was clearly head of the school c. 1590-1610 He is described in a pedigree in RIA 3 C 19 as son of Donnchadh Liath mac Gilla Pádraig. Donnchadh Liath in his turn is described in a note recording his death in 1562 (RIA 23 N 17, p. 121) as son of Gilla Pádraig mac Giolla na Naomh, presumably our present scribe.

It may be noted finally that members of the Leinster families of Mac Caisin and Ó Cuileamhain were connected both with the Ó Conchubhair school (see NLI G 453) and with the nearby school of the family of Ó Bolgaidhe (see G 8, G 11 and RIA 23 M 36)]

The other two scribes wrote respectively pp. 1-13 and pp. 14-24; pp. 59-78 appear to have been written by the scribe of pp. 1-13 with occasional assistance from the other two. The hand which supplies the completion of the colophon on p. 30 also supplies omissions in the text on pp. 25-30.

The manuscript is written in double column, but the intercalated leaf and the fragments at the end of the manuscript are in single column. The scribe of pp. 14-24 has rubricated some of his work. The ruling is both by dry point and in brown-the first unidentified scribe favouring the latter. The average number of lines to the page is 42.

The vellum, though defective in a few places, is in good condition. The folio, now pp. 39-40, was brought to full size by the stitching on of a large triangular segment. The upper portion of pp. 55-6 is glued and thonged to the main part of the leaf. There is little staining; the first and last leaves and the fragments have marks showing they were at some time outer unprotected leaves.

The composition of the gatherings is as follows 1-20, 21-40, 41-56, 57-58 (an intercalated shorter leaf), 59-64, (followed by two tiny stubs, the conjugates of 59-60 and 77-78), 65-78. Pp. 79-85 are single leaves, fragmentary material not part of the original manuscript. Pp. 61-76 originally formed one gathering with 61-62 and its conjugate 63-64 as the outer leaves. This misplacement of leaves has caused the error in the sequence of the text of Lanfranc's Surgery noted below, p. 59. The gatherings show holes made by the sewing in a previous binding.

The manuscript is bound in full leather, blind-tooled, with Regimen Sanitatis in gilt on the spine. The end-papers (marbled) and fly-leaves bear the countermarks AHH & RP and D, not identified in the readily available sources. The crest of Sir Thomas Phillipps is stamped on the verso of the front end-paper with 10403, the number of the manuscript in Phillipps's catalogue, written below.

Who the owners of the manuscript were prior to Phillipps has not been ascertained ; in his Catalogus, p. 168, it is listed with others under 'Ex Bibl. Incert.' One of the fragments (pp. 81-84) has MS.26 in ink and A C (=Adam Clarke?) MS. 43 pasted on its last page. The following Latin hexameter occurs in a late hand on p. 3 lower margin edere qui possunt nil dignum laude per ipsos carpiendis aliis laudem vera <. . . in ane>.

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