Morten St George Theory

[-JKP-]

Morten I don't care what medieval academics say (well, maybe some of them if they've been looking at original sources rather than pirating each other).

I care about what I see manuscripts. And what I see written on fly leaves is medicinal recipes, many of them, and liver was a common ingredient.

What this means is that the person who suggested the pox leber reading is proposing something completely believable and rational for the time.

JP, I think you are exaggerating here. Not in a million years will I believe that the word "leber" was commonly seen on the fly leaves of medieval manuscripts, and I even find it doubtful that another instance of "pox leber" can be found on any fly leaf. To the contrary, "liber" may have been somewhat commonplace. In fact, just yesterday I read that one of the Sworn Books was inscribed "Sum Ben: Jonsonij liber."

...

I am not exaggerating. These kinds of ingredients are regularly mentioned in herbal manuscripts as well. They are not only on fly leaves.

Medieval books regularly mention "prescriptions" that seem strange to us, like bat's blood (this is also found in Egyptian medicine), boar bile, bird blood, etc., etc., as well liver and other body parts as regular ingredients of medicinal charms, recipes, and incantations.


And yes, I agree with Tentakulus, and it may have been VViews who posted some good visual examples, but the drawing top left looks like a carcass hung to drip and cure. Drawings of butchered animals hanging from hooks are common in books of health from the 14th and 15th centuries. But maybe you don't believe that either.