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.
