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Abstract
The Consideration of Quintessence is a fifteenth-century Middle English translation of the Latin alchemical-medical treatise, Liber de Consideratione de Quintae Essentiae Omnium Rerum written by John of Rupescissa in the mid-fourteenth century. The work is separated into two sections or books; the first book focuses on alchemical theory based on Aristotelian theories of matter and contains explanations on how to create aqua ardens and quintessence to produce life-renewing and life-sustaining elixirs and medicines; the second book contains remedies for treating such illnesses and health problems as leprosy and skin irritations, asthma, palsy, and melancholy based on the alchemical theories and methods presented in the first book.
This dissertation provides an edition of the Middle English Consideration of Quintessence with critical apparatus, introduction, notes, glossaries, and a list of herbs and ingredients mentioned in the text. The base manuscript for this edition is University of Glasgow, Hunterian Library, Ferguson 205. It has been compared to a second Middle English version of the text by the same scribe, London, British Library, Sloane 353, with appropriate emendations made in the edition and variants cited in the textual apparatus. Two shorter Middle English versions of this text (London, British Library, Harley 353; and London, British Library, Sloane 73, edited by Frederick J. Furnivall) have also been compared to Ferguson 205. The Middle English translation has been examined against five Latin manuscript versions of the text (Trinity College, Cambridge, 1389; Trinity College, Cambridge, 1407; Trinity College, Cambridge 1411; London, British Library, Sloane 338; and London, British Library, Harley 5399), with variants noted in the explanatory notes.
The edition also includes several shorter works found in Ferguson 205: The Book of Alexander Concerning Seven Herbs, Seven Planets; Semita Recta by pseudo-Albertus Magnus; The Work of Boniface IX, with the Following White and Red Chapters; Various Recipes; and Sophistications.
The Introduction includes an historical, technical, and linguistic examination of the manuscript, the text of The Consideration of Quintessence, and, briefly, the other texts in the edition. The technical section focuses on the manuscript's size, general appearance, and scribal hand, and includes a linguistic description and analysis. The historical section provides an overview of the Aristotelian scientific theories that led to alchemical practices and an analysis of how these practices became part of medical treatment, particularly in The Consideration of Quintessence. The linguistic section includes an analysis of the dialect and a tentative localization of the text in Somerset.
The dissertation concludes with a set of Explanatory Notes on historical, Latin, literary, and biblical references in the texts; a Glossary of scientific and other vocabulary; a Glossary of Proper Nouns; and a list of plants and other ingredients.
