The following list of all manuscripts known to us presents 1) the witnesses to the two principal versions and several hybrid texts, most of which combine an “alpha” beginning with a “beta” conclusion; 2) adaptations (probably all non-authorial and of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries); and 3) a Latin version of the text, apparently unique.

Liber Uricrisiarum Versions and Witnesses

Alpha version (long chapters)

R = London, British Library, MS Royal 17 D.i, ff. 4r-118v (a few leaves lost or mutilated, but otherwise an excellent and very carefully prepared text)

M7 = Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS e Musaeo 187, ff. v recto- v verso, 1r-78v (textually and orthographically very close to R)

G = Gloucester, Gloucester Cathedral Library, MS 19, ff. 1r-189v (a handsome volume, illustrated and thoroughly annotated by Henry Fowler, rector of Michinhampton, Gloucestershire, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century)

T = Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS O.10.21, ff. 1r-94v

Sa = London, British Library, MS Sloane 1100, ff. 3r-118r (textually close to Sc)

Sc = London, British Library, MS Sloane 1721, ff. 2r-213v (ends incomplete near the end of bk. 3.20, in chapter on the Rules of Isaac)

W6 = London, Wellcome Library, MS WMS 226, ff. 1r-70v (ends incomplete in bk. 2.9, on Pale/Subpale urines)

Beta version (short chapters)

A = Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1404, ff. 3r-184v (the best and most carefully organized of the beta witnesses)

G6 = Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 376/596, ff. 1r-169v (generally quite close to A, but has suffered significant water and rodent damage that makes the end of the MS difficult and sometimes impossible to read)

W = London, Wellcome Library, MS 225, ff. 5r-143v (the basis of Joanne Jasin’s dissertation edition of the Liber Uricrisiarum)

E = London, British Library, MS Egerton 1624, ff. 12v-13v, 16r-108v, 122r-213v (textually and dialectally very close to W)

Hybrid alpha/beta versions

Six witnesses – G3M6 H BCfCg – begin with an alpha text and conclude with a beta text. The beta conclusion offers a relatively minor revision (beta*) of the principal beta version found in the witnesses AG6 EW.

The alpha sections of G3 and M6 represent a “proto-alpha” version, as they frequently diverge from the main alpha tradition, most notably in the date they assign to the present year in discussing leap-year calculations: 1377 instead of the characteristic 1378 of all other alpha texts (beta texts drop the reference to a specific year). These two manuscripts switch to their beta* conclusion in book 2.6, where the chapter numbering changes to 2.36.  In H, B, and CfCg, the alpha/beta* textual transition occurs in book 2.12; chapter numbers in H switch to 2.70 at that point, while BCfCg preserve the alpha chapter divisions and numbers despite their beta* textual allegiance.

G3 = Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 180/213, ff. 1r-161v (alpha/beta transition at end of astronomical digression in 2.6 / 2.36)

M6 = Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS e Musaeo 116, ff. 65r-148r (alpha/beta transition at end of astronomical digression in 2.6 / 2.36)

H = San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 505, ff. 1r-134v (alpha/beta transition at beginning of Rubicundus color in 2.12 / 2.70)

Cf = Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.2.6, ff. 1r-127v (textually close to Cg; alpha/beta transition at beginning of Rubicundus color in 2.12; alpha chapter numbering retained)

Cg = Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Gg.3.29, ff. 1r-168v (alpha/beta transition at beginning of Rubicundus color in 2.12; alpha chapter numbering retained)

B = Boston, Massachusetts History Society, MS P-362 (olim 10.10), 3v-140v (alpha/beta transition at beginning of Rubicundus color in 2.12; alpha chapter numbering retained)

Two other manuscripts also show signs of hybridization, possibly with multiple changes of textual allegiance:

Sb = London, British Library, MS Sloane 1101, ff. 1r-1v, 2r-166v (a disorganized and atelous copy)

Sj = Cambridge, St. John’s College, MS B.16, ff. 1r-96r (a sixteenth-century copy)

Although we have not yet developed a full stemma of relationships among the principal versions and witnesses of the Liber Uricrisiarum, our work on variations among those witnesses suggests the following provisional subgroups:

Alpha Texts:

RM7;
SaSc, G, T;
the alpha section of H, B, CfCg (to bk. 2.12);
the proto-alpha section of G3M6 (to bk. 2.6).

We have not yet determined precisely where the incomplete W6 fits with the other alpha witnesses.

Beta texts:

AG6;
EW;
the beta* section of G3M6 (from bk. 2.36), H (from bk. 2.70), B, CfCg (from bk. 2.12 in alpha numbering).

Both Sb and Sj exhibit beta features in some passages, but may also be interspersed with alpha or beta* sections.

For further discussion of the textual layers in the Liber Uricrisiarum, see Harvey’s chapter in Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing (ed. Star, 87-107). We hope that future work on patterns of variation across all witnesses will allow us or other scholars to refine these relationships and to develop models for the textual development of Daniel’s magnum opus.

Abridged, Adapted, and Excerpted Versions

The success of Daniel’s encyclopedic uroscopy treatise can be measured not only in the large number of surviving copies, but also in the number of adaptations it received in the fifteenth century. One of those adaptations was a minor success in its own right, with six copies (three of which appear in yet another useful compendium of medical knowledge). Others may have been made by or for an individual, and then not disseminated further, but their number (another eleven witnesses of varying lengths) and different focuses suggest that Daniel’s work reached audiences in many different forms, as the lists below suggest. For further discussion, see Tavormina’s chapter in Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing (ed. Star, 108-32).

The Seventeen-Chapter Abridgement

London, British Library, MS Sloane 340, ff. 39v-62v (this MS shares several texts with Gonville and Caius 336/725)

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 336/725, ff. 79r-95v (shares several texts with Sloane 340)

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS lat. misc. c.66, ff. 75r-83r

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 176/97, pp. 65-120 (incorporated as chs. 5-22 in the Plawdon Compendium compiled by “Austin,” with ch. 5 of the original abridgement split into two chapters)

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.14.52, f. 170r-170v (the first half of ch. 1 of the abridgement; part of the incomplete copy of the Plawdon Compendium in this MS)

London, Wellcome Library, MS WMS 7117, ff. 122r-122v (the first half of ch. 1 of the abridgement; probably copied, with several other texts, from TCC R.14.52)

Other abridgements and re-arrangements

Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 1661, pp. 235-40 (excerpt from alpha version of bk. 2, on astronomy and the calendar)

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson D.1221, ff. 50r-62v (bk. 2, abridged; probably from alpha version)

P = London, Royal College of Physicians, MS 356, ff. 1r-64v (a beta text that ends, perhaps deliberately, after the astronomy digression in bk. 2)

Sd = London, British Library, MS Sloane 1088, ff. 61r-93v (extract from bk. 2 chapters on Lacteus and Karapos, including the “fortunes of men” digression on the influence of natal signs; textually similar to beta-version MS Ashmole 1404, but with alpha-version chapter numbering; ends incomplete before the end of the Karapos chapter [2.7] )

New Haven, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (previously known as the Yale Medical Library), MS 45, ff. 2r-94v (The Book of Narborough; acephalous, beginning in bk. 1.3, and atelous, ending in bk. 4.10. An abridgement, rearrangement, and conflation of a beta version text with other sources, including Bartholomaeus Anglicus, astromedical and uroscopic diagrams and tables, and a therapeutic practica added as a fourth book. Dated internally to 1442; based on a beta version text.)

London, British Library, MS Sloane 2196, ff. 3r-42v (bk. 1 rearranged, with material from bks. 2 and 3 inserted; many non-uroscopic digressions omitted; atelous, ending in 3.16, on Motes; based on a beta version text)

London, British Library, MS Sloane 2527, ff. 178r-196v, 198v-201v (an abridged version of bk. 3, including the Rules of Isaac; excerpts on critical days and fevers from bk. 2.2 and 2.3; textually close to Sloane 134)

London, British Library, MS Sloane 134, ff. 1r-3v, 4v-20v (an acephalous and atelous abridged excerpt on hypostasis and the Rules of Isaac from the end of bk. 3; excerpts on critical days, fevers, and astronomy from bk. 2.2, 2.3, and 2.6; textually close to Sloane 2527; parts correspond with proto-alpha version, parts with beta/beta* version)

London, British Library, MS Sloane 1721, ff. 214r-216v (“De urinis in genere,” a precis of bk. 2.1-2)

London, British Library, MS Egerton 1624, ff. 214v-215r, 218r-v (astronomical material with a cross-reference to bk. 2; an incomplete text on urinary contents based on Bernard de Gordon)

London, British Library, MS Sloane 5, 179v-181r (seven paragraphs on planets excerpted and abridged from bk. 2)

Latin version of the Liber Uricrisiarum

Glasgow, University of Glasgow, Special Collections, MS Hunter 362, ff. 1r-83v

Page header image: London, British Library, Royal 17.D.1, f. 106r.