MediManus: the resource I wish had been available when I first started looking at medieval manuscripts
At the end of last week I was fortunate enough to have participated remotely in Colloquia Ceranea VIII, a conference hosted by the University of Lodz in Poland. I might have found my people academically: these people are using sources most of my Australian peers have never heard of let alone used. This is the first of two blogs I intend to write in response to this conference.
In addition to having the opportunity to discuss my recent research on a medieval manuscript, I was speaking in the same session as Professor Alain Touwaide who is the highest academic figure in the area of historical pharmacology and the like. Needless to say, as someone who was going to be talking about an area of research in which I am completely self-taught, I was quite nervous.
My paper was providing the highlights of my discoveries regarding Cambridge, Peterhouse Manuscript 222 followed by my reflections on the use of digitised manuscripts. I went into details regarding what I considered to be their benefits and their shortcomings.
This conference runs on the system of all questions come at the end of the session, and in this case, Alain Touwaide was speaking last on his data analysis on the development of the medieval herbal that evolved out of Dioscorides' De Materia Medica (an excellent paper), so I started the discussion by offering my own dataset of medical amulets. Imagine my surprise when after that was discussed, Alain Touwaide said "I hope that you can remain awake until 10:30 tonight to attend my workshop later as we have done a lot of work similar to the excellent work you just presented." Or words to that effect. The man knew what time it was going to be in Brisbane when I was going to present in Poland.
Well, of course I intended to be awake and attend the workshop, and Oh My Gods!, what that workshop was introducing:
MediManus: the CHS Platform of Medical Manuscripts
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| MediManus' Homepage |
This website is an interface to a database Alain Touwaide has worked with a team at The Center for Hellenic Studies to create to allow people to access all digitised Greek medical manuscripts. To their surprise, these number more than 250
Yes, there have been other databases, some of which no longer appear to work, but this one is more than just a link to other organisations' digitisation projects. They have added their own specialised descriptions of manuscripts,. They allow you to search by author, title, and subject - but you don't have to guess for any: they have dropdown menus to choose from. And these dropdowns don't just give a small selections; there are over 250 options to choose from! And that doesn't prevent you from just entering your own keyword search term in the "Advanced Search" option. To get a better sense on how to use it for research purposes, have a look at the "Read Me" page.
I seriously cannot express just how awesome this platform is. The only was I could be happier is if there was something similar for Latin manuscripts. When I pointed this out, I was informed that it was a collaborative project and they would welcome my efforts. That comment, along with other references made to my paper earlier in the day, indicated that despite the fact that I am a complete newbie in relation to manuscript studies, I had not messed up. That said, there are some Latin resources, if not manuscripts, included.
Now the database is awesome, but that is not all this has to offer. It has links to resources which I came across through sheer hard work trawling google results to assist in understanding historical medicine. This will now be my starting point for any further research I need to conduct.
But what this offers which I wish I had had access to when I first started my manuscripts journey, is the page they call "Fundamentals". I wrote An Introduction to Manuscript Studies [Disclaimer: I may have no idea what I am doing], and really, it was a poor attempt at what this page outlines in relation to how to find, use, and reference manuscripts. While "Fundamentals" was written with Greek manuscripts in mind, the knowledge is completely transferable to any manuscripts. I thoroughly recommend that anyone starting out in codicology or manuscript studies read what it has to say. It will help you no end.
Now if you are someone who just likes looking at manuscripts for pretty pictures, this interface also helps you locate your pretties. Under the PhytEikon page, they have started to not only list manuscripts which feature botanical illustrations (only one so far), they are also giving details of the illustration and a direct link to the folio image of it. They are also starting to add individual texts related to botany here, beginning with Theophrastus.
When looking at their Table of Contents, they have linked to 449 individually shelfmarked manuscripts, but the project actually separates composite manuscripts into their individual codices (an action I personally approve of), and they have identified thousands of individual texts within these.
This is an amazing resource, and I thoroughly recommend it not only if you have a precise interest in Greek medical manuscripts, but if you have any interest in mediaeval manuscripts, the history of medicine and aligned sciences, or medieval illustrations. An awful amount of work has gone into creating this webpage, and it shows. Hell, even if you just have a casual interest in ancient history, head on over there and play around. It's free! It's brilliant! And I wish it had been around in 2024.
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