RCSI Heritage Collections

RCSI Heritage Collections houses a medieval medical manuscript of unique research interest. Ten years ago, our then special collections librarian wrote a  blog post on the ‘Lentaigne Manuscript’  (RCSI/MS/97), telling of the history of the 1851 donation to RCSI Library and its Lentaigne namesake, and referencing previous research published in 1943, by the late RCSI Professor J.D.H. Widdess ( PRACTICA MAGISTRI JOHANNIS ARDERNE. (An Account of an early 15th Century Manuscript in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland .) Recently, a new piece of research on RCSI/MS/97 has been published by Peter Murray Jones , Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, giving us more to know and love about RCSI’s own ‘Arderne Manuscript’. RCSI/MS/97 - marginalia and illustrations appear throughout the manuscript Master surgeon John Arderne (1307–c.1380) had served King Edward III as an army surgeon at the battle of Crécy in 1346. In 1376, Arderne wrote PRACTICA MAGISTRI JOHANNIS ARDERNE,...

Typical marginal illustrations in the Lentaigne Manuscript This early fifteenth century manuscript, is  so styled to honour Sir John Lentaigne,  who presented it to the library of the Royal  College of Surgeon in Ireland in March  1851. The manuscript itself is a copy of  the  works of the English surgeon, John of  Arderne  (1307-c1390). The Lentaignes were landowners in  Normandy and Sir John's father, a  physician, came to Dublin in 1792. Born in Dublin in 1805 Sir John was an M.D. of  Trinity College, Dublin and a Fellow of the RCSI. A social-reformer he became  Inspector-General of Prisons and in 1861 he became the Commissioner of National Education. He died in 1886. John of Arderne, a contemporary of Chaucer, served Edward III as an army surgeon at the battle of Crécy in 1346. He was also a favourite of Edward's eldest son, the Black Prince (who granted him land in Connaught). Arderne's writin...