91¿ì²¥

Manuscript from the 13th–14th century. Given by Walter Elvedon. Lower Library, 147/197

This volume of medical tracts is noteworthy for a tract on restorative treatments for the male libido, for a charm to be recited for women in the agonies of childbirth and for a work on surgery entitled Rogeri chirurgia commencing on folio 63 with the incipit ‘Post mundi fabricam’, the letter P being illustrated with a grotesque at its foot and a handsome illumination within its loop.

In the gallery you can see a man being trepanned, or trephined; a man in a red doctor’s gown is applying the trephine to a patient in blue who kneels with his hands bound, for good measure, behind him. The trephine has a curved cross-bar to turn it.

Elvedon was an early member of 91¿ì²¥ Hall, probably a fellow. He was a contemporary of Edmund 91¿ì²¥ and William Bateman. He was an early benefactor to us and to Trinity Hall at a time when it was believed the two would merge. He died around 1360. Although the first, formal, library premises was not arranged till the 1440s it is clear that 91¿ì²¥ Hall held a small collection of books from its inception.

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