NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

ONCE IN A GREAT V^^HILE an old-time patron asks an assistant in the Minneapolis Public Library, "What has become of that statue of Captain Tapper which used to be out in the hall somewhere?" The older assistants remember that a plaster cast once stood In the third-floor lobby, but where it went and when, no one knew until quite recently. It represented an elderly man. Captain John Tapper, who In his youth operated a ferry across the Mississippi, between St. Anthony and Minneapolis. A search of the office records gave the Information that on April 26, 1915, it was sent to the pioneer museum in the Godfrey House on Chute Square, at the request of Edwin Clark, secretary of the Hennepin County Territorial Pioneers' Association. The statue left the museum at some unknown time, and no one seemed to know what had happened to It. Then Mrs. George J. Backus, the sculptor who made the statue, came back to visit In Minneapolis in the summer of 1937 after an absence of twenty-six years. She took up the search for her lost work of art, remembering that she had asked that It be taken to Venanzio Pierottl's statuary shop on Washington Avenue South for future packing and shipment to her home in Stuart, Florida. Living a very busy life, she had put off sending for it; indeed had almost forgotten about it at times. She now looked for the PierottI shop, but found that It had been torn down, that its proprietor was dead, and that his sons had only vague recollections of an old plaster figure which used to be around. What had become of It they did not know, thinking that probably it went out with the wreckage of the building. Nothing

Mozley,2 and includes epitaphs, hagiographical poems, didactic exercises, extracts from Henry of Huntingdon's chronicle (folios 6r-15v, 100v-6v), hymns, and various items attributed to Hildebert of Lavardin and Marbod of Rennes. Some formulas for use at the visitation of the sick on folio 156r-v (in Latin, English and French) have been described by N. R. Ker3 and published by myself. 4 What has not been recorded from this manuscript is a series of receipts for the manufacture of colours which begins with a set of Latin instructions on folios 127r-30v, introduced by a red rubric: De distemperandis coloribus ad scribendum vel illuminandum inter quos et super quos tam colore quam precio azorium primacum tenet. De azorio quomodo molatur ac distemperetur. This is followed by 'Azorium color est optimus, pulcherrimus aeris speciem imitatur ... '5 and further red rubrics including 'De gummi quid sit', 'Quomodo azorium serves', 'Sequitur de distemperatione vermiculi', 'Sequitur de viridi'. There are alternating red and maroon initials with yellow splashes. The whole is written in a compact, late twelfth-century hand. On folio 131r we find a new, larger, more spacious hand which has entered a number of receipts. Initials are in the brown ink of the text, there being no colour. The page measures about 160 x 100 millimetres, the writing block about 115 x 77 millimetres. A number of letters, including two initials, are located in the left-hand frame, which measures approximately 5 millimetres. On the right-hand side the writing space is occasionally exceeded. There is drypoint ruling and prickings are clearly visible in the outer margin. At two lines from the bottom of folio 131v there is a change to a larger hand in black ink which continues to the end (folio 132v). The real interest of these pages of the manuscript lies in the Anglo-Norman items, which, though strikingly early examples of vernacular receipts, have never been edited or studied. Such texts, of course, belong to a venerable tradition. Treatises on the manufacture of pigments go back to the Nineveh clay tablets of the seventh century BC. These Assyrian receipts were copied in Egyptian papyri of the third century AD, the celebrated Stockholm and Leiden papyri,6 and many reappear in the ninth century in the Mappae clavicula, an intriguing compilation, certainly in existence by 821-2, which seems to go back to a Greek alchemical treatise.7 Such compilations were hosts to receipts which migrated freely through an astonishing number of manuscripts, making the history of textual transmission and the task of editing particularly daunting.8 Similar receipts adhere to a rather unstable tradition attached to the name Heraclius which may have originated in tenth-century Italy.9 Another compilatory text, the Compositiones lucenses, 10  The resulting red sulphide of mercury, when ground, was capable of yielding an intense red pigment of high quality. This was then tempered for painting by the addition of egg yolk and glair (made from the white of the egg), these binding media modifying the properties of the pigment. Glair required thorough beating and was a delicate medium: here it is recommended not to be (further) diluted with, or exposed to, water. The second receipt concerns the preparation of azure, probably here the copper ore azurite, a basic copper carbonate which was ground to a powder and washed clean of impurities. This operation, together with the separation of the grains according to size, was extremely laborious; instead of plain water recourse was often had, as here, to gum arabic solution and washing with weak lye. Gum and glue were then added as a binding agent or tempera (destemprure). The expression 'cola de parchamin' indicates size, which could be obtained by boiling bits of parchment in water and was used especially for tempering blues. The next receipt deals with the making of a green colour, but it is difficult to identify the 'pudre de vert' (verdigris?). The word 'croho' indicates saffron, which was frequently used to enrich greens, although it is not recommended here.23 Having dealt with a number of mineral colourants, the receipts now prescribe natural, vegetable dyes. Brazilwood (Caesalpinia spp.) was a major source of red for dyeing, the dyestuff often being known as 'brazilin'. It is a white compound which on exposure to the air oxidizes to brazilein. Blocks of it were rasped, as here ('reis'), to produce the required quantities. Aside from its frequent use in lakes, brazilwood was often soaked in glair and then mordanted with alum (usually potash alum). E. E. Ploss, who notes that this red wood was known at an early date amongst the Arabs, states that after 1140 16

it turns up in records of Genoese weighing taxes as 'braxile' or 'brasile'. It makes its first appearance in the customs catalogue of Lodi in 1192, and in the markets of Flanders at the beginning of the thirteenth century.24
The next receipt employs a moss or lichen,25 chopped into pieces and mixed with lime to produce an alkaline solution which was then strained through a cloth. A variety of lichens were in use.26 For making yellow one of the major sources was weld, or Dyer's Rocket (Reseda luteola L., containing luteolin and apigenin) which may be what is intended in the next receipt by 'wdeuuise', though this name is normally applied to Genista tinctoria L. or Dyer's Broom ('Dyer's Greenweed'), the yellow flowers, stalk and leaves yielding luteolin and genistein. The last of the natural dyes is obtained from 'hillereberies' in what appears to be a receipt for sap green, which is made from the ripe berries of buckthorn (especially Rhamnus catharticus L.).27 No binding agent was used for painting and the juice, containing a polysaccharide material, thickened to a dense syrup. Here it is apparently used to lend a green colour to a cloth which has already been dyed yellow.
There is also a medical receipt for dissolving a 'stone', one for a canker and finally one more receipt for dyeing, which appears to use cream of tartar, madder and dwarf elder. In what follows I retain the spelling of the manuscript except that I have regularised the use of 'w' and 'uu'. Notes on language, a glossary and a translation are provided below.

Translation
If someone wishes to temper vermilion, let him take an egg, beat it together with the yolk, without water, and stir it54 to a thick consistency and put it in the horn; then add glair without water. At the end of four days it will be ready for the work of illuminating, and if the weather is fair, after one day. But let him beware of a rainy day, for then it will run. For azure: Let him take spring water and gum arabic and a little size and heat in an eggshell. Then wash the azure in a basin. Next add some of the solution of gum arabic and rotten size, ensuring that it is well moistened with water on a thick slab of marble. Let him take the good green powder [verdigris?] and place it in a basin, and then add good wine, unmixed with water, a small basinful, and place in the sun for eight days, making sure that it is frequently stirred. When it has properly settled, take the clear liquid above and use it to temper once more the dry powder, keeping it [the mixture] tepid. Then each day place it in the sun and stir it until it is ready, not adding saffron, for this is the way it matures.
For brasil: Let it be scraped in to an eggshell and glair added. After a day add good alum and leave it for three days to mature. And don't let it get wet. For 'wreime' which is called moss: Let it be chopped up in an eggshell and then add builder's lime.55 This is done until it is seen to be properly matured. Then strain it through a cloth. Take the alum, place it in water, heat it, put the leather in first, then [put] the brasil in water and boil it, and temper it with wood [-ash] lye, gum ivy and plum gum and parchment and vellum glue [= size] in equal measure, place it in an eggshell, and place over heat.
To make yellow: Take wood [-ash] lye and pick dyer's broom and boil it in the lye. Then remove the broom and dye the cloth and it will be yellow.
For green: take ripe berries of buckthorn and extract the juice and boil it and place the yellow cloth in it, boil, and it will be green. For silk cloths [vestments/hangings]: Take danewort and reduce to ash and thence to lye and immerse the cloth in it and dye it. Arrange a sheet, turning it round a pole and then roll it out on a table.
For dissolving the stone: parsley, smallage, fennel, wormwood, saxifrage, lovage, sage and the blood of a white goat, and the plant called burnet: take equal quantities of all these and heat in beer and administer as a drink morning and night. For canker: take a live mole and place it in a new pot and pulverize and then sieve the powder. And then take the same quantity of honey and place in an eggshell over heat until the honey and powder are properly mixed, and then reserve. This destroys canker and the worm. Apply it on the wound with a quill, and leave [the patient] supine for a night, and, with God's assistance, he will be cured. For dyeing saddle [-leather]: Take cream of tartar and madder, sieve, and boil well in stale beer. Take the juice of danewort and three times the quantity of water and boil well. Then add lye in the same measure as the juice. And when you have removed it from the heat, dip the hide in to it when the temperature is such that you can put your hand in it.