Hugo de Ameto, Collection of extracts and notes, mainly on medical astrology

Contents

1. ff. 1r-8r Hermannus Contractus, Rithmomachia, titled 'Calculus victorii sequens est finis libri abaci'.

Incipit: 'Qui peritus arismetice…'

Explicit: 'Finitus liber de pugna numerorum qui Rithmachia [sic] nuncupatur'.

Hermannus Contractus, also known as Herman of Reichenau (1013-1054), wrote one of the earliest medieval tracts on Rithmomachia, a complex arithmetical game known in antiquity but seemingly not revived until the eleventh century. See Charles Burnett, 'The Instruments which are the Proper Delights of the Quadrivium: Rhythmomachy and Chess in the Teaching of Arithmetic in Twelfth-Century England', Viator 28, 1997, p. 181.

2. ff. 8v-9v Anonymous, De arte punctarum, extract

Incipit: 'Sorte contra [?] dices quosdam constaret quibusdam ex numeris...'

Explicit: '10. Punctatura 6. Cadentie 27. Finis'.

This is a tract on geomancy - divination by drawing points in the ground. See

3. f. 10r 'Tabula quantitatis die artificialis'.

4. f. 10v Horoscopic figure.

5. f. 11r 'Tabula festorum mobilium perpetua'.

6. ff. 11v-20r Hugo de Ameto, Collectanea

titled 'Deo laus et gloria. Colectanea hugonina. Hebraica decantatio'.

Incipit: 'In die naturae viginti quattuor hore nanque tenet. Hora mille et bisquadra puncta'.

A collection made or written by the author/compiler on medical astrology and related subjects

7. ff. 20v-21v Rhazes, De somniis, extract

Incipit: 'Qui somniant plumas mare...'

Explicit: 'Somniauit hugo de ameto pauperi denarium dedisse et dati sunt dono eidem die sequenti tres solidi'.

8. ff. 21v-23v 'Spheres of Life and Death'

Three separate redactions of the 'Sphere of Life and Death', a very common onomancy for predicting whether a sick person will live or die, the outcome of a duel or battle, or anything else requiring a binary yes/no answer. To operate it you take the name of the person in question, take the numbers that correspond to the letters of their name, and add into a total. You add the number of the day of the moon on which they first fell sick, and the number corresponding to the planetary weekday. You divide this grand total by 30 and if the remainder is sought in the top of the 'Sphere' diagram the patient will live, if not, they will die. See e.g. Linda Ehrsam Voigts, 'The Latin and Middle English Prose Texts on the Sphere of Life and Death in Harley 3719', The Chaucer Review 21.2 (1986).

Redaction 1 incipit: f. 21v: 'Sequuntur presagia mortis vel vite et omnium queris interrogationum...', accompanied by round diagram.

Redaction 2 incipit: f. 22v: 'Et si de alius rebus quam de egroto...', accompanied by square diagram

Redaction 3 incipit: f. 23r: 'Presens est putagoris quam scripsit appolonius...', accompanied by square diagram

9. ff. 23v-31v Bede, De temporibus, extract

Incipit: 'Si sol in suo ortu rubeat...'

On this computistical treatise see Jones, C.W. Bedae opera de temporibus (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1943).

10. ff. 34r-35r Arnold of Villanova, De phlebotomia

Incipit: 'In omni tempore tam de die quam de nocte si necessitas compellat...'

Explicit: 'Formida et festis morbibus inveniendis modulatio'.

See Arnaldide Villanova Opera media Omnia IV. Tractatus de consideracionibus operis medicine siue de fiebotomia ed. Luke Demaitre et praefatione et commentariis hispanicis et anglids instruxerunt Pedro Gil-Sotres et Luke Demaitre. Seminarium Historiae Scientiae Barchinone (C. S. I. C.). (Barcelona, Publicacions i Ediciones de la Universitat de Barcelona, Publicacions i Ediciones de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1989).

11. f. 35r 'Domus homo credens'

Begins: 'Pro invenienda septuagesima'.

Explicit: 'Item a festo trinitatis ad festum corporis existi 5'.

12. f. 35v Pen-drawing of a siphon, with description.

13. f. 36r Pen-drawing of an automatic lamp, with description.

13. f. 36v 'Rudimenta quedam collectanea'.

14. f. 36v-42v Various tracts on alchemy, medicine and astrology, in Latin.

Bibliography

Fulke, William . Philosophers' Game: Rithmomachia in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, with an Edition of Ralph Lever and William Fulke, The Most Noble, Auncient, and Learned Playe (1563) ed. Ann Elizabeth Moyer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), pp. 75-76.

Late 15th century

1 volume 42 ll. 4to. 191/2 x 131/2 cm. Modern cloth binding. Margins cropped in re-binding.

Purchased 1911.

The name of the Compiler appears three times: on fol. 21v, 22 and 39. In all cases the word 'Ameto' is used. No record of this place name has been traced, but Graesse 'Orbis Latinus' and others have an entry of 'Hametum' = Ham in France (Somme), and another in the Pas de Calais; as well as a 'Hamm' in Germany. All these places were in existence at the time this manuscript was written, and contained monasteries. Written in an angular German form of italic, probably by the same scribe throughout: it is partly in a small cursive script, and partly in a larger and more carefully executed variety of the same hand. The manuscript is quite possibly holograph.