Medicines for Horses

‘Medicines for Horses’ is a fifteenth-century Middle English treatise on the care of horses, and consists of recipes for the treatment of injuries and illnesses, a description of a ‘good’ horse, training advice, and techniques for altering a horse’s appearance. It was popular and is known to survive in twelve manuscripts and two printings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century by Wynkyn de Worde. This is the first edition of the entire text. It provides insight into the development and understanding of veterinary science and equine lore in England in the fifteenth century and contributes to the growing study of representations of animals in medieval culture. Linguistically, ‘Medicines for Horses’ contains occurrences that antedate citations in the OED and a large number of words and meanings not recorded in either the MED or OED. The volume contains an introduction, and the edited text is followed by an apparatus of variant readings, a commentary, and glossary.