Single leaf, with double column of 50 lines of a curling university hand much influenced by secretarial letter forms, recovered from reuse as a pastedown in a later bookbinding, and hence almost illegible on reverse, worm damage to edges and a few places in text (but with damage to only a character or so), vellum darkened, else in fair condition, 295 by 195mm
Bartholomew of Bruges ('Bartholomaeus de Brugis', c. 1286-1356) was a native of that city, who graduated from the University of Paris in 1307, and then served as personal physician to Guy I, Count of Blois until the latter's death in 1342. Somewhat unusually, he shared his time between the service of the count and periods of academic study and teaching, writing on the Ars medicina while at the University of Montpellier, as well as on Aristotle's Physica, De anima and De generatione et corruptione, and Averroes's paraphrase of Aristotle's De Poetica apparently during similar periods of study. The present text was composed in the same vein, as a scholarly exposition on a text attributed to Aristotle throughout the Middle Ages, but now thought to be by a student of Aristotle or his successor Theophrastus. It formed part of a set of texts alongside Bartholomew's 'commentary' and 'conclusions' on the Oeconomica. Bartholomew is among the very rarest of Flemish medieval writers, and until recently has been almost overlooked by modern study. ""There is no early or modern edition of the work (but valuable comment on it can be found in ch. 4 of Pavel Blazek, Die mittelalterliche Rezeption der aristotelischen Philosophie der Ehe: Von Robert Grosseteste bis Bartholomäus von Brügge (1246/1247 1309), 2007)."" The only list of manuscripts is that of Cornelius O'Boyle ('An Updated Survey of the Life and Works of Bartholomew of Bruges (mort en 1356)', Manuscripta, 40:2, 1996, p. 80; where he lists only 7 manuscripts, all in European institutions, and none of those in Belgium). The vast Schoenberg database of manuscript sales lists no copy of the present text as ever appearing on the market, and it would seem likely that this is the only opportunity for any future owner to obtain one
