Original Documents,
ILLUSTRATING THE ARTS, &c. OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
EARLY ENGLISH ARTISTICAL RECEIPTS.
The following receipts are taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Sloane, No. 73), written in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, and are therefore about a century more modern than those we gave in our first number. Compared with those, and other similar documents, they afford information on the composition and nature of the colours used by the medieval artists at different periods. The receipt for softening glass is particularly curious.
[Fol. 173, v°.]
For to make reed wex. Take a pound of whiȝt wex, and throwe therinne a quartroun of terbentyne, and melte hem two togidere; and if thou wolt asaye it if it be weel gummed, caste a litil in coold watir, and thanne asaye it if it be tendre, and if it be tendre it is weel gummed. Thanne loke thou have redy o𝔷.l of vermyloun, smal grounde, al so smal as ony poudre, and whanne thi wex and thi terbentyne is hoot molten, anoon riȝt throwe yn thi poudre of thi vermeloun, and sette it adoun of the fier, and styre it weel, and meynge it weel togidere til it be coold, and thanne thou hast good reed wex y-mad.
For to make grene wex. Take lj. 1 of whiȝt wex, and quart 1. of terbentyne, and medle hem togidere, and asaye if it be weel gummed as thou haddist the rede wex riȝt in the same maner, and thanne take an ounce of vertegrece smal broken, and y-grounden upon a marbil stoon, and throwe it in the matere, and styre it til it be coold, and thamie thu hast good grene wex.
[Fol. 138, v°.]
Here it techith how thou schalt make good vermyloun to alle maner preves where tliu wolt.
Take a pound of quyk silvyr, and v. lj. of quyk brimstoon, and putte it in a pott of erthe, and loke that thi pott have a wide mouth that thou myȝt se al to the botme, and loke that thou have a lid of tree[1] upon the pottis mouth weel y-closid, and thanne sette it on a fewe coolis, and alwey have thin yȝe into the pott, and styre it otherwhile, and whanne thu seest the leyt[2] fle out
of the pott, anoon smat adoun the lid, and holde adoun the leyt ij. or iij. tymes