Note 146 — Chapter II · PLINY’S NATURAL HISTORY
Reading edition
See M. R. James, Eton Manuscripts, p. 63, MS 134, Bl. 4. 7., Roberti Crikeladensis Prioris Oxoniensis excerpta ex Plinii Historia Naturali, 12-13th century, in a large English hand, giving extracts extending from Book II to Book IX.
Of Balliol 124, fols. 1-138, Cosmographia mundi, by John Free, born at Bristol or London, fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, later professor of medicine at Padua and a doctor at Rome, also well instructed in civil law and Greek, Coxe writes, “This work is nothing but a series of excerpts from Pliny’s Natural History, beginning with the second and leaving off with the twentieth.” I wonder if John Free may not have used the very MS of the first nineteen books mentioned in the foregoing note, since the second book of the Natural History is often reckoned as the first.
In Balliol 146A, 15th century, fol. 3-, the Natural History appears in epitome, with a prologue opening, “I, Reginald (Retinaldus), servant of Christ, perusing the books of Pliny....”