The transmission of learned medical literature in the middle English Liber uricrisiarum.

The Liber uricrisiarum in Wellcome MS 225 (hereafter, MS 225), a uroscopic treatise in Middle English that cites the De urinis by Isaac Judaeus as its principal source, ' exemplifies the sort of vernacular medical literature produced in abundance in late fourteenthand early fifteenth-century England that relies heavily on learned medical literature for its content.' Especially striking in the Liber uricrisiarum are both the numerous citations throughout the text of other medical and scientific authorities and the parallels between these citations and the texts required for medical study at university in the fourteenth century. The fact that vernacular medical literature in medieval Europe is based largely on authoritative medical and scientific texts as opposed to popular medical lore is nothing new;3 moreover, it is evident that the use of the vernacular, i.e., Middle English, expanded the reading audience to include lay medical practitioners as well as university-educated physicians.4 What the