There were no recipes on my specific page. However, there were plenty of tips for what seasons are best or worst for certain diseases and their associated humors. The actual process of transcribing this page was quite complicated at first. There were many letters, symbols, and ways of spelling that made learning how to transcribe it difficult. Eventually I was able to start deciphering certain sentences and make out what was wrong and what was right. Slowly beginning to understand what the page was about also made it a lot easier to transcibe the full page.

The writter of this book was also specifically helpful during transcription, as his style of writing was consistent making it easy to distinguish repeated letters and words. There were many times I needed support from classmates and professors, as there were certain things I couldn’t identify, or would not have known about. For example there were many symbols used in middle english that showed that you needed to add certain letters to a word. I don’t have many questions relating to the actual transcipt. I am curious to know more about how people of this era thought about health and how seasons and constellations effected it.

For me personally there was no XML needed for my page. Although there is great value in using XML as it makes it a lot easier for people to be able to figure out what everything means within the text. There were plenty of words or phrases that are specific to the time period so getting to label all the parts on the page makes it easier for the reader to understand. This directly leads into Pamela Smith’s paper on Making, Writing, and Meaning. She talks about how translating a lived and observed experience onto paper is difficult as it requires an intimate knowledge on the subject. Taking your own knowledge and making it explicit for someone else to understand and recreate is not the easiest process. We experienced something similar during this project, not only in having to understand middle english for translation. But also in using XML to make sure the reader, who doesn’t have the context of translating it themself, can understand all the elements on the page.

This is my translation of the page:

Malencoly folke thei ben wel in childhood malencolicus
and in youthe and evel in olde age.
As there ben iiij Ages accordynge to the iiij
humoures of complexions right so there ben
iiij tymes of the yere and iiij manere of wyndes
And iiij parties of the worlde the whiche ben
in temperure or malice accordynge to every com-
plexionn before saide

Ver
These ben the iiij Somer
tymes of the yere Hervest
Wynter

Ver is hoot and moist
Somer is hoot and drye
Hervest is colde & drye
Wynter is colde & moist

Colerike folke ben wel in ver and in
somer. in hervest and in wynter.
Sangweynn folke they ben evel in veer &
better in somer & wel atte ese in hervest & in wynter
Fleumatyke folke ben wel in ver & in her-
vest and best in somer & worst thei ben in wynter

This is the link to the actual translation on the Old Books, New Attitudes website.