by Annabel Cords, St. Olaf College
When I first came across this short recipe in the middle of the Frances Catchmay Manuscript, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It seemed nearly impossible to read – not only was it written in secretary script and chock full of abbreviations and measurement symbols, the text wasn’t even in English.
As I worked through the first line of the recipe, I realized that this strange recipe for “Aqua Selestie” was entirely in a kind of abbreviated Italian.[1] I had never seen such a recipe before – not in the Catchmay M.S., nor in any of the pages of the Bulkeley or St. John manuscripts I had worked on previously. Line by line, it became clear that “Aqua Selestie” was indeed a very unique recipe. In Line 11 of the recipe, I came across the phrase “vitro Alembico,” which I recognized as “alembic glass.”[2]
Figure 1: A diagram of an alembic vessel, entitled “The form of an Alembick.” In John French, The Art of Distillation…or A treatise of the choicest spagiricall preparations performed by way of distillation, Book I (London: E. Cotes, 1653), 31. Accessed through EEBO.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, alembics consisted of two parts: a gourd-shaped cucurbit (vessel), and a receiver or flask in which the distilled liquid would be collected for use. Considering this mention of a distillation using an alembic (a rare sight in the Catchmay manuscript), along with the abbreviated Italian, I suspected that this recipe came from a unique source – possibly from outside of England. I looked back at the symbol at the beginning of the recipe:
Figure 2: A medicinal symbol at the beginning of the recipe for “Aqua Selestie.” In Lady Frances Catchmay, A booke of medicins (1625), 46. Accessed through From The Page.
This symbol, “Rx,” is shorthand for “recipe” or “prescription.” Though not uncommon whatsoever during the Early Modern period, such a symbol was certainly uncommon for Lady Catchmay – pointing yet again to a unique origin for “Aqua Selestie.”
Figure 3: A medicinal character used as shorthand, meaning “Recipe” or “Received.” In Thomas Jones, The British Language in its Lustre (London: L. Baskerville and J. Marsh, 1668), u.7r. Accessed through EEBO.
Could this recipe have come from a larger, more popular foreign work? Could it, with its utilization of alembics and diverse ingredients, even have come from an alchemical tome? Most importantly, I wanted to find out what it all meant. What was Aqua Selestie? How did one make it? And how did this recipe find a place in the middle of an English manuscript?
To explore answers to these questions, see Part 2 of this exploration.
[1] Out of the 977 recipes within the Catchmay M.S., only 13 (1.33%) contain any Latin beyond commonly-used ingredient names. This includes the recipe for Aqua Selestie.
[2] Only seven (0.72%) of the recipes in the Catchmay M.S. contain any direct reference to an alembic.
Annabel Cords is a student at St. Olaf College, where she undertook this research with the guidance of Dr. Nancy Simpson-Younger.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
hillarynunn (February 28, 2025). Seeking Sources for a Recipe for Aqua Caelestis in the Catchmay Manuscript (1629), Part 1. emroc. Retrieved May 17, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13ej9