Quick thoughts on Edward Kelly...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Not long ago, I mentioned having read a passage from C.A.Burland's "The 
Arts of the Alchemists", which mentioned that: "it was revealed to [Kelly] 
that [the red powder] had been hidden by Saint Dunstan & so had remained 
intact for some six centuries before Kelly's discovery".

In other sources, it is mentioned that a mysterious book and two ivory 
spheres of powder had been found (or perhaps just sold on?) together - so 
this book is surely the "Boke of Dunstan" that was being referred to.

Put them all together, and it is clear that Kelly needed to have had the 
source of the discovery revealed to him in order to know where they had 
come from - that is, the manuscript/book would have arrived unattributed, 
and without any other evidence of authorship in the text itself.

I would be extremely surprised if the other surviving manuscripts 
attributed to Dunstan fail to bear his name prominently - attribution was a 
key part of medieval thought and belief.

Of course, I take this to imply that Kelly's "Boke of Dunstan" probably 
bore no relation to any other manuscript attributed to Dunstan. This 
supports the view that this was in fact the VMS.

The only logical objection remaining would be to the question of "how would 
Kelly have taken notes from the VMS"?

Bearing in mind that we have missing quires and missing pages (that were 
lost post-foliation) (which I think is Kelly's handwriting, with Dee's 
handwriting on the quire-numbers), and that Kelly had a life-or-death need 
to understand the alchemical section of the Book of Dunstan (he'd run out 
of powder, and didn't know how to make any more), my inference is that many 
of the missing pages may have had more specifically alchemical content - 
perhaps pictures of stills etc.

This would be consistent with the overall structure of the VMS being 
essentially a compilation of notes from whatever sources relevant to the 
owner's lab/workshop/practice.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....