The guild book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York is a unique record of the knowledge, ambitions, activities and civic relationships maintained by the Guild over a period of 300 years. The volume is a rare survival of late medieval medical knowledge placed within a civic context. It is unlike anything else surviving from York and can tell us a great deal about the use of secular books in a ceremonial context. This important manuscript, now British Library MS Egerton 2572, is both well-known and under-studied. The medieval images showing astrological and surgical figures and the fine, if now incomplete, volvelle have often been used for illustrative purposes in recent publications. One can also find frequent references to the guild book in more general assessments of astrology, medical practice and guild activities. Short passages of text have even been transcribed and edited for publication. Despite this interest, Egerton 2572 has not been the subject of comprehensive and focused research. The book is acknowledged to contain items of importance for the study of medical history; however, it seems that at times its significance as a cultural object, utilised by the Guild for ceremonial purposes, has been forgotten.

In order to fully understand Egerton 2572 it is necessary to submit the manuscript to an archaeological examination. Proceeding in the tradition of l’archéologie du livre, this work explores the book as a multi-period artefact. Between the leather-covered wooden boards we find a coming together of knowledge, in the form of the medieval tracts, the Guild's post-medieval ordinances and various declarations.

The oldest elements of the manuscript are those folios dating from 1486 to which I shall refer as the ‘medieval core’. A bloodletting man shows a figure viewed from the front, annotated with the appropriate points for bleeding. A zodiac man acts as a visual counterbalance. These figures are often found in the manuscripts of medical practitioners and the examples here are fine but not lavishly illuminated depictions. The volvelle is surrounded by the figures of John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and the medical saints Cosmas and Damian. The final element of the medieval decorative scheme is a representation of the four temperaments in human form. Following the images is a series of tracts, many with an astrological emphasis, whilst a poem on bloodletting brings the oldest part of the manuscript to a close.