2020 Essays

Lean Sands and Fat Binders

Lee, Michelle; Smith, Pamela H.

The entry for “Eau magistra” on fol. 84r provides instructions to produce a liquid binder to be mixed with a dry powder for the making of sand molds. Recipes for “Eau magistra” and recipes that mention magistra in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 contain many different ingredients, including elm root, vinegar, salt water, glair of egg, and “good, pure wine.” It is not clear why some binder recipes in Ms. Fr. 640 are titled magistra while other binders, seemingly identical to them in function, are not denoted as such. The dry material, or “sand,” is sometimes described as “dry and lean,” thus requiring a wet or sometimes “fatty” substance to bind it together. This essay reconstructs the entry on fol. 84r, and discusses the framework within which these qualitative binary categories of fat and lean can be understood.