Receptary

[…] that famous Philosopher of Naples, Baptista Porta; in whose works, although there be contained many excellent things, and verified upon his own experience, yet are there many also receptary, and such as will not endure the test.

[…] nor can they which behold the present state of things, and controversie of points so long received in Divinity, condemn our sober enquiries in the doubtfull appertinancies of Arts, and Receptaries of Philosophy.

1898, Marcellin Berthelot, “Ancient and Mediæval Chemistry” in Men of Achievement: Inventors and Scientists, Library of Inspiration and Achievement, edited by Edward Everett Hale, New York: The University Society, 1902, p. 306, It is known that the recipes of therapeutics and materia medica have been preserved in a parallel way by practice, which has never ceased, in the Receptaries and other Latin treatises; these treatises, translated from the Greek during the period of the Roman Empire, and compiled in the first and second centuries, passed from hand to hand, and were copied frequently during the earlier portions of the Middle Ages.

Although one of the rules of the genre of the receptary, like that of the traditional cookery book, was that editorial comment be severely restricted, many recipes begin or end with a simple statement of their marvellous power […]

Incantations were passed on from receptary to receptary, with little difference between the learned and the popular.