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Manuscript Description
Scotland, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates' MS 18.1.7.
 
Title:Mirrour of the Blessed Life
Author:Nicholas Love
Contents:Mirrour of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ
Language:Middle English
Datable:post 1409
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
Dialect:S.W. Midlands
Material:parchment
No of Folios:ii + 162 + ii
Pagination:modern pencil foliation upper outer corners recto, counting older flyleaves ruled but blank, 4 at front and 2 at back.
Quiring:quires of 8
Signatures:begin with '+.i' on folio 6, 'a.i' on folio 16
Catchwords:by each scribe in his portion, centred under second column, in portions by Scribe A and occasionally by Scribe B with a brown ink parallelogram around, often redrawn with red ink
Page Size:318 x 213 mm
Frame:frame in red ink, two columns and narrow column in outer margin for glosses, 6 horizontals enclosing top and bottom lines and running titles
Writing Space:212 x 142 mm in two columns, each c. 64 mm wide
Incipits and Explicits:rubric by scribes
Borders:red, orange, blue, green, pink and illuminated gold
Historiated Initials:e.g. folio 9r, pink lion's or grotesque's head inside letter
Illuminated Initials:blue, green, pink on illuminated ground, white highlighting
Miniatures:full-page, e.g., folio 5v
Paragraph Marks:alternating blue with red flourishing and gold with dark blue flourishing
Further Information:J.J. Griffiths says in his description of the Tokyo, Waseda MS of Love's Mirrour, that the Register of the Skinners Company (Guildhall 31692) up to 22 Henry VI (1443-1444) is also by this scribe, ff 2-19 (1441) and sporadically thereafter to 1443-1444. See also Griffiths in Eng/MSS Studies 5 (1995), 214-219. [for illust. of f4 see Robinson, Dated and Datable London, Plate 116] For Griffiths see Nicholas LOve at Waseda: Proceedings of the International Conference, 20-26 July 1995, ed. S. Oguro et al. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997): 172-172. Note: Gilte Legende composed 1438 so Takamiya 45 must have been written after 1438. See also J.J.G. Alexander, 'William Abell, 'Lymnour' and 15th Century English Illumination' notes that the same artist did NLS Advocates' 18.1.7 (Nicholas Love), Manchester Rylands Eng. 1 (Troy Book), and Bodl. Laud Misc. 733 (Chronicle of England to Henry V).
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP