Manuscript Description San Marino, CA, Henry E. Huntington Library MS HM 128 | |
| MS Appellation: | olim Phillipps 20420 |
| Title: | Piers Plowman, B version |
| Author: | Langland |
| Contents: | Pricke of Conscience; Piers Plowman; Siege of Jerusalem; How the Good Wife Taught her daughter |
| Language: | English and Latin |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
| Dialect: | Dutschke says 'written in England, in southwest Warwickshire, in the beginning of the fifteenth century' (1.163). LP : 8040; County : S Warwicks |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | I (contemporary parchment) + 219 + I (contemporary parchment) |
| Pagination: | Modern pencil foliation in upper outer corners recto, 1-219. |
| Quiring: | 8s |
| Signatures: | No signatures survive. |
| Catchwords: | None in the Pricke and Piers section; possibly cropped? |
| Page Size: | 240 x 168 |
| Frame: | None visible; Dutschke says with lead, and single boundary lines; some visible eg f91; fine grey lines. |
| Writing Space: | 205 x 135, or 205 x 140 in art. 3 |
| Marginal Headings: | Frequent rubric headings in Pricke and Piers, written by scribes in spaces left for them. |
| Running Titles: | Originally running titles in Pricke and Piers but have been mostly cropped off. |
| Table of Contents: | Later addition is table of contents done in 1751 on f i verso. |
| Flourished Initials: | Pricke has 5-6 line blue and red initials (cut-out patterns joining the blue and red parts of the strokes), red and blue foliage decoration inside and postage stamp in red as ground; between these and in Piers, 2-4-line blue initials with red pen flourishing in postage stamp; rubric headings and red underlining in both texts; other parts of MS have different decoration as well as scribes, suggesting originally separate booklets. |
| Other Names (not owners): | Front pastedown 'Robert or William langland made pers ploughman' in hand of 16th c; beneath which is John Bale's hand writing 'Robertus Langlande natus in comitatu Salopie in villa Mortymers Clybery in the claylande, within viii myles of Malborne hylles, scripsit, peers ploughman li. 1. In a somer season whan set was sunne' (see Dutschke, 1.163). Other names, f i, 16th c. Richard Rychard; on f101, 15-16 c, 'Alleksander London [or Loudon?] according to Dutschke, 1.163,; f144v, 15th c 'cycley f149, 15th c., 'betoun brygges' and same hand f153 'Maude'. See Dutschke 1.163. |
| Miscellaneous Info: | Hands in the manuscript; 1. ff1- 94, 113-138v (Pricke of Conscience and the fragment of Piers, and beginning of Piers Plowman) 2. ff95-96v fragment of Piers 3. ff97-112v Expositio sequentiam' a tiny close-writing hand in 2 columns, just plain red initials 4. ff139-205 (mid page, at end of Piers Plowman) 5. ff205 (lower half) ' 216 Siege of Jerusalem 6. ff216v-219 How the Good Wife Taught her daughter 7. both pastedowns, a Latin text in two columns, 15th century hand. |
| Further Information: | Dutschke, 1.161-163. |