Manuscript Description Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Arch. Selden B.14 | |
| MS Appellation: | Selden (Manly and Rickert) |
| Title: | Canterbury Tales |
| Author: | Chaucer |
| Contents: | Canterbury Tales |
| Language: | English |
| Date Range: | 1450-1475 |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.            |
| Dialect: | Chaucerian/Standardised |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | i music flyleaf +3 calendar + 4-309 + 310-311 + i music flyleaf |
| Pagination: | Modern pencil top right corner. |
| Quiring: | 8 |
| Signatures: | Remnants |
| Catchwords: | Ink of text in centre of bottom of folio within ruled lines. |
| Page Size: | 330 x 200 |
| Frame: | 8 x vertical; 10 x horizontal |
| Writing Space: | 220 x 155 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | Red |
| Marginal Headings: | Red names of pilgrims in General Prologue |
| Running Titles: | Red; usually 'the' on verso and name of pilgrim on recto. Preceded by flourished paraph. |
| Title by Scribe: | In red ink beneath top of 4-sided border. |
| Borders: | Blue, magenta, deep pink, green white gold; orange is used in some borders. |
| Illuminated Initials: | Same colours as borders, richly illuminated for some prologues and tales; 2-line illuminated capitals define other divisions of text. |
| Paragraph Marks: | Blue with red flourishing, gold with grey and also mauve flourishing. Used to divide stanzas in Man of Law and before glosses in Tale of Melibeus and Parson's Tale. |
| Flourished Initials: | Gold with grey/brown flourishing, blue with red, |
| Other Names (not owners): | On f309v is the inscription 'Pertinet Thomam Heed ciuis Londonarium' enclosed in circle with cross and 'T H'. On f2 within the Calendar is the obit for a William Heed and the date 1518. On ff226 and 262 is the name 'Rychard De(a)r'. On f127 is the name 'Edmund la Cleark' whom Manly and Rickert (I. 498) suggest was a Clerk of the Privy Seal (d. 1586). Later owned by John Selden (d. 1654), donated to the Bodleian in 1659. |
| Further Information: | Manly, John M. and Rickert, E. The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 8 vols, Vol. I, pp. 494-500, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Seymour, M. C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, vol. 2, The Canterbury Tales, pp. 193-197. Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press, 1997. |