Manuscript Description Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 181 | |
| Title: | Part 1: Parlement, Anelida and Arcite Part 2: Troilus |
| Author: | Chaucer and Hoccleve |
| Contents: | Part 1: Hoccleve's Letter of Cupid, poems against marriage and women, Peter Idyll, Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight, Chaucer's Annelida and fals Arcite ff39-43; Parlement of Foules f44 Part 2: Troilus and Criseyde f54-93v unfinished. |
| Language: | English |
| Date Range: | 1475-1500 part 1; 1450-1475 part 2 |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.                 |
| Dialect: | Part 2: Lincs, Leics |
| Material: | Paper |
| No of Folios: | Part I: ii parchment flyleaves + 53 paper leaves ; Part II 54-93v + ii parchment flyleaves |
| Pagination: | Older ink foliation superseded by newer foliation after the first ten folios. |
| Catchwords: | By scribe with nota sign preceding and underlined; in far lower right corner running into gutter on ff17v, 37v |
| Page Size: | 280 x 205 |
| Frame: | Part I is a square in grey crayon or drypoint with top line of text above frame; part 2 is the same. |
| Writing Space: | Part I: 202 x 70; Part 2: 195 x 70-90 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | Some explicits for example on f39 'Explicit Edorb quod' ie. Brode backwards |
| Illuminated Initials: | Space left but none ever executed. |
| Other Names (not owners): | On f77v in the top margin in a 16th century hand is 'this is Johnfayd proutis bock'. |
| Miscellaneous Info: | Seymour believes Hand 1 to be John Brode (MaEng 113). The Troilus has watermark dated 1457 which is also found in Bodley 414 CT. Mooney and Parkes believe Troilus is also in the hand of John Brode. The scribe wrote 'Explicit Edorb quod' at the end of art. 5 on f39. Owner's inscription on f54, now blacked out. |
| Further Information: | Macray, W. D. 'Bodleian Library Quarto Catalogues: IX Digby Manuscripts', a reproduction of the 1883 catalogue with notes on Macray's descriptions of the manuscript by R. W. Hunt and A. G. Watson, Oxford Bodleian Library 1999. |