Manuscript Description Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Ee.2.15, part 2 | |
Title: | Man of Law |
Author: | Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate and Mirk |
Contents: | Mirk's Festial fragment; ff18-37v Man of Law fragments; ff38-46v Confessio Amantis (excerpt); ff48-105v Lydgate; f107 Charter; f111v Legend of St Augustine |
Language: | English |
Date Range: | 1475-1500 |
Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
Dialect: | ff. 1r-16r Leics |
Material: | Paper |
No of Folios: | 112 |
Pagination: | Modern pencil upper outer corner right. |
Quiring: | Folios remounted with blank additions thus impossible to discern; a collection of several smaller books. |
Catchwords: | Few bottom margins remain. |
Page Size: | 280 x 200 |
Frame: | Square just possible to see original ruling in places. |
Writing Space: | 200 x 130 variable because of fragments |
Incipits and Explicits: | No evidence remains |
Title by Scribe: | Damaged so impossible to know. |
Borders: | Red, brown, green, blue in colour wash and ink; no gold; dragons or lizards with fish in the border which remains; possible initials and some sort of mark within the border decoration. |
Historiated Initials: | Two or three initials containing portraits in texts other than Man of Law. |
Miniatures: | Several folios with drawings. |
Flourished Initials: | Not in the Chaucer section; however a significant feature of the hand is that from descenders of the bottom line, the scribe draws lines which curl around over and around each other; these ink lines are cross-hatched with parallel lines in either red or brown ink. |
Other Names (not owners): | On 76v are two names in the top margin 'Edemonde ??dent' and Houmffrey ?Paldon/Seldon'. Could the Edemonde ? be the 'E R' contained within the border for ML and the 'O' of St Edmund text? On f78r 'Wyllm Fessher' and 'Rychard with(an/om)'? The fish in the decoration of Man of Law could suggest ownership by William Fisher. |
Miscellaneous Info: | May have belonged to the person whose mark is contained within the illumination for ML and also within the first 'O' of the St Edmund text. Watermark 'Van Gelder Zonen'. |
Further Information: | Manly, John M. and Rickert, E. The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 8 vols, vol. I, 126-129. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Seymour, M. C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, vol. 1, Works Before 'The Canterbury Tales', pp. 132-134. Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press, 1995. |