Manuscript Description Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.26 | |
MS Appellation: | Ii (Manly and Rickert) |
Title: | Canterbury Tales |
Author: | Chaucer |
Contents: | Canterbury Tales |
Language: | English |
Date Range: | 1425-1450 |
Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
Dialect: | S.Lincs/N.Norfolk |
Material: | Parchment |
No of Folios: | i paper flyleaf + 2-240 + i paper flyleaf |
Pagination: | Modern foliation in pencil in top right corner. |
Quiring: | 1(8), 2(9) (first leaf excised), 3-9(8), 10(7) (missing v), 11-22(8), 23(6), 24-30(8), 31(1) |
Signatures: | Lower case letter followed by Roman numerals for the first four folios of the quire; thus ai-aiiij, bi-biiij etc; begins with aai on f192. |
Catchwords: | By the scribe in the ink of the text in the centre of the lower margin about two lines of space below the last line of text. |
Page Size: | 324 x 225 |
Frame: | 4 x horizontal 2 x vertical ruled within with top and bottom lines of text within the double ruled lines. |
Writing Space: | 220 x 144 |
Incipits and Explicits: | Frequently explicit and incipit are combined between tales; copied mainly in red ink in hand of the scribe; prologues are usually, though not always, indicated. |
Index: | Folios noted in the Contents list. |
Marginal Headings: | Pilgrim names in GP; names of characters in Knight's Tale and Miller's Tale, all in red ink in margins; some authorities in Tale of Melibeus and Parson's Tale. |
Running Titles: | In red ink on each recto and verso preceded by either a blue paraph with red flourishing or gold paraph with grey-green flourishing; usually just the name of the pilgrim with no preceding definite article. |
Table of Contents: | 17th century list of the order of the Fragments. |
Title by Scribe: | First folio missing. |
Paragraph Marks: | Blue with red flourishing and gold with the same grey-green flourishing as the initials. |
Flourished Initials: | Alternating gold initials with grey-green pen-work flourishing and blue initials with red flourishing. |
Other Names (not owners): | 'Edmund Cook' on f124; |
Miscellaneous Info: | A second contemporary hand has supplied corrections and lacunae as on f42; a 17th century hand has copied the contents of the missing leaf of GP onto borders of first folio. A further hand copies The Long Charter of Christ onto ff238r-240r. Odd that the first quire is an 8 yet the first folio is apparently missing; the signatures tally with there never having been a first folio! |
Further Information: | Manly, John M. and Rickert, E. The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 8 vols, vol. I, 295-301, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Seymour II. 52-56 Similar hand to Double 'v' Scribe |