Manuscript Description Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 391, Part VI | |
| Title: | Miscellany of scientific manuscript and printed items with Astrolabe |
| Author: | Chaucer |
| Contents: | Astrolabe |
| Language: | English |
| Date Range: | 1400-1425 |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.                 |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | 12 |
| Quiring: | 1(8), 2 (6), (2 leaves excised after f11). |
| Signatures: | Remnants of Arabic numerals in black ink on first four verso leaves. Leaves of the second quire are torn at the bottom and nothing remains. |
| Catchwords: | None |
| Page Size: | 230 x 150 |
| Frame: | No obvious ruled frame |
| Writing Space: | 160 x 110 |
| Borders: | First folio has four-sided border. Colours pink, blue, gold, white. Circles at corners and oblong boxes down sides and on bottom.Two heads of what look like dogs in lower border. |
| Illuminated Initials: | There is one 3-line capital in blue, pink, gold and white at the beginning of the text. |
| Paragraph Marks: | Red |
| Flourished Initials: | Blue with red pen-work. |
| Miscellaneous Info: | Structure of text defined by blue penwork initials with border flourishing. Diagrams in mixture of red and brown ink. Opening 'Lite Lowys my sone' has the initial capital L tied in to the decorated 4-sided border. |
| Further Information: | Seymour notes: Facsimile of f1 is the title page of R. T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, vol. V, Chaucer and Messahalla on the Astrolabe (1929). |