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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poet. 168
 
MS Appellation:SC 14660
Title:Regiment of Princes
Author:Hoccleve
Contents:Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes
Language:English
Date Range:1450-1500; watermark on f51 looks like just the crescent horns of the bull as if rest of watermark had fallen off? SC says middle of 15th century.
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Material:Paper
No of Folios:4 new paper flyleaves + 60 folios paper with text on ff. 1-58 + 87 folios of new paper all blank (SC says iv + 147).
Pagination:Modern pencil foliation in upper outer corners recto. Earlier modern numbering of quires in brown ink, modern arabic numbers, both in centre of lower margin of first folio of quire (eg '13' on f33) and in upper outer corner of first folio (eg '13' on f33).
Quiring:8s
Signatures:Medieval signatures in ink in lower right corner recto of first half of quire, showing two states of quiring: main one is letter, dot, roman numerals for i through iiij, but above 'a' is 'l
above 'b' is 'm', etc., so above 'e' is 'p', so at some time ten more quires preceded these. Original seems to be the set beginning 'a' because these are on level with the numbers for the folios within the quire. Continues to 'gr i' through' iiij' on f49 and through that quire, and then only superscript 's' plus i and ij on ff57 and 58 since last is a 4-folio quire.'note not marked 'h'.
Catchwords:By the scribe, usual place not quite running up to right frame line, with red touched initial and red parallelogram around (first drawn in fine black lines and overwritten with red).
Page Size:280 x 193
Frame:2 x vertical, 2 x horizontal forming box with ends extending to edges, ruled within, brown crayon(?); top line of text above top line of frame.
Writing Space:201 x 138 ruled but only c. 90 mm length of verse lines
Incipits and Explicits:On f1 top, rubric, by scribe: 'Hic incipit liber de regimine principum
on f58 after end of text, about one third down page, 'Here endeth the Boke of gouermaunce of Princes that Thomas hoccleue made. Which is a boke of moraltees and of vertues of highli dispreising lewednesse and vices'.
Marginal Headings:Rubric by the scribe in space between stanzas left for them. Usually single line.
Paragraph Marks:Red paraph marks for each stanza since no space left between stanzas. Initials every line touched with red.
Flourished Initials:On f1, 4-line blue lombard initial with red pen-work flourishing. At other breaks in text, 2-line blue initials with same red flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):Note in right margin on f1 in hand of ?16th c: 'Ego sset[er] Bon[us] Cus'' [several more letters very faint, then cropped], probably not a name; opposite line 13 of text on 'colde stroke of deth'.
Miscellaneous Info:On f24 in lower margin at right, a drawing of a pyramid-like structure (wedding cake tiers) up to platform at top on which upper case 'N' holds a Russian cross. In the spaces to either side of top branch are upper case letters 'IN' on left and 'AI' on right'nothing in text of this page relates to such a structure: begins about 85 lines into 'De Misericordia' 'And one of hem . as ye shul heren answhered / Mi lorde if þat I wynne . not failed hadde / Al þat we spak . nere but game and pley / Having reward . to þe wordes badde / þat we þou[gh]t haue I spoke in gode fey / þe king toke vp a lau[gh]ter . and went his wey / And of al þat . he shuld hem excused / He said hit was wynne . þat so hem accused.'
Further Information:SC 14660
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP