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Manuscript Description
London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 398
 
Title:Vita Sancti Thomae Cantuar (also contains 4 leaves of Piers Plowman, B version, originally same MS as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38
Author:Langland
Contents:Piers Plowman, B-text, lines ?? - ??
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:Late 14th or very early 15th, based on script
Scribal Hands:
Piers Plowman fragment same hand as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Material:Parchment
No of Folios:Fragment of four folios from a once-complete MS
Pagination:Modern ink in upper outer corners of folios, arabic, running throughout volume of which these four leaves are the last in the volume as it now stands: others are fragments of other manuscripts from different periods, probably not related to this fragment in any way.
Quiring:Only 4 leaves survive, probably centre of a quire since they're attached to one another.
Signatures:No signatures since lower margins completely cropped.
Catchwords:No catchwords since lower margins completely cropped.
Page Size:[cropped losing some of the text on outer edges, especially on versos where lines begin at outer edges, and cropped immediately below last line on page] 228 x 138 mm
Frame:Square, ruled within, in very fine grey lines (ink?); no pricking survives because cropped so severely.
Writing Space:204 x c. 110
Incipits and Explicits:On f78v rubric by scribe 'Passus primus de visione petri plowman'
Marginal Headings:Headings for passus written by scribe in red, eg f78v; Latin written in same script and ink as text but with red box around.
Paragraph Marks:Alternating red and blue paraphs, initials for each line are touched with red.
Flourished Initials:On f78v, passus begins with 2-line blue initial with red flourishing, following shape of letter; 2 lines below begins with one-line red initial with brown flourishing; headings for passus written by scribe in red, eg f78v; Latin written in same script and ink as text but with red box around.
Miscellaneous Info:Begins Folio 77r …Crist kepe þe sire kyng and þi kyngriche And leue þe lede þi land so lewet þe louþe And fore ri3tful rewelyng be rewarded in heuene [skips a line] And sithen in þe heir an heþ an aungel of heuene… : Ends folio 80v: …haue no kende knowyng quat3 I 3ette mote I lerne bettre [ ] what craft in my corps it comseth and where [skips a line] [ ]w dotede daffe quat3 sche dulle arn þi wittes
Further Information:Lansdowne catalogue. Same hand as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38. See scribal hand for that manuscript.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP