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Manuscript Description USA, Philadelphia, PA, Rosenbach Museum & Library MS 1084/2 | |
| MS Appellation: | Ox (Manly and Rickert) |
| Title: | Canterbury Tales (fragments) |
| Author: | Chaucer |
| Contents: | Canterbury Tales (fragments) |
| 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.               |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | 11 leaves at Philadelphia, 2 at Manchester |
| Quiring: | Probably originally 8's. Now 7 singleton leaves and two bifolia. |
| Signatures: | No signatures. |
| Page Size: | 300 x 200 |
| Frame: | Ruled in red ink. |
| Writing Space: | 210 x 130 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | Red ink explicits and incipits remain between Reeve and Cook. Incipit to Man of Law's Tale. |
| Marginal Headings: | Some marginal glosses in tales of Man of Law and Parson in the ink of the text. |
| Borders: | Three-quarter bar borders to mark beginning of tales. |
| Illuminated Initials: | 6-line decorated initials to begin each tale along with brownish ink drawings of Cook and Man of Law which precede the tales. |
| Other Names (not owners): | According to Manly and Rickert, the eleven leaves which make up this fragment were originally in the possession of a grandson of Alfred Harley (6th Earl of Oxford). Sold in 1896 to Quaritch, they went to a W.A. White and from him to Rosenbach in 1923. |
| Further Information: | Manly and Rickert I: 396-398. Seymour II: 251-253. |