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Manuscript Description
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Gg.4.27
 
MS Appellation:Gg (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Chaucerian poetry with the Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Chaucer's ABC; Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan; Truth; Praise of Love; De amico ad amicam, Responsio; Troilus and Criseyde (defective); Canterbury Tales (mutilated), with unique version of Prologue; Legend of Good Women; Parlement of Foules; Lydgate's Temple of Glas
Language:English
Date Range:1410-1430
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
Dialect:No LP; County : Cambs
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:516
Pagination:Several layers, one in black ink, two in pencil.
Quiring:12s
Signatures:Some original signatures survive, eg. b.j on f135 and other b's in that quire, c j on f147, d j on f159, etc (but inserted quire? b ij on f183, b iij on f184 partly cropped, b v on f186), f2 (arabic) on f196, f4 on f198, f5 on f199, etc and g quire beginning f212 also arabic. For further information see intro. to facsimile. Modern pencil signatures larger and above originals run right through volume, lower case letters plus roman numbers, followed by upper and lower case letters followed by romans through Kk which begins on f506.
Catchwords:Yes, usually by scribe in brown ink of text and usually surrounded by brown-ink scroll of varying elaborateness
Page Size:310 x 182
Frame:2 x vertical, 4 x horizontal enclosing top and bottom lines, ruled within, brown crayon.
Writing Space:203 x 105 ca.
Incipits and Explicits:Explicits in English where they survive.
Marginal Headings:Headings in red by scribe.
Borders:Gold, blue and red parti-coloured bar frame along left edge, extending long straight blue or red sprays into upper and lower margins.
Illuminated Initials:4- or 5-line blue initials with white highlighting in incising pattern, gold, red, pink and white foliage inside letter, pink ground with white highlighting.
Miniatures:Quarter-page miniatures of pilgrims, not in frames.
Paragraph Marks:Red paraphs in prose texts, sometimes in verse texts, sometimes alternating red and blue, red highlighting initials each line of verse and upper case letters in prose; yellow wash down initials of verse texts in some quires.
Flourished Initials:4-line blue lombard initials, red pen-work flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):According to Manly and Rickert, on fol. 450r in a small cursive hand is 'y writ by Lewis'.
Miscellaneous Info:Hand A also copied Bod. MS. e Musaeo 116, part 1, ff1-56 and a single leaf in collection of fragments in Columbia, Missouri, University of Missouri, Fragmenta Manuscripta 150, a Boece. The scribe sometimes works faces into the saw-tooth patterns in the red pen-work surrounding the blue initials. Innumerable corrections mainly by scribe himself, but also possibly by a supervisor.
Further Information:Luard catalogue, 3. 172-174. Facsimile edition, Parkes and Beadle, 'Geoffrey Chaucer. A Facsimile of CUL MS. Gg. 4. 27 (1976)'. Pace, G. B., and L.E. Voigts, 'A Boece Fragment', Studies in the Age of Chaucer I (1979) 143-150. Manly, John M. and Rickert, E. The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 8 vols, vol. I, 170-182, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Seymour, M. C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, vol. 2, 47-51, The Canterbury Tales. Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press, 1997.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP