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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Barlow 20
 
MS Appellation:Barlow (Manly and Rickert); SC 6420
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
Language:English
Date Range:1450-1475
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Dialect:No LP; County : Worcs
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:'Really i plus 265 leaves, for 20 is three leaves and 135 and 180 are double' (official statement on old foliation)
Pagination:Modern pencil top right corner.
Quiring:1-33 (8)
Signatures:ai-aiiij-yi-yiiij (mostly present); quire 29 has no signatures; then ai-eiiij.
Catchwords:Regularly throughout.
Page Size:305 x 210
Frame:Dry point ; grey plummet. 2 x vertical, 2 x horizontal
Writing Space:210 x 105-110
Incipits and Explicits:Rubricated but not systematically.
Marginal Headings:Rubricated, but not systematically.
Running Titles:Red ink on recto and verso up to f72, thereafter on rectos only to f172, end of CYP. Titles for Cook's Tale change to Gamelyn well into Tale of Gamelyn with a new quire.
Title by Scribe:At least one quire is missing. The manuscript begins with the description of the Manciple in the General Prologue.
Illuminated Initials:Beginning of most tales have initials of gold on blue or pink ground with green, and white highlights. Smaller gold initials provide other textual markers.
Paragraph Marks:None and no indications for them except in Man of Law where cc marks are present but were never finished. Red Latin glosses in Man of Law.
Other Names (not owners):'Per me Johannem Wekes' on f259v. Wyllyam Dubledaye on f84 Received into the Library in 1693-4 by bequest from Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who was Bodley's Librarian 1652-1660.
Further Information:Seymour notes that on f64 the name Wyllyam Dubledaye has a 'sequent device, possibly a notary's mark'. Manly and Rickert note that on ff73 and 93 is 'an attempt at a coat of arms' suggesting a possible relationship with the Wekes family.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP