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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud misc. 600
 
MS Appellation:Ld1 (Manly and Rickert); SC 1476
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
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.
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Dialect:Chaucerian/Standardised/N.E. Midlands
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:iii (vellum flyleaves) + 286 + 18 (17th century insertion)
Pagination:Modern foliation
Quiring:8
Signatures:None visible
Catchwords:Catchwords are present at the end of all but about seven quires.
Page Size:290 x 200
Frame:Brown crayon, double ruled at top and bottom but now barely visible.
Writing Space:185 x 120 but variable
Incipits and Explicits:In rubric with blue initial to begin.
Running Titles:Titles in red ink. Blue paraphs precede the names of the pilgrims on rectos. Where leaves have been added in a later hand, the preceding paraphs are in red ink.
Table of Contents:17th century on flyleaf numbered as ii .
Illuminated Initials:Gold, pink, blue for main 3-4 line initials. Champ initials. Smaller champ initials begin prologues.
Paragraph Marks:Blue and some red directions
Flourished Initials:Blue with red flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):See Manly and Rickert I, 312 for information about provenance. The names 'George Borden' and 'George Marly occur on f131v with others now not readable. 'Edward Payne' occurs on f268.
Further Information:Possibly the Thynne family motto on f67. Again, see Manly and Rickert for possibilities of provenance. Note also Seymour's suggestion (II, 179) that the illumination resembles that in MSS Selden supra 53 (Hoccleve) and Bodley 686, another Canterbury Tales manuscript.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP