Manuscript Description Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud misc. 739 | |
| MS Appellation: | Ld2 (Manly and Rickert); SC 1234 |
| 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.                 |
| Dialect: | Chaucerian/Standardised/Western/Northern |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | ii (old paper flyleaves) + 239 + ii (old paper flyleaves) |
| Pagination: | Pencil foliation in top right corner recto. |
| Quiring: | 12's |
| Signatures: | Some medieval numbers from 1-6 appear in the bottom right corner to mark the first six folios of each quire. No letters are visible. |
| Catchwords: | Regular in every quire including the remnants on the remaining stub of an excised folio which followed f143. |
| Page Size: | 285 x 185 |
| Frame: | Brown crayon with some ruling visible. |
| Writing Space: | 185 x 120 |
| Running Titles: | Added in a later hand to most tales and prologues. A point of interest is that the Wife of Bath's prologue is labelled her 'tale. |
| Illuminated Initials: | Spaces left for initials of 7-8 lines and 3-4 lines |
| Other Names (not owners): | On f1r is 'Liber Guilielm Laud Archiepi[scopus] Cantuar[ius] et Cancellarij Vniuersitatis Oxon 1633'. On f54v Sumlyber Richardus Jonsun'. 'John Gellibrand' on f112v; 'Robert Hoclie' on f220; 'John Brodsha on f157; 'ffrauncis harwodd' on f81v and f140. Many other names are scribbled throughout the manuscript. See Manly and Rickert I, 315-321 and Seymour II, 179-182. Also Dan Mosser. |
| Miscellaneous Info: | Along with the Royal manuscript from which this Laud manuscript appears to be copied, a very interesting manuscript for trying to assess the development in tale order. |
| Further Information: | Horobin remarks that 'Almost the entire text of Ld2 was copied from Ry2'. |