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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.
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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'.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP