Advanced Search   *   Manuscripts   *   Scribes   *   Authors   *   Letters
Home   *   About the Project   *   Bibliography
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
Find What? Search by
Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poet. 149
 
MS Appellation:Ra2 (Manly and Rickert); SC 14641
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales; Hand 1 = ff1-24v; Hand 2 = ff 24v-37v, 38r-44r; Hand 3 = ff 38r; Hand 4 = ff 45r-136v (William Stevens?).
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.
****************

Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Dialect:N.Norfolk
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:ii paper flyleaves + 1-136 parchment leaves + ii paper flyleaves
Pagination:Fairly modern pencil foliation in top right corner.
Quiring:Originally 8's although now missing both folios and whole quires.
Signatures:Some signatures still to be seen for example 'kii' and 'kiij' on ff46 and 47.
Catchwords:A number of catchwords survive. They occur to the right of the text box in the middle of the lower border. Some cross the marginal line. They are in the ink of the text and the hand of the copyist and are preceded by paraphs in red or blue ink.
Page Size:276 x 195
Frame:2 x vertical; 3 x horizontal. Running titles in this section sit on the top ruled line. Faint brown ruling visible until f52v. Thereafter, dry-point ruling.
Writing Space:200 x 112
Incipits and Explicits:In red ink to introduce and end both prologues and tales.
Marginal Headings:Some marginal glosses in the ink of the text and preceded by a paraph of red or blue. Marginal presence of 'prolog' and 'fab' in brown or red ink and preceded by blue paraphs.
Running Titles:In red ink preceded by a blue paraph. They do not occur in any systematic pattern but when present have 'the' on the verso and the name of the narrator on the recto.
Paragraph Marks:Red and blue paraphs mark stanzaic divisions in some tales. They are unflourished.
Flourished Initials:Blue 2-4-line initials with red flourishing to define prologues and tales and pilgrims in the General Prologue for example.
Other Names (not owners):Acquired by the Bodleian in 1755. Left to them by Richard Rawlinson.
Miscellaneous Info:Copytext used by the first three scribes was an affiliate of Hatton donat 1.
Further Information:Manly, John M., and Edith Rickert, eds. The Text of the Canterbury Tales: Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts. 8 vols. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1940. 1: pp.455-60. Seymour, Michael C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales. Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997. pp.184-8. McCormick, Sir William and Janet E. Heseltine. The Manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: A Critical Description of Their Contents. Oxford: Clarendon, 1933. pp.433-42.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP