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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poet. 163
 
MS Appellation:SC 14655
Title:Troilus; Balade to Rosamunde
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Troilus and Criseyde; Balade to Rosamonde.
Language:English
Date Range:1400-1425
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Material:Paper
No of Folios:iii old paper flyleaves + iii new paper flyleaves + 1-114 + pamphlet recounting Skeat's 'discovery' of a new Chaucer poem = 115-116 + ii old paper flyleaves + iii new paper flyleaves.
Pagination:Modern foliation in ink in top right corner.
Quiring:From the beginning up to f52 the quires appear to be of twelve leaves. After f52 the quires are of eight leaves.
Signatures:The first quire is incomplete but seems to have two early signatures in place, a2 and a3. In the second quire the original signatures bj-bv are visible. The third quire, copied by Hand 3, has signatures represented by 'fo.j-fo.iiij'. The fourth quire is numbered 'fo.j-fo.xij' accounting for missing leaves.Quire five is a gathering of ten leaves. Thereafter the quires are of eight with no visible signatures until 'ij fo' on f94, 'iij fo' on f95 and again on ff100-101.
Catchwords:Despite many missing leaves, twelve catchwords are in place.
Page Size:290 x 210
Frame:None visible
Writing Space:225 x 120
Incipits and Explicits:In the ink of the text in the hand of the scribe within the body of text.
Marginal Headings:Marginal summaries of the text in some places, acting as glosses. They are in the hand of the scribe in the ink of the text with no adornment.
Flourished Initials:Space left for an initial on the opening folio. Thereafter Hand 3 sometimes adds his own decorative strapwork to first initials on a folio. He also occasionally decorates with touches of red ink. He provides red ink bracketing for rhyming lines in the stanzas.
Other Names (not owners):Skeat noted (article attached to this manuscript) that the word 'Tregentil' on the last folio which contains the Rosamond poem is the name of the scribe who copied it. He also attaches the name to the explicit to Troilus on the previous verso. The name 'Thomas Homlet' also appears on f113v.
Further Information:Seymour, M. C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts: Works Before 'The Canterbury Tales', vol. 1: 65, Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press, 1995.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP