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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 198
 
MS Appellation:Cp (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
Language:English
Date Range:1390-1415
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:Scribe D: S.W.Mids/Chaucerian
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:3 new paper + 265 (foliated 2-266) + 3 new paper
Pagination:Modern, pencil, upper outer corners recto. Changed foliation for quires rebound in 1987.
Quiring:8s. Some folios which were originally misbound were corrected in the 1987 rebinding.
Signatures:Few signatures survive, upper-case letter and roman numerals.
Catchwords:In the hand of the scribe and the ink of the text in lower right margin. Usually with half-sleigh underline. First letter of catchword washed with yellow as are the initial letters of most lines in the manuscript.
Page Size:333 x 220
Frame:2 x vertical, 4 x horizontal enclosing top and bottom lines, ruled within.
Writing Space:230 x 90 for verse; ruled for 230 x 145 for prose
Incipits and Explicits:In hand of the scribe in ink of the text. Preceded by flourished paraphs.
Marginal Headings:Chapter numbers for some tales. Some glossing.
Running Titles:Red running titles begin at Wife of Bath's Prologue.
Title by Scribe:First folio missing.
Borders:Three-quarter bar borders; gold, blue, pink and a darker maroon colour. Green wash over spiralled tendrils.
Illuminated Initials:6-line pink and blue with white highlights on gold ground. Smaller 2-3-line gold initials on blue and rose ground.
Paragraph Marks:Alternating blue with red flourishing and gold with blue or voiolet flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):On f1r: Liber C.C.C.Oxon Ex dono Gulielmi Fulman A.M. hujus Collegii quondam socius.
Further Information:Corpus Christi College Catalogue, p.80 Manly, John M., and Edith Rickert, eds. The Text of the Canterbury Tales: 8 vols. Chicago, 1940. 1:92-9; 1:567-9. McCormick, Sir William and Janet E. Heseltine. The Manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Clarendon, 1933. 85-93. Seymour, Michael C. A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Vol. II, The Canterbury Tales. Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997, pp. 201-205.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP