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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.                 |
| 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. |