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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Egerton 2726
 
MS Appellation:En1 (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
Language:English
Date Range:1425-1450
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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Dialect:LP : 6150; County : Essex
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:i marbled flyleaf + ii paper flyleaves + 1-270 + i older paper flyleaf + vi paper flyleaves + i marbled flyleaf
Pagination:At least two modern foliations, one in blue pencil now cancelled in upper outer corners recto and newer one in grey pencil just beneath; an even earlier foliation in red, usually on verso in top left corner, goes up to 106; there is then an 18th century addition of 8 leaves and what is now f64r has the number 126 in the top right corner also in the same red; thereafter no more red numbers.
Quiring:1-6(8), 7(6), 8(8) + 8 leaves (added by Timothy Thomas), 9-33(8) + 1 leaf (also 18th century)
Signatures:None visible.
Catchwords:From f102v with half sleigh underline and 'ex' attached to concave left side of sleigh.
Page Size:330 x 205
Frame:2 x vertical and 3 x horizontal; two top horizontals contain top line; traces of ruling scarce but some in brown and grey.
Writing Space:225 x 135
Incipits and Explicits:In both Latin and English by each scribe and showing some originality of expression.
Running Titles:None
Paragraph Marks:None in either verse or prose.
Flourished Initials:Blue ink initial capitals for most divisions of the text with red flourishing; other textual divisions marked in same way with smaller capitals.
Other Names (not owners):On f1r Manly and Rickert suggest the name 'Brotherton', 'written as an owner might write'. Unfortunately this is no longer visible. On f158v is a reference to 'my lord Cobham'. 'Radolphus Pe...?' occurs on f229.
Miscellaneous Info:Initial letters of folios by what may be the second scribe are elaborately decorated in the ink of the text rather like many in the Letter books; some have faces and on 126v is a face on the left side of the catchword sleigh which is then repeated as decoration of the first letter of the following folio.
Further Information:Manly and Rickert vol. I, 130-135. Seymour vol. II, 103-107.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP