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Manuscript Description London, British Library MS Lansdowne 851 | |
| MS Appellation: | La (Manly and Rickert) |
| Title: | Canterbury Tales |
| Author: | Chaucer |
| Contents: | Canterbury Tales |
| 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.                |
| Dialect: | Gloucs/Worcs/Herefords |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | i marbled flyleaf + i paper flyleaf + i marbled flyleaf + parchment flyleaf (life of Geoffrey Chaucer and numbered 1) + 2-255 + ii paper flyleaves + i marbled flyleaf |
| Pagination: | Modern foliation 1-255 includes the original vellum flyleaf now with a description of the life of Chaucer. |
| Quiring: | 1-29(8), 30(7-missing vii), 31(8), 32(7-stub of 8 visible) |
| Signatures: | No original signatures. Traces of some pencil signatures but may be modern. |
| Catchwords: | In scrolled box sometimes shaded; elaborate and in right of text-box space in lower margin about one third of the way down. |
| Page Size: | 345 x 220 |
| Frame: | Square frame 2 x vertical, 2 x horizontal, ruled within in grey and brown. |
| Writing Space: | 240 x 133 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | In red ink within text box frame explicit and incipits. |
| Marginal Headings: | Some notes left in by scribe, some glosses usually in ink of text (but not many). |
| Running Titles: | Red ink in top margin by scribe '(th)e' followed by 'name of pilgrim'. |
| Title by Scribe: | In red ink above the top border in hand of scribe 'Incipit prologus fabular(um) cantuar(etc) |
| Borders: | First is a whole vinet border; others are three quarter borders; gold, rose, blue, red, little bits of green. |
| Historiated Initials: | Chaucer in first initial. |
| Illuminated Initials: | Initials of up to 6 lines for beginning of tales in blue and rose on gold ground; 2 or 3-line gold champe letters on rose and blue background to begin prologues. |
| Paragraph Marks: | Blue with red flourishing, gold with blue; used infrequently in text but used as stanza dividers and also used to precede glosses. |
| Flourished Initials: | First initial of a line usually has some kind of flourished decoration; sometimes in ink of text, sometimes in red and blue ink. |
| Other Names (not owners): | Seymour corrects one of Manly and Rickert's suggestions about ownership by Baron Chandos. Bought by the marquess of Lansdowne in 1771 and passed to the British Museum in 1807. |
| Further Information: | Manly and Rickert I: 304-308. Seymour II: 131-135 |