Manuscript Description Oxford, Christ Church MS 148 | |
| Title: | Confessio Amantis |
| Author: | Gower |
| Contents: | Confessio Amantis (B version) |
| Language: | English and Latin |
| Date Range: | 1400-1425 |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.               |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | 1 parchment stub of flyleaf + 207 |
| Pagination: | Modern pencil in upper outer corners recto. |
| Quiring: | 8; first quire of five leaves only with catchword on f5v. The remaining scrap of a vellum flyleaf may be the first leaf of an original 6-leaf quire. Another stub precedes f6. The second quire is now of seven leaves with catchword on f12v. Thereafter the quires are in eights. The last quire is also a six with Gower's explication on f207r leaving the verso originally blank. |
| Signatures: | None visible |
| Catchwords: | By the scribe in the lower margin under the second column with very faint crude scroll almost like a parallelogram. |
| Page Size: | 397 x 270 |
| Frame: | 4 x vertical enclosing two columns, 4 x horizontal enclosing top and bottom lines; ruled within columns; no pricking survives. |
| Writing Space: | 242 x 78 per column = 242 x 172 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | Usual for Confessio Amantis and in red ink by the scribe, preceded by one-line initials. |
| Running Titles: | None |
| Title by Scribe: | 'P(ro)logus' in red ink above the top transverse bar of the border. |
| Borders: | Full bar border on first folio including bar between columns in gold, blue, pink and red. Repeated on ff26v, 49v and regularly to mark the beginning of a new book. |
| Illuminated Initials: | 4-line blue initial with white highlights on illuminated gold ground with English Royal coat of arms in gold, blue and red; 2-line illuminated gold initials on parti-coloured blue and rose grounds with white highlighting, sprays in gold, blue, rose. |
| Flourished Initials: | One-line initials alternating blue with red penwork and gold with blue; initials of each line washed with yellow. |
| Other Names (not owners): | On f207 after the end of the text in a 16th century hand is 'Nomine vniuersie per presentes me Johannem Hill de Okehampton'. On f206v in the lower margin is 'Ex dono Henrici Byam on f207v is 'Doddysshyed on front paste-down is 'Edward Cottell and 'Regina Elizabeth'. |
| Further Information: | Christ Church online catalogue |