Advanced Search   *   Manuscripts   *   Scribes   *   Authors   *   Letters
Home   *   About the Project   *   Bibliography
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
Find What? Search by
Manuscript Description
Oxford, New College MS 266
 
Title:Confessio Amantis
Author:Gower
Contents:Gower, Confessio Amantis, C 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.
****************

Dialect:County; Gowerian/colourless
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:one parchment flyleaf written, from an earlier MS + 1-194 + parchment flyleaf from same earlier MS
Pagination:Modern pencil upper outer corners recto, 1-194.
Signatures:Tops of signatures survive on a few leaves, eg f138, but not enough to determine what they were.
Catchwords:By the scribe below second column of last leaf verso each quire, about equivalent of 3 lines below text, several words, in a stylized scroll in same ink as text.
Page Size:333 x 223
Frame:4 x vertical, 2 x horizontal above top line and below bottom line
Writing Space:243 x 160
Incipits and Explicits:Explicits and incipits for books are in black ink, by scribe, textura and enlarged script. Latin glosses are written into the margins, not in the text block. Usual ending naming Gower.
Marginal Headings:'Confessor' and 'Amans' in margins preceded by alternating blue with red or gold with marine blue paraphs; initials each line touched with red.
Borders:Bar borders and sprays across top and bottom margins in blue, pink, green, orange and gold
Illuminated Initials:5-line blue and pink initials with white highlighting on gold grounds; 3-line gold initials on blue and pink grounds with white highlighting, no sprays, just a square as ground.
Miniatures:Many small miniatures of very high quality, many of which cut out of the manuscript, though some remain, eg f166va.
Flourished Initials:Alternating one-line initials in blue with red penwork and gold with marine blue penwork, just scallops along left of penwork box as ground.
Other Names (not owners):On f1r top margin, 'Thomas Martin' (with extra minim so possibly 'Martini'); at end, f194rb after end of text, by 15th c. hand 'Johannis Cutt ffilius Johannis Cutt Millit' nuper de Schenley in Com' hertfford', then by another hand(?), 'Quod Thomas Smyth', and below first column measurements relating to the park at Shenley, in a hand of late 15th c.
Further Information:Coxe, pp. 94-5.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP