Manuscript Description London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 398 | |
Title: | Vita Sancti Thomae Cantuar (also contains 4 leaves of Piers Plowman, B version, originally same MS as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38 |
Author: | Langland |
Contents: | Piers Plowman, B-text, lines ?? - ?? |
Language: | English and Latin |
Date Range: | Late 14th or very early 15th, based on script |
Scribal Hands: | Piers Plowman fragment same hand as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38 Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
Material: | Parchment |
No of Folios: | Fragment of four folios from a once-complete MS |
Pagination: | Modern ink in upper outer corners of folios, arabic, running throughout volume of which these four leaves are the last in the volume as it now stands: others are fragments of other manuscripts from different periods, probably not related to this fragment in any way. |
Quiring: | Only 4 leaves survive, probably centre of a quire since they're attached to one another. |
Signatures: | No signatures since lower margins completely cropped. |
Catchwords: | No catchwords since lower margins completely cropped. |
Page Size: | [cropped losing some of the text on outer edges, especially on versos where lines begin at outer edges, and cropped immediately below last line on page] 228 x 138 mm |
Frame: | Square, ruled within, in very fine grey lines (ink?); no pricking survives because cropped so severely. |
Writing Space: | 204 x c. 110 |
Incipits and Explicits: | On f78v rubric by scribe 'Passus primus de visione petri plowman' |
Marginal Headings: | Headings for passus written by scribe in red, eg f78v; Latin written in same script and ink as text but with red box around. |
Paragraph Marks: | Alternating red and blue paraphs, initials for each line are touched with red. |
Flourished Initials: | On f78v, passus begins with 2-line blue initial with red flourishing, following shape of letter; 2 lines below begins with one-line red initial with brown flourishing; headings for passus written by scribe in red, eg f78v; Latin written in same script and ink as text but with red box around. |
Miscellaneous Info: | Begins Folio 77r …Crist kepe þe sire kyng and þi kyngriche And leue þe lede þi land so lewet þe louþe And fore ri3tful rewelyng be rewarded in heuene [skips a line] And sithen in þe heir an heþ an aungel of heuene… : Ends folio 80v: …haue no kende knowyng quat3 I 3ette mote I lerne bettre [ ] what craft in my corps it comseth and where [skips a line] [ ]w dotede daffe quat3 sche dulle arn þi wittes |
Further Information: | Lansdowne catalogue. Same hand as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson poet. 38. See scribal hand for that manuscript. |