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Manuscript Description
London, British Library, Additional 34779
 
Title:Piers Plowman, C version
Author:Langland
Contents:Piers Plowman, C version
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:Early 15th century?
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Dialect:LP : 4218; County : SW Salop
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:3 newer paper, third of which foliated as '1' + parchment folios 2-93, small paper sheet bound in as f94, 3 newer paper flyleaves matching front three (first at front and last at back are heavier, matching the pastedowns)
Pagination:Ink modern arabic numbers in farthest upper outer corner, counting one lower than modern pencil not so far into lower corner. This is because ink numbering began '1' on first parchment folio whereas modern pencil began '1' on last paper flyleaf.
Quiring:8s
Signatures:Some red ?signatures survive, letter plus one, two, three, four slashes: see eg 'd' + cropped on f25, 'k' + cropped on f33, 'k//' on f34, 'k///' on f35, top of a letter on f43, top of a letter on f49, left side of a letter on ff57 and 58, top on f60, 'B///' on f67, 'B'+cropped on f68, 'I/' on f73, 'I//' on f74, top of 'I' on f75; 'M/' on f79, 'M///' on f81.
Catchwords:By scribe, lower right of verso of each quire, running into gutter, cropped from some quires completely but part or whole surviving in some: see ff17v, 24v, 32v, 64v, 72v, 88v and added by corrector who added bottom two lines on f80v, rubric catchword on f78v.
Page Size:ca. 300 x 200
Frame:3x vertical, two enclosing line of initials at beginnings of each line, third marking right edge of frame; 3 x horizontal below top and second lines and below bottom line; ruled within though this appears not always to have been adhered to; very faint grey-brown lines; no sign of pricking, which must have been cropped.
Writing Space:ca. 232 x 140-150
Incipits and Explicits:Red explicits; black explicits have been added before some rubric names of passus in wide spaces left for them (the rubric names of passus are in red boxes centred in these wide spaces) after each portion of text. Ends incomplete so no final Explicit.
Marginal Headings:Clear and unfaded red headings often enclosed in rubric boxes, red Latin lacunae.
Flourished Initials:Very faint blue lombard initials, mostly ?washed or faded away, in 2- and 3-line spaces left for them; no sign of penwork though this could have faded too.
Other Names (not owners):'Lawrenc Ball in the' top margin f32; on f1 note (catalogue p. 83 says in hand of Thomas Martin of Palgrave (ob. 1771) referring to possession of another MS of this text by Mr. [Joseph] Ames of London / pg. 84 / '(ob. 1759); also the names, as owners, of Matthew Lee and Thomas Huckell Lee (18th-19th cents.) Subsequently in the collection of Richard Heber... [(who sold it 1836); then] no. 1003 in Thorpe's sale catalogue for 1836, and no. 9056 in the Phillipps library''pp. 83-84 of which quoted is in single quotation marks except for what in square brackets.
Miscellaneous Info:Additional Catalogue says R. Kron's collation of test passages 'indicates that it is akin to the Ilchester MS...but with many variants of its own' 'p. 83. Several hands of later 15th-16th centuries have 'corrected' text.
Further Information:Additional catalogue, 1894-1899, part I, pp. 83-4.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP