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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 693
 
MS Appellation:SC 2875
Title:Confessio Amantis
Author:Gower
Contents:Confessio Amantis (A 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.
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Dialect:Gowerian/colourless
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:i (parchment Latin gradual with music) + ii (blank paper) + 196 + ii (blank paper, numbered 197-8) + i (parchment gradual with music, numbered 199); pastedowns are early printed book
Pagination:Pencil foliation in large fancy numerals in upper outer recto corners, 1-199.
Quiring:8s
Signatures:No signatures survive.
Catchwords:By the scribe, in faintly drawn fine-line box, usual place.
Page Size:380 x 255
Frame:4 x vertical enclosing two columns; 3 x horizontal, one at top and two enclosing bottom line; top line of text inside frame; ruled inside columns, drawn in fine grey-black lines.
Writing Space:273 x 178 or two columns, 273 x ca. 75 with space between
Incipits and Explicits:Only those written into the text.
Marginal Headings:Latin in red ink. Names of speakers in red in margins.
Running Titles:Running titles written in red ink, for example 'Liber primus'.
Borders:Full solid border in gold, blue, pink and reddish-pink, in foliate forms at intervals along the solid border; crowned lion in right margin. Thereafter similar decorations for beginning of each book but without full border and coat of arms.
Illuminated Initials:8-9-line blue letter with white highlights, on gold ground, enclosing red ground with gold decor and, with a blue garter, blue, red and gold royal arms of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, K.G. (d. 1545). Smaller 3-line gold initials on parti-coloured blue and pink-purple ground that traces shape of letter, with white highlights, and very small sprays with green and gold decorative leaves and balls.
Paragraph Marks:Blue paraphs with red penwork decor precede running titles.
Flourished Initials:Alternating one-line initials in blue with red penwork and gold with purple penwork.
Other Names (not owners):'Frauncois Halle Anno M Vc vj [1506] Garde le fine' (f196). Summ Cat says: 'On fol. 1 the arms of Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk, K.G. (d. 1545), quartering those of Bruyn or Brown and Rokeley (? his crest is on fol. 1, 86v) have been inserted, within a Garter. The binding is reddish brown leather, stamped, with the arms of England in colour, and 'I.R.', showing that it was made for James i. 'Donum Johannis King, S. Theologiae Doctoris, & Decani Aedis Christi': probably given in 1608, when dr. King was Vice-Chancellor and is mentioned as a donor.'--p. 545.
Further Information:Madan, Falconer and H. H. E. Craster. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, Vol. II, part I, MSS 1-3490. Oxford: Clarendon, 1922. p. 545.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP