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 326
 
Title:Confessio Amantis
Author:Gower
Contents:Confessio Amantis (A version)
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:1450-1475
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Dialect:Hand 1: County; Worcs/Warwicks Hand 2: County; Gloucs/Herefords or S.Wilts
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:1 paper flyleaf matches pastedown, plain and blank + 2 parchment flyleaves mostly blank (just 'Joh: Gower De Confessione Amantis' on verso of second) + 1-207 + 2 blank parchment flyleaves + 1 blank paper flyleaf matches pastedown.
Pagination:Modern pencil in upper outer corners recto, 1-207.
Catchwords:By scribe in usual places, centred in lower margin below second column on last leaf, verso, each quire, c. 2 words and enclosed in some sort of box or stylised scroll, with yellow-washed decorated sides and with yellow wash on first initial of catchword.
Page Size:351 x 244
Frame:6 x vertical for 2 columns and a narrow column in outer margin as if for chapter numbers, 4 x horizontal, 2 ruling for running titles and one above, one below text, ruled within columns; all drawn in red ink; pricking survives along top edge only on some folios.
Writing Space:247 x 162
Incipits and Explicits:No explicit to the work, merely ends 'Oure Ioye mote be endeles Amen' on 207ra at bottom of column; between books, very large textura by scribe for 'Explicit liber ?? / Incipit Liber ??.
Title by Scribe:Title on last flyleaf at front, as noted under number of folios above, by a much later hand (19th c?).
Flourished Initials:On f1 4-line blue initial with red penwork and a gold lion rampant drawn inside the letter (O). 2-line blue initials with red penwork forming box around run through the manuscript. Elaborate decoration to extenders on top lines of every page, some forming faces. Yellow wash over initials each line.
Other Names (not owners):On f207rb, sideways on the blank space since text ends 207ra, 'Thomas Salver' an early owner; 207v 'John Mompesson ex dono Egidii Mompesson equitis aurati 1650' and 'Tho. Mompesson Nov. Coll. socius [dedit?] 1705'.
Further Information:Coxe p. 116.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP