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Manuscript Description
Scotland, Aberdeen University Library, MS 21
 
MS Appellation:D (Waldron)
Title:Polychronicon
Author:Trevisa
Contents:Polychronicon (version B) 1400-1410 (Waldron)
Language:English
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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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Material:Parchment
No of Folios:i vellum flyleaf + 171 + i parchment flyleaf
Pagination:Modern pencil foliation in top corners of rectos.
Quiring:8s but a number of lost folios.
Signatures:A few faint marks may be original signatures but nothing is decipherable.
Catchwords:At the end of every quire where no leaves are missing in the hand of the scribe and contained in a scroll which scrolls upwards at the right side and downwards at the left.
Page Size:395 x 285
Frame:4 x horizontal in two sets of double lines with first and last lines of text enclosed; 4 x vertical; ruled variously in fine ink or plummet; columns ruled within.
Writing Space:270 x 185 in 2 columns each 8 + 2 space between
Incipits and Explicits:Explicits to each book followed by incipit for the next; in red ink in the hand of the scribe.
Index:On ff1-8r a Latin Index; on ff8r-11v an incomplete English Index
Marginal Headings:Throughout are marginal annotations in red ink for Chapter numbers, authorities, years, etc and within the text references to authorities are copied in red also.
Running Titles:The scribe puts 'primus' for the number of the book at the top of the column space between the two columns. After 3 folios he continues by putting Latin numerals followed by the contraction for 'us' and with a punctus point on each side of the number.
Title by Scribe:There is no title in the upper margin of the first folio of text. However, in the lower margin, in red ink, in the hand of the scribe is the following: 'This first boke discriueth places & contrayes and londes and al the worlde wide wt certayn woundres there in'. Thereafter each book is similarly annotated in the lower margin describing the contents of the book to come.
Borders:3-sided border on first folio, the Index, in gold, blue and pink with dark red and burnt orange, some green wash for leaves and gold balls; thereafter borders for the beginning of Books; on f12r a 4-sided border in the same colours with elaborate sprays in lower and right margins using gold; 3-sided border on f52r using same motifs and colours; split border between columns on ff71v, 103r, and 130v.
Historiated Initials:On f12r a five-line initial with a seated monk in the process of writing on a slope.
Illuminated Initials:Large illuminated initials of pink or blue with decoration in orange and white on gold ground introduce books; 3-line gold initials on background of pink, blue or parti-coloured begin chapters.
Miniatures:On f56v the drawing of two Noah's Arks
Paragraph Marks:Blue with red flourishing and gold with blue flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):In the 16th century, owned by John Hay whose ownership mark may be seen on the verso of the mutilated f13; 'liber dm Johannis hay de Ȝestir A 1554
owned by Alexander Fraser of Fraserburgh in the 17th century. Presented to King's College, Aberdeen by Charles Gordon in c1683.
Miscellaneous Info:An odd situation occurs after f12 which opens the first book. There is a parchment stub followed by f13 which has some of the left column and three quarters of the right column cut away. However, this folio never contained two columns of text. A note makes clear that it was a scribal mistake and since the text of the partial folio is in the hand of the main scribe, it must have occurred whilst the manuscript was being copied. f14r is also blank but ruled and the text continues on f14v.
Further Information:Ronald Waldron, John Trevisa's Translation of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, Book VI, Middle English Texts 35 (2004), pp. xxxiii-xxxv; James, M.R., 'A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the University Library Aberdeen' (Cambridge University Press, 1932.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP