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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Egerton 913
 
Title:Confessio Amantis
Author:Gower
Contents:Confessio Amantis (incomplete)
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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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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Dialect:Hand 1 Gowerian/colourless; Hand 2 Gowerian/colourless; Hand 3 Gowerian/colourless/E.Anglia
Material:Paper
No of Folios:Marbled + 4 newer paper flyleaves + 2 older paper flyleaves, not original + 1-47 (of which much of lower outer half of 47 torn away) + 4 newer flyleaves + marbled.
Pagination:Modern pencil foliation usual place 1-47.
Quiring:116 (1-16) catchword on 16v; 216+4 (17-36, where four leaves by scribe B inserted between 10 and 11 of original quire), catchword on 36v; 312-1 (missing 5th leaf between 41 and 42). NB. changes of quire / insertions are changes in hands.
Signatures:Signatures of roman numerals j to viij in first half of quires 1 and 2, arabic numbers 1-4 and 6 on first 5 leaves of quire 3, all in usual place of lower outer corner of rectos only.
Catchwords:ff16v and 36v only, by Hand A, half way down lower margin and running up to right frame line, with sleigh either sides and under in same ink.
Page Size:292 x 208
Frame:Simple square extending to edges, same throughout MS, fine grey lines.
Writing Space:221 x 122 (ruled for, but lines of text only c. 80 mm wide).
Marginal Headings:'Amans' and 'Confessor' in right margins. Latin verse portions are set in text space, except prose in Latin is set in margins either to left or right of text; Latin prose portions written in margins are in smaller script but otherwise same as text, and written by the scribes of each section
Flourished Initials:2-3 line red lombard initials, plain with no penwork, appears same red throughout.
Other Names (not owners):Second older flyleaf at front, 'Purchased of Tho. Thorpe / 13 July 1841' and below in same hand, 'It formerly belonged to Gough, and / is Lot 4323 of his Catalogue, in 1810'.
Miscellaneous Info:Note extra space left on f30v. Scribe B finishes Latin verse of 8 lines at top of page, then space left (about 3 lines) and then he writes in smaller script but in main column a Latin prose 'hic loquitur quod septem sunt peccata mortalia'' (3 ' lines) and then a much larger space, ca. 7-8 lines left blank, before at bottom 6 lines of English beginning, 'Mi Sone as I þe shall enforme'' as if section beginning f31 had already been written so using up space before scribe A comes back in.
Further Information: Gower edition by Macaulay.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP