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
London, British Library, Additional 35287
 
Title:Piers Plowman
Author:Langland
Contents:Piers Plowman, B Version
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:Late 14th c. or absolute beginning of 15th.
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Dialect:County : Herefords
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:2 paper flyleaves + folios 1-104 + 2 paper flyleaves
Pagination:Modern pencil in upper outer corners recto first numbering 1-103, then crossing out errors and changing to 1-104 because originally skipped 88 and then went back to cross out numbers 88-103 and change to 89-104.
Quiring:8s
Signatures:Signatures are l.c. letter plus romans i=iiii eg 'g j' to 'g iiij' on ff49-52; quires numbered below the catchwords on last folio verso, lower margin, numbered with roman numerals, eg 'iiij-us lower margin f32v even though no catchwords, and top of 'v' on f40v below catchword.
Catchwords:By the scribe at the bottom edge of page and running into gutter, sometimes underlined in same brown ink as text.
Page Size:302 x 200
Frame:6 x vertical forming pairs c. 5 mm apart, one in outer margin as ? outer edge of glosses column, second pair around initials at start of each line, third pair at right edge of text column; 4 x horizontal enclosing top and bottom lines, ruled within, all in very faint fine grey lines. Pricking survives top, outer and bottom edges of many leaves.
Writing Space:220 x 124 (ruled for, often less)
Incipits and Explicits:On f104r at bottom, 'Explicit hic dialogus petri plowman' in enlarged script by scribe; then followed also by scribe in smaller script, 'Penna precor siste ; quoniam liber explicit iste; and below that by a different hand, less formal, 'Explicit iste liber qui obsecro transeat liber'.
Marginal Headings:By the scribe in spaces of several blank lines left for them, written rubric. Passus titles in red, Latin enclosed in red boxes.
Running Titles:Scribe(?) writes passus numbers as running titles on rectos only, eg in upper outer corner of f49 'passus xj-us'.
Flourished Initials:10-line red initial 'I' at beginning on f1, then each passus begins with 3-4 line red initial with brown foliage pattern inside letter but no further flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):Front pastedown has bookplate 'From the Library of the Earl of Ashburnham, Appendix No. CXXIX, May 1897
first flyleaf recto handwritten, 'Purch at Sothebys (lot 77), 1 May 1899'.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP