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Manuscript Description
London, British Library, Royal 18 B.XVII
 
Title:Piers Plowman, C version
Author:Langland
Contents:Alliterative text on the Crede and Piers Plowman, C version
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:16th century script throughout MS.
Scribal Hands:
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:1 marbled + 1 plain paper flyleaves + 1 parchment flyleaf with stain on recto showing once up against turnings of leather cover + 122 parchment leaves + 1 parchment originally blank with stains on verso showing once against turnings of cover (foliated 123) + 2 plain paper and 1 marbled paper flyleaves
Pagination:Modern pencil 1-123 not counting the front parchment flyleaf but counting the back one.
Quiring:8s
Catchwords:None
Page Size:290 x 222
Frame:2 x vertical left and right, 1 x horizontal at top, with text written on this top line as a base line; no ruling within, no pricking; brownish plummet.
Writing Space:varies, c. 243 x 156
Incipits and Explicits:Only 'Explicit passus secundus de dobeste' on f122v.
Marginal Headings:By the scribe as he wrote, in larger and bolder, more formal (secretary formata) text and underlined.
Flourished Initials:No coloured ink in this manuscript; slightly enlarged and bold initials at top of each page; headings and Latin lines of Piers written larger in bolder more formal secretary script and underlined, but all in black ink.
Other Names (not owners):On f123 (flyleaf at end) originally blank has 'rychard wyches constatt
notes on front flyleaf verso in 16th-century script but different from scribe's tell which months to plant which seeds, in English, headed 'Sesouns of Seedes'.
Further Information:Royal catalogue
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP