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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Additional 5140
 
MS Appellation:Ad1 (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer and Lydgate
Contents:Canterbury Tales; Siege of Thebes
Language:English
Date Range:1475-1500. By scripts to late 15th century, possibly contemporary with arms on f1.
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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Dialect:LP : 8301; County : Suffolk
Material:Combination
No of Folios:4 new paper flyleaves + 2 slightly older + 425 + 4 heavy paper flyleaves
Pagination:Post medieval foliation in ink in upper outer corners recto for ff1-423 is crossed through in pencil (missing two folios). Modern pencil same place ff1-425.
Quiring:12 with ff1, 6, 7, 12 of parchment, ff2-5, 8-11 of paper
Signatures:Mostly only tops of signatures survive, a few showing letter plus lower case Roman numerals j-vj.
Catchwords:None for ff1-229; by scribe in ff229-425 towards right of bottom margin. Three words unembellished.
Page Size:270 x 190
Frame:Brown, faint. Top line of frame lines up with top of minims. Last line of text well above bottom frame line.
Writing Space:170 x 100 (for ff1-f229; ruled 165 x 102); 180 x 80 (for ff229-425v; ruled 178 x 108)
Incipits and Explicits:In black ink. On f359v after Retraction is ' Explicit narracio Rectoris et ultima inter narraciones huius libri de quibus composuit Chaucer cuius Anime propicitur deus AMEN Incipit ultima de fabulis et prolata per Dompnum Iohannem Lidgate monachum in redeundo a Cantuaria Incipit prologus'.
Marginal Headings:By scribe in ink of text in Latin.
Running Titles:In upper right of rectos defined by blue and red alternating sleighs.
Borders:Rose, white, gold, blue, yellow, red.
Illuminated Initials:On first folio only.
Paragraph Marks:Alternating red and blue sleighs define glosses in f1-f229.
Flourished Initials:Blue with red pen-work.
Other Names (not owners):Arms of Henry Dene, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII (1500-1503) on f1. A later annotator has written, below the arms,'Insignia Henrici Dean Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis sub Henrico 7-o'. On f118v early 16th century names erased 'Thomas Curteis', Thomas Darsey. On last front flyleaf verso at top, 'Aaskew M.D.'[In the Catalogue of his MSS sold by Leigh and Sotheby in March 1785, Lot No. 322].
Miscellaneous Info:Egerton 2864 scribe, but for Hand 2 ff229 (line 9)-425v, see noted similarity to Trinity Anthologies scribe.
Further Information:Additional Catalogue? See noted similarity of Hand 2 in this manuscript to Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.19 (599), Hand A (M.C. Seymour, revised by D. Mosser).
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP