Manuscript Description London, British Library MS Harley 1239 | |
| MS Appellation: | Ha1 (Manly and Rickert) |
| Title: | Troilus; Canterbury Tales |
| Author: | Chaucer |
| Contents: | Troilus; Canterbury Tales |
| Language: | English |
| Date Range: | 1450-1475? |
| Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.              Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.                 Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.               Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.                |
| Dialect: | LP 626; County: Norfolk |
| Material: | Parchment |
| No of Folios: | iii 19th century thick paper flyleaves + 107 + iii 19th century thick paper flyleaves |
| Pagination: | Modern foliation. |
| Quiring: | 1(8 missing 4 and 5), 2-10(8), 11(7 8 is a fragment only), 12-13(8), 14(6 missing 3 and 6) |
| Signatures: | Little trace. |
| Catchwords: | Catchwords are regularly supplied. |
| Page Size: | 394 x 143 |
| Frame: | Ruled in brown ink; pricking visible on most folios; 2 x vertical, usually 3 x horizontal ruled to outside edge, with a double ruling at the top to contain the first line and a single line at the base of the text; ruled within. |
| Writing Space: | 325 x 85 |
| Incipits and Explicits: | Some explicits to parts in Troilus followed by Incipit to next part; simple explicit to Knight's Tale in red ink 'Explicit fabula militis; Canterbury Tales have explicits but no incipits. The explicits are as Manly and Rickert suggest, 'informal'. |
| Historiated Initials: | Shield in first letter. |
| Illuminated Initials: | On f1 a 5-line champe initial with sprays down left border; originally gold, blue dark red. |
| Paragraph Marks: | Blue and red paraphs mark stanzas in Troilus. Black simple paraphs mark the stanzas in Man of Law's Prologue and Tale, Clerk's Tale and Franklin's Tale.. |
| Flourished Initials: | Lombard initials unadorned in alternating blue and red for each stanza of the Troilus; occasional single red letter in Canterbury Tales; first and last lines of stanzas in Troilus joined to form red bracket. |
| Other Names (not owners): | See Manly and Rickert (I: 192-3) for possible identification of the Hermit of Greenwich. |
| Further Information: | Manly and Rickert vol. I 189-197; McCormick 189-198; Seymour, vol. I 75-76 and 137-139. |