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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.
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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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Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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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.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP