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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Harley 2280
 
Title:Troilus and Criseyde
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Troilus and Criseyde
Language:English
Date Range:1400-1425
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Dialect:Standardised; some Northern (poss. Lincs) features
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:3 modern flyleaves + i + 98 + 1 (Victorian flyleaf?) + 4 modern flyleaves
Pagination:Modern pencil top right corner.
Quiring:8
Signatures:None visible very heavily trimmed.
Catchwords:In the first part of the manuscript, they may have been trimmed off. Catchwords begin on f41v and proceed on 49v, 57v, 65v, 73v, 81v, tops of letters on f89v and whole catchword on f96v. In ink of text, by scribe to right of text box space and sometimes enclosed in sort of parallelogram but with up pointing right end rather like the prow of a boat.
Page Size:Variable because of cropping 223-240 x 160-162
Frame:2 parallel horizontals at top which enclose the first line of verse. On f66v it is just possible to see that there were probably another set of parallel horizontals at the bottom of the text box containing the last line of verse. Grey ruling.
Writing Space:205 x 120
Incipits and Explicits:By the scribe in the ink of the text in a larger, decorative script and see f13v for face in initial I of Incipit. See also f34v for much larger Explicit with decoration in the ascenders and in both compartments of the g.
Marginal Headings:Occasional gloss eg f50r
Illuminated Initials:f1r, f14v both have gold initials . On f1 the background is quartered and has an aquamarine colour perhaps as in Harley 7334? Feathered black ink work with gold balls and squiggles decorated with green. The I on f14v is quartered red and blue-green.
Paragraph Marks:Alternating blue and red paraphs mark stanzas.
Miscellaneous Info:Heavily cropped in header and footer. Similar to Gg 4.27 hand. Top ascenders on some lines make sort of wings to each side of ascenders. Mark on flyleaf which may be a notary's mark, or a Mercer's mark and a name which looks like 'J Pobyll.
Further Information:Seymour I. 61-62
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP