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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Harley 7335
 
MS Appellation:Ha5 (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents: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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Dialect:Chaucerian/W.Essex/W.Kent
Material:Combination
No of Folios:1 heavy paper flyleaf + 2 newish paper flyleaves + 163 leaves mixed parchment and paper + 3 newish paper flyleaves + 1 heavy paper flyleaf
Pagination:Modern pencil in upper outer corners recto 1-163.
Quiring:8 mixed parchment and paper; complicated by missing leaves and several whole quires. See Manly and Rickert I: 231-232 and Seymour II: 129.
Signatures:Mostly cropped; a few survive eg f35 = 'gj', f126 = 'vj', f134 = 'xj', f137 = xiiij' thus letter + roman numerals.
Catchwords:By the scribe about one third of the way down the lower margin and running up to right frame line; crude box surround.
Page Size:290 x 202
Frame:2 x vertical, 2 x horizontal; ruled within in grey; pricking on outer edges and bottom and top margins.
Writing Space:195 x 100
Incipits and Explicits:Space left; some added by another hand (see Headings)
Marginal Headings:May have been added by the 2nd scribe of Ch 152 who may be Brode or Morganus scribe.
Flourished Initials:One red 2-line initial 'I' to begin ML; otherwise spaces left for 3-line initials.
Other Names (not owners):Bottom margin on f34 in reddish-grey crayon, 'Tant quant q[uo]d vynray awarwyk' (Warwick).
Miscellaneous Info:Cotton Manor near Ipswich in Suffolk belonged to the de la Pole family. Alice Chaucer married as her third husband, William de la Pole. They may have used Cotton Manor as it remained in the de la Pole family until 1490. Manly and Rickert point out that someone called Blake was in the service of Alice Chaucer.
Further Information:Manly and Rickert I: 231-237. Seymour II: 129-131.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP