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Manuscript Description
London, British Library MS Royal 17 D.XV part 1
 
MS Appellation:Ry1 (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
Language:English
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:Scribe 1 : W.Midlands; Scribe 2 : Hammond scribe
Material:Paper
No of Folios:1-348
Quiring:1(11-i missing), 2-12(12), 13(11-iii missing), 14(12), 15(11-xi missing), 16-19(12), 20(11-iii missing), 21-25(12), 26(5-vi-xii missing)
Signatures:Remains of letters plus roman numerals can be seen but most are cropped eg 'sj-svj (ff214-219) and 'tj-tvj (ff226-230).
Catchwords:By scribes in lower margins. Hand A uses centre of lower margin with sleigh in same colour ink; Hammond scribe uses centre of lower margin with sleigh and slash-stroke to right occasionally.
Page Size:285 x 215
Frame:Square grey ink. Hand A has all text within frame; Hand B writes first line of text above the frame.
Writing Space:203 x 95 (Hand A); 218 x 95 (Hand B)
Incipits and Explicits:Incipits and explicits for all tales in red ink
Marginal Headings:Hand A leaves blank line between tales for rubrication. Hammond scribe does not leave any space hence explicits and incipits in margins. Rubric marginal headings for Tale of Thopas and Tale of Melibeus on ff238, 238v and 242v.
Running Titles:Oddly, the only running titles are for 'The Prolog' (ff1-12), a rare occurrence in Canterbury Tales manuscripts..
Paragraph Marks:Red paraphs.
Flourished Initials:Blue initials with red flourishing to begin tales. Smaller red initials for some textual divisions.
Other Names (not owners):On f97 is 'Edward Hale' written into right margin twice. Under this is 'ffinys' in 15-16th century script. Also in much less trained script 'E ward bohc Ed war(backwards d) bohc . On f 148v is 'Anthony Ferre his bok'. On f332 is 'John Burgh booke'. On f 338 is 'Thomas Yarburgh'. In margin of f132v is 'By me Thomas'. On f166 is 'Thomas Are'. Later belonged to John Theyer.
Miscellaneous Info:2 hands for the Chaucer; Hand A ff1-166v; Hand B is the Hammond Scribe ff167-301v. Another hand of the 15th century adds headings in purple ink for Gamelyn and adds 'by Master Chaucer' to marginal headings for Tale of Thopas and Tale of Melibeus, adds rhyme markers for Thopas and 'finis verte folium' at bottom of f241 and rhyme markings for prologue to Melibeus, f241-242.
Further Information:Royal Catalogue 2. 254-255. Manly and Rickert I: 476-484. Seymour II: 135-138.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP