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Manuscript Description
San Marino, CA, Henry E. Huntington Library, HM 128 (olim Phillipps 20420)
 
Title:Pricke of Conscience, Piers Plowman B-text, Siege of Jerusalem
Author:Langland, Anon
Contents:Pricke of Conscience; Piers Plowman B-text; Siege of Jerusalem; How the Good Wife Taught her daughter
Language:English and Latin
Datable:Dutschke says ‘written in England, in southwest Warwickshire, in the beginning of the fifteenth century’ (1.163)
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:Dutschke says 'written in England, in southwest Warwickshire, in the beginning of the fifteenth century' (1.163). LP : 8040; County : S Warwicks
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:1 (contemporary parchment) + 219 + 1 (contemporary parchment)
Pagination:Modern pencil foliation in upper outer corners recto, 1-219.
Quiring:8s
Signatures:No signatures survive
Catchwords:None in the Pricke and Piers section; possibly cropped?
Page Size:240 x 168
Frame:None visible; Dutschke says with lead, and single boundary lines; some visible eg f91; fine grey lines.
Writing Space:205 x 135, or 205 x 140 in art. 3
Marginal Headings:Frequent rubric headings in Pricke and Piers, written by scribes in spaces left for them. Red underlining in both texts; other parts of MS have different decoration as well as scribes, suggesting originally separate booklets.
Running Titles:Originally running titles in Pricke and Piers but have been mostly cropped.
Table of Contents:Later addition is table of contents done in 1751 on fol. i verso
Flourished Initials:ff1-205: Pricke has 5-6 line blue and red initials,red and blue foliage decoration inside and postage stamp in red as ground. In Piers, 2-4-line blue initials with red pen flourishing in postage stamp design.
Other Names (not owners):Front pastedown ‘Robert or William langland made pers ploughman’ in hand of 16th c; beneath which is John Bale’s hand writing ‘Robertus Langlande natus in comitatu Salopie in villa Mortymers Clybery in the claylande, within viii myles of Malborne hylles, scripsit, peers ploughman li. 1. In a somer season whan set was sunne’ (see Dutschke, 1.163). Other names, fol. i, 16th c. Richard Rychard; f101, 15-16 c, ‘Alleksander London [or Loudon?] according to Dutschke, 1.163,; f144v, 15th c ‘cycley’; f149, 15th c., ‘betoun brygges’ and same hand f153 ‘Maude’. See Dutschke 1.163.
Miscellaneous Info:Four of the most important of the seven hands have been analysed. The hands are assigned as follows: Seven hands: 1. 1- 94, 113-138v (Pricke of Conscience and the fragment of Piers, and beginning of Piers Plowman) 2. 95-96v fragment of Piers 3. 97-112v Expositio sequentiam… a tiny close-writing hand in 2 columns, just plain red initials 4. 139-205 (mid page, at end of Piers Plowman) 5. 205 (lower half) – 216 = Siege of Jerusalem 6. 216v-219 = How the Good Wife Taught her daughter 7. Both pastedowns, a Latin text in two columns, 15th century hand.
Further Information:Dutschke, 1.161-163. See also Michael A Calabrese; Hoyt N Duggan; Thorlac Turville-Petre, The Piers Plowman electronic archive Vol.6, San Marino, Huntington Library Hm 128 (Hm,Hm2) William Langland; Medieval Academy of America.; Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts. Woodbridge, Suffolk. Boydell & Brewer for the Medieval Academy of America and SEENET (2008).
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP