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Manuscript Description
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 424 Part 4
 
Title:Astrolabe
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Three printed books and three manuscripts. Astrolabe in part 4 ff1-4. Besides Treatise, other astronomical and medical texts including attributions to Hippocrates, Albumazar, Robert Grosseteste, school of Salerno, 'Nycolas'.
Language:English
Date Range:1475-1500
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
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Material:Paper
No of Folios:41
Pagination:Modern pencil upper outer corner recto, foliating, begins with first leaf of Part 4 as f1.
Quiring:Part 4 is three quires of 14, the last quire missing its last leaf.
Catchwords:None
Page Size:194 x 140
Frame:None
Writing Space:175 x 112
Incipits and Explicits:On f4 'Explicit tractatus astrolabii secundum Chausers factum filio suo lodowyce'. NB. since MS dated 15th c. this may be earliest attribution.
Marginal Headings:By scribe, in same ink and style of script as text, highlighted or shadowed in red. Red underlining for headings, eg 'To know'
red highlighting or shadowing of headings of each text, eg for the text following Treatise on f4.
Title by Scribe:On f1, top page has added title, perhaps 16th c., 'Tractatus astrolabii'.
Paragraph Marks:Red paraphs
Flourished Initials:Plain and crude 2-line red initials
Other Names (not owners):No, except Chaucer referenced at end of the Treatise.
Miscellaneous Info:James notes that Skeat, ed. of Astrolabe for EETS 1872, p. xi, describes this MS.
Further Information:James 2.328-330. NB: bound in with early printed books (Parts 1-3), a 12th century MS (5) and a 13th century MS (6); description here applies only to Part 4. Treatise begins imperfectly, that is, without the address to Lewis at beginning: 'vnderstond well (thorn)at (thorn)e zodiake is departyd in 2 halfe circles'' -- Part 4, folio 1
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP