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Manuscript Description
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.26
 
MS Appellation:Ii (Manly and Rickert)
Title:Canterbury Tales
Author:Chaucer
Contents:Canterbury Tales
Language:English
Date Range:1425-1450
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:S.Lincs/N.Norfolk
Material:Parchment
No of Folios:i paper flyleaf + 2-240 + i paper flyleaf
Pagination:Modern foliation in pencil in top right corner.
Quiring:1(8), 2(9) (first leaf excised), 3-9(8), 10(7) (missing v), 11-22(8), 23(6), 24-30(8), 31(1)
Signatures:Lower case letter followed by Roman numerals for the first four folios of the quire; thus ai-aiiij, bi-biiij etc; begins with aai on f192.
Catchwords:By the scribe in the ink of the text in the centre of the lower margin about two lines of space below the last line of text.
Page Size:324 x 225
Frame:4 x horizontal 2 x vertical ruled within with top and bottom lines of text within the double ruled lines.
Writing Space:220 x 144
Incipits and Explicits:Frequently explicit and incipit are combined between tales; copied mainly in red ink in hand of the scribe; prologues are usually, though not always, indicated.
Index:Folios noted in the Contents list.
Marginal Headings:Pilgrim names in GP; names of characters in Knight's Tale and Miller's Tale, all in red ink in margins; some authorities in Tale of Melibeus and Parson's Tale.
Running Titles:In red ink on each recto and verso preceded by either a blue paraph with red flourishing or gold paraph with grey-green flourishing; usually just the name of the pilgrim with no preceding definite article.
Table of Contents:17th century list of the order of the Fragments.
Title by Scribe:First folio missing.
Paragraph Marks:Blue with red flourishing and gold with the same grey-green flourishing as the initials.
Flourished Initials:Alternating gold initials with grey-green pen-work flourishing and blue initials with red flourishing.
Other Names (not owners):'Edmund Cook' on f124;
Miscellaneous Info:A second contemporary hand has supplied corrections and lacunae as on f42; a 17th century hand has copied the contents of the missing leaf of GP onto borders of first folio. A further hand copies The Long Charter of Christ onto ff238r-240r. Odd that the first quire is an 8 yet the first folio is apparently missing; the signatures tally with there never having been a first folio!
Further Information:Manly, John M. and Rickert, E. The Text of the Canterbury Tales, 8 vols, vol. I, 295-301, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Seymour II. 52-56 Similar hand to Double 'v' Scribe
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP