Manuscript Description Europe, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 4862-9 | |
Title: | Astrolabe |
Author: | Chaucer |
Contents: | Nicholas of Lynn, Calendar for latitude of Oxford; various other items; Astrolabe (ff75-95) |
Language: | English |
Date Range: | 1425-1440 |
Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
Material: | Parchment |
No of Folios: | i + 95 + ii |
Pagination: | ?Modern |
Quiring: | 8s: Seymour's collation: 1-48 58 + 1 (f.47), 6-88, 98 + 1 (inset after f. 66), 10-118, 128 (wants 6-8). |
Signatures: | Seymour notes, 'relics of numbered signatures'. |
Catchwords: | Only on ff82, 90. |
Page Size: | 225 x 150 |
Frame: | Frame and ruling in drypoint. |
Writing Space: | 155 x 100 |
Incipits and Explicits: | No title on Treatise on the Astrolabe, ends without explicit: Seymour writes, 'Ends one-third down f96v rekene hir verray mevynge by thi tables hour after hour (i.e. II.40). Adds a unique lengthy example to II.36. 19 blank spaces left for diagrams. |
Borders: | Three-quarter border begins each item, sprays with gold, blue and red in upper and lower margins. |
Illuminated Initials: | Decorated initials. |
Miniatures: | On ff60v and 67 drawings of blood-letting man and Zodiac man, the latter with a smaller drawn man dressed in clothing of c. 1430 between his legs. Seymour says English style of decoration, c. 1430, 'possibly London' |
Flourished Initials: | Sub-headings begin with 3-line red or blue initials with red infill and flourishing extending into margin. |
Other Names (not owners): | Seymour notes its ownership unknown before given to Library in the 18th century. |
Miscellaneous Info: | Seymour notes, 'Closely affiliated to MS Rawlinson D 913'. |
Further Information: | Seymour, Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, vol. 1, page 111 (whole description on this one page); Sigmund Eisner, ed., The Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press for the Chaucer Library, 1980), p. 37. |