Advanced Search   *   Manuscripts   *   Scribes   *   Authors   *   Letters
Home   *   About the Project   *   Bibliography
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
Find What? Search by
Manuscript Description
England, Manchester, Chetham's Library MS 6709 (Mun. A.4.104)
 
MS Appellation:Chetham's
Title:Religious compendium
Author:Chaucer and Lydgate
Contents:Life of Our Lady; Second Nun's Tale; Prioress's Prologue and Tale; Lydgate's Lives of Saints Margaret, George, Edmund, Fremund.
Language:English
Date Range:Dated variously between 1485-90 in hand of the scribe.
Scribal Hands:
Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms.
****************

Material:Combination
No of Folios:v vellum leaves (ff1-5) + 287 paper and parchment + ii vellum flyleaves (ff288-289)
Pagination:Quire and folio numbered by the scribe on each recto.
Quiring:5 vellum + 107(20), 8(14 viii-xiii missing), 9(20), 10(19 i missing), 11(20), 12(19 ii missing), 13(10), 14-15(20) + 2 vellum
Signatures:No signatures.
Catchwords:No catchwords.
Page Size:200 x 134 (paper) parchment slightly less but variable.
Frame:No ruling visible.
Writing Space:120 x 100
Incipits and Explicits:'Vita Sancte Cecilie sic incipit' on f160r, explicit on f173r followed by incipit for Prioress's Tale.
Table of Contents:Tabula on ff1-5r
Flourished Initials:Red initials 2-5 lines in height with no flourishing and now offset and smudged because of damp. Initial letters of line tipped with red ink. Similar strokes run down the right side of the folio to give a crude decorative effect.
Other Names (not owners):A very early bookplate of Chetham's Library shows that the manuscript had arrived there before 1680.
Miscellaneous Info:Chaucer material probably extracted from the Caxton 1482 edition. 'Life of our Lady' copied from Caxton's 1484 edition.
Further Information:Manly and Rickert I: 82-84. Seymour I: 148-149.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP