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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Arch. Selden B.11
 
MS Appellation:SC 3357
Title:Confessio Amantis
Author:Gower
Contents:Confessio Amantis (A version) ff1-169
Language:English and Latin
Date Range:1440-1465
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:County; Worcs scribe copying Northern exemplar
Material:Mixed paper and parchment (ff6 and 9 a parchment bifolium near centre of first quire but with a paper bifolium between) but thereafter only paper.
No of Folios:1 paper flyleaf + 1-169 + 1 paper flyleaf
Pagination:Modern ink arabic numbering in upper outer corners recto, 1-169.
Quiring:First quire is 14 (signatures 'a iij' to 'a vij' on ff3-7), second quire is 16 (see 'b viij' on f22), third is 10, 4th is 12, 5th is 12, 6th is 12, etc.
Signatures:Signatures of letter plus romans, eg 'd j' to 'd vj' on ff41-46
Catchwords:By scribe, centred under second column of last leaf verso of each quire, half way down margin and with red ink forming a bracket either side and underlining (so box without lid and with bracket or looped sides).
Page Size:368 x 272
Frame:4 x vertical for the two columns, 2 x horizontal as base line for top line and below bottom line, thickish purple-brown lines probably plummet, not ruled within columns, used chain lines; pricking survives top and bottom edges of leaves.
Writing Space:265 x 188 in 2 columns
Incipits and Explicits:Explicit Liber ?? / Incipit Liber ?? in space of c. 4 lines left for them between lines, written in same ink as text and by scribe, but larger and more formal script (Anglicana whereas text is secretary), decorated by red shadowing and touching, red rhyme marks to right of them. Usual ending naming Gower.
Marginal Headings:'Confessor' and 'Amans' in margins written by scribe in red.
Running Titles:Running titles in red (Prologus only, then one 'Liber on f7v and 'Primus' on f8r but stops after that).
Paragraph Marks:Later quires have alternating blue and red paraphs.
Flourished Initials:On f1, 5-line blue initial with red flourishing; other books begin with similar letters; smaller 2-3-line red initials with brown penwork
Other Names (not owners):On front pastedown, 'Ed-us Smythe gen' hunc librum possidit' and 'ffor master doctor Martyne at ys
and 'Edmunde Smythe' (middle 2 letters, 'un' have been erased) and Latin motto on back pastedown, also 'Edmundus Smyth generosus'.
Further Information:Summary Catalogue 3357
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP