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Manuscript Description
Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 181
 
Title:Part 1: Parlement, Anelida and Arcite Part 2: Troilus
Author:Chaucer and Hoccleve
Contents:Part 1: Hoccleve's Letter of Cupid, poems against marriage and women, Peter Idyll, Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight, Chaucer's Annelida and fals Arcite ff39-43; Parlement of Foules f44 Part 2: Troilus and Criseyde f54-93v unfinished.
Language:English
Date Range:1475-1500 part 1; 1450-1475 part 2
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:Part 2: Lincs, Leics
Material:Paper
No of Folios:Part I: ii parchment flyleaves + 53 paper leaves ; Part II 54-93v + ii parchment flyleaves
Pagination:Older ink foliation superseded by newer foliation after the first ten folios.
Catchwords:By scribe with nota sign preceding and underlined; in far lower right corner running into gutter on ff17v, 37v
Page Size:280 x 205
Frame:Part I is a square in grey crayon or drypoint with top line of text above frame; part 2 is the same.
Writing Space:Part I: 202 x 70; Part 2: 195 x 70-90
Incipits and Explicits:Some explicits for example on f39 'Explicit Edorb quod' ie. Brode backwards
Illuminated Initials:Space left but none ever executed.
Other Names (not owners):On f77v in the top margin in a 16th century hand is 'this is Johnfayd proutis bock'.
Miscellaneous Info:Seymour believes Hand 1 to be John Brode (MaEng 113). The Troilus has watermark dated 1457 which is also found in Bodley 414 CT. Mooney and Parkes believe Troilus is also in the hand of John Brode. The scribe wrote 'Explicit Edorb quod' at the end of art. 5 on f39. Owner's inscription on f54, now blacked out.
Further Information:Macray, W. D. 'Bodleian Library Quarto Catalogues: IX Digby Manuscripts', a reproduction of the 1883 catalogue with notes on Macray's descriptions of the manuscript by R. W. Hunt and A. G. Watson, Oxford Bodleian Library 1999.
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP