London, University of London, Sterling v. 17
| England |
| London |
| University of London |
| Sterling v. 17 |
|
| s. xvin |
| English |
| Estoire del Euangelie - Scribal Dialect: Worcestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 382 266, LP 7650 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 249). Piers Plowman (C-text) - Scribal Dialect: Worcestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 380 231, LP 7780 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 250). |
An early fifteenth-century manuscript containing
Piers Plowman,
Estoire del Euangelie and the
Assumption of the Virgin in English. The manuscript once formed part of a larger collection of texts including
Mandeville's Travels, Robert Manning's
Handlyng Synne and the
Meditations on the Supper of Our Lord.
Item: 1| ff. 1r-97v |
| Piers Plowman, C-text (IMEV 1459) |
| 'In a somur sesoun whan softe was şe sonne'. |
| 'Largelyche a legyoun lees şe lyf sone. Amen'. |
| Passus i-xxii, and first 87 lines of Passus xxiii of the C-text. |
Russell and Kane 1997.
|
Item: 2| ff. 97v-111v |
| La Estorie del Evangelie (IMEV 3194) |
| 'Sum while i was with synne ibounde'. |
| 'and serewe made and gret mornynge'. |
Campbell 1915; Horstmann 1892, p. 1.
|
Item: 3| ff. 112r-114v |
| Assumption of the Virgin (IMEV 2165) |
| 'Şer to ne letteş hem haue no my?t'. |
| 'ffor hit was in şe tumbe yleyde' |
Lumby 1866, 1901.
|
| Codex |
| Parchment |
| 362 x 250 mm |
|
16; 2-148; 152; 162. Catchwords: ff. 6v; 14v; 22v; 30v 38v; 46v; 54v; 62v; 70v; 78v; 85v; 94v; 102v; 110v.
|
| Pricking of the line 8 mm apart in the inner margin still visible and outer not always visible but see ff. 31-32; 34-35; 47-50; 55-61. Pricking of the writing frame still visible on the lower and the upper margin see f. 55r. Writing space: Item 1: 260 x 177 mm; Item 2: outer colums 76 x 272 mm, inner column 262 x 86 mm. Double columns in Item 1, single columns in Items 2 and 3. Ruling in brown ink for 37 lines.
|
|
Dark brown ink. Written by one scribe in a regular Anglicana Formata with thick strokes and serifs at the end of the feet of minims; the script is compact and does not extend much above the line of writing and almost never below. Characteristics: double compartment a with a slightly open head which does not touch the ascender on the line of writing; rounded lobe of d with a straight ascender curving from the right to the left closing into an upper lobe, often this upper lobe is traced curving from right to left; rounded head g, with pointy descender on the left closing on the right with a thin stroke attached to the head. There is a small tail on the right of the head. Straight descender terminating with a serif on the top of the back stroke of p, squarish top head forming an angle at the bottom whilst turning towards the left, finishing just past the meeting point with the descender; short r used throughout; long s in initial and medial position; ş with a small rounded and elongated head, used regularly; L-shaped & with a tail on the top left of the back stroke and a little horizontal stroke half way through the back stroke, finished with a detached horizontal stroke at the top slightly curved on the right; small z-shaped ? used regularly. Script height: 3-4 mm.
|
| Elaborate five-line lombardic capital (f. 1r) in red, blue and gold with border running over the left side of the text and around 3/4 of the writing frame. Initials of passus in blue with pen ink flourishing in red. Rubrics, names and lines in French and Latin in red. No decoration in the other items. Catchwords are boxed in brown ink.
|
|
Not medieval: twentieth century.
|
| ff. ii + 114 + ii. |
|
| Good, some pages cropped, but without loss of text. |
| Unknown |
| Sixteenth-century inscriptions: f. 4, ''; f. 107, 'Thys ys ys rytenge Thys ys george langam ys rytynge Iste liber pertennet ad'.
|
Catalogued and encoded: Orietta DaRold, University of Birmingham, March 2005.
Related Manuscripts and other documents
The following manuscripts were also originally part of this manuscript: Washington DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, MS 420312 (MS. V. b. 236) and Princeton, R. H. Taylor's MS 10.
- Bennett, J. A. W. 1954. The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville, New York: Modern Language Association of America, pp. 289-90.
- Campbell, G. H. 1915. ‘The Middle English Evangelie’, PMLA, 30, 529-613.
- Doyle, A. I. 1986. ‘Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman’, in Simpson, J. and Kratzmann, G., ed, Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of George H. Russell, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 35-48.
- Horstmann, C., ed, 1892. The Minor Poems of the Vernon Manuscript, 2 vols, EETS, os, 98, London: Kegan Paul & Trübner, 1.
- Kane, G. 1988. ‘The Text’, in Alford, J. A., ed, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 175-200.
- Ker, N. 1969. Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 3 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1, pp. 377-8.
- Lumby, J. 1866. King Horn, with fragments of Floriz and Blauncheflur, The Assumption of Our Lady, EETS, os, 14, London: Trübner & Co.
- McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L. and Benskin, M. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: County Dictionary, 4 vols, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 4.
- Mitchell, A. G. 1941. ‘A Newly Discovered Manuscript of the C-Text of Piers Plowman’, Modern Language Review, 36, 243-244.
- Preston, J. F, and Yeandle, L. 1992. English Handwriting 1400-1650, an Introductory Manual, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton: Centre for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.
- Russell, G. and Kane G., ed, 1997. Piers Plowman: the C version: Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-well, Do-Better and Do-Best, London: Athlone Press, pp. 1-2.
- Samuels, M. L. 1988. ‘Dialect and Grammar’, in Alford, A. ed, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 201-221.
- Seymour, M. C. 1966. ‘The English Manuscripts of Mandeville’s Travels’, Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 4, 169-210, p. 198.
- Cannery, M. 1954. The Sterling Library: A Catalogue of Printed Books and Literary Manuscripts collected by Sir Louis Sterling, London: prvt prt, pp. 544-5.
- Turville-Petre, T. 1990. ‘The Relationship of the Vernon and Clopton Manuscripts’, in Pearsall, D., ed, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 29-44.
