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Egerton MS 2726
- Record Id:
- 032-001984783
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001984783
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000057.0x0002c4
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100142962308.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 2726
- Title:
-
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales ('The Haistwell Manuscript')
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-271r: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. The Tales are arranged in the following order:
ff. 1r-11v: The General Prologue.
ff. 11v-39v: The Knight's Tale.
ff. 39v-40v: The Miller's Prologue.
ff. 40v-49r: The Miller's Tale.
f. 49r-v: The Reeve's Prologue.
ff. 50r-54v: The Reeve's Tale.
f. 55r: The Cook's Prologue.
ff. 55v, 64r: The Cook's Tale.
ff. 56r-63v: A tipped-in copy of the Tale of Gamelyn, written in an 18th-century hand.
ff. 64r-66r: The Man of Law's Introduction and Prologue.
ff. 66r-78v: The Man of Law's Tale.
ff. 79r-89v: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.
ff. 89v-94v: The Wife of Bath's Tale.
f. 95r: The Friar's Prologue.
ff. 95v-100r: The Friar's Tale.
f. 100r-v: The Summoner's Prologue.
ff. 100v-108r: The Summoner's Tale.
f. 108r-v: The Clerk of Oxford's Prologue.
ff. 108v-123r: The Clerk of Oxford's Tale.
f. 123r-v: The Merchant's Prologue.
ff. 123v-138v: The Merchant's Tale.
ff. 138v-139r: The Squire's Prologue.
ff. 139r-147r: The Squire's Tale.
ff. 147r-148r: The Franklin's Prologue.
ff. 148r-159r: The Franklin's Tale.
ff. 159r-162v: The Physician's Tale.
f. 163r: The Pardoner's Prologue.
ff. 163v-171r: The Pardoner's Tale.
ff. 171v-176v: The Shipman's Tale.
f. 177r-v: The Prioress's Prologue.
ff. 177v-180r: The Prioress's Tale.
f. 180r-v: The Prologue to Sir Thopas.
ff. 180v-182r: The Tale of Sir Thopas.
f. 182v: The Thopas-Melibee Link.
ff. 183r-197r: The Tale of Melibee.
ff. 197v-198v: The Monk's Prologue.
ff. 198v-208v: The Monk's Tale.
ff. 208v-209r: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.
ff. 209r-217r: The Nun's Priest's Tale.
ff. 217v-218v: The Second Nun's Prologue.
ff. 218v-224r: The Second Nun's Tale.
ff. 224v-226v: The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue.
ff. 226v-236r: The Canon's Yeoman's Tale.
ff. 236r-237v: The Manciple's Prologue.
ff. 237v-240v: The Manciple's Tale.
ff. 240v-241v: The Parson's Prologue.
ff. 242r-271r: The Parson's Tale, imperfect at the end, with the missing text supplied on an 18th-century, tipped-in-leaf (f. 271r).
f. 271v is blank.
Decoration:
1 large initial in blue with red foliate pen-flourishing (f. 1r). Small initials in blue with red pen-flourishing.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001984783", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 2726: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales ('The Haistwell Manuscript')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001984783
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001984783
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100142962308.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1425
- End Date:
- 1449
- Date Range:
- 2nd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment and paper (f. 271 only).
Dimensions: 300 x 195 mm (written space: 225 x 135 mm).
Foliation: ff. 271 (+ 3 paper flyleaves at the beginning and 7 at the end).
Collation: i-vi8 (ff. 1-48), vii6 (ff. 49-54), viii8+8 (ff. 55-70), ix-xxxii8 (ff. 71-262), xxxiii8+1 (ff. 263-271; f. 271 is an 18th-century tipped-in paper leaf).
Script: Gothic cursive, written by two scribes.
Binding: Post-1600. Gold-tooled red leather, 18th century, possibly made for Edward Haistwell; rebacked; gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Inscriptions in several different hands: 'Myn heritage' and 'My lorde Cobham' (f. 158v); 'Brotherton', faded (f. 1r; see Manly-Rickert, Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), I, p. 134); 'Radolphus Pe' (f. 229r, partially trimmed).
Edward Haistwell (b. 1696, d. 1744), director of the South Sea Company 1733-1742: his armorial book-plate, dated 1718 (f. [i] verso).
Thomas Fanshawe Middleton (b. 1769, d. 1822), Anglican bishop: his sale, 1825, lot 863 (see the cutting from the sale catalogue on f. [iii] recto).
Frederick Perkins (b. 1780, d. 1860), book collector and brewer: his armorial book-plate, inscribed 'L/I' and 'Fol. 9' (inside upper cover); his sale, 10-17 July 1889, lot 429.
Purchased by the British Museum for £89. 5. 0 from Bernard Quaritch, 9 November 1889 (see note on f. [i] verso), using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829)).
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894), no. Eg. 2726
The Cambridge MS. Dd.4.24 of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Completed by the Egerton MS. 2726 (The Haistwell MS), ed. by Frederick J. Furnivall, (London: For the Chaucer Society, 1902).
Eleanor P Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Peter Smith, 1933), p. 174.
Sir William McCormick and Janet E. Heseltine, The Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: A Critical Description of Their Contents (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), pp. 119-26.
The Text of the Canterbury Tales: Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts, ed. by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, 8 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), I, pp. 130-35.
A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, ed. by Angus McIntosh, M. L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin, 4 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986), LP 6150.
Charles A. Owen Jr, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 15-22.
Daniel W. Mosser, 'The Language, Hands, and Interaction of the Two Scribes of the Egerton 2726 Chaucer Manuscript (En¹)', in The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume 2, ed. by Norman Blake and Peter Robinson (Oxford: Office for Humanities Communication, 1997), pp. 40-54.
Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 103-07.
'London, British Library Egerton 2726', in The Digital Index of Middle English Verse: https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLEge2726; [accessed 5 October 2021]
'London, British Library MS Egerton 2726', in Late Medieval English Scribes : https://www.medievalscribes.com [Accessed 5 October 2021].
'Manuscript: En1', in A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales: https://www.mossercatalogue.net/record.php?recID=En1 [accessed 5 October 2021]
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)