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Egerton MS 2864
- Record Id:
- 032-001984923
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001984923
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000057.0x000310
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100142964862.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 2864
- Title:
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes; Chronicle of the Saints and Kings of England
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-292r: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, beginning, 'Incipit Liber Galstid Chaucer de gestis peregrinor[um] versus Cantuariam', with extensive glossing and marginal headings in Latin and Middle English. Over 50 of the glosses also appear in Add MS 5140. The Tales are arranged in the following order:
ff. 1r-13v: The General Prologue.
ff. 14r-46v: The Knight's Tale.
ff. 46v-47v: The Miller's Prologue.
ff. 47v-56v: The Miller's Tale.
f. 57r-v: The Reeve's Prologue.
ff. 57v-63r: The Reeve's Tale.
f. 63r-v: The Cook's Prologue.
ff. 63v-64v: The Cook's Tale.
ff. 64v-66r: The Man of Law's Prologue.
ff. 66r-81r: The Man of Law's Tale.
ff. 81v-92r: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.
ff. 92r-97v: The Wife of Bath's Tale.
ff. 97v-99r: The Friar's Prologue.
ff. 99r-103r: The Friar's Tale.
f. 103r-v: The Summoner's Prologue.
ff. 103v-111r: The Summoner's Tale.
ff. 111v-112r: The Clerk of Oxford's Prologue.
ff. 112r-128v: The Clerk of Oxford's Tale.
f. 129r: The Merchant's Prologue.
ff. 129v-145r: The Merchant's Tale.
f. 145r-v: The Squire's Prologue.
ff. 145v-154r: The Squire's Tale.
f. 154v: The Franklin's Prologue.
ff. 155r-167r: The Franklin's Tale.
ff. 167r-171r: The Physician's Tale.
ff. 171r-173r: The Pardoner's Prologue.
ff. 173v-180r: The Pardoner's Tale.
ff. 180r-185v: The Shipman's Tale.
ff. 185v-186v: The Prioress's Prologue.
ff. 186v-189r: The Prioress's Tale.
f. 189v: The Prologue to Sir Thopas.
ff. 189v-192r: The Tale of Sir Thopas.
f. 192r-v: The Thopas-Melibee Link.
ff. 192v-212r: The Tale of Melibee.
ff. 212v-213v: The Monk's Prologue.
ff. 214r-224v: The Monk's Tale.
f. 225r-v: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.
ff. 225v-233v: The Nun's Priest's Tale.
ff. 233v-235v: The Second Nun's Prologue.
ff. 235v-241v: The Second Nun's Tale.
ff. 241v-243v: The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue.
ff. 243v-253v: The Canon's Yeoman's Tale.
ff. 253v-255r: The Manciple's Prologue.
ff. 255r-258r: The Manciple's Tale.
ff. 258v-259r: The Parson's Prologue.
ff. 259v-292r: The Parson's Tale.
ff. 292v-341r: John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes, beginning, 'Heer begynneth the Laste tale of Cauntirbury talis tolde homward and maad bi dan Iohn Lidgate Monk of Bury'; imperfect, lacking two leaves after f. 335 (ll. 3935-4117) and one after f. 340 (ll. 4582-4678).
f. 341v: A fragment of the 'Chronicle of the Saints and Kings of England', in Middle English.
Decoration:
No decoration.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001984923", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 2864: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes; Chronicle of the Saints and Kings of England" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001984923
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001984923
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100142964862.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1475
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper.
Watermarks: Grapes (“Raisin”), similar to Briquet No. 13002, dated to 1460 (ff. 1-48); Grapes (“Raisin”), similar to Briquet Nos. 13055, dated to 1453, and 13056, dated to 1460, but bisected by a chainline (ff. 50-78, 80-89); Dragon (“Basilic”), not in Briquet or Piccard; closest to Briquet No 2691, but substantially different in design (f. 79); Bull's head (“Tête de Boeuf”), closest to Piccard No. 859, dated to 1452 (ff. 103-149); Mountains/Three hills (“Monts”), similar to Briquet No. 11894, dated to 1430 (ff. 151-298).
Dimensions: 280 x 210 mm (written space: 222 x 100 mm).
Foliation: ff. ii + 341 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. i and ii are modern paper leaves. Original foliation in roman numerals, written by the scribe in the same ink as the main text.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. 18th-century Russian, tooled in gold; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Anthony Askew (b. 1722, d. 1774), English physician and book collector: his sale, 7 March 1785, lot 313; sold to a certain 'Lowes' for £3 10s.
Sir Henry Day Ingilby (b. 1826, d. 1911) 2nd baronet: sold at Leigh and Sotheby's, 12 February 1787, lot 1505, to 'Ingilby': inscribed, 'Henry D. Ingilby Ripley Castle Yorkshire' (f. ii recto).
Lawrence William Hodson (b. 1864, d. 1933), Wolverhampton brewer and collector: his bookplate (inside front cover); his sale, Sotheby's, 3 December 1906, lot 116 (319 crossed out) (f. ii recto).
Bought by the British Museum, together with Egerton MS 2863, for £346 10s, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829)).
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years 1906-1910 (London: British Museum, 1912), no. Eg. 2864.
Eleanor P. Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Peter Smith, 1933), pp. 197-98.
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. 137-45.
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. 143-47.
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 8301.
Susan Schibanoff, 'The New Reader and Female Textuality in Two Early Commentaries on Chaucer', Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 10 (1988), 71-108.
Charles A. Owen Jr, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 87-92.
Michael C Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 111-16.
Daniel W. Mosser, 'The Charles-Moïse Briquet Watermark Archive in Geneva', in Looking at Paper: Evidence & Interpretation.Symposium Proceedings. Toronto, 1999 (Ottawa: Canadian Conservation Institute, 2001), pp. 122-27.
Daniel W. Mosser, 'The Chronicles of Saints and Kings of England’: Two Occurrences of the Middle English Prose Brut’s ‘Peculiar Version’ in MSS of the Canterbury Tales', The Journal of the Early Book Society, 5 (2002), 145-49.
Matthew, Spencer, Barbara Bordalejo, Li-San Wang, Adrian C. Barbrook, Linne R. Mooney, Peter Robinson, Tandy Warnow, and Christopher J. Howe, 'Analyzing the Order of Items in Manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales', Computers and the Humanities, 37:1 (2003), 97–109 (p. 100).
Daniel W. Mosser, 'The Scribe(s) of British Library MSS Egerton 2864 and Additional 5140: To ‘Lump’ or ‘Split’?', Journal of the Early Book Society, 8 (2005), 215-28.
'London, British Library Egerton 2864', in The Digital Index of Middle English Verse, https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLEge2864 [Accessed 4 October 2021].
'London, British Library MS Egerton 2864', in Late Medieval English Scribes: https://www.medievalscribes.com [Accessed 4 October 2021].
'Manuscript: En3', in A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales: https://www.mossercatalogue.net/record.php?recID=En3 [Accessed 4 October 2021].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)