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Add MS 22139
- Record Id:
- 032-002034598
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002034598
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000043.0x00038c
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100193727029.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 22139
- Title:
- John Gower, Confessio amantis, with four minor poems by Geoffrey Chaucer
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an imperfect copy of the Confessio amantis, a Middle English poem by John Gower (b. c. 1330, d. 1408), together with four minor poems by Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400).
Contents:
ff. 1r-137v: John Gower, Confessio amantis, written in Middle English with Latin verse headings, notes and summaries, imperfect, with numerous leaves wanting and others mutilated; the text beginning, '… þat luste apiere…' (DIMEV 4226).
f. 138r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Complaynt to his Empty Purse', written in Middle English, beginning, 'To ȝou my purse and to non othre wight...' (DIMEV 6044).
f. 138r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Gentilesse', written in Middle English, beginning, 'The firste stok fader of gentilnesse…' (DIMEV 5277).
f. 138r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Lak of Stedfastnesse', written in Middle English, beginning, 'Some time this worlde wasso stedfast & stable...' (DIMEV 4990).
f. 138r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Truth' or 'Balade de bon conseyl', written in Middle English, beginning, 'ffle fro the pres and dwell with sothfastnesse…' (DIMEV 1326).
f. 138v is ruled but unwritten.
Decoration:
The manuscript has been mutilated in many places with the complete or partial loss of decoration on several leaves.
1 full border with foliate decoration in colours and gold, with an added 16th-century marginal coat of arms painted over an older erased arms, the leaf mutilated, only the lower border now surviving (f. 1r).
Large foliate initials in gold on coloured grounds with three-sided foliate bar borders introducing major textual divisions (e.g. ff. 26r, 43r, 93r).
Initials in gold on coloured grounds, with foliate extensions into the margins.
Small initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or gold with blue flourishing.
Paraphs in red, blue or gold. Rubrics.
Catchwords in decorative scrolls (e.g. ff. 79v, 94v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002034598", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 22139: John Gower, Confessio amantis, with four minor poems by Geoffrey Chaucer" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002034598
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002034598
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100193727029.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 350 x 255 mm (text space: 300 x 180 mm), written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 138 (+ 6 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated paper leaf after f. 81 + 2 unfoliated paper leaves after ff. 7 and 31 + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. [vi] is a modern paper flyleaf incorporating a mounted paper inset.
Collation: Mounted on modern paper guards. Gatherings: i8-1 (ff. 1-7; 8th leaf missing after f. 7), [two quires of eight leaves each missing], ii-iv8 (ff. 8-31), [two quires of eight leaves each missing], v-x8 (ff. 32-79), xi8-1 (ff. 80-86; 3rd leaf missing after f. 81), xii-xvii8 (ff. 87-134), xviii4 (ff. 135-38). Blank leaves are now inserted after ff. 7, 31 and 81.
Script: Gothic cursive, written by two scribes (Anglicana, ff. 1r-71v; Anglicana formata, ff. 72r-138v).
Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown leather binding, tooled in gold; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England (probably London).
Provenance:
Inscribed in a 17th-century hand, 'As for This Book I doe nott understand itt, and I have fini', '(Tomas? Haei?) Quid coronat opus' (f. 38r).
Inscribed in an 18th-century hand, 'Acct of ye State of Gower's Confessio Amantis a fine Manuscript wretchedly abus'd' (there follows a list of pages missing and torn, book by book), with a later note that the list has been checked ('Cpd'), signed with initials 'K.M.T' (f. [vi] recto).
William Forbes Leith (d. 1761), vicar of Thornbury, Gloucestershire: inscribed with his name, 'William Forbes Leith Esq. younger of Whitehaugh' (f. [vi] verso).
Thomas Kerslake (b. 1812, d. 1891), bookseller: purchased from him by the British Museum on 12 December 1857 for £52.10s (see the inscribed note, f. [v] recto).
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years MDCCCLIV-MDCCCLX (London: By Order of the Trustees, 1875), p. 592.
A Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems, ed. by Frederick J. Furnivall, Chaucer Society, 1st series, nos. 21, 57, 58 [3 parts] (London: N. Trübner and Co, 1871-79) [on the text].
A Supplementary Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems, ed. by Frederick J. Furnivall, Chaucer Society, 1st series, nos. 22, 59 [2 parts] (London: N. Trübner and Co, 1871, 1880) [on the text].
The House of Forbes, eds. Alistair and Henrietta Taylor (Aberdeen: Third Spalding Club, 1937), pp. 399, 468.
The Index of Middle English Verse, ed. by Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), with Supplement, by Rossell Hope Robbins and John L.Cutler (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965) [IMEV], nos. 809, 3190, 3348, 3787.
Andrew J. Finnel, 'The Poet as Sunday Man: "The Complaint of Chaucer To His Purse"', Chaucer Review, 8 (1973), 147-58 [on the text].
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Minor Poems, ed. by George B. Pace and Alfred David, A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 5, 1, ed. by Paul G.Ruggiers and Donald C.Baker (Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1982) [on the text].
Riverside Chaucer, ed. L. D. Benson (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987) [on the text].
A New Index of Middle English Verse, eds. Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards (London: The British Library, 2005) [NIMEV], nos. 809, 3190, 3348, 3787.
Digital Index of Middle English Verse, eds. Linne R. Mooney, Daniel W. Mosser and Elizabeth Solopova, http://www.dimev.net/ [accessed 1 September 2014], [DIMEV] nos. 1326, 4990, 5277, 6044.
Derek Pearsall, 'Gower MSS - Additional 22139', in Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Works of John Gower, http://www.wcu.edu/johngower/scholarship/PearsallMS/MSS/ADD22139.html [accessed 1 September 2014].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)