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Add MS 5141
- Record Id:
- 032-003320242
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003320242
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100034704302.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161507247.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 5141
- Title:
-
Portrait and Life of Geoffrey Chaucer
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript comprises a single leaf, which seems to have once belonged to a larger volume. The recto features a full-length portrait of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, holding a penner and a rosary, alongside his arms (Party per pale argent and Gules a bend counter-changed), an English daisy, and the supposed date of his death, 1402. The daisy alludes to Chaucer's dedication to that flower, expressed in the Prologue to his Middle English dream vision, The Legend of Good Women.
The portrait is similar to another found in a manuscript of Thomas Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes (Harley MS 4866, f. 88r), made c. 1411-c. 1420. Other versions of this portrait include a full-page illustration in the Delemere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales (now Yale University, Beinecke Library, Takamiya MS 32), probably added in the late 16th century. Another full-length portrait of Chaucer appeared on a single leaf pasted into Cotton MS Otho A XVIII, but the manuscript was destroyed in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731 (on the possible relationship between this manuscript and the Additional portrait, see Windeatt, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (1992), pp. 294-95).
The verso features an account of Chaucer's life, entitled Hactenus Chauceri vita, written by an anonymous author around the turn of the 17th century. The work is composed of excerpts from a variety of sources, including the Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris Britanniae, by John Bale (b. 1495, d. 1563); the account of Chaucer's life in the Commentarii de Scriptoribus of John Leland (b. 1503, d. 1552); and the biographical introduction to the printed edition of Chaucer's works by Thomas Speght (d. 1621). The Life includes details relating to the lands in Chaucer's possession; his time travelling on the continent; his time at court and close relationship with at least one English queen; and the date of his death and site of his grave. The text also features a list of his collected works, written in Latin.
For a full discussion of the manuscript and the sources for the Life, see Yaeger, 'An unnoticed Chaucer Vita' (1984), 261-81.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003320242", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 5141: Portrait and Life of Geoffrey Chaucer" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003320242
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003320242
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161507247.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1595
- End Date:
- 1605
- Date Range:
- c 1600
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 315 x 210 mm.
Foliation: f. 1 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 7 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Red half-leather binding, with marbled covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Anthony Askew (b. 1722, d. 1774), physician and book collector: his sale, Sotheby's, 10 March 1785, lot 322.
George Steevens (b. 1736, d. 1800), literary editor and scholar: purchased at Askew’s sale, 10 March 1785, lot 322 for 9 guineas, and presented by him to the British Museum on 28 April 1786, along with Add MS 5140, containing a copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and John Lydgate's Siege of Thebes.
- Publications:
-
Marion Harry Spielmann, The Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer: An Essay written on the Occasion of the Quincentenary of the Poet's Death (London, 1900), pp. 10-12.
George L. Lam and Warren H. Smith, 'George Vertue's Contributions to Chaucerian Iconography', Modern Language Quarterly, 5 (1944), 303-22 (pp. 309-10, 318-21).
George B. Pace, 'Otho A. XVIII', Speculum, 26 (1951), 306-16 (p. 314).
R. F. Yaeger, 'British Library Additional MS 5141: An Unnoted Chaucer Vita', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14 (1984), 261-81.
Taurinya Dauby Hélène and Crépin André, 'Catalogue de l'exposition Chaucer et les cultures d'expression française organisée par le Centre d'Études Médiévales Anglaises de la Sorbonne (11 et 12 janvier 1991)', Bulletin des anglicistes médiévistes, 39 (1991), 615-24 (p. 617).
Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 285-305.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6 (Harvey Miller: London, 1996), p. 161.
William A. Quinn, 'Chaucer's Problematic Priere: An Abc as Artifact and Critical Issue', Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 23 (2001), 109-41 (p. 111, pl. 1).
Susan Crane, The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing, and Identity during the Hundred Years War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 65-68.
Martha Driver, 'Mapping Chaucer: John Speed and the Later Portraits', The Chaucer Review, 36 (2002), 228-49 (pp. 241-42, 247 n. 11, 248 n. 20).
Sian Echard, Printing the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 19, 41, 141.
V. A. Kolve, Telling Images: Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative II (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 60-62.
Heather Blurton and Hannah Johnson, The Critics and the Prioress: Antisemitism, Criticism, and Chaucer's Prioress's Tale (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), p. 175 n. 68.
- Material Type:
- Prints, Drawings and Paintings
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)