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Add MS 9832
- Record Id:
- 032-004255184
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-004255184
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100149251857.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161507269.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 9832
- Title:
-
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a copy of The Legend of Good Women, written by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400). The Middle English poem takes the form of a dream vision and tells the stories of ten women from Classical history and mythology.
This handwritten copy of the poem is interspersed with equivalent leaves from a printed copy of the same text, as well as A goodly Balade of Chaucer, taken from the edition of Chaucer's works published by William Bonham (b. 1497, d. 1557) in 1542. Most of the handwritten and printed pages are separated by single interleaved blanks.
When it was in the possession of Mr. Morrell Thurston of Rochester, the manuscript was originally bound together with a set of fragments of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (formerly Phillipps MS 6750). They were subsequently divided and rebound as two volumes, appearing in the catalogue of Joseph Haslewood, December 16-24, 1833 (as nos. 1302 and 1310); see Manly, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), I, pp. 417-19.
Other copies of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women housed at the British Library are now Add MS 12524 and Add MS 28617.
Contents:
f. 1v: Two notes written by different hands, the first by Joseph Haselwood, concerning the rarity of manuscripts of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, the second perhaps added by the cleric and scholar Timothy Thomas (b. 1694, d. 1751), relating to the manuscript's later ownership and its use and collation by John Urry (b. 1666, d. 1715) for his edition of Chaucer's collected works, added in the 18th century.
f. 2r: Title-page, added in the 18th century.
ff. 3v-47v: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women, written in Middle English, comprising a handwritten copy interleaved with William Bonham's printed 1542 edition of the text; the handwritten copy ending imperfectly at l. 1985 (Boffey and Edwards, A New Index (2005), no. 100; for a modern edition of the text, see Cowen and Kane, eds., The Legend of Good Women (1996)).
The handwritten leaves of the text are ff. 4-5, 7-9, 11-14, 16-17, 19-21, 23-25, 26-30, 32-35, 37-39, and 41-42.
The printed leaves of the text are ff. 3, 6, 10, 15, 18, 22, 26, 31, 36, 40, and 43-47.
Decoration:
Spaces left for rubrics and initials at the beginning of each tale (ff. 4r, 14v, 17v, 21v, 30v, 37r, 41v).
Rhyming couplets bracketed in red and initials at the beginning of each verse tricked in red on three folios (ff. 1r, 2r, 8v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-004255184", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 9832: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-004255184
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-004255184
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161507269.0x000001 (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: Paper.
Watermark: a ring, similar to Briquet No. 689, dated 1457 (ff. 20, 23); the monogram IHS enclosed within a sun, similar to Briquet No. 9477, dated 1466-1469 (ff. 32, 33, 35, 39, 41, 42); see C. M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, A Facsimile of the 1907 edition with supplementary material, ed. by Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam: The Paper Publications Society, 1968), III, no. 689; IV, no. 9477).
Dimensions: 275 x 195 mm (written space: 200/210 x 120 mm).
Foliation: ff. 47 (+ 7 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); most of the foliated leaves are each separated by a single unfoliated blank interleaf; an older ink pagination i-xl has been added to the handwritten pages of the manuscript.
Catchwords (ff. 27v, 42v).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house. Blue morocco half-leather binding; fore-edge spackled blue. Rebound 6 February 1962.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Inscribed, 16th century: 'Hamen rycotye' (f. 6v), 'Amen' (f. 13r) and 'Will'm Dene' (f. 13r).
Morrell Thurston (d. 1747) of Rochester, probably given by him in or after 1745 to the cleric and scholar Timothy Thomas: see the added note (f. 2v).
Timothy Thomas (b. 1694, d. 1751), cleric and scholar: probably given to him by Morell Thurston in or after 1745; showed the manuscript to the literary editor John Urry (b. 1666, d. 1715), who collated it for his edition of Chaucer's collected works, as suggested by the added note in the manuscript (f. 2v), and another note added to the flyleaf of a copy of Urry's edition, now housed at the British Library (643. M. 1, f. [iv] recto). At this point, the manuscript was bound together with a fragmentary copy of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (formerly Phillips MS 6570); on this and its subsequent division into volumes, see Manly, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), I, pp. 417-19.
Samuel Pegge the Elder (b. 1704, d. 1796), antiquary: in his possession or at least consulted the manuscript after it came into Thomas' possession; collations from this text in Pegge's hand appear in the same copy of Urry's edition of Chaucer's collected works, now housed at the British Library (643. M. 1, pp. 338-58); on Pegge's ownership, see Cowen, 'Eighteenth-century Ownership of Two Chaucer Manuscripts', Notes and Queries, (1981), 392-94; Wright, 'On the Eighteenth-Century Ownership of a MS of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women' (1987), 70-71.
Joseph Haselwood (b. 1769, d. 1833), antiquary and founder of the Roxburghe Club: his note concerning the rarity of manuscripts of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women (f. 2v); probably his note, 'End of MS', added to the margin of the printed text (f. 43r); his sale, Evans S. C., 16 December 1833, lot 1310; bought by the British Museum through the bookseller Thomas Thorpe (b. 1791, d. 1851).
- Publications:
-
A List of Additions Made to the Collections in the British Museum in the years 1831-1835 (London: Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1833-1839), no. 9832.
John M. Manly, The Text of the Canterbury Tales: Studied on the Basis of all Known Manuscripts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1940), I, pp. 417-19.
Janet M. Cowen, 'Eighteenth-century Ownership of Two Chaucer Manuscripts', Notes and Queries, 28 (1981), 392-94.
Arthur Sherbo, 'A Lost MS of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women', Studies in Bibliography, 35 (1982), 154-55.
Constance S. Wright, 'On the Eighteenth-Century Ownership of a MS of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, British Library Additional 9832', Studies in Bibliography, 40 (1987), 70-71.
Michael Seymour, 'The manuscripts of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women', Scriptorium, 47 (1993), 73-90.
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Legend of Good Women, ed. by Janet Cowen and George Kane (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1995), pp. 1-2 [edition].
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), no. 100.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)