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Add MS 34360
- Record Id:
- 040-002025404
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002025355
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001483.0x000183
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100183714812.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 34360
- Title:
- Collection of poems, including works by John Lydgate and Geoffrey Chaucer
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a collection of poems in Middle English, principally written by John Lydgate (b. c. 1370, d. c. 1451) and Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400). The volume also contains four roundels in Middle French, attributed to William de la Pole (b. 1396, d. 1450), 1st Duke of Suffolk and general during the Hundred Years' War, apparently written while he was a captive of the French between 1429 and 1431.
The manuscript was written by a London-based professional scribe active during the reign of Edward IV (r. 1461-1470, 1471-1483), known as the 'Hammond Scribe', after Eleanor Hammond who first identified his hand. The 'Hammond Scribe' was responsible for the production of at least 14 manuscripts, dating from the mid-to-late-15th century. On their identification and a list of manuscripts, see Hammond, 'A Scribe of Chaucer' (1929-30); Mooney, 'More Manuscripts written by a Chaucer Scribe (1996).
The volume seems to have been at least partially copied from an exemplar made by the scribe and translator John Shirley (b. c. 1366, d. 1456). Its contents bear close similarities with another collection of works by Lydgate and Chaucer (now Harley MS 2251), which possibly derived from the same manuscript.
Contents:
ff. 4r-18v: John Lydgate, Fabula duorum mercatorum, a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'In egipt whilom as I rede and fynde...' (DIMEV 2490).
f. 19r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Complaynt to his Empty Purse', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'To yow my purse and to nonother wight...' (DIMEV 6044).
ff. 19r-21v: 'Complaint of a Prisoner against Fortune', a poem in Middle English attributed to John Lydgate, beginning, 'Allas fortune allas what have I gilt...' (DIMEV 1432).
ff. 21v-22r: 'Womanly Noblesse', a poem in Middle English attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, beginning, 'So hath myn hert caught in remembraunce...' (DIMEV 4935).
f. 22r: A single-stanza poem in Middle English attributed in the manuscript to 'Halsham Esquyr', beginning, 'Þe werlde so wyde þere so remuable...' (DIMEV 5534). The poem is the first stanza of John Lydgate's 'On the Mutability of Man’s Nature due to the Seasons, the Elements, the Complexions, and the Planets'.
f. 22v: A roundel in Middle French, attributed to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, beginning, 'Lealement a tous jours mais...'
ff. 22v-23r: A roundel in Middle French, attributed to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, beginning, 'Face vo coer tout ce que ly plera...'
f. 23r: A roundel in Middle French directly following on from the previous item without attribution, beginning, 'Puis qu'aler vers vous ne puisse...'
f. 23r-v: A roundel in Middle French, attributed to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, beginning, 'Je vous salue, ma maystresse...'
ff. 24r-26v: John Lydgate, The Order of Fools, a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'The order of folis ful yore ago bigonne...' (DIMEV 5428).
ff. 27r-37r: John Lydgate, 'Hors, Goose, and Shepe', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Contrauersies plees and al discord...' (DIMEV 1075).
ff. 37r-49r: The Assembly of Ladies, a poem in Middle English attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, beginning, 'In septembre at fallyng of the leef...' (DIMEV 2575).
ff. 49r-51r: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'The Complaint unto Pity', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Pite whiche that I have sought so yoer...' (DIMEV 4375).
ff. 51r-53r: 'The Balade of Pite', also known as 'A Compleint to his Lady', a poem in Middle English following on directly from the preceding work, beginning, 'The longe nyghtis whan euery creature...' (DIMEV 5380).
ff. 53v-55r, 56v-57r: John Lydgate, A paraphrase of Psalm 102, written in Middle English verse with the Latin text of the Psalm accompanying each stanza; the text beginning, 'O thow my soule gif laude unto the lord...' (DIMEV 4078). The text is interrupted between ll. 1-113 and ll. 114-152 by the following item.
ff. 55v-56r: John Lydgate, 'Gloriosa Dicta sunt de Te', written in Middle English verse, incomplete and crossed out; the text beginning, 'In holy hillis whiche bene of þ grete renown...' (DIMEV 4271).
f. 57r-v: John Lydgate, 'Gloriosa Dicta sunt de Te', written in Middle English verse, incomplete, comprising ll. 1-40 only; ll. 25-40 are crossed out; the text beginning, 'In holy hillis whiche bien of grete Renoun...' (DIMEV 4271).
ff. 58r-59r: A poem on precious stones, written in Middle English, beginning, 'Gentilnesse and curtesie wold be rewarded...' (DIMEV 1502).
f. 59r-v: A verse prayer to Christ, written in Middle English, beginning, 'Ihesu Crist kepe oure lyppes from pollucioun...' (DIMEV 2814).
f. 60r-v: A verse prayer to the Virgin Mary, written in Middle English, beginning, 'All hayle Mary ful of grace...' (DIMEV 332).
ff. 60v-62v: John Lydgate, 'Verses on the Kings of England', written in Middle English, beginning, 'This myghti William Duk of normandy...' (DIMEV 5731). This version of the work begins with William the Conqueror and ends with Edward IV, the names of each king indicated in the margin at the beginning of each stanza.
ff. 63r-64r: John Lydgate, 'Dietary', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'For helth of body couer for cold thyn hede...' (DIMEV 1356).
ff. 64v-65v: John Lydgate, 'Letter to Gloucester', a poem in Middle English from Lydgate to his patron Humphrey of Lancaster (b. 1390, d. 1447), Duke of Gloucester, asking for money; the text beginning, 'Right myghti prince and it be your wille...' (DIMEV 4500).
ff. 65v-67v: Epitaphium eiusdam Ducis Glowcestrie, a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Souerayne Immortal euerlastyng god...' (DIMEV 5013).
f. 68r-v: John Lydgate, 'On Kissing at Verbum caro factum est', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Ye devoute peple which kepe on observaunce...' (DIMEV 6819).
ff. 68v-69r: John Lydgate, a version of Stella Celi extirpauit, written in Middle English verse, beginning, 'Thow heuenly qwene of grace oure lodesterre...' (DIMEV 5826).
ff. 69r-70v: John Lydgate, 'A Prayer for King Henry VI and his Queen and the People', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Most souerayne lord o blissful crist Ihesu...' (DIMEV 3563).
ff. 70v-72v: John Lydgate, 'Consulo quisque eris', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'I counceile what so uer thow be...' (DIMEV 2156).
f. 73r-v: John Lydgate, 'A dyte of womenhis hornys', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Of god and kind procedith al beaute...' (DIMEV 4169).
ff. 73v-77r: 'The Craft of Lovers', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'To moralise a similitude who list þese balettes fewe...' (DIMEV 5990).
f. 77r: 'The uncertainty of worldly honour', a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'Worldly worship is Ioye transitorye...' (DIMEV 6787).
f. 77v: A set of instructions for removing spots made by wine, water, and milk, sometimes attributed to Lydgate and written in Middle English verse, beginning, 'Of wyne awey the moles may ye wash...' (DIMEV 4240); preceded by a Latin hexameter couplet, of which it is a translation.
f. 77v: 'Devoute & vertuos wordes', a proverbial poem in Middle English, beginning, 'There is none so wise a man...' (DIMEV 5584).
ff. 78r-116r: John Lydgate and Benedict Burgh, Secrets of the Old Philosophers, a poem in Middle English, beginning, 'God almyghty save and conferme oure kyng...' (DIMEV 1544).
The manuscript contains a number of later additions:
f. 1v: An inscribed paper note written by Joseph Ritson (b. 1752, d. 1803), who borrowed the volume from the collector Richard Heber, indicating that the volume had been in the hands of the antiquarian John Stow, who added his own notes to it.
f. 2r: An added title in English, 'Poems by Chaucer, Lydate', written in a later modern hand.
f. 2v: The Latin motto, 'fortuna non mutat genus / MB', written by the poet William Browne (b. c. 1590, d. c. 1645).
f. 3r-v: An added list of the manuscript's contents with accompanying folio references, possibly written by William Browne.
f. 116v: A memorandum in Middle English concerning the exchange rate of different coinages, including mites and ducats, added in a late 15th- or early 16th-century hand: 'Memorandum xxiiijti mytes makyth a jd then reckyn how mych ys the xth part of a docket and a docket ys iiijs vjd'.
Decoration:
Blank spaces left for decorated initials at major textual openings and divisions (ff. 4r, 19r, 24r, 27r, 35r, 37r, 49r, 53v, 55v, 57r, 58r, 59r, 60r, 60v, 63r, 64v, 68r, 69r, 73r, 73v, 78r, 80r, 80v, 81v, 83r, 85v, 88r, 88v, 90r, 93v, 94v, 95r, 95v, 97v, 102r, 105r).
Capitals highlighted in red at the beginning of each verse. Titles, marginal notes, names, and explicits underlined in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002025355
040-002025404 - Is part of:
- Add MS 34316-34385 : Part of the library of Sir Thomas Phllipps
Add MS 34360 : Collection of poems, including works by John Lydgate and Geoffrey Chaucer - Hierarchy:
- 032-002025355[0033]/040-002025404
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 34316-34385
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100183714812.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
French, Middle - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper.
Dimensions: 270 x 200 mm (written space varies: 190-205 x 110 mm).
Foliation: ff. 116 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf affixed with a bibliographical note after f. 1 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1 is a modern paper flyleaf affixed with a paper note on the verso.
Script: Gothic cursive, principally written by the 'Hammond Scribe'.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown mottled leather, gold-tooled; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
John Stow (b. 1524/5, d. 1605), English historian and antiquarian: an added note by the antiquary Joseph Ritson (b. 1752, d. 1803) observes that 'This book has been in the hands of John Stow, whose writing appears in many parts of it' (f. 1v); added titles and notes in his hand throughout.
William Browne (b. c. 1590, d. c. 1645), English pastoral poet: the Latin motto, 'Fortuna non mutat genus' and initials 'W.B.' written in his hand (f. 2v); an added list of contents, possibly written in his hand (f. 3r-v); his signature, 'W. Browne' (f. 4r).
John Taylor (b. 1704, d. 1766), English classical scholar and Cambridge University librarian: his signature, 'J. Taylor' (f. 4r).
Richard Heber (b. 1773, d. 1833), book collector: loaned the manuscript to Joseph Ritson, the loan recorded in an added note ('Note by Mr Ritson to whom I lent this vol. RH', f. 1v); his sale, 1836, lot 1334. Heber's sale catalogue indicates that the volume belonged to 'Dr Askew, Dr Wright, Gough, and Wodhull', though no indication of their ownership now survives (see Bibliotheca Heberiana (1834), Pt. XI, p. 136).
Sir Thomas Phillipps (b. 1792, d. 1872), 1st baronet, English antiquary and book collector: his manuscript 9053.
Purchased by the British Museum at the Phillipps sale, Sotheby's, 19-22 June 1893, lot 122, together with Add MSS 34316-34385 for £574 19s 16d.
- Publications:
-
Bibliotheca Heberiana. Catalogue of the library of Richard Heber, which will be sold by auction, by Messrs. Sotheby and son [and others], Apr. 10, 1834 (London: Sotheby and Sons, 1834), XI, p. 136.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894), pp. 317-21.
Eleanor P. Hammond, 'Two British Museum Manuscripts (Harley 2251 and Adds. 34360): A contribution to the Bibliography of John Lydgate', Anglia, 28 (1905), 1-28.
Aage Brusendorff, The Chaucer Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), pp. 222-23.
Eleanor P. Hammond, 'A Scribe of Chaucer', Modern Philology, 27 (1929), 27-33.
A. I. Doyle, 'An Unrecognised Piece of Piers the Plougman's Creed and Other Work by its Scribe', Speculum, 34 (1959), 428-36 (pp. 429 n. 11, 431 n. 16, 433).
Derek Pearsall, 'The Assembly of Ladies and Generydes', The Review of English Studies, 12 (1961), 229-37 (p. 230).
A. S. G. Edwards, 'A Middle English prayer to the Cross', Philological Quarterly, 52 (1973), 299-301.
Richard Firth Green, 'Notes on Some Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', British Library Journal, 4 (1978), 37-41 (p. 41).
Julia Boffey, Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), pp. 15 n. 24, 17, 19, 43, 44, 65, 71, 92.
Seth Lerer, Chaucer and His Readers: Imagining the Author in Late-Medieval England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 47, 138-41, 265.
Linne R. Mooney, 'More Manuscripts written by a Chaucer Scribe', The Chaucer Review, 30 (1996), 401-07 (p. 406).
A. S. G. Edwards, 'Medieval manuscripts owned by William Browne of Tavistock (1590/1?-1643/5?)', in Books and Collectors 1200-1700: Essays presented to Andrew Watson, ed. by James P. Carley and Colin G. C. Tite (London: British Library, 1997), pp. 441-49 (pp. 442, 445).
Linne R. Mooney, 'A New Manuscript by the Hammond Scribe', in The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna (London: British Library, 2000), pp. 113-23.
Linne R. Mooney, 'John Shirley's Heirs', The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), 182-98 (pp. 183-88, 191, 192, 194, 197).
Alexandra Gillespie, Print Culture and the Medieval Author: Chaucer, Lydgate, and Their Books, 1473-1557 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 49.
Anthony Bale, 'A Norfolk Gentlewoman and Lydgatian Patronage: Lady Sibylle Boys and Her Cultural Environment', Medium Ævum, 78 (2009), 261-80 (p. 269).
Christopher Macklin, 'Plague, Performance and the Elusive History of the Stella Celi Extirpavit', Early Music History, 29 (2010), 1-31 (p. 12).
Simone Celine Marshall, The Anonymous Text: The 500-year History of The Assembly of Ladies (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 13, 34, 38, 40, 70.
Margaret Connolly, John Shirley: Book Production in the Nobel Household in Fifteenth-Century England (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 39, 95, 178-82.
The Digital Index of Middle English Verse [DIMEV], https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLAdd10303 [accessed on 24 April 2023], nos. 332, 1075, 1356, 1432, 1502, 1544, 2156, 2490, 2575, 2814, 3563, 4078, 4169, 4240, 4271, 4375, 4395, 4500, 5013, 5380, 5428, 5534, 5584, 5731, 5826, 5990, 6044, 6787, 6819.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)