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Lansdowne MS 851
- Record Id:
- 040-002078368
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002078368
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001257.0x00038e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165171335.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Lansdowne MS 851
- Title:
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a copy of Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, made shortly after his death, traditionally assigned to the year 1400.
Contents:
ff. 2r-12r: The General Prologue.
ff. 12r-38v: The Knight's Tale.
ff. 38v-39v: The Miller's Prologue.
ff. 39v-47v: The Miller's Tale.
ff. 47v-48r: The Reeve's Prologue.
ff. 48v-53r: The Reeve's Tale.
ff. 53r-53v: The Cook's Prologue.
ff. 53v-54v: The Cook's Tale.
ff. 54v-65r: The Tale of Gamelyn.
ff. 65r-66r: The Man of Law's Prologue.
ff. 66r-79r: The Man of Law's Tale.
f. 79r: The Squire's Prologue / Epilogue to the Man of Law's Tale.
ff. 79r-87r: The Squire's Tale.
ff. 87r-97r: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.
ff. 97r-102r: The Wife of Bath's Tale.
ff. 102r-102v: The Friar's Prologue.
ff. 102v-106v: The Friar's Tale.
ff. 106v-107r: The Summoner's Prologue.
ff. 107r-114r: The Summoner's Tale.
ff. 114r-115r: The Clerk's Prologue.
ff. 115r-128r: The Clerk's Tale.
ff. 128r-128v: L'envoye de Chaucer.
ff. 128v-141r: The Merchant's Tale.
ff. 141r-141v: The Franklin's Prologue.
ff. 141v-151v: The Franklin's Tale.
ff. 152r-153r: The Second Nun's Prologue.
ff. 153r-158r: The Second Nun's Tale.
ff. 158r-160r: The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue.
ff. 160r-169r: The Canon's Yeoman's Tale.
ff. 169r-169v: The Physician's Prologue.
ff. 169v-173v: The Physician's Tale.
ff. 173v-174v: The Pardoner's Prologue.
ff. 174v-180v: The Pardoner's Tale.
ff. 181r-186r: The Shipman's Tale.
ff. 186r-186v: The Prioress's Prologue.
ff. 186v-189r: The Prioress's Tale.
f. 189r: The Prologue to the Tale of Sir Thopas.
ff. 189r-192r: The Tale of Sir Thopas.
ff. 192r-206r: The Tale of Melibeus.
ff. 206r-207v: The Monk's Prologue.
ff. 207v-217r: The Monk's Tale.
ff. 217r-217v: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.
ff. 218r-225r: The Nun's Priest's Tale.
ff. 225r-226v: The Manciple's Prologue.
ff. 226v-229v: The Manciple's Tale.
ff. 229v-230v: The Parson's Prologue.
ff. 230v-254r: The Parson's Tale.
f. 255r: Chaucer's Retraction.
The manuscript contains several additions:
ff. 1r-1v: Summary of the life and work of Geoffrey Chaucer [with reference to John Leland], written in Latin, and entitled: 'Vita Galfridi Caucer [sic] ex Scriptorum Brytaniæ Centauria Septima Cap. XXIIII'; extracted from John Bale, Illustrium Maioris Britanniae scriptorum (Ipswich: John Overton, 1548), pp. 525-27 ('Centuria Septima', ch. 24); copied in the late 16th or early 17th century.
ff. 208r-210r: A Latin verse: 'Adam Sampsonem, sic David Solomon[em] / Foemina decepit, qui modo tutus erat'; 'Acta Samsonis'; 'Dalida prodit Sampson. Philisteis'; 'Hercules'; 'Herculis acta de quibus poeta multa Scribunt'; 'furor Herculis'; 'Nabucodonosor Rex'; 'Balthasar filius Nabucod[onosor]'; added in the 16th century.
f. 141r: A pencil note by the British Museum at the end of the Merchant's Tale: '102 lines wanting in this MS [? which are] bound in MS Harl. 1758'.
f. 255v: A note on the manuscript's foliation: 'Const. fol. 255'; added in the 18th century.
f. 255v: 'Liber ffabularum Cant[uariensis]'; written in a 15th-century script.
Decoration:
1 full border in colours and gold with foliate decoration (f. 2r). 26 three-sided borders in colours and gold (ff. 12r, 39v, 48v, 53v, 54v, 66r, 79r, 83r, 97r, 102v, 107r, 115r, 128v, 141v, 153r, 160r, 169v, 173v, 181r, 186r, 189r, 192r, 207v, 218r, 226v, 230v). 1 large (10-line) historiated initial in blue, purple, and gold, featuring Geoffrey Chaucer holding an open book (f. 2r); attributed to Herman Scheerre, an illuminator of German or Flemish origin who worked in London, c. 1405-c. 1422, or his atelier. Large (4- to 7-line) initials in blue and pink on gold grounds at the beginning of the tales. Small (2-line) initials in gold on blue and purple grounds and pen-flourishing extending into the margins in the blue, purple, and green (but 3-line 'champ' initials on ff. 87r, 106b, 116v, 119v, 121v, 123v, 240v, 244r, 247v, 248r, 253v; and 4-line on ff. 239r, 255r); small (1-line) capitals at the beginning of verse lines faintly highlighted in yellow; small (1-line) capitals with black cadels with yellow or red penwork decoration, some with human faces (e.g., ff. 12v, 14r, 41v, 49v, 54r, 79v [etc.]). Small (1-line) paraphs alternating between blue and gold, in frames of, respectively, red and purple penwork decoration. Rubricated incipits, explicits, Latin quotations (e.g. f. 68v), and headers. Underlining in red ink for a Latin quotation on f. 173v. A decorative knot in a bracket in black ink used to group four marginal lines on f. 67r. Catchwords placed in decorative banderols in black ink, some with accents in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Lansdowne Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002078368", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Lansdowne MS 851: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002060013
040-002078368 - Is part of:
- Lansdowne MS 1-1245 : Lansdowne Manuscripts
Lansdowne MS 851 : Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales - Hierarchy:
- 032-002060013[0680]/040-002078368
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Lansdowne MS 1-1245
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165171335.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1405
- End Date:
- 1415
- Date Range:
- c 1410
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 340 x 210 mm (text space: 250 x 140 mm).
Foliation: ff. 255 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); f. [iii]recto is marbled; 1 unfoliated parchment stub after f. 255; unfoliated modern paper pastedown on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes); white repair thread used for stitching cuts in the lower margins of ff. 14, 78, 79, 99, 124 [red thread], 153, 175, 220 [repair thread for other cuts in the manuscript have been removed]; circular pieces of manuscript have been cut out of the lower margins of ff. 37 and 101.
Collation: i-xxix8 (ff. 2-233), xxx7 (8-1, the seventh leaf missing) (ff. 234-240), xxxi8 (ff. 241-248), xxxii7 (ff. 249-255); catchwords on final versos, except for one, which has been written on f. 133r.
Script: Gothic cursive (Bastard secretary).
Binding: British Museum in-house binding; brown leather with gold-tooled and blind-stamped borders; marbled endleaves.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England (linguistic note: 'the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire/Herefordshire border': see Horobin, The Language of the Chaucer Tradition (2003), p. 153).
Provenance:
'Anthony B[…]', 16th century: his name, partially erased, inscribed on f. 255v.
Phillip Carteret Webb (b. 1702, d. 1770), barrister and antiquary: see Ellis and Douce, A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts (1819), p. 211.
William Petty (formerly Fitzmaurice) (b. 1737, d. 1805), 2nd Earl of Shelburne and 1st marquess of Lansdowne, prime minister: his shelf-mark 'No. 907' inscribed in pencil on f. [iii]verso [later crossed out and replaced with '851', possibly at the British Museum]. The manuscript's current foliation and the note on the foliation on f. 255v may also have been added in Lansdowne's library.
Purchased by the British Museum together with 1,244 other Lansdowne manuscripts in 1807.
- Publications:
-
[Henry Ellis and Francis Douce], A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: n. pub., 1819), pp. 210-211 (no. 851).
Frederick James Furnivall, The Lansdowne MS of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Society, 1st series, 7, 13, 20, 36, 43, 55, 69 (London: Trübner, 1868-79).
Harry Leigh Douglas Ward and John Alexander Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Pitman, 1883–1910), I, pp. 512-13 [on the text, ff. 54v-65r].
M.H. Spielmann, The Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trübner, 1900), p. 11.
Aage Brusendorff, The Chaucer Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), pp. 18-19.
John M. Manly, and Edith Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales Studied on the Basis of All known Manuscripts, 8 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940).
Michael Seymour, 'Manuscript Portraits of Chaucer and Hocceleve', Burlington Magazine, 124 (1982), 618-23 (p. 619 pl. 42, 621).
Norman F. Blake, The Textual Tradition of the Canterbury Tales (London: Hodder Arnold, 1985).
Jeanne E. Krochalis, 'Hoccleve's Chaucer Portrait', The Chaucer Review, 21 (1986), 234-45 (pp. 237, 244).
Norman F. Blake, 'The Manuscripts and Textual Tradition of the Canterbury Tales', Poetica, 28 (1988), 6-15.
Charles A. Owen, 'Pre-1450 Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales: Relationships and Significance', The Chaucer Review, 23:1-2 (1988), 1-29 [Part I]; and 183-187 [Part II].
A.S.G. Edwards and Derek Pearsall, 'The Manuscripts of the Major English Poetic Texts', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 257-78 (pp. 274 n. 36, 277 n. 69).
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Design, Decoration and Illustration', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 62 n. 85).
Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Studies, 17 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), 7-14, 43, 120-21 (as 'La').
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, pp. 87, 111, 141.
Norman F. Blake, 'Geoffrey Chaucer and the manuscripts of the "Canterbury Tales"', Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History, 1 (1997), 96-122.
Claire E. Thomson, 'A Transcription and Study of British Library MS. Lansdowne 851 of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Sheffield, 1998), passim.
Chris Fletcher, Roger Evans, and Sally Brown, 1000 Years of English Literature: A Treasury of Literary Manuscripts (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003), pp. 30-31.
Shuichi Aita, 'The Text of Chaucer's Parson's Tale in Bodleian Library MS Arch. Selden B. 14: A Comparison of the Variants with BL MS Lansdowne 851', Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature, 19 (2004), 37-49 [on the text].
Maidie Hilmo, Medieval Images, Icons, and iIlustrated English Literary Texts: From the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p. 171 n. 4.
The Multitext Edition, ed. by Estelle Stubbs, Michael Pidd, Orietta Da Rold, Simon Horobin and Claire Thomson with Linda Cross, The Norman Blake Editions of The Canterbury Tales (University of Sheffield, 2013) [accessed 16 July 2021].
Sonja Drimmer, The Art of Allusion: Illuminators and the Making of English Literature, 1403-1476 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), pp. 62-63.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)