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Add MS 23002
- Record Id:
- 040-002096964
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002096821
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000122.0x00016e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100193728095.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 23002
- Title:
- Collection of scientific treatises, including Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Treatise on the Astrolabe'
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a collection of scientific treatises, including the 'Treatise on the Astrolabe', an instructional manual written by Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400). The manuscript's contents closely resemble another 15th-century treatise collection (now Egerton MS 2622).
Contents:
ff. 3r-28v: Geoffrey Chaucer, 'Treatise on the Astrolabe', written in Middle English prose, beginning, 'Litil Lewys my sone...'
ff. 29r-30v: A treatise on the making of an astronomical instrument called a 'navicula', written in Latin prose, beginning, 'Ut veraciter et breviter habeatur composicio navicule...'
ff. 32r-45v: Godfridus super Palladium, a horticultural manual written in Latin prose, beginning with a table of contents (ff. 32r-33r); the text beginning, 'Modus insercionis arborum multiplex est...'
ff. 46r-49v: Nicolas Bollard, De modo plantandi arbores, written in Latin prose.
ff. 50r-53v: A treatise written in Latin prose, beginning, 'Philosophi naturales dixerunt vas vacuum non esse...'
The manuscript features a number of later additions:
f. 1r: A summary of the contents of the volume written by Sir Francis Palgrave (b. 1788, d. 1861), dated December 1842.
ff. 2r, 31r: Added title pages by James Cobbes (b. c. 1602, d. 1685), dated 1637.
ff. 1v, 2v and 31v are blank.
Decoration:
Blank spaces left for initials at the beginning of each text and major section divisions.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002096821
040-002096964 - Is part of:
- Add MS 22878-23125 : Turner Manuscripts
Add MS 23002 : Collection of scientific treatises, including Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Treatise on the Astrolabe' - Hierarchy:
- 032-002096821[0063]/040-002096964
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 22878-23125
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100193728095.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1425
- End Date:
- 1449
- Date Range:
- 2nd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 190 x 125 mm (written space: 140 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 53 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated paper leaf after ff. 1 and 31 + 3 unfoliated parchment and 3 paper flyleaves at the end).
Collation: Mounted on modern paper guards. Catchwords.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Library in-house. Brown half-leather binding. Rebound 1981.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Sir Henry Spelman (b. c. 1562, d. 1641), English antiquary: apparently part of his collection, according to the later sale catalogue of Dawson Turner (see Catalogue (1859), p. 127).
James Cobbes (b. c. 1602, d. 1685), collector, of Bury St Edmunds: added title pages recording his ownership of the volume in 1637, inscribed 'J. C. eruit e tenebris' (f. 2r), and 'Omnia studio et cura in unum volumen redacta, per J. Cobbes, 1637' (f. 31r).
Cox Macro (b. 1686, d. 1767), Anglican priest and antiquary: listed in his 1766 catalogue (Octavo MSS no. 1; Add MS 25473, f. 7r); his sale, February 1820, lot 27.
Sir Francis Palgrave (b. 1788, d. 1861), English archivist and historian: his summary of the manuscript's contents, dated December 1842 (f. 1r).
Dawson Turner (b. 1775, d. 1858), English banker and antiquary: his sale, Puttick and Simpson's, 8 June 1859, lot 314; purchased by the British Museum through Messrs Boone, London booksellers, for 5.5s, together with Add MSS 22878-23125.
- Publications:
-
A Collection of ancient Manuscripts, chiefly antiquarian and historical ... collected by the Rev. Dr. Macro (Norwich: 1820), p. 4.
Catalogue of the manuscript library of the late Dawson Turner (London: Puttick & Simpson, 1859), p. 127.
A Treatise on the Astrolabe, addressed to his son Lowys by Geoffrey Chaucer, A.D. 1391, ed. by Walter W. Skeat (London: Early English Text Society, 1872), p. xiii.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-1860 (London: British Museum, 1875), pp. 813-14.
Ramona Bressie, 'MS Sloane 3548, Folio 158', Modern Language Notes, 54 (1939), 246-56 (pp. 247 n. 5, 248 n. 23).
Richard Beadle, 'The manuscripts of James Cobbes of Bury St Edmunds (c. 1602-1685)', in The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector: Essays in Honour of Toshiyuki Takamiya, ed. by Takami Matsuda, Richard A. Linenthal and John Scahill (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer & Yushodo Press, 2004), pp. 427-42 (pp. 435, 437).
Kari Anne Rand, The Authorship of the Equatorie of the Planetis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), p. 58.
Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, Vol. 1: Works before The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), p. 117.
Catherine Eagleton, Monks, Manuscripts and Sundials: The Navicula in Medieval England (Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 25, 28, 80, 84, 227, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 253.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)