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Royal MS 18 C II

Record Id:

040-002107527

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002105724

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x0002fc

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100161507632.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Royal MS 18 C II

Title:

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Scope & Content:

Contents:

f. i recto: A fragment of two inquisitions post-mortem of Elizabeth, wife of John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, written in Latin, the second dated 7 August, 1 Hen [IV, i.e. 1400].

f. 1r: 'Counsels of Prudence', an 8-line extract from John Lydgate's Troy Book (Bk. II, ll. 1849-1856), written in Middle English, beginning, 'He that stondeth suere enhast hym nat to meeve'.

f. 1v: The first line of the General Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 'Whan that Aprill wyth hys shoures soote'.

f. 2r: A list of the manuscript's contents, written in red ink, in a 15th-century hand.

f. 2v: 'Lord what is this world weal', a poem written in Middle English, concerning the evils of the times and practical advice for amendment, beginning, 'Man be auised or [th]ou begyne'. The opening line copied out again in the upper margin.

ff. 3r-271r: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, including the spurious Tale of Gamelyn, written in Middle English. The Tales are arranged in the following order:

ff. 3r-13v: The General Prologue.

f. 13v: The Knight's Prologue.

ff. 14r-40v: The Knight's Tale.

ff. 40v-41v: The Miller's Prologue.

ff. 41v-50r: The Miller's Tale.

f. 50r-v: The Reeve's Prologue.

ff. 50v-55v: The Reeve's Tale.

ff. 55v-56r: The Cook's Prologue.

f. 56r-v: The Cook's Tale.

ff. 56v-67v: The Tale of Gamelyn.

ff. 67v-82r: The Man of Law's Prologue and Tale; ff. 69-72 have been bound in the wrong order, the correct order being ff. 70, 69, 71, 72.

f. 82r: The Squire's Prologue.

ff. 82r-90v: The Squire's Tale.

f. 90v: The Merchant's Prologue.

ff. 90v-105r: The Merchant's Tale.

ff. 105r-115r: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.

ff. 115r-120r: The Wife of Bath's Tale.

f. 120r-v: The Friar's Prologue.

ff. 120v-124v: The Friar's Tale.

f. 125r-v: The Summoner's Prologue.

ff. 125v-131r: The Summoner's Tale.

f. 131r-v: The Clerk of Oxford's Prologue.

ff. 131v-145v: The Clerk of Oxford's Tale.

ff. 145v-146r: The Franklin's Prologue.

ff. 146r-156v: The Franklin's Tale.

ff. 156v-158r: The Second Nun's Prologue.

ff. 158r-163r: The Second Nun's Tale.

ff. 163r-165r: The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue.

ff. 165r-174r: The Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

f. 174r: The Physician's Prologue.

ff. 174r-177v: The Physician's Tale.

ff. 177v-178r: The Pardoner's Prologue.

ff. 178r-185v: The Pardoner's Tale.

f. 185v: The Shipman's Prologue.

ff. 185v-190v: The Shipman's Tale.

ff. 190v-191r: The Prioress's Prologue.

ff. 191r-193v: The Prioress's Tale.

ff. 193v-194r: The Prologue to Sir Thopas.

ff. 194r-196v: The Tale of Sir Thopas.

ff. 196v-197r: The Prologue of Melibee.

ff. 197r-215v: The Tale of Melibee.

ff. 215v-216v: The Monk's Prologue.

ff. 216v-226r: The Monk's Tale.

f. 226r-v: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.

ff. 226v-234r: The Nun's Priest's Tale.

ff. 234r-237r: The Manciple's Tale.

ff. 237r-238r: The Parson's Prologue.

ff. 238r-271r: The Parson's Tale.

f. 272r-v: Pen-trials and ownership inscriptions.

Decoration:

3-4 line initials in gold on pink and blue grounds, highlighted with white, with foliate decoration.

Initials in blue with red penwork. Blue paraph marks defining each stanza in The Monk's Tale (ff. 217v-218r). Running headers in red.

Marginal directions for rubrication throughout.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Royal Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002105724
040-002107527

Is part of:

Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts

Royal MS 18 C II : Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Hierarchy:

032-002105724[1680]/040-002107527

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161507632.0x000001 (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:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 310 x 205 mm (written space: 215 x 115 mm).

Foliation: ff. i + 272 (+ 3 unfoliated parchment stubs after ff. 2 and 245); f. i is a parchment flyleaf.

Collation: i-xxix⁸ (ff. 3-234), xxx^14-3(ff. 235-245; three parchment stubs after f. 245), xxxi-xxxiii⁸ (ff. 246-269), xxxiv^4?(ff. 270-272).

Catchwords. Quire signatures.

Script: Gothic cursive, written by two scribes: Scribe 1 (ff. 1-237r) and Scribe 2 (ff. 237r-271r).

Binding: Post-1600. Royal library binding of brown leather; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Numerous inscribed names in 16th-century hands, including, 'Thomas Parker', 'Mabyle Darcy', 'Stanley', 'Manfeld', 'Seyer', 'Chetevyn', 'DArcey Gedney', 'Thomas Cobham', 'Mountfort', 'Gedwyke', 'Sayer', 'Malyfount', 'Kateryne', 'Abbot' and 'Herdswyke' (f. 272v).

Philip Chetwynd (d. c. 1527), usher in the household of Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547), King of England and Ireland: his name inscribed, 'Phe Chetwynd', with the Chetwynd motto, 'Quod Deus vult' translated into French, 'Come dieu veult' and written backwards (f. 272r); his name also inscribed in drypoint in the margin, 'corpo & bueno Chetwynd' (ff. 147r, 162r); his name inscribed, 'ffortune fortitudo Chetwynd' (f. 272v).

John Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), 1st baron Lumley, collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name, 'Lumley' (f. 3r); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 304 (see The Lumley Library (1956), no. 304); passed to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Henry Frederick (b. 1594, d. 1612), Prince of Wales and eldest child of James I: his collection became part of the Royal Library.

Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.

Publications:

George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 301.

Eleanor P. Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Peter Smith, 1933), p. 180.

Sir William McCormick and Janet E. Heseltine, The Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: A Critical Description of Their Contents (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), pp. 461-71.

Wilma Anderson Kirby-Miller, 'Scribal Dialects in the C and D Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales', PhD Dissertation (University of Chicago, 1938), pp. 39-42.

The Text of the Canterbury Tales: Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts, ed. by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, 8 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), I, pp. 485-93.

Charles A. Owen Jr., The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 39-40.

Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 138-43.

A. S. G. Edwards, 'The Canterbury Tales and Gamelyn', in Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann, ed. by Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), pp. 76-90 (p. 86).

Andrew Higl, Playing the Canterbury Tales: The Continuations and Additions (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 38, 40-41, 43-44, 119.

Daniel Wakelin, Immaterial Texts in Late Medieval England: Making English Literary Manuscripts, 1400-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 222, 224-25, 227, 229.

'London, British Library MS Royal 18 C.II', in Late Medieval English Scribes: https://www.medievalscribes.com [Accessed 28 June 2022].

'Manuscript: Ry2', in A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales: https://www.mossercatalogue.net/record.php?recID=Ry2 [Accessed 28 June 2022]

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Chaucer, Geoffrey, poet and administrator, c 1340-1400,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000375840787
Chetwynd, Philip, usher in the household of Henry VIII, d c 1527
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of James I, 1594-1612
Lumley, John, 1st Baron Lumley, 1533-1609,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000454548354,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/159053447
Lydgate, John, poet, monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds and Prior of Hatfield Regis Priory, c 1370-1449/50?,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000108778237

Places:

England

Related Material:

From George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 301:

'CHAUCER'S Canterbury Tales, with the spurious tale of Gamlyn. The arrangement of the tales (D type) is as follows:

(a) Group A, sc. Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, and Cook. f. 3;

(b) The spurious tale of Gamlyn with two-line link prefixed, as printed from this MS. in the Chaucer Society's Six-Text ed., p.xxvi*. f. 56b;

(c) First part of group B, sc. Man of Law's prologue and tale (with Latin marginal notes) and Shipman's prologue altered to fit Squire (cf. Six-Text, p. iv*). By a binder's mistake ff. 70, 69, 71, 72 are misplaced, the right order being as here given. f. 67 b;

(d) First part of group F, sc. Squire's tale and Squire-Franklin link altered to fit Merchant (cf. Six-Text, p. xv*). f. 82;

(e) Last part of group E, sc. Merchant's tale. f. 91 b;

(f) Group D, sc. Wife of Bath (preceded here by a spurious prologue in 16 lines, printed by Skeat, iii, p. 446, and wanting ll. D 829-856), Friar and Summoner. f. 105. Lines D 2159-2293 are omitted and 2294 altered, the tale concluding thus :-'He ne had nozt ellis for his sermon To part among his breþryn whan he com hom. And þus is þis tale I doun For we were almost at þe toun';

(g) First part of group E, Clerk of Oxford. Lines E 1170-1176 are omitted and 1195-1200 transposed to tale with spurious prologue (Six-Text, p. xx*). f. 145 b;

(i) Group G, Second Nun and Yeoman. f. 156b;

(k) Group C, Doctor (with spurious 14-line prologue as in the Petworth MS., Chaucer Soc. ed., p. 450) and Pardoner. f. 174;

(l) Rest of group B, sc. Shipman (with spurious prologue, Sir-Text, p. x*), Prioress, Thopas (ends l. 2104), Melibeus, Monk, and Nun's Priest (lines 4233-4238 and the epilogue are wanting). f. 185 b;

(m) Group H, Manciple (without prologue). f. 234;

(n) Group I, Parson, with colophon 'Here endeth the book of the tales of Caunterburye compiled by Geffrey Chaucer, of whos soule Ihesu Crist haue mercy. Amen'. This tale is in another hand, and a colophon to the preceding seems to have been erased. f. 237.

On the fly-leaves are in 15th cent. hands:

(a) Four couplets beginning 'He that stondeth suere enhast hym nat to meeve'. f. 1;

(b) On poverty, 2 x 4 lines (rhymes abab) beg.' Man be auised or begynne'. f. 2 b.

The first fly-leaf (f. i) contains part of two inquisitions post mortem of Elizabeth [suo iure Baroness Latimer], wife of John Nevyll, knight [John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby]. The second is dated York, 7 Aug. 1 Hen. [IV, 1400].

Gatherings (beg. f. 3) of 8 leaves (xxx¹¹, xxxiv³lettered (as far as f. 218) a-z, [], 9, [] , est. Sec. fol. 'of xx []eer'. On f. 272 b is much scribbling of names, including Thomas Parker, Thomas Cobham, Philipe Chetwynd, K. Stanley, and others. Belonged (f. 3) to [John, Lord] Lumley. Lumley cat. f. 159; cat. of 1666, f. 12; not in CMA.