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Royal MS 18 D II
- Record Id:
- 040-002107554
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x000316
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 18 D II
- Title:
- John Lydgate, Troy Book and Siege of Thebes, with verses by William Cornish, John Skelton, William Peeris and others
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript includes:
Added table of contents, 17th century (f. 1r).
1. John Lydgate, Testament (ff. 1v-5r);
2. John Lydgate, Troy Book (ff. 6r-146r);
3. John Lydgate, Siege of Thebes (ff. 147v-162r);
4. William Cornish, A Treatise between Information and Truth (ff. 163r-164r);
5. John Skelton, On the Death of the Earl of Northumberland (ff. 165r-166v);
6. Le assemble de dyeus (ff. 167-180v);
7. John Lydgate, The reignes of the kyngis of England (ff. 181r-183r);
8. Description of arms of various kings entitled 'The blsyoure of the arms of kyngis' (ff. 183v-185v);
9. William Peeris, Descent of the Lords Percy, a chronicle of the Percy family, composed in c. 1516-1523 (ff. 186-195);
10. Proverbial and moral verses transcribed from the walls and ceilings of Percy's houses (ff. 195v-211v).
The manuscript was copied in two phases: between 1457 and 1460, when Sir William Herbert was supporting Henry VI (see Drimmer in McKendrick and others, 2011) (ff. 6r-162r), and between c. 1516 and 1527 (the dates suggested by the composition of the William Peeris's chronicle and the death of Henry Algernon Percy, for whom the content of the manuscript was expanded) (ff. 1v-5r and 163r-211v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107554 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 18 D II : John Lydgate, Troy Book and Siege of Thebes, with verses by William Cornish, John Skelton, William Peeris and others - Contains:
- Royal MS 18 D II, ff 1v-5r : John Lydgate, Testament
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 6r-146r : John Lydgate, Troy Book
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 147v-162r : John Lydgate, Siege of Thebes
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 163r-164r : William Cornish, A Treatise between Information and Truth
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 165r-166v : John Skelton, On the Death of the Earl of Northumberland
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 167r-180v : Le assemble de dyeus
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 181r-183r : John Lydgate, The reignes of the kyngis of Englande
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 183v-185v : The blsyoure of the arms of kyngis
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 186r-195 : William Peeris, Descent of the Lords Percy
Royal MS 18 D II, ff 195v-211v : Proverbial and moral verses transcribed from the walls and ceilings of Percy's houses
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Royal MS 18 D II - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1705]/040-002107554
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
213 + 5 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_18_D_II (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
English, Middle - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1457
- End Date:
- 1535
- Date Range:
- 1457-c 1530
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 395 x 280 mm (text space: about 280 x 190 mm).
Foliation: ff. [iii] + i + 212 + [ii] (all unfoliated flyleaves are modern paper leaves; ff. i, 112 are medieval parchment flyleaves; 1 blank parchment leaf after f. 180).
Collation: item 1: i6 (ff. i-5?); item 2: ii-viii8 (ff. 6-61), ix8-1 (ff. 62-68, 1 folio excised after f. 65), x8 (ff. 69-76), xi6 (ff. 77-82), xii8 (ff. 83-90), xiii8-1 (ff. 91-97, 1 folio excised after f. 92), xiv-xv8 (ff. 98-113), xvi8-4 or 6-2 (ff. 114-117, 1 folio excised after f. 115), xvii-xix8 (ff. 118-141), xx6-1 (ff. 142-146, 1 probably blank folio excised); item 3: xxi6-1 (ff. 147-151, 1 folio excised after f. 149), uncertain composition, perhaps xxii8-3 (ff. 152-156, 2 folios excised after f. 153 and 1 after f. 156), perhaps xxiii8-3+1 (ff. 157-162, 1 folio excised after f. 157 and 2 after f. 159, f. 162 is perhaps an added singleton); item 4-10: xxiv4 (ff. 163-166); xxv8 (ff. 167-174), xxvi8-1 (ff. 175-180), xxvii8 (ff. 181-188), xxviii8-1 (ff. 189-195), xxix8+2 (ff. 196-205, f. 200 and perhaps f. 205 are singletons), xxx6+1 (ff. 206-211); catchwords.
Script: Gothic cursive. Written by several scribes. According to Parkes, the scribe of ff. 165r-211v also wrote Bodleian Archives, Selden B. 10, ff. 200r-209v.
Binding: Post-1600. Royal library binding of brown leather with the royal arms; 18th century.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (items 2-3 probably London).
Provenance:
Sir William Herbert, 1st earl of Pembroke (b. c. 1423, d. 1469), soldier and administrator, and his second wife Anne Devereux (d. c. 1486), married in 1455, probably designed as their presentation gift to Henry VI (b. 1421, d. 1471), after Henry VI pardoned Herbert for his assistance to the Yorkists, and before he received the Garter from Edward IV in 1462: their portraits, and arms with mottos, 'e las sy longuement', and 'De toute'.
Henry Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland (b. c. 1449, d. 1489), magnate, husband of Maud Herbert (d. c. 1485), daughter of William Herbert: arms of Percy and Lucy flanked by initials 'HP', accompanied by badges of crescent and shackle-bolt, and encircled by the Garter (f. 162r).
Henry Algernon Percy, 5th earl of Northumberland (b. 1478, d. 1527), magnate: his motto 'ma comfort' inscribed in the ascender of a letter (f. 4v); a chronicle of the Percy family composed by his secretary, William Peeris in c. 1516-1523, inscribed 'Here begynnythe the prologue of this litle / treatyse folowinge, whiche is the discente / of the lorde Percis made and compilede / brevely by me William Peeris, clerke and / preste secretory to the right nobill Erle / Henry the Vyh Erle of Northumberlande' (f. 186r); didactic poems transcribed from the walls and ceillings of Percy houses in Wressle and Leconfield (see Dickens 1955); emblem of Percy moon receiving light from the Tudor sun (f. 200r).
Catharine Edgecomb (d. 1553), widow of Sir Piers Edgecomb, or perhaps Katherine, daughter of Sir Robert Spencer of Spencercombe, wife of Henry Algernon Percy (d. 1542): inscribed 'Kateryne Eggcomb' (f. 1r).
Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (b. 1512, d. 1580), magnate, son of Anne Percy, sister of the 5th earl of Northumberland: inscribed with his name 'Arundel' and motto, 'Virtutis laus acrio' (ff. i verso, 212v).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 1r); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 1238 (see The Lumley Library, 1956); passed to Henry Frederick, prince of Wales.
Henry Frederick, prince of Wales (b. 1594, d. 1612), eldest child of James I: his collection became part of the Royal Library: included in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 12.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 16 and passim.
Henry Noble MacCracken, 'The Lydgate Canon', The Philological Society's Transactions, appendix (1907-09), iii-xlvi (pp. xvi, xxv, xxvii).
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I, 81.
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, pp. 308-10.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pp. 40, 90.
Henry Bergen, Lydgate's Tropy Book: A. D. 1412-20, edited from the best manuscripts, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 97, 103, 106, 126, 4 vols (London: Early English Text Society, 1906-1935), I, p. x, IV, 15-19.
J. M. Manly and E. Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales, Studied on the Basis of all Known Manuscripts, with a chapter on illuminations by M. Rickert, 6 vols (Chicago, 1940), I, pp. 576, 580.
Anglo-Flemish Art under the Tudors: An Exhibition held in the Department of Prints and Drawings (London: British Museum, 1954), no. 28.
A. G. Dickens, 'The Tudor-Percy Emblem in Royal 18 D II', Archaeological Journal, 112 (1956), 95-99 (pl. XIV).
E. Croft-Murray, 'Lambert Barnard: An English Early Renaissance Painter', Archaeological Journal, 112 (1956), 123-24, pls XXIIIb, XXIV.
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 156.
Malcolm B. Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pl. 15.
Gisela Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances, Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie, 4 (Munich: Fink, 1976), p. 87.
R. F. Green, Poets and Prince-pleasers: Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1980), p. 155.
Kathleen L. Scott, The Mirroure of the Worlde MS Bodley 283 (England c. 1470-1480): The Physical Composition, Decoration and Illustration (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1980), pp. 45, 50. fig. 16.
Kathleen L. Scott, 'A Late Fifteenth-Century Group of Nova Statuta Manuscripts', in Manuscripts at Oxford: An Exhibition in Memory of Richard William Hunt (1908-1979), Keeper of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library Oxford, 1945-1975, on Themes Selected and Described by some of his Friends, ed. by A. C. de la Mare and B. C. Barker-Benfield (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1980), pp. 102-05 (p. 103).
Manuscripts at Oxford: An Exhibition in Memory of Richard William Hunt (1908-1979), ed. by. A. C de la Mare and B. C. Barker-Benfield (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1980), no. 23.
K. Seymour, 'Manuscripts Portraits of Chaucer and Hoccleve', Burlington Magazine, 124 (1982) 618-23 (p. 621, n. 9).
A. I. Doyle, 'English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III to Henry VII', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983) pp. 161-81 (p. 179).
L. Lawton, 'The Illustration of Late Medieval Secular Texts with Special Reference to Lydgate's 'Troy Book'', in Manuscripts and Readers in Fifteenth-Century England: The Literary Implications of Manuscript Study: Essays from the 1981 Conference at the University of York, ed. by Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Brewer, 1983), pp. 41-69 (pp. 54-58, 60, 66, 68-69).
Kathleen L. Scott, ‘Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts’, in English Manuscript Studies, 1, ed. by Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 1989), 19-63 (p. 58 n. 46).
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. 58, n. 41).
K. Harris, 'Patrons, Buyers and Owners: The Evidence for Ownership, and the Rôle of Book Owners in Book Production and Trade', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 163-99 (pp. 187, n. 29, 188, n. 38, 193, n. 77, n. 194, n. 87).
C. M. Meale, 'Patrons, Buyers and Owners: Book Production and Social Status', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 201-38 (pp. 215, 236, n. 104).
A. S. G. Edwards and D. 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. 265-66).
Middle English Literature, ed. by Charles W. Dunn and Edward T. Byrnes (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), pp. 27-28
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490 (Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles), (Harvey Miller: London, 1996), no. 102 [with further bibliography].
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 207.
Janet Backhouse, Pictures from the Past: Using and Abusing Medieval Manuscript Imagery (Leicester: Medieval Research Centre: 1997), pls 9, 10, 12.
James H. Marrow, ‘The Pembroke Psalter-Hours’, in ’Als Ich Can’: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. by Bert Cardon and others, 2 vols (Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2002), pp. 861-902 (p. 897).
Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 46, pl. 37.
Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), no.130, pp. 431-32.
Scot McKendrick, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1400-1550 (London, 2003), pl. 119.
R. W. Hoyle, ‘Percy, Henry Algernon, fifth earl of Northumberland (1478-1527)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21936, accessed 7 Aug 2009]
Jane Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 243.
Pat Naylor, 'Scribes and Secretaries of the Percy Earls of Northumberland, with Special Reference to William Peeris and Roya MS 18 D. II', in Tudor Manuscripts 1485-1603, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards, English Manuscript Studies, 15 (London: British Library, 2009), pp. 166-84.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 73 [exhibition catalogue].
Andrew Higl, Playing the Canterbury Tales: The Continuations and Additions (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 32, 49, 65-70, 72-3.
- Exhibitions:
- The Middle Ages, (online), 26 March 2015-
Troy, British Museum, London, 21 November 2019 - 8 March 2020 - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)