Royal MS 20 A I

'LE GESTE de sire Johan Maundeuill dez meruaill de monde' (so heading of table, f. 117b): the well-known fictitious travels of a (fictitious?) Sir John Mandeville, a native of St. Albans, represented as setting out for the East in 1322 and returning in 1356, written in French [by Jean de Bourgogne, dit à la Barbe, a Liége physician, see 12 G. IV, art. 9]. For one of the English versions see above, 17 B. XLIII, 17 C. XXXVIII. The text here, as compared with Harley MS. 4383 and the other MSS. used by Sir George Warner for the French text printed in the Roxburghe Club edition (1889) of the other English version, shows many defects, the scribe blundering particularly in the placing of the rubrics to ch. vii-xiii. Thus at f. 14 the rubric of ch. viii (ch. vi of Warner's ed.) is actually interpolated in the middle of a word after the syllable 'vic' (MS. vit) in the explanation (dieu victorious) of the name Meshae. The next paragraph begins 'Troyus', after which is inter. polated estoit', and continues with the explanation of Abednego 'dieu sur tot autrez roialmez'. Prologue (called rubrics i and ii) beg. 'Come ensi soit qe la terre doutre mere'; text ('le iii rubrich'), 'Ore en noun de deux glorious'; ends 'par toux siclez et par tutz tempz. Amen'. Followed by table of chapters, at the end of which, as in several 'of the other French MSS. (see Warner, p. xxix), but none of the English, is a Latin dedicatory letter addressed to Edward III, beg. 'Principi excellentissimo pre cunctis mortalibus'. The colophon 'Explicit le geste de Sire Johan Maundevill Chiualer de Seint Albonz en Engletere' is in a later (early 15th cent.) hand. For further notes on the MSS. of the work see J. Vogels' Crefeld Programm, Handschriftliche Untersuchungen über die engl. Version Mandevilles, 1891.

On the fly-leaf (f. 120) in two different 15th cent. hands are two English hymns, viz. (a) Christmas carol, headed 'Mann be glad in halle and bowre þistime is bore oure sauiour' (4 x 4 + 3 lines), beg. 'Al on þis tyme god haþ ows sent';-(b) Hymn headed 'Ihesus for []owre name yblessed mot []owre body be', ten stanzas of four or five lines, beg. 'There was sumteme byfalle a cas'; ends 'yt was gret pete for to se'. Among other English scribblings are the lines (f. 122) 'Amonge al merthes manny We chol senge of o lady In al this wordil nis svch a siht.

Vellum; ff. i + 122. 83/4 in. x 61/4 in. Written by an English scribe. Beginning of XV cent. Gatherings (beg. f. 1) of 12 leaves (vi11), without catchwords. Double columna of 31 lines. Sec. fol. 'et ae qoy'. Initials roughly drawn in red and blue. Old large numbering 59 ; cat. of 1666, f. 14 b; not in CMA.