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Sloane MS 1685

Record Id:

040-002114036

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002112337

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000603.0x000162

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100142968971.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Sloane MS 1685

Title:

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-222v: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, beginning and ending imperfectly, with many leaves wanting throughout. The Tales are arranged in the following order:

ff. 1r-3v: The General Prologue, beginning imperfectly.

ff. 4r-33r: The Knight's Tale, imperfect. 1 folio is wanting between ff. 13 and 14 and ff. 14 and 15, replaced with modern parchment inserts.

ff. 33r-34r: The Miller's Prologue.

ff. 34r-43v: The Miller's Tale.

ff. 43v-44r: The Reeve's Prologue.

ff. 44r-50r: The Reeve's Tale.

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

ff. 50v-51v: The Cook's Tale.

ff. 51v-62v: The Tale of Gamelyn, ending imperfectly. 2 folios are wanting between ff. 62 and 63, containing the last lines of the tale and the beginning of the Man of Law's Prologue; they have been replaced with modern parchment inserts.

f. 63r: The Man of Law's Prologue, beginning imperfectly.

ff. 63r-78r: The Man of Law's Tale.

f. 78r: The Squire's Prologue.

ff. 78r-86v: The Squire's Tale, imperfect. 1 folio is wanting between ff. 80 and 81, replaced with a modern parchment insert.

ff. 86v-87r: The Merchant's Prologue.

ff. 87r-102v: The Merchant's Tale.

ff. 103r-105v: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.

ff. 105v-119v: The Wife of Bath's Tale, ending imperfectly. 1 folio is wanting between ff. 119 and 120, containing the final lines of the tale and the opening of The Friar's Tale; it has been replaced with a modern parchment insert.

ff. 120r-124v: The Friar's Tale, beginning imperfectly.

f. 124v: The Summoner's Prologue, ending imperfectly. 1 folio is wanting between ff. 124 and 125, containing the final lines of the prologue and the opening of The Summoner's Tale; it has been replaced with a modern parchment insert.

ff. 125r-129v: The Summoner's Tale, beginning imperfectly.

ff. 129v-130v: The Clerk of Oxford's Prologue.

ff. 130v-145r: The Clerk of Oxford's Tale, imperfect. 1 folio is wanting between ff. 137 and 138, replaced with a modern parchment insert.

f. 145r-v: The Franklin's Prologue.

ff. 145v-157v: The Franklin's Tale.

ff. 157v-159v: The Second Nun's Prologue.

ff. 159v-165r: The Second Nun's Tale.

ff. 165r-167v: The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue.

ff. 167v-178r: The Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

f. 178r: The Physician's Prologue.

ff. 178r-182r: The Physician's Tale.

ff. 182r-183r: The Pardoner's Prologue.

ff. 183r-191v: The Pardoner's Tale.

ff. 191v-192r: The Shipman's Prologue.

ff. 192r-198r: The Shipman's Tale.

f. 198r: The Prioress's Prologue.

ff. 198r-201v: The Prioress's Tale.

ff. 201v-203r: The Monk's Prologue.

ff. 203r-213v: The Monk's Tale.

ff. 213v-214v: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.

ff. 214v-222v: The Nun's Priest's Tale, ending imperfectly.

f. 223r: Pen-trials and ownership inscriptions.

f. 223v is blank.

Decoration:

1 large initial in gold on a red and blue ground, with foliate extensions into the margins (f. 4r). 17 initials in gold on red and blue grounds, with foliate extensions into the margins (ff. 34r, 44v, 50v, 63r, 78v, 87r, 105v, 130v, 145v, 159v, 167v, 178r, 183r (excised), 192r, 198r, 203r, 214v). Initials in blue with red foliate pen-flourishing. 2 quires with small initials in red with brown pen-flourishing throughout (ff. 199-214). Running titles for each Tale in red ink, preceded by blue paraphs, flourished with red ink on both rectos and versos. Running titles for the Tale of Gamelyn in dark ink (ff. 51v-62v). Some catchwords in black ink, others in red ink. Marginal glosses in red ink accompanying The Wife of Bath's Tale and the Monk's Tale, preceded by blue paraphs flourished with red. Added marginals doodles, including a zoomorphic figure in pen and ink (f. 47v), a hand in red ink (f. 54v), and two geometric designs (ff. 151r, 155r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Sloane Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002112337
040-002114036

Is part of:

Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts

Sloane MS 1685 : Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Hierarchy:

032-002112337[1686]/040-002114036

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Sloane MS 1-4100

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100142968971.0x000001 (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:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Condition: Modern parchment repairs on ff. 1, 4, 25, 58, 77, 114, 161, 162, 165, 183, 186, and 219.

Dimensions: 305 x 205 mm (written space: 200 x 125 mm).

Foliation: ff. 223 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated blank parchment leaf after ff. 13, 14, 80, 119, 124, and 137 + 2 unfoliated blank parchment leaves after f. 62 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end). Old foliation in red ink.

Collation: Quires of 8 leaves. 1 quire lost at the beginning. i^8-1 (ff. 1-7, one leaf missing before f. 1), ii^8-1(ff. 8-14, one leaf missing after f. 13, replaced with a modern insert), iii^8-1(ff. 15-21, one leaf missing before f. 15, replaced with a modern insert), iv-viii⁸(ff. 22-61), ix^8-2 (ff. 62-67, two leaves missing between ff. 62 and 63, replaced with a modern insert), x⁸(ff. 68-75), xi^8-1 (ff. 76-82, one leaf missing between ff. 80 and 81, replaced with a modern insert), xii-xv⁸(ff. 83-114), xvi^8-1 (ff. 115-121, one leaf missing between ff. 119 and 120, replaced with a modern insert), xvii^8-2 (ff. 122-127, one leaf missing between ff. 124 and 125, replaced with a modern insert; one leaf missing after f. 127), xviii⁸(ff. 128-135), xix^8-1 (ff. 136-142, one leaf missing between ff. 137 and 138, replaced with a modern insert), xx-xix⁸ (ff. 143-223).

Catchwords. Quire signatures.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. 18th-century brown leather, blind-tooled around the border, with the Sloane arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Sir Thomas Neville (b. c 1429, d. 1460): his name inscribed, 'T Neuill' (f. 223r).

Maud Stanhope Neville (d. 1497), married Sir Robert Willoughby and then Sir Thomas Neville: her name inscribed, 'Mawd Wyllwghby' (f. 223r).

Sir William Musgrave (b. c. 1506, d. 1544), landowner and administrator: inscribed, 'yo^r louyng Master / syr William Musgraue' (f. 156r).

Numerous names and inscriptions added in hands of the 16th to 18th centuries throughout the volume, including the initials 'GH' (f. 4r); 'to my wellbelouid / louer and ffreynd / George Smythe of Burton Con[?] / stable' (f. 16r); 'John Smythe' (f. 68r); 'Thomas Markham' (f. 83r); 'thomas thomlynson' (f. 146v); 'Sampson Mallory' (f. 169r); 'Aleynor stanlay' (f. 223r); 'Thomas Wentworth' (f. 222v); 'Iohn Vere' (f. 223r); 'Thom D. Sloan, by Dr Levest' (f. 223r).

Some marginal inscriptions and glosses in Latin and English, 16th-century (ff. 38r, 43r, 76v, 108v, 128r, 173r, 196v, 223r).

Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector.

Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly-founded British Museum in 1753.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 1599-1777 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 1685.

Autotype Specimens of the Chief Chaucer MSS, Part I, ed. by Frederick J Furnivall, Chaucer Society, Series 1, no. 48. (London: Trübner, 1876) [facsimile of fol. 178r].

John L. Lowes, 'The Tempest at hir Hoom-Cominge', Modern Language Notes, 19: 8 (1904), 240-43 (p. 240).

Eleanor P Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Peter Smith, 1933), pp. 180-81.

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. 483-90.

Wilma Anderson Kirby-Miller, 'Scribal Dialects in the C and D Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales', PhD Dissertation (University of Chicago, 1938), pp. 55-56.

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, 504-09.

A. I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes, 'The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century', in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts & Libraries: Essays Presented to N. R. Ker, ed. by M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (London: Scolar Press, 1978), pp. 163-210 (p. 193).

Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Studies, 17 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), 31 n. 11, 33 n. 1, 38f., 40, 41, 42, 44, fig. 72.

Michael C Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 143-46.

'London, British Library MS Sloane 1685', in Late Medieval English Scribes: https://www.medievalscribes.com/index.php?nav=off&browse=manuscripts&id=98 [accessed 1 October 2021]

'London, British Library Sloane 1685', in The Digital Index of Middle English Verse: https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLSl1685 [accessed 1 October 2021]

'Manuscript: Sl1', in A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales: https://www.mossercatalogue.net/record.php?recID=Sl1 [accessed 1 October 2021]

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

Places:

England