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Sloane MS 1686

Record Id:

040-002114037

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002112337

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000603.0x000163

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100142970183.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Sloane MS 1686

Title:

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-295v: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, imperfect at the beginning. The Tales are arranged in the following order:

ff. 1r-13r: The General Prologue, beginning imperfectly.

ff. 13r-49v: The Knight's Tale.

ff. 49v-51r: The Miller's Prologue.

ff. 51r-61v: The Miller's Tale.

ff. 61v-62v: The Reeve's Prologue.

ff. 62v-69v: The Reeve's Tale.

ff. 69v-70r: The Cook's Prologue.

ff. 70r-71r: The Cook's Tale.

ff. 71r-86v: The Tale of Gamelyn.

ff. 86v-88v: The Man of Law's Prologue.

ff. 88v-106v: The Man of Law's Tale.

ff. 106v-107r: The Squire's Prologue.

ff. 107r-118r: The Squire's Tale.

ff. 118r-132r: The Wife of Bath's Prologue.

ff. 132r-138v: The Wife of Bath's Tale.

ff. 138v-139r: The Friar's Prologue.

ff. 139r-145r: The Friar's Tale.

ff. 145r-146r: The Summoner's Prologue.

ff. 146r-155v: The Summoner's Tale.

ff. 155v-156v: The Clerk of Oxford's Prologue.

ff. 156v-175v: The Clerk of Oxford's Tale.

ff. 175v-193r: The Merchant's Tale.

f. 193r-v: The Franklin's Prologue.

ff. 193v-207v: The Franklin's Tale.

ff. 207v-209v: The Second Nun's Prologue.

ff. 209v-216v: The Second Nun's Tale.

ff. 217r-221r: The Physician's Tale.

ff. 221r-224r: The Pardoner's Prologues.

ff. 224r-232v: The Pardoner's Tale.

ff. 232v-239r: The Shipman's Tale.

f. 239r-v: The Prioress's Prologue.

ff. 239v-243v: The Prioress's Tale.

f. 243v: The Prologue of Sir Thopas.

ff. 244r-247v: The Tale of Sir Thopas.

ff. 247v-267v: The Tale of Melibee.

ff. 267v-269r: The Monk's Prologue.

ff. 269r-280v: The Monk's Tale.

f. 281r-v: The Nun's Priest's Prologue.

ff. 281v-290r: The Nun's Priest's Tale.

ff. 290r-291v: The Manciple's Prologue.

ff. 291v-295v: The Manciple's Tale.

Decoration:

Large and small initials in blue with red (foliate) pen-flourishing. Initials at the beginning of lines and catchwords tipped with red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Sloane Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002112337
040-002114037

Is part of:

Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts

Sloane MS 1686 : Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Hierarchy:

032-002112337[1687]/040-002114037

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_100142970183.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1475

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Paper.

Condition: Ink badly faded and affected by damp (ff. 244-295).

Watermarks: A shield with three fleurs-de-lis ("Armoiries Trois Fleurs de Lis"), similar to Briquet No. 1790, dated 1473-1477 (ff. 1-118); a pair of scissors ("Ciseauz"), similar to Briquet No. 3728, dated 1481 (ff. 119-249); a shield with three fleurs-de-lis ("Armoiries Trois Fleurs de Lis"), similar to Briquet No. 1741, dated 1468-1482 (ff. 250-295).

Dimensions: 275 x 180 mm (written space: 170 x 105 mm).

Foliation: ff. 295 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).

Collation: Quires of 8 leaves: i^8-2 (ff. 1-6, one leaf missing before f. 1 and after f. 6), ii-xxvii⁸ (ff. 7-214), xviii^8-1 (ff. 215-221, one leaf missing after f. 216), xix-xxxi⁸ (ff. 222-245), xxxii⁴ (ff. 246-249), xxxiii-xxxvii⁸ (ff. 250-289), xxxviii^8-2 (ff. 290-295, one leaf missing before f. 290 and after f. 295).

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; rebacked.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

William Walter (d. 1523), servant to Sir Henry Marney (b. c. 1447, d. 1523), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: owned c. 1520; his name inscribed, 'WILL.WALTER' (f. 1r).

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. 1686.

Eleanor P Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Peter Smith, 1933), p. 181.

Sir William McCormick and Janet E. Heseltine, The Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: A Critical Description of Their Contents (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 491-99.

Wilma Anderson Kirby-Miller, 'Scribal Dialects in the C and D Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales', PhD Dissertation (University of Chicago, 1938), pp. 35-36.

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. 510-14.

Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Studies, 17 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), 11, 34, 43, 52, 82f., 110 no. 3, 121, 122).

Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume II, The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 146-50.

Ralph Griffiths, 'From Bologna to Brecon: The Cosmopolitan World of a Pre-Reformation Archdeacon', Medieval Prosopography, 33 (2018), 153–66 (p. 163 n. 39).

'London, British Library Sloane 1686', in The Digital Index of Middle English Verse, https://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLSl1686 [Accessed 1 October 2021]

'London, British Library MS Sloane 1686', in Late Medieval English Scribes: https://www.medievalscribes.com [Accessed 1 October 2021].

'Manuscript: Sl2', in A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales: https://www.mossercatalogue.net/record.php?recID=Sl2 [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
Walter, William, servant to Sir H Marney, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, d 1523

Places:

England