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Description
ff. 1-106v; ff. 107-108v blank. [William Langland] Piers Plowman. Incipit: In a somer sesoun whan softe was þe sonne/ y shope me into shroudes as y a shep were. Explicit: And seende me hap and hele til y haue Peres plouhman/ And sethe he gradde aftur grace tyl y gan awake. English. IMEV 1459; C text, i group; ff. 60 and 61 reversed in binding. R. W. Chambers, "The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman in the Huntington Library and their Value for Fixing the Text of the Poem," HLB 8 (1935) 1-25; Piers Plowman: The Huntington Library MX (HM 143) reproduced in Photostat with Introduction by R. W. Chambers and Technical Examination by R. B. Haselden and H. C. Schulz (Huntington Library 1936); D. Pearsall, ed., Piers Plowman by William Langland: An Edition of the C-text (London 1978) from this manuscript with variant readings from others. ff. ii-iii verso. [Geoffrey Chaucer] Troilus and Criseyde. Incipit: //So whan thys Calkas knewe by kalkulynge/ And eke by onswere of this Appollo. Explicit: Of other sekenesse lest men of hym wende/ That the hoote fir of loue hym brende//. English. Two non-continuous leaves representing leaves 2 and 7 of a gathering of 8 leaves of a lost manuscript, and containing 20 stanzas: f. ii recto-verso: //So whan thys Calkas knewe by kalkulynge/ And eke by onswere of this Appollo . . . And under efte gan hem whielen bothe/ After hire cours ay whil that they were wrothe//; f. iii recto-verso: // And to the god of loue thus sayde he/ With pitous vois o lord now youres is . . . Of other sekenesse lest men of hym wende/ That the hoote fir of loue hym brende//. IMEV 3327; R. K. Root, ed., The Book of Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer (Princeton 1926) 1:71-140 and 1:421-490; M. B. Parkes and R. Beadle, Geoffrey Chaucer, Poetical Works: a facsimile of Cambridge University Library MS Gg.4.27 (Cambridge 1980-81) 3:65 note 94 referring to this manuscript. Assigned Date: s. XVin. Title from printed catalog. The flyleaves are the second bifolium of an 8-leaf quire from a manuscript of Chaucer's Troilus and Crisedye Support: Parchment. Script: Anglicana formata. Layout: 1-13⁸ 14⁸(4 was pastedown); in quire 8 the inner bifolium has been reversed, transposing ff. 60 and 61. Catchwords, that on f. 64v underlined in red. Quire signatures in center of first leaf recto in lead, in red ink, or in both; leaf signatures in arabic numerals, in letters or in vertical or horizontal slashes. Many of the signatures are no longer visible in the manuscript, but may be seen in the 1936 photostat. 36 lines of verse, ruled in lead with double bounding lines; slash pricking visible in outer margins. Other Decoration: Opening initial, f. 1, 9-line, in stipled gold infilled with white-highlighted blue and pink vines and leaves on a gold ground; C-shape bar and foliage border. Competent 5-, 4- and 3-line blue initials with red flourishing; occasionally faces have been drawn into the loops of the flourishes (e.g. ff. 10v, 17v, 23, 87v) or within the letter (e.g. f. 10v). On f. 26, free-standing in the margin, a profile head of a bearded man, in the ink of the text. Corrector's marks usually in the lower outer margin as ""cor.,"" but on f. 27 as ""leg."" Frequent erasures throughout the text, particularly of the names ""peres"" and ""plouhman,"" possibly with the intention of rewriting them in red ink. Assigned Date: s. XIVex. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 7/15/2012. Cataloged from existing description: C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Bound, s. XVIII, in tan calf by Thomas Elliott, blind tooled in a panel pattern with a carnation at each corner of the panel. See H. Nixon, ""Harleian Bindings,"" Studies in the Book Trade in Honour of Graham Pollard. Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications n.s. 18 (1975), 153-94, and especially plate 15, no. 8; for variant forms of the carnation tool, see J. B. Oldham, Shrewsbury School Library Bindings (Oxford 1943) 115 n. 2. The same binding is on HM 00150 and Lawrence, University of Kansas, Spencer Library, MS B61, a mid-fourteenth century register of writs [NB: date of Kansas manuscript corrected in 2012 from date cited in the 1987 printed HEH catalogue]. Stains from the turn-ins of a previous binding are visible on ff. i and 108; rust holes from 2 former clasps extend through the front flyleaves and several text leaves. HM 143. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Christian life--Early works to 1800 Decorated initials England 14th century. (aat) Figured initials England 14th century. (aat) Manuscript waste (Binding) England 15th century. (rbbin ) Manuscripts (documents) (aat)
Source
Manuscripts, Huntington Digital Library
Provenance
Written at the end of the fourteenth century in England, and localizable by its dialect to southwestern Worcestershire (Malvern Wells or Upton area). A fifteenth-century owner recopied the first 4 lines of the poem on f. 108; another wrote on f. 107v: "Ihesu ihesu ihesu for thyn holy name to be me ihesus." "Dan John redbery," s. XV/XVI, signed his name on f. 108; another early owner, s. XVI or XVII, John Russell signs his name with a monogram flourish on f. i verso and f. 107v. Belonged to the Sotheby family by the late seventeenth century; signature of James Sotheby (d. 1720) on f. ii and on f. 1; on f. ii the numbers "Y666" (or D666?) and "80." Armorial bookplate of C. W. H. Sotheby on the front pastedown; Col. H. G. Sotheby sale, Sotheby's, 24 July 1924, lot 129 with plate of f. 1 to A. S. W. Rosenbach. Acquired by Henry E. Huntington in 1924. (CSmH)
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