Dankastre, Thomas, scribe Heber, Richard, 1773-1833, former owner Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscript. HM 137
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Description
ff. 1-89v. [William Langland] Piers Plowman. Incipit: In a somere seyson whan softe was þe sonne/ y shop into shrobbis as y shepherde were. Explicit: And sende me hap and hele til ich haue peers ploughman/ And suthe he gradde after grace til ich gan awake. Hic explicit passus secundus de dobest. Explicit peeres plouheman scriptum per Thomam Dankastre. Rubric: Hic incipit Visio Willelmi de petro ploughman. English. IMEV 1459; C text, p group; see 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; J. A. W. Bennett, "A New Collation of a Piers Plowman Manuscript (HM 137)," Medium Aevum 17 (1948) 21-31; T. D. Whitaker, ed., Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman (London 1813) from this manuscript; W. W. Skeat, ed., The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman by William Langland. EETS os 54 (London 1873) with this manuscript as the base text, described on pp. xix-xxiv; D. Pearsall, ed., Piers Plowman by William Langland: An Edition of the C-Text (London 1978) using HM 143 as the base manuscript. Title from printed catalog. Support: Parchment. Script: Anglicana formata. Layout: 1-10⁸ 11⁸(+9). Catchwords, some in brown ink frames; quire and leaf signatures visible in first quire only, as letter and roman numeral. 43 lines of verse ruled in ink, with top and bottom 2 lines (up to f. 32v), then top and bottom 3 lines full across. Pricking occassionally visible in outer margin. Other Decoration: Three-line initials in blue with red flourishing; spaces reserved for the initials from the eighth quire on. 1-line blue initials with red flourishing begin some of the Latin quotations and the rubrics up to f. 17. Elongated ascenders in the top line daubed with red through the fifth quire. The first letter of each line daubed with red through f. 36, and intermittently between ff. 37v and 44. Greek cross in red, f. 75. The copyist, Thomas Dankastre, signed his name in the colophon on f. 89v. Also on f. 89v, marginalia in several later hands: s. XV, ""Omnibus est notum quod multum diligo potum Secundum y W""; s. XV, ""Finito libro reddatur gloria cristo Amen""; s. XVI ineunte, ""Johannes Meade me possedet pretii iii s iii d."" In the upper margin of f. 1, a sixteenth or seventeenth century hand has written: ""Homo sine pecunia est quasi corpus sine anima/ A man without money is as a bodie without shoull."" Assigned Date: s. XIV/XV. 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 English tan calf. HM 137. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Christian life--Early works to 1800 Decorated initials England 14th century. (aat) Decorated initials England 15th century. (aat) Manuscripts (documents) (aat)
Source
Manuscripts, Huntington Digital Library
Provenance
"John Meade" owned the book in the early sixteenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it belonged to Sir Robert Smyth, Baronet, of Isfield, Sussex whose armorial bookplate is on the front pastedown (Rietstap, vol. 5, pl. 319); his sale, Sotheby's, 10 April 1809, lot 893 to Richard Heber (1773-1833). Heber's price annotations are written on Smyth's bookplate; notes regarding the authorship of Piers Plowman on f. i may also be Heber's. Heber sale, pt. XI by Evans, 10 February 1836, lot 973 to Payne for Sir Thomas Phillipps; Phillipps MS 8231. In modern pencil on the front pastedown, the Phillipps shelfmark, "a47.297." Acquired privately by Henry E. Huntington through A. S. W. Rosenbach in 1923. (CSmH)
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