Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 205
England |
Oxford |
Bodleian Library |
Digby 205 |
SC 1806 |
s. xvin |
English |
Scribe 1 (ff. 1r-7r): Scribal Dialect: Worcestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 382 259, LP 7710 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 250). Scribe 2 (ff. 9r-122r): Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 450 263, LP 8110 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 245). |
A manuscript of the first quarter of the fifteenth century (Hudson 1966, p. 360, n. 2) including a prose chronicle and Robert of Gloucester's
Chronicle.
Item: 1ff. 1r-7r |
Prose Chronicle |
'...worschipfully and was i crowned and žan he ?af manye ?yftes to churches'. |
'fro seturtay to sontay aftur'. |
Ff. 7v and 8r blank. F. 8v carries lines perhaps by a later owner. |
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Item: 2ff. 9r-122r |
Chronicle (IMEV 727) |
'[E]nglond is ry?t good i wene hit is londe best'. |
'were žei neuer so prowte'. |
Initial letter missing. |
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Codex |
Parchment |
310 x 200 mm |
Catchwords: ff. 16v; 24v; 32v; 40v; 48v; 56v; 63v; 72v; 80v; 88v; 96v; 104v; 112v; 120v.
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Pricking: round holes. Writing space of 230 x c. 125 mm. Single columns with 46 lines. Frame and lines ruled in drypoint? - lines now grey. |
One scribe writing in black ink in an Anglicana Formata hand. Characteristics: double compartment a; long s in initial and medial position; B-shaped w; hooked ascenders on h, b, and l; B-shaped s in final position; 2-shaped r in final position. Body height: 3mm.
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Item 1: two-line blue initials, one-line red initials, red glosses, initials in text tinted red. Index signs, such as hands ff. 16v, 17v.
Item 2: first letter of each line tinted red. Initial letter of text missing. Initials in text tinted red.
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Not medieval. Size: 320 x 215 mm. Usual Digby binding. Covered in tan leather with blind tooled edging in gold of a single line with the lozenge of Sir Kenelm Digby in central position also tooled in blind with the Digby arms. Cover mitred and pasted onto pasteboard with five raised bands on spine. Two clasps, both complete/intact.
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ff. ii + 1-126 + ii. |
F. 8v contains lines added by a later owner. Text 2: various pen-trials and notes (perhaps about the text) in the generous margins. |
Good |
Unknown |
F. 7r - scribbles in a fifteenth/sixteenth-century hand with the name ?'Iohannes hande', . |
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, March 2004.
- Eljenholm-Nichols, A., Orr, M. T., Scott, K. L., and Dennison, L., ed, 2000. An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII c. 1380 - c. 1509: The Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Additional - Digby, vol. 1, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, p. 94, no. 424
- Horner, P. J. 1986. The Index of Middle English Prose: A Handlist of Manuscripts containing Middle English Prose in the Digby Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 63-64
- Hudson, A. 1966. Tradition and Innovation in Some Middle English Manuscripts, The Review of English Studies, 17, 359-372, p. 26
- Hudson, A. 1969. Robert of Gloucester and the Antiquaries, 1550-1800, Notes and Queries, 214, 322-333, p. 323
- Madan, F., and Craster, H. H. 1922. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 2, part 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 75
- McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L. and Benskin, M. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: County Dictionary, 4 vols, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 4
- Wright, W. A., ed. 1887. Robert of Gloucesters Chronicle, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 86, London: HMSO