Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 96
| England |
| Oxford |
| Bodleian Library |
| Hatton 96 |
| SC 4124 |
| s. xvex |
| English |
| Scribe of ff. 8v (line 18) to 9r (line 10), 209v-212v, 244v-245v - Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin, 1986, p. 246). Scribe of ff. 28r-29r, 92v-96v, 99r to 102r (line 9), 110r (line 3) to 132v (line 13), 165v to 168v (line 4); 199v-202r, 219r-243v - Scribal Dialect: Shropshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 357 282, LP 704 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 233). Scribe of ff. 162r-165r, 169r to 174r (line 19) - Scribal Dialect: Staffordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 387 316, LP 529 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 238). Scribe of f. 137r-v - Scribal Dialect: W. central Staffs. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 239). Scribe of f. 302r (line 1) to 302r (line 15) - Scribal Dialect: N Staffs. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 239). However, McIntosh and Wakelin (1982, pp. 443-445) suggest the following scribal divisions: 'Hand A: ff. 4r-133r, 137r-212v, 219r-260v, 302r-305r'. 'Hand B: 135r-137r'. 'Hand C: 213r-218v'. 'Hand D: 262r-302r'. 'Hand E: 301v-301v end'.
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A late fifteenth-century manuscript containing the
Festial and sermons. The manuscript is written by five scribes although the texts written by Scribe 1 are in sixteen distinct varieties of Middle English. In total there are nineteen varieties of Middle English in the manuscript, as discerned by McIntosh and Wakelin (1982, p. 447). A detailed description of the contents of this manuscript can be found in McIntosh and Wakelin (1982, pp. 443-445).
Item: 1| ff. 3r-6v |
| Festial: Sermon for Christmas Day |
| 'As this day holy church syngeth & redyth & makyth melody'. |
| '& went to heuyn'. |
| Sermon for Christmas Day. |
Erbe 1905.
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Item: 2| ff. 6v-8v |
| Latin Homilies for Christmas and Advent |
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Item: 3| ff. 8v-92r |
| Collection of short homilies |
| 'Such a day ?e schall haue the fest of the burth of oure lord crist ihesus'. |
| 'blis god bryng yow and me şat for vs died on rode tre amen'. |
| Contains the lives of Saints Wulfstan (f. 16) and Oswald (f. 27v) suggesting that the collection was composed in Worcester diocese. The collection ends with a sermon 'in die sancti augustini hipponensis'. |
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Item: 4| ff. 92v-305r |
| Festial (IPMEP 734) |
| 'Goode men & wymmen'. |
| 'may be partners to şe blisse & he bow?t vs to amen'. |
| Interpolated with Latin homilies and other non-Mirk material. Also includes On the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin in Heaven (IMEV 462). |
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| Codex |
| Paper except for ff. 3 and 9. |
| 200 x 140 mm |
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Unable to ascertain. Intermittent catchwords.
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| Pricking: none visible. Writing space of 150 x 100 mm. Single columns with c. 21 lines. Frame ruled in leadpoint?/faint grey lines. |
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Scribe 1 responsible for ff. 4r-133r, 137r-212v, 219r-260v, 302r-305r writing in an Anglicana hand mixed with Secretary features, otiose hairlines at the end of descenders. Characteristics: single compartment and double compartment a; double compartment a; long
s in initial and medial position, but only small rounded s in final position; rounded 8-shaped g; short r and z-shaped r, this last form in conjunction with o in particular; closed looped w. Body height:
2 mm.
Scribe 2 responsible for ff. 135r-137r. Hasty Secretary hand with a great degree of cursiveness and smudges of ink between the thick ascenders. Characteristics: single and double compartment a; long s used in medial and initial position; rounded s in final position; two strokes open w; rounded open lower loop g. Body height: 1.5-2 mm.
Scribe 3 responsible for ff. 213r-218v. Anglicana with Secretary influences. Thick backstrokes and in general ascenders and descenders, prolonged hairline in particular at the end of descenders. Characteristics: single compartment a; general use of long s; rounded small s in particular in final position; w constructed of a single backstroke whose ascender turns into a looped descender closing onto the backstroke passing below the level of writing from the right to the left; short r; rounded closed g; regular use of ?. Body height: 1-1.5 mm.
Scribe 4 responsible for ff. 262r-302r. Small Secretary script with prolonged descenders, extensive use of downward strokes extending into hairlines, but still retains influences from the gothic script. Characteristics: single compartment a of squarish proportion; long, short and z-shaped r used regularly; alternating of closed diamond-shaped and flat-topped g; long s used in initial and medial position and rounded s in final position; ş used regularly. Body height: 1.5 mm.
Scribe 5 responsible for ff. 301v-end. Thick strokes, but small Anglicana with Textura influences. Characteristics: double and single compartment a; long and short s used regularly, the latter in final position; rounded almost open-headed g; ; open w constructed of open strokes alternating with a double-looped form; z-shaped r. Body height: 2 mm.
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| None. Spaces have been left for large initial letters but these have not been filled.
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Not medieval: eighteenth/nineteenth century. Size: 215 x 145 mm. Cover of brown leather mitred and pasted over pasteboard with blind tooled double rows on edges and central rectangle of 3 rows and leaf design at corners. No bands across the spine.
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| ff. 307 |
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| Good |
| Unknown |
| On f. 28 is a note of the banns of Richard Wynyard and . On f. 256v is an entry of the death of , BA, curate of a church dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul (Wakelin 1967, p. 106). Thought to have been owned by a cleric (O'Mara 1987, p. 219). |
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, March 2004.
- Dennison, L., Driver, M. W., Eljenholm Nichols, A., and Scott, K. L. ed, 2001. An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII c. 1380-c.1509: Fascicle 2, MSS Dodsworth-Marshall, London, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, p. 59, no. 560.
- Erbe, T., ed. 1905. Mirk’s Festial: A Collection of Homilies by Johannes Mirkus, John Mirk edited from Bodl. MS. Gough Eccl. Top. 4, with variant readings from other MSS, EETS, es, 96, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
- Fletcher, A. J. 1976. ‘Death Lyrics from Two Fifteenth-Century Sermon Manuscripts’, Notes & Queries, 221, 341-342.
- McIntosh, A., and Wakelin, M. F. 1982. ‘John Mirk’s Festial and Bodleian MS Hatton 96’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 83, 443-450.
- 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.
- Madan, F., Craster, H. H., and Denholm-Young, N. 1937. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 2, part 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 853.
- O’Mara, V. M. 1987. ‘A Study of Unedited Late Middle English Sermons that Occur Singly or in Small Groups with an Edition of Selected Sermons’, University of Leeds, PhD thesis, pp. 217-220.
- Wakelin, M. F. 1967. ‘The Manuscripts of John Mirk’s Festial’, Leeds Studies in English, 1, 93-118, p. 106.
