Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108

| Shelfmark | Date and Language |
Part 1: | Contents | Physical Description |
Part 2: | Contents | Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |


Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:Oxford
Repository: Bodleian Library
Idno:Laud Misc. 108
AltName:SC 1486
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Date and Language
Date:s. xiii/xiv with s. xv additions.
Language: English
Dialect:Scribal Dialect, ff. 228v to end (237v): Gloucestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped, McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin comment that the 'language is mixed, and suggests a western (probably Gloucs) original, with an East Anglian overlay' (1986, p. 198).
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Part 1

Contents
Composite manuscript of religious vernacular material bound together since the fifteenth century. Part I contains the South English Legendary but has not been analysed in the Linguistic Atlas. Part II contains two 'matter of England' romances, Havelok the Dane and King Horn as well as the lives of St. Blase and St. Cecilia and various pious texts. Only these saints' lives have been linguistically analysed. Guddat-Figge suggests that the two parts were bound together by an earlier owner who mistook the romances in Part 2 as saints' legends. Owing to viewing restrictions the manuscript has not been consulted. Rubrics, incipits, and explicits have been taken from various editions.
































































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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Parchment
Extent:270 x 180 mm
Collation:According to Görlach, '114 (1, 3-4 lost, 5 mutilated), 212, 310 (9 mutilated), 4-912, 1012 (2-3 lost after f. 104), 1112 (2 lost after f. 114), 12-1412, 1512 (8 mutilated), 1612 (12 lost), 1712, 1812 (8, 12 cancelled), 1912 (8 lost after f. 211), 2012, 216 (6 cancelled at end), 226 (sewn on to the preceding quire), 231'. Only a few catchwords. A further detailed collation is in Watson 1970, pp. 172-174.
Layout:Pricking visible. Single and double columns. Scribes 1 and 3 - 45 lines; Scribe 2 - 38-39 lines; Scribe 5 - 44-45 lines. Ruled with margins marked.
Writing: Scribe 1: ff. 1r-200r - a roughly contemporary Anglicana book hand. Scribe 2: ff. 200v-203v - a roughly contemporary Anglicana book hand.
Decoration: Paragraph marks, alternately red and blue in the South English Legendary. Two-line blue initials with red pen-work flourishes in the South English Legendary. First letter of lines detached to form a border and touched with red.
Binding:Unseen
Foliation:ff. 238, defective at beginning.
Additions:
Condition:There are a few leaves missing at the beginning of Part 1 but otherwise the manuscript is in good condition.
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Part 2

Contents










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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: 
Extent: x
Collation:Unable to examine manuscript.
Layout:Unable to examine manuscript.
Writing: Scribe 1: ff. 204r-228r - a roughly contemporary Anglicana book hand. Scribe 2: ff. 228v-237v - a later unattractive cursive. Scribe 3: ff. 238r-238v - later unattractive cursive. Scribe 4: ff. 238v - a later unattractive cursive.
Decoration: Two-line blue initials with red pen-work flourishes in Havelok the Dane.
Binding: Unable to examine manuscript.
Foliation:
Additions:F. 238r-v - Items 7, 8, and 9, Biblical Sentences, On Deceit, and Moral Precepts have been added by a fifteenth-century hand.
Condition:
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History
Origin:Unknown
Provenance:F. 338b: 'Iste liber constat Testantibus presbiteri et alijs'.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, July 2003. Unable to examine manuscript owing to viewing restrictions. Described with reference to Guddat-Figge (1976, pp. 282-284). Rubrics, incipits, and explicits based on various editions.
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Bibliography
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