Chatsworth, Chatsworth House, Duke of Devonshire's MS
| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |

Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:Chatsworth
Repository: Chatsworth House
Idno:Duke of Devonshire's MS
AltName:
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Date and Language
Date:s. xv
Language: English
Dialect:Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 423 276, LP 65 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 244).
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Contents
A fifteenth-century copy of Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection.

Item: 1
Locus:ff. 1r-61v
Title:Scale of Perfection (IPMEP 255)
Incipit:'Gostly suster in ihesu crist i preie şe şat'.
Explicit:'of oure lorde ihesu criste be wiş şe. Amen'.
Rubric:'Explicit speculum contemplacionis'.
Bibliography:Bestul 2000; Underhill 1923.

Item: 2
Locus:ff. 62r-91v
Title:
Incipit:'For as mykel as şe'.
Explicit:'şe trewe li?t is şe perfictione of ihesu'.
Bibliography:
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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Parchment
Extent:235 x 140 mm
Collation: Unascertainable. The codex does not open fully.
Layout:Pricking: none visible. Writing space of 160 x 90 mm. Single columns with 29 lines. Frame and lines ruled in drypoint - barely visible. On some folios brown crayon visible.
Writing: Ink: brown. One scribe writing in an Anglicana Formata script with Textura for the Latin. Characteristics: single lobed a with a pointed head; B-shaped s in final position; B-shaped w with elongated ascenders; 2-shaped r in medial position; long s in initial position; v-shaped r in medial position; hooked ascender on l, and h; ş; ?. Body height: 2-3mm.
Decoration: Initial page, f. 1r: seven-line capital G in red with infill of blue penwork. Along the top and left margins are two faint blue lines extending from the capital across the folio and flanked either side by red, and blue penwork motifs forming a two-sided border. A blue trefoil leaf outlined in red extends above the capital into the left corner. Infrequent two-line red or blue lombardic capitals for other textual divisions. Red underlining. Text 2 - decoration as for initial page but with four-line initial F.
Binding: Medieval. Size: 235 x 145 mm. Cover of white leather over oak boards. Three raised bands across the spine. Fixing of cover on the boards: roughly mitred and pasted. Exterior furniture: boss on front - not original, white leather clasp - not original. Decoration: none. Boards fixed by three white leather thongs 1cm thick held in place by wooden pegs.
Foliation:ff. 91. Unfoliated.
Additions:Pen drawing of a man in medieval/tudor clothes? - flat topped shoes (f. 38v), leggings with cross ties at top, skirt, flattish/round hat.
Condition:Good
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History
Origin:Unknown
Provenance:Unknown
Acquisition:Apparently the manuscript came into the Cavendish family when William Cavendish (1720-1764), later 4th duke of Devonshire, married Charlotte Boyle in 1748. He came into the Boyle inheritance in 1753 when Charlotte's father, , 3rd earl of Burlington died. The manuscript was transferred from Compton Place to Chatsworth in 1964.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, July 2004.
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Bibliography
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