Dublin, Trinity College, 212
| Ireland |
| Dublin |
| Trinity College |
| 212 |
| D.4.1 |
| s. xivex |
| English |
| Scribal Dialect: Gloucestershire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 369 230, LP 7190 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 196). |
A late fourteenth-century copy of the C-text of
Piers Plowman that contains a contemporary note regarding Stacy de Rokayle of Shipton under Wychwood, allegedly William Langland's father (Russell and Kane 1997, p. 14; Brooks 1951-2, pp. 141-53).
Item: 1| ff. 1r-89r |
| Piers Plowman, C text (IMEV 1459) |
| 'In a somur seson wan softe was şe soune'. |
| 'largeliche a legyon lees şe lyfe sone'. |
| 'Hic incipit visio willelim de petro plouhman'. |
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| Codex |
| Parchment |
| 260 x 175 mm |
|
Catchwords: ff. 8v; 16v; 32v; 40v; 48v; 56v; 64v; 72v; 80v; 88v.
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| Pricking: not visible. Writing space varies but c. 210 x 100/120 mm. Single columns with c. 38-41 lines. Ruling not visible. |
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One scribe writing in brown ink in an Anglicana hand. Characteristics: B-shaped w; 2-shaped r in initial position; hooked ascender on b; double compartment d; thorn; 2-shaped r in medial position; sigma s in final position; backward e; double compartment g with pointed head; hooked descender on h; double compartment a with pointed head. Body height 3mm.
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| Four-sided border on initial page constructed of a blue, thin, inner band and an outer band made up of alternate blue and red humped lines carrying short spikes. A six-line blue initial I surrounded by red penwork, including an elongated leaf on the left side of the letter, sits in the top left hand corner. However, the initial has now faded to green, as has much of the blue in the border.
Alternate blue and red paraphs until f. 2r then red paraphs until f. 3v. Six-line blue lombardic initials begin each passus. Latin words, titles, and explicits in red. Face in profile in the d of 'Hic incipit visio willelim de petro plouhman', the rubric on f. 1r.
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Not medieval. Size: 275 x 185 mm. Cover of tan leather over pasteboard with blind tooled decoration around edges. Mitred and pasted with marbled paper on front and back pastedown. No raised bands across the spine. On the back pastedown are conservation notes, 'Boards detached. Paper made to verso of last leaf removed. Endpapers repaired and sewn on. Rebacked in Harrold goat over tawed pigskin lining. Opening improved by the removal of much hard glue and decayed leather spine. Detached spine mounted. Previous endbands remain. Leather dressing. A G Cains Technical Director May 1983.' The remains of the previous spine have been glued onto the back pastedown, however this is not part of the original binding.
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| 2 modern paper flyleaves + 90 (last leaf is 13th century parchment) + 2 modern paper flyleaves. Penultimate paper flyleaf carries the inscription, 'Foliation corrected June 1964/ 90 folios'. |
| F. 89v carries ascription to Langland's authorship and details of his parentage, 'Memorandum quod Stacy de Rokayle pater willielmi de Langlond qui stacius fuit generosus & morabatur in Schiptoun qui predictus willielmus fecit librum qui vocatur Perys ploughman' (see facsimile in Kane 1965, plate 1, facing p. 32).
The last folio of this manuscript carries a fragment of the French prose Lancelot but is not integral to the book appearing rather to have been used as binding (Scattergood 1984).
F. 89v: annals relating to the years 1293 to 1349 written in the same late fourteenth-century hand as the memorandum above. F. 89v: Latin distich 'Clamitant (...) deum vox sanguinis vox Sodomorum/ Vox oppressorum mercesque retenta laborum' (cf Walther 1963, no. 2786). F. 89v: carol against changing one's servants (IMEV 294) (Dyboski 1907, p. 47; Greene 1977, No. 346).
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| Good but initial page and border faded. |
| Unknown |
| Unknown |
| Acquired by Trinity between 1688 and 1741/2. Rebound at Trinity by John Exshaw in 1741/2 (Brooks 1951). |
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, May 2004.
- Abbott, T. K. 1900. Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co, p. 29.
- Brooks, E. S. 1951-2. ‘The Piers Plowman manuscripts in Trinity College, Dublin’, The Library, 5th ser, 6, 141-153.
- Colker, M. L. 1991. Trinity College Library Dublin: Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts, Dublin: Trinity College Library Dublin by Scolar Press, pp. 403-404.
- Doyle, A. I. 1983. ‘English Books in and out of Court from Edward III to Henry VII’, in Scattergood, J. V., and Sherborne, J. W., ed, English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, London: Duckworth, pp. 163-181, p. 165, n. 4.
- Dyboski, R. ed. 1907. Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol MS 354, Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book, EETS, es, 101, London: Kegan Paul.
- Greene, R. L. 1977. The Early English Carols, 2nd edn., Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Hanna, R. 1994. ‘William Langland’, in Seymour, M. C., ed, Authors of the Middle Ages. English Writers of the Late Middle Ages, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 2-4, 25-6, 41.
- Kane, G., ed, 1965. Piers Plowman: The Evidence for Authorship, London: Athlone Press, pp. 26-33, facsimile of ff. 88v, 98v, 89r.
- Kane, G. 1988. ‘The Text’, in Alford, J. A., ed, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 175-200.
- 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.
- Russell, G. and Kane G., ed, 1997. Piers Plowman: the C version: Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-well, Do-Better and Do-Best, London: Athlone Press, p. 14.
- Samuels, M. L. 1988. ‘Dialect and Grammar’, in Alford, A. ed, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 201-221, p. 206.
- Scattergood, V. J. 1983. ‘Proverbial Verses in Trinity College Dublin MS 212’, Notes & Queries, 227. 29-43.
- Scattergood, J. V. 1984. ‘An Unrecorded Fragment of the Prose Lancelot in Trinity College Dublin, MS 212’, Medium Aevum, 53, 301-306.
- Skeat, W. W., ed, 1873. The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman secundum wit et resoun: together with Dowell, Dobet, et Dobest, by William Langland: The ‘Whitaker’ text; or Text C, EETS, os, 54, London: Trübner, 3, p. xlviii.
- Walther, Hans. 1963-7. Lateinische Sprichworter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordung, 5 vols, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck U. Ruprecht.
