Manuscripts of the West Midlands Catalogue

London, British Library, Additional 59678

| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |

Country:	England
Settlement:	London
Repository:�	British Library
Idno:	Additional 59678
AltName:	Winchester College, MS 13

Date and Language

Date:	s. xvex
Language:�	English
Dialect:	Scribe 1: Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 439 286, LP 699 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 244). Scribe 2: Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped but McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin note that the language is 'very similar in language to Hand A' (1986, p. 246).

A late fifteenth-century copy (1480-1483, Hellinga 1981, p. 134) of Malory's Morte d'Arthur thought to have been written in London by two West Midlands scribes.

Locus:	ff. 9r-484v
Title:	Morte d'Arthur
Incipit:	'...kyng arthur and his courte and to helpe hym in hys warrys that he wolde be sworne unto them to helpe hem in theire wirrys agaynst kinge claudis'.
Explicit:	'i had done so at that tyme with my harte wylle and thou?t i had passed all the kny?t that euer were in the sankgreall'.
Bibliography:	Ed. by Vinaver 1967; Shepherd 2004.

Physical Description

Form:	Codex
Support:�	Paper. The paper is French in origin. Copies of the watermarks are printed in facsimile in Kelliher (1981, p. 157) where they can be seen to be of three distinct types: 1 - Arms of France with pendant, found on ff. 9-44, 197-220, 229-36, 325-39, 349-96, and 437-52; 2 - Gothic letter P, resembles Briquet's no. 8861 and is found on ff. 45-92 and 277-300; 3 - Arms of France without pendant, resembles Briquet's no. 1865 and is found on ff. 93-196, 221-8, 237-76, 301-24, 340-48, 397-436, 453-84.
Extent:	287 x 205 mm
Collation:	Collation as it survives today: 1-28, 38 (wants 8 after f. 31), 48 (wants 1 before f. 34), 56 (wants 5, 6, blanks, after f. 44), 6-308, 318 (wants 8 after f. 251), 32-60 8. Catchwords ff. 16v, 24v, 40v, 52v, 60v, 68v, 77v, 84v, 94v, 100v, 108v, 116v, 124v, 132v, 140v, 148v, 156v, 164v, 172v, 180v, 188v, 198v, 205v, 212v, 221v, 228v, 236v, 245v, 260v, 268v, 284v, 292v, 300v, 308v, 316v, 324v, 332v, 340v, 356v, 364v, 372v, 380v, 388v, 396v, 404v, 412v, 411v, 428v, 436v, 443v, 452v, 460v, 468v, 476v, 484v.
Layout:	Pricking visible at the four edges to rule the frame. Writing space of 185/190 x 135 mm with single columns and 28-33 lines. Frame ruled in brown ink. There is some evidence of ruling (contra Ker 1976, p. xii) i.e. small pricking marks along the outside edge of the margin roughly 5 mm apart in quire 3, 4. In quires 6-9 lines seem to have been ruled in lead or brown crayon/ink (e.g. ff. 347-348).
Writing:	Scribe 1 : ff. 9r-44v, 191r-229r, 349r-484v. Characteristics: Anglicana with Secretary influences. See Ker for a description of the script (1976, pp. xv-xvi). This scribe is thought to be the main copyist and supervisor. Scribe 2: ff. 45r-191r, 229v-346r. Characteristics: Secretary. See Ker for a description of the script (1976, pp. xv-xvi).
Decoration:	Two/three-line capitals in red. One three-line capital in blue with red penwork on f. 349r. One five-line initial in red with brown penwork on f. 71r and a similar one on f. 409v. Rubrication for all personal names, some place names and marginal headings (see Ker 1976, p. xviii-xix for more details).
Binding:	Not medieval. Rebound by Roger Powell in 1948 using white pigskin. An example of the earlier red sheepskin binding, c. 1800 is now f. iv.
Foliation:	iv + ff. 473 (foliated as 9-31, 34-251, 253-484, in Oakeshott's hand) + iv.
Additions:	An indulgence printed by Caxton in 1489 was used to repair f. 243. This fragment, 70 x 59 mm, is now mounted in perspex in a compartment of the box used to house the manuscript (see Duff 1917, no. 212).
Condition:	Paper at times torn and some folios at the beginning and end of the quires are quite dirty. Missing leaves indicated by stubs of paper.

Origin:	Thought to have been written in London by West Midland scribes.
Provenance:	Written three times on f. 348r is 'Richarde Followell' or 'Follwell' (see Ker 1976, pp. xx-xxi, and Kelliher 1981). Due to the presence of offset from Caxton's types 2 and 4 on ff. 159, 186v, 187 and 407 it is thought that the manuscript passed through his hands (Hellinga 1981) and that due to the date of an indulgence used to repair f. 243 of the folios that the manuscript remained in his hands until at least 1489. For further details of provenance see Kelliher 1981.
Acquisition:	Acquired by the British Library in 1976.

Catalogued and encoded: Orietta DaRold University of Birmingham, March 2005.

http://searcharchives.bl.uk.

Beal, P. 1980. ‘Sir Thomas Malory’, in Croft, P. J., Hofman, T., and Horden, J., ed, Index of English Literary Manuscripts: 1450-1625, London: Mansell; New York: Bowker, I, pt 2, pp. 323-324.

Cooper, H., 2000. ‘Opening up the Malory Manuscript’, Wheeler, B., Kindrick, R. L., and Salda, M. N., ed, The Malory Debate: Essays on the Texts of Le Morte Darthur, Arthurian Studies, 47, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 255-284.

Duff, E. G. 1917. Fifteenth-Century English Books: a bibliography of books and documents printed in England and of books for the English market printed abroad, Bibliographical Society Illustrated Monographs 18, Oxford: Oxford University Press, no. 212.

Evans, M. J. 1983. ‘The Two Scribes in the Winchester MS: The Ninth Explicit and Malory’s Hoole Book’, Manuscripta, 27, 38-44.

Field, P. J. C. 1990. ‘Note to the Third Edition’, in Vinaver, E., ed, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 3rd edn, rev. by P. J. C. Field, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1747-1768.

Field, P. J. C. 1993. ‘The Earliest Texts of Malory’s Morte Darthur’, Poetica, 38, 18-31.

Field, P. J. C. 1993. ‘Hunting, Hawking, and Textual Criticism in Malory’s Morte Darthur’, in Suzuki T., and Mukai T., ed, Arthurian and Other Studies Presented to Shunichi Noguchi, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 95-105.

Field, P. J. C. 1998. ‘The Choice of Texts’, in Field P. J. C., ed, Malory: Texts and Sources, Arthurian Studies, 40, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 14-26 .

Field, P. J. C. 2001. ‘Malory’s own marginalia’, Medium Aevum, 70 (2), 226-239.

Field, P. J. C. 2004. ‘Malory and his Scribes’, Arthuriana, 14.1, 1-12.

Fish, J. L., and Hanks, D. T. 1997. ‘Beside the Point: Medieval Meanings vs. Modern Imposition in Editing Malory’s Morte Darthur’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 3rd series, 98, 273-289.

Hellinga, L. 1981. ‘The Malory Manuscript and Caxton’, in Takamiya, T. and Brewer, D., Aspects of Malory, Arthurian Studies, 1, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 127-41 and 220-21.

Holbrook, S. 2000. ‘On the Attractions of the Malory Incunable and the Malory Manuscript’, in Wheeler, W., Kindrick, R. L., and Salda, M. N., ed, The Malory Debate: Essays on the Texts of ‘Le Morte Darthur’, Arthurian Studies, 47, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 323-365.

Kato, T. 1993. ‘Some Scribal Differences in Malory’, in Suzuki T., and Mukai, T., ed, Arthurian and Other Studies Presented to Shunichi Noguchi, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 189-199.

Kato, T. 2004. ‘Mistakes and Scribal Corrections in the Winchester Manuscript: Textual Studies of Malory’s Morte Darthur’, University of Wales, PhD thesis.

Kelliher, H. 1981. ‘The Early History of the Malory Manuscript’, in Takamiya, T. and Brewer, D., Aspects of Malory, Arthurian Studies, 1, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 143-158 and 222-25.

Ker, N., ed. 1976. The Winchester Malory, EETS, ss, 4, London: Oxford University Press, pp. ix-xxii.

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.

Meale, C. M. 1985. ‘Manuscripts, Readers and Patrons in Fifteenth-Century England: Sir Thomas Malory and Arthurian Romance’ in Barber, R. ed, Arthurian Literature, 4, Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, pp. 93-126.

Oakeshott, W. F. 1934. ‘The Text of Malory’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 September.

Oakeshott, W. F. 1963. ‘The Finding of the Manuscript’, in Bennett, J. A. W. ed, Essays on Malory, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1-6.

Oakeshott, W. F. 1977. ‘The Matter of Malory’, Times Literary Supplement, 18 February, p. 193 .

Petti, A. G. 1977. English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden, London: E. Arnold , p. 13, facsimile f. 45r.

Shepherd, S. H. A., ed, 2004. Le Morte Darthur, Norton Critical Editions, New York: Norton.

Vinaver, E. 1935. ‘Malory’s Morte Darthur in the Light of a Recent Discovery’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 69, 438-475.

Vinaver, E., ed, 1967. Malory‘s Le Morte D’arthur, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Vinaver, E. 1976. ‘Principles of Textual Emendation’, in Kleinhenz, C. ed, Medieval Manuscripts and Textual Criticism, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures Symposia, 4, Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, UNC Department of Romance Languages, pp. 139-166.

Vinaver, E. ed, 1990. Introduction to The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 3rd edn, rev. by P. J. C. Field, 3 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. xix-cxxvi.

Wilson, R. H., 1972. ‘Malory and Caxton’, in Hartung A. E., A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, 10 vols, New Haven, Connecticut: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 3, pp. 757-807 and 909-951.

Yeats-Edwards, P. 2000. ‘The Winchester Malory Manuscript: An Attempted History’, in Wheeler, B., Kindrick, R. L., and Michael N. Salda, M. N., ed, The Malory Debate: Essays on the Texts of ‘Le Morte Darthur’, Arthurian Studies, 47, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 367-389.