London, Lincoln's Inn, Hale 150
| England |
| London |
| Lincoln's Inn |
| Hale 150 |
| Misc. 29 |
| s. xvin |
| English |
| Scribal Dialect: Shropshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 330 280, LP 4037 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 233). |
A manuscript from the first quarter of the fifteenth century containing four romances and
Piers Plowman (A-text). The dimensions of the manuscript, long and narrow, have led to its description as a holster book.
Item: 1| ff. 4r-12v |
| Lybeaus Desconus (IMEV 1690) |
| 'Şow dorstest nou?t for al şy word'. |
| 'at oure nede'. |
| 'Explicit lebieus desconus'. |
Kaluza 1890; Ritson 1829, pp. 1-90.
|
Item: 2| ff. 13r-27v |
| Merlin (IMEV 1162) |
| 'He şat made wiş his hond'. |
| 'And sende ows pes in England'. |
| 'Explicit merlyn'. |
Kölbing 1890.
|
Item: 3| ff. 28r-90r |
| King Alexander (IMEV 683) |
| 'Divers is şis myddle erde'. |
| 'şat şou nadest dyred in cristenyng'. |
| 'Explicit alisaunder'. |
| Rubric in a different hand, Secretary script perhaps mid-fifteenth century. |
Smithers 1952.
|
Item: 4| ff. 90v-108v |
| The Battle of Troy (IMEV 3139) |
| 'Sythen god hade şis world wrou?t'. |
| 'no neuer schall bee noon'. |
| 'şe batayle of troye'. |
| Latin title 'Bellum Troianum' added by a later hand, English title at end of text. |
Barnicle 1927.
|
Item: 5| ff. 109r-126r |
| Piers Plowman, A-text (IMEV 1459) |
| 'In a somer seson when softe was şe sonne'. |
| Imperfect. Ends at VIII 155, illegible. |
| A-text. |
Kane 1960.
|
Item: 6| f. 126r |
| Document containing papal confirmation of indulgences |
|
|
|
| Codex |
| Parchment. Rather stiff. |
| 400 x 130 mm |
|
Originally 11 quires of 12 leaves. Catchwords ff. 25v, 37v, 49v, 61v, 73v, 85v, 87v, 108v, 121v. Collation as it survives today, quite complicated in the first and last quires: 112 (wants 1-3, 10-11); 212 (wants 1-2, 8-7, 11-12); 312; 4-1212; 1312 (only 4 leaves remaining). Manuscript rebound in 1972 and order of the leaves restored but foliation kept the same.
|
| Writing frame has been pricked with small cuts 4mm long on all four sides or star-like pricks made with a knife see ff. 49 and 50 for a comparison. Writing space of 270 x 65 mm. Single columns with c. 56 lines. Ruled in barely visible brown ink. |
|
Written by one scribe in a small Anglicana hand with cursive features such as minims traced continuously without distinction between u, n, m, and i. Dotted y throughout. The script changes in appearance although the hand seems the same, it becomes larger, taking up more writing space and becoming less carefully executed, for example ff. 38r and 109r. In Piers Plowman the scribe adopts a larger form of Anglicana, with Bastard features in the Latin text. Ink smudges are present in most parts of the manuscript, see ff. 53v and 54r for example. Characteristics: double compartment a; rounded lobe of d with a looped oblique ascender; closed 8-shaped rounded g with a little tail on the right of the head and on the right of the descender, used alternatively with another open rounded form. Oblique thick descender terminating with a thin stroke with a serif on the top of the back stroke of p, open squarish top head forming an angle at the bottom whilst turning towards the left; long r is used throughout; long s in initial and medial position; sigma s used regularly in final position and at times initially; curved back stroke terminating with a serif on the top left ş with a large rounded head, used regularly; small z-shaped ?. Script height: 2-3 mm.
|
|
Miniature of a man with a ?pastoral staff and a cross on top, perhaps a bishop? in red ink, but the lower part of the image cut away f. 27v. No other decoration apart from an initial three-line capital in green, the only one inserted at the beginning of Merlin. Other textual parts have a space with guiding letter, but no ornamental initial. Boxed catchwords and explicit with occasional tentative decorations in brown ink, eg. f. 27r.
|
|
Rebacked with brown leather on original boards with five double raised bands on a hollow spine. End papers are pasted under original end papers at both back and front. As the vellum is rather fragile, it has not been possible to repair by sewing in all cases. Size: 500 x 140 mm.
|
| ff. i + 125 + i |
|
| Wormholes and worn parchment at beginning and end, with partially turned pages and loss of text. Leaves lost at beginning and probably at the end. |
| Unknown |
| End flyleaf, f. 126 - single-sheet document containing papal confirmation of indulgences granted to the Master and Brothers of the Hospital of St. John, Beverley. This is followed by a notarial instrument of [...] Peccham, 'clericus [...]', AD 1384 (Ker 1969 p. 135). Same flyleaf - sixteenth-century ownership inscription 'Antony ffoster de Trofford'. |
| Apparently donated to Lincoln's Inn by Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of King's Bench in 1676, see Guddat-Figge (1976, p. 230). Was in the library before 1697 as it appears in the catalogue printed in that year (Barnardus 1697, vol. 2, pt. 1, 181, no. 5725). |
Catalogued and encoded: Orietta DaRold, University of Birmingham, March 2005.
- Barnardus, E. 1697. Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, II, Oxford, pt. I, 181 (no. 5725).
- Barnicle, M. E., ed. 1927. The Seege or Batayle of Troye: a Middle English metrical romance, edited from MSS. Lincoln’s Inn 150, Egerton 2862, Arundel XXII, with Harley 525 included in the Appendix, EETS, os, 172, London: Oxford University Press, 1927, Kraus Reprint 1971, pp. x-xiv, facsimile of f. 90v.
- Boffey, J., and Thompson, J. J., ‘Anthologies and Miscellanies: Production and Choice of Texts’, in Griffiths, J., and Pearsall, D., ed, Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 279-315, p. 313, n. 102.
- Doyle, A. I. 1986. ‘Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman’, in Simpson, J. and Kratzmann, G., ed, Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of George H. Russell, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, pp. 35-48, p. 37.
- Guddat-Figge, G. 1976. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances, München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, pp. 228-231.
- Hunter, J. 1838. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. London: Pickering, pp. 143-146.
- Kaluza, M., Cheshire, T., ed, 1890. Libeaus Desconus, Altenglische Bibliothek, 5, Leipzig: Reisland , p. ix.
- Kane, G. 1960. Piers Plowman: The A Version: Will’s Vision of Piers Plowman and Do-Well: An Edition in the Form of Trinity College Cambridge MS R.3.14, Corrected from Other Manuscripts, with Variant Readings, London: Athlone Press, pp. 10-11.
- Kane, G. 1988. ‘The Text’, in Alford, J. A., ed, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 175-200, p. 178.
- Ker, N. 1969. Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 3 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1.
- Kölbing, E., ed. 1890; rpt. 1968. Arthur and Merlin, Altenglische Bibliothek, 4, Leipzig: Reisland , pp. xvii.
- 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.
- Ritson, J. 1829. Ancient Songs, from the Time of King Henry the Third, to the Revolution, London: Printed for J. Johnson.
- 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. 205.
- Skeat, W. W., ed, 1867. The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman: secundum wit et resoun: together with Dowell, Dobet, et Dobest, by William Langland, edited from the ‘Vernon MS’, EETS, os, 28, London: Trübner, 1, pp. xii-xiii.
- Smithers, G. V., ed. 1952 for 1947. Kyng Alisaunder, 2 vols, EETS, os, 227, 237, London: Oxford University Press, part 2, pp. 3-4, facsimile first half f. 45v.
