Manuscripts of the West Midlands Catalogue

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 41

Shelfmark

Country:	England
Settlement:	Oxford
Repository:�	Bodleian Library
Idno:	Ashmole 41
AltName:	SC 6921

Date and Language

Date:	s. xv1
Language:�	English
Dialect:	Part I: Scribal dialect: Staffordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 392 323, LP 243 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 237). Part II: Not analysed.

Part 1

Contents

A composite manuscript that was originally two although they are now foliated consecutively. The first manuscript contains the Prick of Conscience whilst the second contains the Chastisying of Goddes Children and some religious prose and verse texts.

Item: 1Locus:ff. 1r-130r
Title:Prick of Conscience (Main Version, IMEV 3428)
Incipit:'Monkynde is to godus will'.
Explicit:'�at for oure love on rode gan hynge. Amen'.
Colophon:None, but a sixteenth-century hand has added 'Stimulus consientie Thys boke ys I telle the', below the 'Amen' on f. 130r. Ff. 130v-133v are blank apart from an inscription by a later owner.
Bibliography:

Physical Description

Form:	Codex
Support:�	Parchment
Extent:	265 x 175 mm
Collation:	Mainly eights. Catchwords on ff. 11v, 19v, 27v, 35v, 51v, 59v, 67v, 75v, 83v, 91v, 99v, 107v, 115v, and 123v.
Layout:	Pricking mostly cropped with some visible on the tail. Writing space: 185 x 97 mm. Generous margins. Writing lines ruled in drypoint. Margins ruled in light brown crayon.
Writing:	One scribe writing in black ink in an Anglicana Formata hand. Characteristics: 2-shaped r in medial position; hooked ascenders on l and h; 8-shaped s in final position; distinctive d; double compartment a; double compartment g; B-shaped w with curved hairline extension on ascenders; ?; �.
Decoration:	Latin titles with blue paraph marks. Blue paraphs - ff. 36v, 37v, 39r, 40v, 41r, 54v; alternate blue and red paraphs - ff. 105v, 106r-v; nota bene, hand - ff. 2v, 19r, 20v, 29v, 30r. Ff. 1v, 20r, 33r, 56v, 84r, 99v: well executed four-and five-line gold initials on a rose and blue ground with bar-and-band extensions with serrated edges, forming a one or two-sided border. Outlined in black. The bar extensions carry daisy bud motifs on a short stem. Daisy buds have a green calyx, pink tips with white hatching. Bottom of the bar gives way to delicate feathering in black pen with alternate blue and rose balls or delicate feathering in black pen with alternate blue and rose pairs of leaves highlighted with white lines. Some feathering carries daisy bud motifs. Later drawings: Flower with three petals (f. 21r) and a cross (f. 21v).
Binding:	Not medieval. Size: 275 x 175 mm. Covered in brown leather mounted in pasteboard; mitred and pasted. Four raised bands across the spine. Gold tooled laurel wreath on front cover with a quartered shield within a fleur-de-lys in top left quadrant. No exterior furniture.
Foliation:	Parts I and II: vii + 160 + v folios (with the leaf between folio 2 and 3 unfoliated). The leaves have modern pencil foliation. There are seven flyleaves at the beginning, with five modern paper flyleaves and two original parchment flyleaves. The leaf between ff. 2-3 is unfoliated. Part I extends to 133 folios with the remainder being the second part. They are numbered consecutively. One leaf lost between ff. 9 and 10.
Additions:	F. 1r - a sixteenth-century hand has added 'Stimulus consientie thys boke ys namyd I tel the' in the top margin of f. 1r. F. 130r - the same hand has added 'Stimulus consientie Thys boke ys I telle the' below the 'Amen'. Pen trials - ff. 52r (name?), 57r, 61r, 62r (fifteenth-century name?), 130v, 131r.
Condition:

History

Sixteenth century: f. 131r - ' ys oner of this boke and so _____ _____ will say the contrary _____ _____ of god almity William Hidge will not say the contrary'. The A of 'Antony' is an elaborate cadel. The date of 1567 is recorded.

Provenance:

Part 2

Contents

Item: 1Locus:f. 135r-v
Title:Short tract on reason, will, and mind.
Incipit:'Iche crysten sowle hath �re myghtes resoun wylle myende resoun was geuen to knowe god'.
Explicit:'also to be in god be excesse of thowth so �at a man for?ete hymself and alle erthely thynggys and rest in hys god whytowtyn ymagynacyouns and renand thowghtes'.
Bibliography:

Item: 2

Locus:	f. 135v
Title:	Counsels for religious
Incipit:	'Be deuoute in god and tempere �yn herte whythyn als mykyl as �ou may bow mekely'.
Explicit:	'haate monye loue pouerte ffle women haue pyte of dyssesyd be chast in all and �u schalt be saf'.
Bibliography:

Item: 3

Locus:	f. 135v
Title:	�e Reule of �e Liif of Oure Lady (IPMEP 22)
Incipit:	'Abowte �e gloryouse mayden of wham owr lord ihesu cryst took flesshe and blood'.
Explicit:	'for so�e �at sowle ha� no profyt vertu �at louyth nowt god whyth alle hys herte and of �ys loue comyth alle fulnes of grace'.
Bibliography:

Item: 4.1

Locus:	ff. 136r-137v
Title:	Table of Contents
Incipit:	'These ben �e titles of �is bok folwyng'.
Explicit:	'Recapitulacion of all �ese matters to fore and of some maner of prayers'.
Note:	Lists 27 chapters for the following text.
Bibliography:

Item: 4.2

Locus:	ff. 137v-159v
Title:	Chastising of Goddes Children (IMPEP 343)
Incipit:	'In drede of almytty god religious suster a short pistil i sende ?ow of the mater of temptacions'.
Explicit:	'a man shal �inke on his owne strengthe �at he hath be �e ?ifte of god'.
Bibliography:

Item: 6

Locus:	f. 134r-v
Title:	Poem on the Passion (IMEV 3719.5)
Incipit:	'Throw hys hond wyth hammur knak �ai mad a gresely wound'.
Explicit:	'marie & cristes passionne vs help [stained] a sorow. Amen'.
Note:	Latter portion of the poem only.
Bibliography:

Item: 7

Locus:	f. 136r
Title:	Song of Love to Jesus (IMEV 1781)
Incipit:	'To ?eld hym hys lufe haue I ne myght'.
Explicit:	'withowtyn ende'.
Note:	Verses 1-92 wanting.
Bibliography:

Physical Description

Form:	Codex
Support:�	Parchment - thick and dark.
Extent:	250 x 180 mm
Collation:
Layout:	Writing space of c. 190 x 120 mm. Single columns.
Writing:	Cursive. Characteristics: small neat script; 2-shaped r in medial position; B-shaped s in final position; double compartment g with diamond-shaped bowls; single compartment a with pointed head in medial position; second stroke of r detached and diamond-shaped; long s in initial position.
Decoration:	Red rubrics underlining, paraphs. Alternate red and blue one-line blue initials for item 4.1. Two-line blue initials with red penwork flourishing into margins. Six-line blue initials with red penwork flourishing.
Binding:	As above.
Foliation:	Foliated consecutively with Part I. See above.
Additions:
Condition:

Record History

Catalogued and encoded in July 2003, Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham.

Related Manuscripts Textual Textually related through Prick of Conscience: London, British Library, MS Additional 22283; London, British Library, MS Harley 1205; London, British Library, MS Lansdowne 348; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet. a. 1; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. C. 319; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. poet. 139; Chicago, Illinois, Newberry Library, MS 33; Holkham Hall, Wells, Norfolk, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668; London, College of Arms, MS 57; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS English 50; New Haven, Yale University Library, MS Osborn a 13; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 156; Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16A (D 16A); and Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (D16A) (Lewis and McIntosh 1982, p. 93). Decorative Not dissimilar to some border work in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet a.1 (Doyle 1987, p. 7).

Bibliography

Black, W. H. 1845. A Descriptive, Analytical and Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts Bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole, Oxford: Oxford University Press, cols. 62-63.

Doyle, A. I., intro, 1987. The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet. a.1, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, p. 7, p. 8, repro. of f. 33v.

Eljenholm-Nichols, A., Orr, M. T., Scott, K. L., and Dennison, L., ed, 2000. An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII c. 1380 - c. 1509: The Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Additional - Digby, vol. 1, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, p. 33, no. 18.

Eldredge, L. M. 1992. The Index of Middle English Prose in the Ashmole Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Handlist IX, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, p. 2.

Lewis, R. E. 1981. ‘The Relationship of the Vernon and Simeon Texts of the Pricke of Conscience’, in Benskin, M. and Samuels, M. L., ed, So Meny People Longages and Tonges: Philological Essays on Scots and Mediaeval English Presented to Angus McIntosh, Edinburgh: Middle English Dialect Project, pp. 251-264, pp. 255, 257, 259, and nn. 14, 16, 17, 19.

Lewis, R. E., and McIntosh, A. 1982. A Descriptive Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience, Medium Aevum Monographs 12, Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures, pp. 92-93.

Madan, F., Craster, H. H., and Denholm-Young, N. 1937. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 2, part 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 1123.

McIntosh, A. 1976. ‘Two Unnoticed Interpolations in Four Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 77, 63-78, 77, 63-78 (pp. 69 and 69, n. 1).

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.

Morris, R. ed, 1863. Richard Rolle of Hampole, The Pricke of Conscience (Stimulus Conscientiae), Berlin: Asher.

P�cht, O., and Alexander, J. J. G. 1973. Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol., 3, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 85, no. 977.

Warton, T. 1824. The History of English Poetry from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century, new edition, 2 vols, London: Thomas Tegg, pp. 91-96, and 91.

Warton, Thomas. 1871, rpt. 1970. History of English Poetry from the Twelfth to the Close of the Sixteenth Century, London: Reeves and Turner, rpt. New York: Haskell House Publishers, pp. 239-243.

Waters, S. 1976. ‘The Pricke of Conscience: The Southern Recension, Book V’, University of Edinburgh, Ph.D thesis, pp. 3-4, 22.

Locus:	ff. 1r-130r
Title:	Prick of Conscience (Main Version, IMEV 3428)
Incipit:	'Monkynde is to godus will'.
Explicit:	'�at for oure love on rode gan hynge. Amen'.
Colophon:	None, but a sixteenth-century hand has added 'Stimulus consientie Thys boke ys I telle the', below the 'Amen' on f. 130r. Ff. 130v-133v are blank apart from an inscription by a later owner.
Bibliography:

Locus:	f. 135r-v
Title:	Short tract on reason, will, and mind.
Incipit:	'Iche crysten sowle hath �re myghtes resoun wylle myende resoun was geuen to knowe god'.
Explicit:	'also to be in god be excesse of thowth so �at a man for?ete hymself and alle erthely thynggys and rest in hys god whytowtyn ymagynacyouns and renand thowghtes'.
Bibliography: