Jesus College MS. 29
Chronicle, English, 1447 × 1490s; Trilingual poetic anthology, Herefordshire, 1272 × 1290s
Physical Description
Binding
Mottled calf binding executed for Thomas Wilkins, finished 9 January 1693, according to his memorandum (Hill, p. 276, who argues that the two parts were already in a single volume at this time). A pattern of three-line fillets in two rectangles, one placed inside the other, mitred at each corner, back and front. Bruce Barker-Benfield notes that two parchment stubs precede the upper and lower paper flyleaves: one has a gilt stamp from 17th-century binder’s waste, probably from a small notebook; the other is from the same book, folded over the spine. Remnants of clasps.
Rebacked in the early 20th century, with the remnants of the Wilkins spine affixed to the inside of the lower board.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Thomas Wilkins (1625/26–1699), rector of St Mary’s church, Llanvair Discoed, Monmouthshire, who attended Jesus College in 1641. Inscribed prior to the book being trimmed, fols. 1r (twice), 56r, 143v, 143b verso, 155r, 192r, 257r.
Given to Jesus College; inscribed, ‘Bibliothecae Coll. Jesu | Oxon. hoc Manuscriptum | (cum duobus alijs) | humillimè D.D.D. | Tho. Wilkins L.L.B. Rector | B.M. super Mont(em) in Agro | Glam(or)ganensi’ (fol. ii recto), with similar notes in MSS. 27 and 119. Wilkins gave these three books on 9 January 1693, according to his note in a copy of John Prise’s Historia Brytannicae defensio (1573) in the National Library of Wales, W.s. 1573(a), signed ‘Tho. Wilkins’ on the upper flyleaf, with the following note on the lower flyleaf: ‘Memorandum that on Munday (th)e 9th of January 1693 I gave three velom MSpts to Jesus College Library, & sente them up with Rees Bowen: All three new bound & claspt viz 1 One large thicke 4to, a viry necessary Canon law-book Latine 2 One other 4to being 17 of Brittish Storyes, & written for Griffydd ab Ifan(?), ab Trehaiarn of Cantref maior, now in Carmarthenshire A(nn)o D(omi)ni 1346 3 An Antient Cronicle ab A(nn)o 900 usq(ue) ad An(n)um 1444. Latine, & a Saxon-Manuscript bound with it, Being (th)e Poetry of Mr Johan of Guldeuorde now called, Gifford.’
Jesus College MS. 29, fols. 1–143b
Contents
Language(s): Latin and Middle English
Begins with book 6, chapter 4; concludes with an unidentified continuation.
A note by a college librarian labels the work ‘Chronicon Regum Angliæ ab anno 900 ad 1445’ (fol. ii verso).
The continuation was written around 1447 according to Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, ‘A Legend of Sigismund’s Visit to England’, The English Historical Review 26, no. 104 (October 1911): 750–51.
Followed by added verses on Westminster in the hand of Thomas Ragland.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Ruled in pencil, 27–35 long lines, ruled space 155 × 100 mm.
Hand(s)
Gothic cursiva antiquior.
Decoration
Three-line initials in red for new monarchs.
Rubrics break the work into sections by monarch and provide marginal headings.
History
Provenance
Sir Thomas Ragland (fl. 1563); inscribed, thys ys thomas raglandys boke | he that ste⟨leth⟩ hym salbe hangyd by a crowke | and thomas (fol. 107r; DIMEV 1896); added verse (fol. 143b recto); ‘God saue the kyng | and the quyne also | thomas’ (fol. 143b verso). His stepfather, Sir Edward Carne (died 1561), was a commissioner at the Dissolution and may have acquired the book from a religious house.
James Carne, a cousin of Thomas Ragland: inscribed in a 16th- or 17th-century hand, ‘thys ys Ihames carne ys hand record of ma(yster) thomas carne and’ (fol. 47r). Thomas Carne was the half-brother of Thomas Ragland.
Practice legal entries from the 17th century suggest continued ownership in Glamorganshire: ‘Noverint universi per presentes me Morganum Llewis de Llantrissent in Comitat. Glamorgan Arg. teneri et firmiter obligari’ (fol. 46v); ‘Whereas complaint hath been mad vnto me one of his Majesties Justices of in and for the County of Glamorgan’ (fol. 47r).
Jesus College MS. 29, fols. 144–257
Contents
Trilingual poetic anthology
Language(s): Middle English; Anglo-Norman; Latin
Transcript of the first 84 lines by Edward Lluyd in MS. Ashmole 1449, pp. 163–66.
DIMEV 2431Copied in the 17th century by Thomas Wilkins in a facsimile script. ‘In parte of a broaken leafe of this MS. I found these verses written wherby the Author may bee gues’t at.’
"Mayster Iohan eu greteþ of Guldeuorde þo. | And sendeþ eu to Seggen. þat synge nul he no. | He on þisse wise he wille enoy his song" | God Louerd of Heuene. beo vs alle among."DIMEV 3444
Blank (last page of the first quire).
Eleven lines on fol. 188v and seven lines on fol. 181r.
DIMEV 1467Eleven lines on fol. 188v and seven lines on fol. 181r.
DIMEV 1467Transcript of this and the following three items by Edward Lluyd in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS. Peniarth 120, pp. 601–17.
Long interpolated version.
Lacks lines 751–874 and 1382–1510.
Lacks lines 440–568.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Mostly ruled in pencil, in 30–32 long lines, ruled space 143 × 118 mm.
Fols. 156r–168v, 175r–178v, 195v–257v are in pencil, in two columns of 32–39 lines, ruled space 143 × 118 mm.
Hand(s)
Gothic textualis, copied in a single hand, written above top line.
Some verses were left incomplete by the scribe, finished in what Ker calls ‘an unusual current and backward-sloping hand’ written in brown ink soon after 1300. Ker, pp. xviii–xix provides a list.
Decoration
Lombardic capitals at the opening of new works with penwork decoration.
Coloured initials indicating new sections, alternating between blue and red.
Rubrics for work headings and speakers in dialogues.
History
The Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English analyses the scribe’s dialect as belonging to east Herefordshire. Based on Ker’s dating of the manuscript to the second half of the 13th century, Cartlidge, ‘The Date of The Owl and the Nightingale’, argues that the poem was written after the death of King Henry III in 1272. Hill (p. 273) hypothesizes that the manuscript’s contents are connected to the household of Richard Swinfield, bishop of Hereford 1283–1317. The manuscript is derived from an exemplar common with London, British Library, Cotton MS. Caligula A. ix and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS. Reg. lat. 1659. The only other record of a copy of The Owl and the Nightingale is in the 1400 catalogue of Titchfield Abbey (CBMLC, P6), which also held copies of Chardri’s works.
Bibliography
Additional Information
Record Sources
Description by Andrew Dunning (November 2022), with thanks to Timothy Cutts of the National Library of Wales. Previously described:
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2022-11-30: Andrew Dunning revised with consultation of original.