St John's College MS 266
John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes (bound with printed book b.2.21)
Contents
Language(s): Middle English
Physical Description
A: Chien/Hund, resembling Briquet 3623 (Dutch and Flemish, 1475 × 1478) and Piccard XV, 3, no. 1424 (Utrecht, 1480): the principal stock, in the first seven quires and part of the eighth, thirty full sheets and one half-sheet total.
B: Chien/Hund, probably Briquet, no. 3624 (Dutch and Flemish, 1476 × 1482): part of the eighth and the ninth quires, three full sheets and one half-sheet total.
Collation
Layout
Writing area 193 × 121 mm. to the frame, with a separate leading edge gloss column about 40 mm wide. In long lines, 39 lines to the page. No prickings; bounded and ruled in red ink, the gloss column usually with brown bounds.
Hand(s)
Written in secretary. Punctuation by virgula, medial point, and a combination of both (punctuation at the caesura only). A. I. Doyle suggests that the scribe is ‘possibly’ identical with the hand responsible for Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.19, fols. 217–33, 247–51; and for Glasgow University Library MS Hunter U.3.5 (232), both with further Lydgate. If so, the scribe would have collaborated with that of Trinity College MS R.3.21, for which see Decoration below. Fully described in Ker, MMBL 3:704.
Decoration
Spaces left for capitals unfilled.
Headings, running titles (giving book number), and marginal notations of contents in red.
The volume includes illumination apart from the Lydgate: sig. a i of STC 5094 (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde) is lacking and has been replaced by a vellum leaf, with a full-page tinted drawing (listed among examples of the technique, Scott, 1:75 n. 59) of the lovers outside Troy, with Pandarus looking on.
See Kathleen L. Scott, The Mirroure of the Worlde (Oxford, 1980), 32–3 and fig. 19 (the Troilus illustration). For the general absence of illustration in Troilus MSS, see Scott, 2:182. She believes the artist may be identical with that in Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.21 (Middle English poetry and prose), a book which also belonged to Roger Thorney (2:338). See AT, no. 820 (82) and plate lv (the Troilus illustration).
In addition, all the pages in the printed books have been bounded and ruled in red ink, and painted decorative initials (gold on red and/or blue) with alternate red and blue paraphs have been supplied in the printer’s blanks. The woodcuts in STC 5083 (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) have all been painted.
Binding
Bound following copies of STC 5094 (Chaucer, Troilus; William Caxton, 1483), 5083 (Canterbury Tales; Caxton, 1483), and 17957, part 2 (John Mirk, Quattuor sermones; Caxton, 1483). Dark brown leather over bookboard, a stamped decorative lozenge in the centre of double rectangular line frame with stamped fleur-de-lis in each corner, an Oxford rebinding, s. xvii in. Sewn on four thongs. Holes for ties on both boards, a chain-staple mark in Watson’s position 6. On the spine, a red leather label with gold-stamped title ‘Chaucer by Caxton’ and flowers in each corner. The front paste-down from MS, the rear old vellum, both with College bookplates. One medieval vellum flyleaf at the rear.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Following a mark resembling a ligated ‘TR’, ‘Roger Thorney mercer of london’, above a Tudor rose (fol. i, the rear flyleaf; secretary, s. xv/xvi). For him and his supplying the MS to de Worde for copy-text, see Bone.
‘Constat Wylliam Myddelton’ (Troilus, sig. p iiii, lower margin; Tales, sig. q viv, lower margin; Sermones, sig. d viv, lower margin; MS fol. 61v); in addition, his monograms (Troilus, sig. a ij, lower margin; Tales, sig a iiij; MS fol. 1; and fol. i, the rear flyleaf). Middleton married Thorney’s widow.
The old shelfmark Arch ⟨45⟩ A 47’ (the front pastedown).
Liber Collegii Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Gulielmj Paddy Equitis Auratj olim Collegii ejusdem Conuictoris’ (Troilus, sig. a ij, upper margin).
MS 266 - the front pastedown
the front pastedown
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Ker, Paste-downs, no. 1509.
Physical Description
Layout
In double columns, each column 174 surviving × 50–55 mm. , with 9 mm between columns, in 40 or 41 surviving lines. Bounded and ruled in pencil.
Hand(s)
Written in textura, s. xiii in.
Decoration
Two-line red and green lombards, with flourishing in the other colour, at the head of each entry.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Funding of Cataloguing
Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Thompson Family Charitable Trust
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2022-11: First online publication