MS. Ashmole 59
Summary Catalogue no.: 6943
Summary Catalogue no.: 6944
Summary Catalogue no.: 6945
Composite anthology of Middle English verse and prose in two parts, partially the work of John Shirley
Physical Description
Binding
Late seventeenth-century calf binding over pasteboards, with raised sewing supports and gold-tooled laurel wreath design on spine, typical of Elias Ashmole's collection.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
The manuscript consists of three codicological units which were produced separately and later joined, and which appear to be unrelated to each other. Provenance for each part has been recorded separately, and the provenance of the composite manuscript in its current state is recorded here.
The two composite parts were likely compiled together by Elias Ashmole, who bequeathed the complete manuscript to the Ashmolean Museum in 1692, in one volume, as part of his donation of 1,100 printed books and 600 manuscripts. The first composite part was likely acquired from the poet William Brown(e) (1590-c. 1640) after his death, from whom Ashmole also acquired other manuscripts (now MS Ashmole 40 and MS Ashmole 767). It is uncertain how or where Ashmole procured the second composite part.
The manuscript was kept in the Ashmolean until 1860, when the collection was transferred to the Bodleian Library.
MS. Ashmole 59 - flyleaves (i-ii)
Contents
Language(s): Middle English and Latin
blank
John Shirley's decorative ownership inscription ‘ma ioye A Shirley’, with a crown insignia above the ‘A’. Similar ownership inscriptions appear in Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.33 and British Library, Royal MS 20 B XV.
A later hand, possibly William Brown(e), corrects ‘mireris’ to ‘leteris’. The first four lines of this verse also appear on folio 43r, along with another two lines not present here. They are also witnessed in British Library MS Additional 16165 (fol. iiiv).
This list of texts does not correspond to the contents of the manuscript. As it is written in John Shirley's hand, it was likely taken from another of Shirley's poetic anthologies and added to this manuscript in error. This confusion was likely due to the coincidence of the first and last items in the table of contents being the same as the manuscript.
A mid sixteenth-century hand notes the contents of the manuscript: ‘Certē peeces of Lydgates, Chaucers, and Gowres workes, but ye moste are Lydgates’.
Physical Description
Hand(s)
Written by John Shirley.
Erased writing visible under UV on folio i v, some with hints of rubrication. Folio ii v contains a fragment of faint writing in a later hand at the foot of the page and inverted.
History
Provenance
Analysis under UV light suggests the parchment of this bifolium may be recycled and once contained text which has now been erased.
The flyleaves contain the ownership mark and hand of John Shirley, but were likely taken from another of his manuscripts as the contents do not match those contained in the first codicological unit. The practice of surrounding a paper text block with parchment end leaves was Shirley's preferred method of construction (see British Library Additional MS 16165). No manuscripts survive which contain this collection of texts. It is unclear when this bifolium was attached to the manuscript, but it was likely before 1614.
A late fifteenth-century inscription at the top of folio ii r, now partly erased, reads ‘Iste liber datur in vadium dno David G… 1486’. This ownership cannot be ascribed to the rest of the manuscript with any certainty, as the flyleaves were taken from another manuscript which may have belonged to this name.
The hand of the poet William Brown(e) (1590-c. 1645) is seen in annotations on folio ii v; he also records his name on folio 1r: ‘Liber W. Browne’; and folio 133v: ‘W. Browne Inter. Templi, 1614’.
MS. Ashmole 59 – Part 1 (fols. 1–133) ( mid xv.)
Anthology of Middle English prose and verse, predominantly by Lydgate but also containing Chaucer, Gower, and Scogan. In the hand of John Shirley
Contents
Middle English 'Marmaduke' prose translation. Edited in Secretum secretorum: Nine English Versions, ed. M A Manzalaoui, Early English Text Society o.s. 276 (Oxford, 1977), 203-224.
IMEP IX.
Three extracts from Lydgate's Fall of Princes: II.4460-4592 (fols. 13r-15r), III.1569-1638 (fols. 15r-16v), II.2584-2639 (fols. 16v-17v). The second extract on folio 15r opens with the rubric ‘Lenvoye by Lidegate’, erroneously positioned one stanza early. The third extract on folio 16v opens with the rubric ‘þis moral Epistel sent kynge Amasias to kynge Johas made by Dann Johan Lidegate þe poete of Bury’.
Eight seven-line stanzas. Edited in English Works of John Gower, ed. George Campbell Macaulay, Early English Text Society e.s. 81, 82 (Oxford, 1900, 1901, repr. 1978), clxxiii.
Imperfect, twenty four eight-line stanzas of twenty five, missing stanza 12. The final line and explicit are written in the margin, in the same hand. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. Henry Noble MacCracken, Early English Text Society o.s. 192 (Oxford, 1934, repr. 1961), 801-8.
Nine eight-line stanzas. Edited in A.S.G. Edwards and A.W. Jenkins, ‘A Hymn to the Virgin: By Lydgate?’, Medieval Studies 35 (1973): 60-6.
Eight eight-line stanzas. Unedited.
Includes an envoy comprising six eight-line stanzas (also unedited, IMEV 928. Titled in the scribe's hand ‘Envoy to Henry VI, Life of St Edmund’ and begins on folio 23v ‘Go lytel booke be ferful qwake for drede | ffor to appere in any so heghe presence’.Imperfect, containing only four stanzas of fable VII. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 566.
Twenty one eight-line stanzas. Three stanzas of another text interpolated between stanzas 13 and 14, without break but with marginal note - see next item.
Three eight-line stanzas. Interpolated into Henry Scogan's poem Moral Ballade. Edited in A Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, in 3 vols., ed. Frederick James Furnivall, Chaucer Society 1st Series 21, 57, 58 (London, repr. 1967).
Imperfect extracts from Lydgate's Fall of Princes: II. 4593-4606, 4614-4627 (with the transposition of 4623-4624 and 4625-4627), 4624-4662, 4558-4560, 4820-4844 (with the transposition of 4840-4841 and 4842-4843).
Fifteen eight-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961),750-4.
Imperfect: fourteen eight-line stanzas of fifteen, missing stanza 8. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 780-5.
Imperfect: seven eight-line stanzas of ten, missing stanzas 5 and 8. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 662-5.
Imperfect: the first twelve lines of seventeen stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 755-9.
The perfect version of the previous text, in seventeen eight-line stanzas, with a variant copy of the first twelve lines. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 755-9.
Imperfect: the Envoy from Chaucer's Complaint of Venus is erroneously added to the end of the text (also witnessed in British Library, Harley MS 2251), to form nine eight-line stanzas plus two envoy stanzas. Each envoy stanza is titled in the margin ‘Lenvoye de ffortune’ and ‘Lenvoye by Chaucyer’. Edited in A Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, in 3 vols., ed. Frederick James Furnivall, Chaucer Society 1st Series 21, 57, 58 (London, repr. 1967).
IMEV 3661 and 3542.
The sole witness of this text, in nine eight-line stanzas. Edited in Odd Texts of the Minor Poems, in 2 vols., ed. Frederick James Furnivall, Chaucer Society 1st Series 23, 60 (London, 1868, 1880, repr. 1967), App. v-viii.
Eveven seven-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 254-60.
Seventeen eight-line stanzas. Six lines of Latin verse have been added to the end of the text, with the rubric ‘Versus philosophorum’, as a continuation of the same text. The first four lines agree with those on the flyleaf i v. The Middle English is edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 744-9.
Complete text, with the same envoy from item 17 Balade of Fortune added to the end. Eight eight-line stanzas plus envoy. Edited in A Parallel-Text Edition of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, in 3 vols., ed. Frederick James Furnivall, Chaucer Society 1st Series 21, 57, 58 (London, repr. 1967).
Eleven seven-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 130-3.
Fifteen eight-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 420-4.
Imperfect: eleven eight-line stanzas of thirteen, stanzas 8 and 10 missing. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 438-42.
Ninety couplets. Once thought to have been written by Chaucer - for this debate, see Germaine Dempster, ‘Chaucer’s ‘Wretched Engendering’ and ‘An Holy Medytacion’, Modern Philology 35:1 (1937): 27-9. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 43-8.
Twenty seven-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 304-10.
Eighteen eight-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 324-30.
Four eight-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 116-7.
Imperfect, lines 1-110 only due to the loss of a leaf. Fifteen seven-line stanzas and one five-line stanza with the beginning of the next line as a catchword,. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 608-13.
Extract from Lydgate's Fall of Princes: 31 lines, III.1608-1639.
IMEP IX.
John Shirley's bookplate in seven lines, a variant of which also appears in Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.20.
The sole witness. Twenty one seven-line stanzas - stanza 18 is repeated. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 14-18.
Sixteen seven-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 668-71.
The sole witness. Twenty three couplets. Edited in Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, ed. Carleton Fairchild Brown (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), 22-5.
The sole witness. Nine eight-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 127-9.
Eleven eight-line stanzas with refrain. Edited in Religious Lyrics of the XIV Century, ed. Brown (1924), 234-7.
The sole witness. Seventeen couplets. Edited in Peter J. Lucas, ‘The Versions by John Shirley, William Gybbe and Another of the Poem On the Virtues of the Mass: A Collation’, Notes and Queries n.s. 28 (1981): 394-8.
Prose. IMEP IX.
Five eight-line stanzas. Shirley attributes the text to an anchoress of Maunsfeld. The text has been attributed to Lidgate by Stow in BL Add.29729. Edited in Religious Lyrics of the XIV Century, ed. Brown (1924), 53-4.
Imperfect: four eight-line stanzas of five. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 297-9.
Imperfect: eight eight-line stanzas of nine. Missing stanza added on folio 134v. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. I: Religious Poems, ed. MacCracken (1911, repr. 1961), 10-12.
Nine seven-line stanzas. Edited in Max Förster, ‘Kleine Mitteilungen zur mittelenglische Lehrdichtung, VI.’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 104 (1900): 293-309.
Imperfect: three seven-line stanzas, missing the stanza on Fleumaticus. Each stanza is followed by Latin hexameter couplet. Edited in Henry Axel Person, Cambridge Middle English Lyrics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1953; rev. ed. 1962), 50-2.
One seven-line stanza, attributed to Lydgate. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 709.
Two-lines, unedited.
The sole witness. One seven-line stanza and one six-line stanza. Unedited.
The sole witness. Six couplets. A seventh is added in a later hand. Edited by Max Förster, ‘Kleinere mittelenglische texte’, Anglia 42 (1918): 145-224.
Imperfect: five of twelve couplets. Edited by Speculum Christiani, ed. Gustaf Holmstedt, Early English Text Society o.s. 182 (1933, repr. 1988), lxxiv-lxxv.
Four long lines. Edited by Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, ed. Brown (1939), 285.
The sole witness. Eight lines with couplet. Edited by Historical Poems of the XIV and XV Centuries, ed. Rossell Hope Robbins (New York: Columbia UP, 1959), 139.
The sole witness. One couplet. Unedited.
IMEV 299.5.
Eight lines. Edited in Cambridge Middle English Lyrics, ed. Person (1962), 25.
In nine parts, unedited.
Thirty seven leonine verses, each with a date. Unedited.
Fifteen seven-line stanzas. Edited in Historical Poems of the XIV and XV Centuries, ed. Robbins (1959), 3-6.
Prose. Unedited.
Imperfect: eight lines only. Edited in Walter William Skeat, ‘Merlin’s Prophecy’, Athenaeum 108 (1896): 874.
Nine lines. Unedited.
Prose. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Twenty couplets. The verse ‘Car mundus militat sub vana gloria’ is written in the margin of folio 83r. Edited in A Selection of Religious Lyrics, ed. Douglas Gray (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 89.
Prose. Unedited.
Contains the name ‘Sibille la sage’ in between prophecies. Unedited.
One hundred and sixteen seven-line stanzas. Names of the philosophers written in the margins as glosses to the text. Edited in Förster, ‘Kleine Mitteilungen zur mittelenglische Lehrdichtung, VI.’, 293-309.
Fourteen seven-line stanzas. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961), 739-44.
Prose, in thirty-eight chapters, with chapter numbers written in outer margin. Edited in The Three Kings of Cologne: An Early English Translation of the Historia Trium Regum, ed. C. Horstmann, Early English Text Society o.s. 85 (Oxford, 1886).
IMEP IX.
Prose. On folio 129v the account of the place where John is baptized is signalled with ‘C(a)p(itu)lu(m) xxxix’ as if this text is a continuation of the previous. The bottom two-thirds of the last folio (130) has been cropped with the gutter still present, but the empty space beneath the final line of this text suggests that none of the main text has been lost, but it is likely that it was once followed by a final rubric (following the pattern of Shirley's other texts). There is evidence in the gutter of further writing lower on the page, closer to the margin than the Prester John continuation. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Incomplete confessional text in prose, in a different hand and darker ink to John Shirley, also of the fifteenth century. This is the sole witness (see Joliffe, A Checklist of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance, 165-6), although this style of confessional text is commonplace. The bottom two-thirds of the page has been cropped with the loss of text, visible from the remnants of ascenders. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Prose. Begins in English and changes to Latin half way through. In a different hand, also of the fifteenth century. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Prose. In a different hand, also of the late fifteenth century. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Prose. In the same hand as the previous. Unedited.
IMEP IX.
Prose. In the same hand as item 68. Edited in English Language Notes, 13 (1975), 90.
IMEP IX.
(English verse tr. by John Lydgate and Benedict Burgh )
Imperfect, first five lines only of a prayer to Henry VI. In a different hand and ink to John Shirley, also of the fifteenth century. Possibly the hand of the annotation ‘John tatt’ (see Provenance below). Edited in Rossell Hope Robbins, Historical Poems of the XIV and XV Centuries (New York, 1959), 196.
Imperfect, one stanza of eight. The rest of this poem appears on folios 69v-70v, lacking this stanza. This extract is copied in a different hand and ink to John Shirley, also of the fifteenth century, possibly the hand of the recipes (items 69 and 70).
Unidentified verse in seven lines, heavily damaged and corrected. Fifteenth-century hand.
Prose, heavily damaged and illegible in parts. In the same hand as the recipes (items 69 and 70).
Physical Description
Collation
Some disruption to the original collation of this first part has occurred. The present system of quire numbers runs from i-xi (excluding the final quire which is not numbered), but a previous system can be seen which is now cancelled which ran from xiii-xxiii (also excluding the final quire). Margaret Connolly suggests both systems are in Shirley's hand (John Shirley (1998), 150), and that Shirley is responsible for assembling the twelve gatherings into one codicological unit (151). Catchwords are present at the end of most quires, with the exception of those missing the last leaf. The tenth quire (fols. 92-103) ends with a list of five variations of catchword, all in the same hand, with four cancelled. None match the text at the beginning of the eleventh quire.
Condition
Layout
1 column, between 29-30 lines, frame ruled only.
Hand(s)
Predominantly in one hand, John Shirley (parchment flyleaves and folios 1-130r), in a consistent secretary script of the mid fifteenth century.
A second fifteenth-century hand on folio 130v, also in a secretary script but displaying some anglicana influences.
A third hand on folio 131v, also of the fifteenth century, in a more formal anglicana script.
A fourth hand on folios 131v-132r in a scruffy secretary script of the late fifteenth-early sixteenth century.
A fifth hand on folios 132v-133r and 134r in a neat secretary script of the mid fifteenth century.
Decoration
Every text opens with a three or four line lombardic capital, in the same ink as the main text but often with added flourishes or decorations. Every initial is accompanied by a decorated cross symbol in the left margin - a design Shirley also uses in another manuscript, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.20, there referred to as a ‘lozenge feature’. In the Secreta secretorum and The Three Kings of Cologne, the same flourished lombards and cross symbols are used to mark points of textual division within the text.
The beginning of some texts are marked with the planetary symbol for Mercury, a simplified caduceus ☿, in the margin. It is unclear if these are Shirley's additions or by a later hand.
When the rubric to a text falls at the top of a page, the ascenders of the top line are flourished. The first letter of the page and some top-line ascenders in the main text are occasionally, but inconsistently, flourished.
Every text is accompanied by a running title at the top of the page in Shirley's hand.
The hand of William Brown(e) can be identified throughout in marginal annotations, often unrelated to the text. On folios ii v and 20v the phrase ‘Prayer is an worke of the’ is inverted in the lower margin. Brown(e) leaves comparable marginal annotations in MS Ashmole 40.
Annotations appear throughout in several hands. A later hand (sixteenth century?) annotates the Secreta secretorum and the Cur mundus militat in a faded light brown ink. Another late hand of a similar period highlights ‘a leson’ in Gower's Balade moral of gode counseyle on folio 17v. A seventeenth-century hand correctly identifies Chaucer's Gentillesse on folio 25r and notes that it is ‘Printed toward the end of Chaucers works’. The same hand leaves the same note on folio 37r at the beginning of Chaucer's Balade of Fortune. A fifteenth-century hand annotates ‘Wysdome the gyfte of …' on folio 83r, now trimmed.’
Erased writing on folio 14r-v, illegible under UV.
Pen trials on folios 63v-64r, 65v in a sixteenth-century hand (possibly that of John Snowe, see Provenance below). On folio 64r, possibly in the same hand, is a marginal drawing of an irregular shape with a grid pattern and containing several faces, possibly emulating a coat of arms.
A later hand has numbered the texts in red pencil, imperfectly.
History
Provenance
The first composite part and the parchment flyleaves containing the table of contents are predominantly in the hand of John Shirley, 1366?–1456. The first part was written between Shirley's death in 1456 and the death of Humfrey duke of Gloucester in Feb. 1447 (which is described on folio 57). The dating of the parchment flyleaves is unclear. Other hands appear only on folio 130v and on the paper leaves at the end of the first part.
It is possible these parts were in the possession of the Walsingham family, or one of their supporters, in the sixteenth century. A sixteenth-century hand writes ‘Fra. Walsingham memorandum remayning’ and ‘memorand’ on folio 131r, likely Sir Francis Walsingham (c.1532-1590), principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I. The same hand leaves numerous annotations on folio 133v: ‘Babington’ (likely a reference to the Babington Plot, a plan in 1586 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I which was discovered by Walsingham), ‘Actuall and criminall’, ‘Accused and condempned’, ‘Nowe sure a goodly peece of worke | desireth and thirsteth | desireth | desireth and thirs…’, ‘memorandum his’.
At some point, the manuscript was in the possession of John Stow (1525?–1605), whose hand appears on folios i r and 17v (identified by Connolly, John Shirley (1998), 150).
It is unclear when the flyleaves and first part were joined, however it was before 1614 as both contain the ownership marks and annotations of the poet William Brown(e), author of Britannia’s Pastorals (1613–16) and Oxford alumnus (matriculated 30 April 1624). His name appears on folio 1r: ‘Liber W. Browne’; and folio 133v: ‘W. Browne Inter. Templi, 1614’, and his annotations on the parchment flyleaves and throughout the text block. Browne is known to have owned other manuscripts with Lydgate and Lydgatean material, such as BodL MS Ashmole 45, BL Additional MS 34360, BL Lansdowne MS 699, Durham V ii 15, and Durham V ii 16.
The parchment flyleaves and first part likely circulated as a separate bound codex before being compiled with the second part. The final folio 134 is significantly worn and displays wormholes typical of wooden boards. A note on this folio in an early hand, possibly sixteenth-century, records that there are ‘136 1/4 folio’, which would include the parchment flyleaves and first part. Evidence of prior sewing can also be seen in the gutters of both the flyleaves and first part, and the remnants of the old threads can still be seen which run through both elements.
Several names are recorded in the margins throughout which cannot be identified with certainty. A late sixteenth-century hand records the name ‘John Snowe’ three times (folios 56v, 66v (heavily cancelled), and 69v), and the name ‘Godmershame’ on folio 90v, presumably the village of Godmersham in Kent. ‘Brother …’ inverted in the lower margin of folio 78v in a sixteenth-seventeenth century hand. The same ‘Godmersham’ inscription appears on folio 133v, now cancelled. Several names are also recorded on folio 134v: ‘Tomas Situn’ (all but the first ‘T’ now erased and only visible under UV), ‘Iste liber constat bono d(om)ino’. A now trimmed note in the corner of folio 131r reads ‘John tatt… in an early hand (perhaps fifteenth century).’
A bookseller's cypher consisting of the letter ‘v/b’ above the letter ‘m’ divided by a line, is written in the outer margin of folio ii r. Connolly suggests a date of the seventeenth century (John Shirley (1998), 166 n.13).
The manuscript was later owned by Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), who acquired other manuscripts from Brown(e).
MS. Ashmole 59 – Part 2 (xvi.)
Extracts from Lydgate's verse.
Contents
Imperfect, lacking the prologue and Books V and VI. Folio 180v begins with the title ‘Comparatio Turturio’ as if commencing another item; this is in fact lines 1-301 of chapter 26 of Book VI.
Envoy, in the same hand.
Extract - one leaf only, containing lines 1-63 of Book VI.
Imperfect, lacking stanzas 1-5 due to the loss of a leaf. Edited in The Minor Poems, Vol. II: Secular Poems, ed. MacCracken (1934, repr. 1961),835-8.
Physical Description
Collation
Condition
Layout
Folios 136r-143v: 1 column, between 25-40 lines, no ruling.
Folios 144r-184v: 1 column, between 32-39 lines, frame ruled only.
Hand(s)
The hand changes noticeably at folio 143v. The first hand is an untidy cursive secretary of the sixteenth century. This hand copies the first sixteen pages without ruling and in varying levels of size and legibility, ending at the foot of folio 143v mid-stanza. The second hand continues the stanza at the top of folio 144r, in a neater secretary script with anglicana influences. This hand is more consistent in size and writes within frame ruling.
Decoration
The first letter of stanzas in the first scribe's pages of Life of Our Lady are minimally flourished, without the use of colour.
Section titles are provided by the second scribe of Life of Our Lady interlinear in a textualis script in the same ink.
The division between books 2 and 3 of Life of Our Lady is marked with a decorative Explicit and Incipit in a textualis script with flourished ascenders and descenders, in the same ink. The second explicit of this text on folio 182r is similarly decorated.
The beginning of the extract of Fall of Princes opens with a one-line Lombardic capitol, unfilled, which extends above the stanza.
Pen trials on folios 159r and 184r-v.
History
Provenance
This second part likely circulated independently before it was bound with the first part, from evidence of prior sewing in the gutter.
There are no names or marginal annotations in this part to suggest provenance. It is likely the two parts were bound together by Ashmole, as was his practice.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2017-07-01: First online publication.