MS. Douce 120
Summary Catalogue no.: 21694
Contents
From Brennus to the Battle of Evesham (1265)
The last section up to the reign of Edward I (fols 60v-61r) appears to be an independent continuation of the text, perhaps made on the spot by the scribe (Julia Marvin, The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle: An Edition and Translation [Boydell, 2006], pp. 63-64)
A few leaves are missing from the opening
The early part of the text agrees with London, British Library, Cotton MS. Domitian A. x
The end is missing and so the text breaks off in 1307
The reign of Edward I is a prose rendering of Langtoft, but the text soon becomes a direct copying of Langtoft 'as if the writer has bored of the effort' (Marvin, The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle, p. 64)
Physical Description
Layout
1 column. Column space: 161 × 114 mm.
Hand(s)
Julia Marvin suggests that the manuscript is the work of a single scribe, making a copy in haste for personal use. The script is a current anglicana, 'with sporadic, awkward efforts at a more formal script' ('The Vitality of Anglo-Norman in Late Medieval England: The Case of the Prose Brut Chronicle' in Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England, c.1100–c.1500, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, et al. [Boydell, 2009], p. 305)
History
Provenance and Acquisition
George Neville third baron of Bergavenn of Abergavenny (d. 1535), a knight of the Garter and counsellor and friend to Henry VIII, inscribed: 'Thys boke is myn G. Bergavenny which J leve yn my chamber att London the xxjth day of October anno xjº H. viijth', i.e. 1519. The powerful Neville family also owned a fifteenth-century Middle English prose Brut, MS. Laud Misc. 733 (see Marvin, 'The Vitality of Anglo-Norman in Late Medieval England: The Case of the Prose Brut Chronicle' in Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England, c.1100–c.1500, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, et al. [Boydell, 2009], p. 308)
A note by Francis Douce (fol. 1r) states that the manuscript was 'Bought at Dr. [John] Campbell's sale, May 1776'. This manuscript was MS. 13 in Campbell's sale and Douce paid 1s. 6d for it. Bought with MS. Douce 147 Part 1, for which Douce paid 4s., it is Douce's earliest datable purchase, acquired when he was eighteen. Douce's stamp (FD) is on fol. 1r
Francis Douce, 1757–1834. A note by Henry Petrie in 1819 about the volume is on the front inside cover.
Bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1834
Record Sources
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2025-03-03: Description revised to incorporate all the information in the Summary Catalogue (1897)