MS. Douce 156
Summary Catalogue no.: 21730
Contents
Physical Description
Condition
Hand(s)
Anglicana Formata.
The primary scribe of MS. Douce 156 is the same as the second scribe of Oxford, Trinity College MS 16B (Helen Marshall, 'Literary Codicologies: The Conditions of Middle English Literary Production, c. 1280-1415', [PhD thesis, University of Kent, 2014], pp. 208-219). In addition, Helen Marshall posits that Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B was written first and that the scribe used this as their exemplar for the text of MS. Douce 156 ('Literary Codicologies', p. 216-219). A further instance of this scribe's work can be found in Holkham Hall, MS 668 (Simon Horobin, 'Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript', in The Making of the Vernon Manuscript [2013], p. 46)
Decoration
Pächt and Alexander iii. 708
Good border (damaged)
Blue initials with red flourished penwork for minor divisions in the text as well as several larger initials which mark the opening of each book, in gold leaf on blue and crimson grounds decorated with white vinework with, typically, triplets of barbed coloured balls, also in crimson and blue. The majority of these have been excised (Marshall,'Literary Codicologies', p. 213)
History
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2024-08-23: Description revised to incorporate all the information in the Summary Catalogue (1897)