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MS. Laud Misc. 550

Summary Catalogue no.: 1375

Contents

Chronicle of England (Brut Chronicle) to 1422
Language(s): Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
i (paper) + iv (parchment) + 120 + iv (parchment) + i (paper) leaves
Dimensions (binding): 258 × 192 × 42 mm.
Dimensions (leaf): 246 × 183 mm.
Foliation: Modern pencil foliation. Final endleaves foliated as fols. 121–125.

Collation

1–15(8); 1 additional folio appended to quire 15

Layout

160–162 × 100 mm.

Hand(s)

One hand, littera hybrida, in dark brown ink.

Decoration

Initial in blue with red flourishing of two lines in height on fol. 1r.

Initials in blue or red of two lines in height on fol. 1r and thereafter accompanying rubrication.

Top line flourishing throughout.

Rubrication throughout, marking new sections, with contemporary marginal numbering.

Catchworeds at the end of every quire, in the same ink and hand as the text.

Additions: Additions by various annotators.

Binding

16th-century binding with centrepiece in blind; initials S.W. on both covers.

Section of leather from earlier (contemporary?) binding pasted on inside rear board, displaying later owner's mark in black ink.

History

Origin: 15th century ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

Richard St George, 1605

William Laud, 1636.

Part of his second donation to the Bodleian, 1636.

Record Sources

Description adapted from the Quarto Catalogue (H. O. Coxe, Laudian Manuscripts, Quarto Catalogues II, repr. with corrections, 1969, from the original ed. of 1858–1885).
Quarto Catalogue, col. 397
Quarto Catalogue, p. 570
Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 59

2025-06-05: Additional data collected by Miriam Waters and Cayden Ong as part of the 'Big Data' and Medieval Manuscripts workshop held at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford on 5th June 2025. Data encoded in TEI-XML by Sebastian Dows-Miller on 9th June 2025.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2025-06-05: Additional data collected by Miriam Waters and Cayden Ong as part of the 'Big Data' and Medieval Manuscripts workshop held at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford on 5th June 2025. Data encoded in TEI-XML by Sebastian Dows-Miller on 9th June 2025.