MS. Lyell 13

Followed by a list of contents with arabic numbers in red, apparently added by a later hand, which has also written the numbers of the items at the top right of each recto.

Chapters 48, 52, 64, 66, 71, 168 of the edition by T. Graesse (Leipzig, 1850) are omitted and his chap. 126-40 are in the order: 126, 130, 127–9, 131, 134-8, 132, 139, 133, 140.

In the margin of the life of Becket (fol. 21v) the scribe added: 'Willelmus Tracy Reginaldus filius Ursi. / Ricardus Brito necnon Morvilius Hugo. / Thomam martirium fecere subire beatum'. In Cambridge, Trinity Coll. B. 16. 36, 14th cent., flyleaf; see also MS. Ashmole 361, 14th cent., p. 2. 4 lines; cf. Walther, Initia, no. 16802, and Extracta ex Cronicis Scocie, ed. Turnbull (Abbotsford Club 23), 1842, p. 77 (in MS Lyell 39, fol. 56).

Consists largely of extracts from the life attributed to Eustace of Faversham, pr. C. H. Lawrence, St. Edmund of Abingdon, Oxford, 1960, pp. 203-21, with interpolations from the life called 'Anonymous B.' (see Lawrence pp. 61-3; pr. W. Wallace, Life of St. Edmund of Canterbury, London, 1893, pp. 614-24), notably the three miraculous episodes (see Lawrence, p. 62) and the passage at the end about miracles after St. Edmund's death.

The story of abbot Elsinus, who is here described only as abbot of Ramsey, as in William of Malmesbury (see R. W. Southern, ‘The English origins of the "Miracles of the Virgin", Med. and Ren. Studies 4 (1958), 194-8, 200-1), but it is not William's version. The rest of fol. 255vb and fol. 256 are blank.

Without the preface. There are eight tables, the first being 'Salutaciones ad summum pontificem' and the last (fol. 263v) 'Lictere remisse ad quoscumque maiores sive minores' ends (fol. 264v) with a series of valedictions, the last being: Vivat et valeat vestra sanitas vel dominacio vel paternitas per temporum curricula longiorum.

This is followed by verses:

On this work see Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre II/2, pp. 260-1. The number of tables varies between 7 as in Munich clm. 7021 and 8 as in Vienna 577. MSS. Laud Misc. 402, St. John's College, Oxford, 172, Aberdeen University 260 and the Bloxham School MS., s.n., fol. 7-17, also have eight tables. In the three latter MSS. the work ends with the same verses as in our MS.

There are a few marginalia including: a (fol. 99) 14th-15th cent.: Cantabra frumenti sunt purgamenta vocata. / Nec non farine sic sunt epuleque canine; b (fol. 264) 14th cent., a note on the three ages of man headed 'Augustinus' beg.: Puericiam, primo premit ignorancia.