A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges

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MS. Rawl. poet. 38

Summary Catalogue no.: 15563

Contents

William Langland, Piers Plowman, B-version (imperfect; begins at ii.40)

The first seven leaves have their margins and a few letters cut off, and eight are entirely wanting at the beginning (3-6 are now fols. 77-80 of BL MS. Lansdowne 398): eight more leaves wanting between fols. 95 and 96.

Language(s): Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
iii (later paper) + 101 (parchment) + i (foliated 102) leaves.
Dimensions (binding): 302 × 212 mm.
Dimensions (leaf): 285–294 × fols. 1–7 trimmed to 142mm; fols. 7–102 209–211mm mm.

Layout

One column of 36 lines, ruled in lead. 201 × 125 mm.

Hand(s)

One hand, Anglicana.

Decoration

Flourished initials in red and blue ink of between two and eight lines in height found on fols. 4v, 13r, 24r, 30v, 33v, 35r, 39r, 54v, 58r, 66v, 71r, 80r, 85v, and 89r.

Single-line pilcrows on a number of folios. Alternating between red and blue on fols. 1v–4v, 24r–25r, and 95r–96v; only red on fols. 7v–24v, 25r–29v, and 33r; only blue on fols. 29r–30v.

Later sketched faces in leadpoint on fols. 39v, 47v, 54v, and 71r.

Manicula found in a variety of hands and media on fols. 52v, 59v, 73r, and 95r

Fol. 101v filled with pen trials, sketches of people and animals, and signatures in multiple hands, in both ink and leadpoint.

History

Origin: 15th century, early ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

On fol. 101r (cf. 101v) 'William Buttes' (early 16th cent.?)

Thomas Hearne: 'Suum cuique. Tho. Hearne. Sept. 29, 1732.'.

Richard Rawlinson, 1690–1755

Bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1755

Record Sources

Description adapted from the Summary Catalogue (1895).
Summary Catalogue, Vol. 3, p. 436

2025-05-16: Additional data collected by Lucian Ng and Niamh Hayes as part of the 'Big Data' and Medieval Manuscripts workshop held at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford on 15th May 2025. Data encoded in TEI-XML by Sebastian Dows-Miller on 16th May 2025.

Digital Images

Piers Plowman Electronic Archive (links to images of individual folios are available via the edition)

Bibliography

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2025-05-16: Additional data collected by Lucian Ng and Niamh Hayes as part of the 'Big Data' and Medieval Manuscripts workshop held at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford on 15th May 2025. Data encoded in TEI-XML by Sebastian Dows-Miller on 16th May 2025.