MS. Eng. poet. e. 17

Summary Catalogue no.: 32690 (part only)

Guardbook

Language(s): Middle English, English

Fos. 1-8, 13-37 are post-medieval.

(fols. 9–12)

Richard Maidstone, Paraphrase on the Penitential Psalms

Fragment: Ps. 102.10-. Ed. V. Edden (1990), sig. E, desc. p. 15, lines 618-24, 638-80, 752-85, 797-803, 815-21.

Fols. 13-16 are modern notes on the provenance, with a transcription.

Language(s): Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: parchment

Extent: Parts of four leaves (two bifolia) (most of fols. 9, 12 lost)

Dimensions (leaf): c. 170 × c. 115 mm.

Layout

1 col. of 22 lines; written space c. 120 × 75 mm.

Hand(s)

Formal anglicana. Ralph Hanna (p. 199) tentatively identified the scribe with the scribe of MS. Rawl. A. 389 (fols. 1-20, 25v-31v, 85-104v) and other manuscripts. Ian Doyle and subsequently Simon Horobin (pp. 30-35) identified that second scribe as John Scriveyn, a professional scribe active around Lichfield.

Decoration

Spaces left for initials.

History

Origin: 14th century, late, or 15th century, early ; England, Lichfield area (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

"Found stiched as a cover to an Elizabethan Rental relating to the Manor of Rotherfield ... two leaves ... and two mutilated portions stitched at the top to make it long enough to cover the Rental" (fol. 13r).

Fols. 9-12: acquired 1928. (Bodleian Quarterly Record 5 (1928), p. 321)

Record Sources

Summary description by Matthew Holford (Sept. 2024), with reference to published literature as cited.

Summary Catalogue, Vol. 6, p. 184

Bibliography

Simon C. P. Horobin, ‘The Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript’, in The Making of the Vernon Manuscript, ed. by Wendy Scase (Brepols, 2013), pp. 27–48

Ralph Hanna, ‘Pre-Fifteenth-Century Scribes Copying Middle English in More than One Manuscript’, The Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History, 14 (2011), pp. 179–94

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2024-09: First online publication.

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