John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes(bound with printed book b.2.21)

Title

John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes(bound with printed book b.2.21)

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 266

Associated place

Oxford

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xiii in.

s. xv ex.

Language

Latin

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Paper. With one exception (fols. 59 and 62 are probably half-sheets, both with watermarks), all quires but the last are formed of four sheets folded in folio. There are two marks: A: Chien/Hund, resembling Briquet 3623(Dutch and Flemish, 1475 × 1478) and Piccard XV, 3, no. 1424 (Utrecht, 1480) : the principal stock, in the first seven quires and part of the eighth, thirty full sheets and one half-sheet total. B: Chien/Hund, probably Briquet, no. 3624(Dutch and Flemish, 1476 × 1482) : part of the eighth and the ninth quires, three full sheets and one half-sheet total.

Physical extent

Fols. 67(I have disregarded a continuous foliation for the whole volume imposed in 1994).

Hands

Written in secretary. Punctuation by virgula, medial point, and a combination of both (punctuation at the caesura only). A. I. Doyle suggests that the scribe is ‘possibly’ identical with the hand responsible for Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.19, fols. 217–33, 247–51; and for Glasgow University Library MS Hunter U.3.5 (232), both with further Lydgate. If so, the scribe would have collaborated with that of Trinity College MS R.3.21, for which see Decoration below. Fully described in Ker, MMBL3:704 .

Decoration

Spaces left for capitals unfilled.

Headings, running titles (giving book number), and marginal notations of contents in red.

The volume includes illumination apart from the Lydgate: sig. a i of STC 5094 (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde ) is lacking and has been replaced by a vellum leaf, with a full-page tinted drawing (listed among examples of the technique, Scott, 1:75 n. 59) of the lovers outside Troy, with Pandarus looking on.

See Kathleen L. Scott, The Mirroure of the Worlde (Oxford, 1980), 32–3 and fig. 19 (the Troilus illustration). For the general absence of illustration in Troilus MSS, see Scott, 2:182. She believes the artist may be identical with that in Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.3.21(Middle English poetry and prose), a book which also belonged to Roger Thorney (2:338). See AT, no. 820 (82) and plate lv (the Troilus illustration).

In addition, all the pages in the printed books have been bounded and ruled in red ink, and painted decorative initials (gold on red and/or blue) with alternate red and blue paraphs have been supplied in the printer’s blanks. The woodcuts in STC 5083 (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales ) have all been painted.

Binding

Bound following copies of STC 5094 (Chaucer, Troilus; William Caxton, 1483), 5083 (Canterbury Tales ; Caxton, 1483), and 17957, part 2 (John Mirk, Quattuor sermones; Caxton, 1483). Dark brown leather over bookboard, a stamped decorative lozenge in the centre of double rectangular line frame with stamped fleur-de-lis in each corner, an Oxfordrebinding, s. xvii in. Sewn on four thongs. Holes for ties on both boards, a chain-staple mark in Watson’sposition 6. On the spine, a red leather label with gold-stamped title ‘Chaucer by Caxton’ and flowers in each corner. The front paste-down from MS, the rear old vellum, both with College bookplates. One medieval vellum flyleaf at the rear.

Acquisition

Liber Collegii Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Gulielmj PaddyEquitis Auratj olim Collegii ejusdem Conuictoris’ ( Troilus, sig. a ij , upper margin).

Provenance

Following a mark resembling a ligated ‘TR’, ‘ Roger Thorneymercer of london’, above a Tudor rose ( fol. i, the rear flyleaf; secretary, s. xv/xvi). For him and his supplying the MS to de Wordefor copy-text, see Bone.

‘Constat Wylliam Myddelton’ ( Troilus, sig. p iiii, lower margin; Tales, sig. q viv, lower margin; Sermones, sig. d viv, lower margin; MS fol. 61v); in addition, his monograms ( Troilus, sig. a ij, lower margin; Tales, sig a iiij; MS fol. 1; and fol. i, the rear flyleaf). Middleton married Thorney’s widow .

The old shelfmark Arch 45A 47’ (the front pastedown).