John Lydgate, Troy Book; England, s. xv3/4

Title

John Lydgate, Troy Book; England, s. xv3/4

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 153

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv3/4

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment and paper, the former the inner and outer bifolia of each quire (usually FSOS, but HSOS also occurs), the latter folded in folio. There are six watermarks: A: Tête de licorne/Einhorn, resembles Piccard 10 (Fabeltiere) iii, nos 1105, 1109 (Ravenna 1460 × 1461; Ferrara 1455 × 1456): five full sheets in quire 1 (all except the centre paper sheet), fol. 3 an unwatermarked half sheet and fol. 79 (which, in all likelihood, originally followed fol. 13) a watermarked one B: Balance/Waage, generally of the type Piccard 5, iv, frequent s. xv med.: the centre paper sheet of quire 1 (fols 6+7) and two sheets in quire 2 (fols 16+29, 19+26) C: Balance/Waage, generally of the type Piccard 5, i, primarily Italian and German papers of the 1440s and 1450s: the remaining five sheets of quire 2 and all seven of quire 3 D: Tête de bœuf/Ochsenkopf, not in Piccard or Briquet: all eight sheets of quire 4 and seven of quire 5 E: Cloche, not in Briquet, but cf. no. 4040 (Lucca, 1472): the single sheet fols 71+89 in quire 5 F: Monts/Dreiberg, generally of the type Piccard 16, i, nos 69ff., Italian papers of c. 1448–55: the six full sheets of quire 6, fols 92 and 103 unwatermarked halves

Physical extent

Fols: iv + 107 + iv. Fols 1–2 are fragments of leaves, now mounted on paper (s. xix), and all leaves through to fol. 8, as well as fols 13 and 79, have lost their leading edges.

Hands

Written in anglicana.

Unpunctuated, a rare point at line ends.

Decoration

Undecorated; some instructions for headings, but none provided. Four-line spaces for initials left blank.

Binding

Tan reversed calf, s. xix, with incised border. Inside the back cover a note of repair 21 February 1900, counting 107 pages [sic]. Thongs no longer discernible. Pastedowns and flyleaves modern paper, a ChCh bookplate on the front pastedown.

Provenance

The only indication is the note ‘Ch Ch Lib Wake’ (front pastedown, in the hand of the 1900 note on the repair to the binding). It was not from the Archbishop himself (it does not appear in the schedule of manuscripts, MS 352/8), but was added to that collection on arrival. It was patently in place for G. W. Kitchin to catalogue it, so it was most likely acquired in the early nineteenth century. Kitchin, in his catalogue, provides a title for the work, but that seems not to have been taken from our manuscript itself: Kitchin (52) records the codex as ‘valde mutilus in initio et fine’ and records the opening as the first which is fully visible; in other words, it is unlikely that Kitchin had available to him any more than is now present.