John Lydgate, The Seege of Troy; London?, England, s. xvex

Title

John Lydgate, The Seege of Troy; London?, England, s. xvex

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 129

Place of origin

London?, England

Date

s. xvex

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

139 leaves, preceded by two 18th-century paper flyleaves (fols. iii, iv) and their large stubs (fols. i, ii) and followed by two 18th-century flyleaves (fols. I, II) and their large stubs (fols. III, IV)

Hands

Bastard secretary, neat at first but becoming larger and sprawly and failing to keep between ruled verticals. Headings and colophons are in a large and inferior book script. There are cadells in top lines and in incipits, and there and in bottom lines ascenders and descenders are extended for ornamental effect. Punctuated only by a double virgula between raised points.

Decoration

On fol. 1r, for the prologue, is a 6-line illuminated capital O on a blue and purple background, extended down the inner margins with flowers, leaves, and gold blobs; all rather rubbed. Otherwise the decoration is 3-line blue lombards flourished red, with ochre stroking of the first words of lines, and infilling of loops of cadells and of extended ascenders and descenders. Large spaces were left at the beginnings of some books, presumably for miniatures, but these were filled with very large colophons. Alexander and Temple, no. 596.

Binding

Sewn on six bands. Standard Exeter binding but with three blind fillets on outer edges: simple and quite elegant, calf over millboards, the calf bearing blind decoration of a floral type, early 19th century.

Provenance

On the grounds that our text has close resemblances to copies made in London, Bergen (see above), 4. 40–43, argues that it was probably produced by the London book trade, and since our text shares an exemplar with BL MS Royal 18 D vi (see Contents, above), it has been suggested that these two manuscripts may be evidence that by the middle of the fifteenth century some stationers retained copies of some poetic texts in stock: see A. I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes, ‘The production of copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the early fifteenth century’, Ker Essays, 163–203, at 201 n. 104.

On fol. 50v is a large cartouche above which is a monogram TC and ‘ser thomas I tell you playn he that made thys boke toke greate payne’ (s. xv/xvi).

On fol. 20r ‘howell ap John apparry’ in an elegant italic script of s. xvimed.

On fol. 139v is ‘vij mark Edward Morgan me Possidet et fecit finis’ (Edward ... Possidet in rasura) (s. xvi).

On the outside of the front cover and on a label on the spine is ‘47’, referring to the catalogue of the library of Sir William Glynne (CMA ii. 49–54, no. 1971. 47), the majority of whose manuscripts came to Exeter by bequest of Joseph Sandford: see MS 87, History.

Exeter library identifications are: on fol. iiir, a title in a 19th(?)-century hand, ‘176 K 1’, ‘Coxe CXXIX’ (pencil) and the round Exeter book stamp, which is also on the front pastedown. ‘47’ is on a square paper label on the spine.