Poor Caitif; England, s. xv

Title

Poor Caitif; England, s. xv

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 49

Associated place

London

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

150 leaves preceded by two 18th-century paper flyleaves and followed by two others.

Hands

Anglicana formata using short and low r; punctuated by low point.

Decoration

On fol. 1r is a 7-line blue and red lombard flourished red, otherwise decoration mainly consists of the same in 2/5-line size. Some letters are touched with ochre and there are blue and red paraphs.

Binding

Sewn on three bands between square-edged, calf-covered wooden boards with the cords entering the boards through a tunnel and held in place by wooden pegs, s. xv. Under the front pastedown can be seen a fragment of paper with 5–6 lines of Latin in a cursive hand, s. xv.

Provenance

On the front pastedown, in a hand of s. xviin, is ‘Mathyas Evans Is vpon the Exchange at x? a clocke he ken m of verses of Sybylla Erythria That conteyen the matter of the Phylosophers stone.’ This reference to the Exchange and the occurrence of John Stow’s hand on fols. 90r, 94r, 119v, 124v, 127v, 130v, 132r, and 150r (see Contents, above) suggest that the book was in London in the sixteenth century.

The next indication of ownership is on fol. ir, ‘E libris Samuelis Linton 1701’ presumably he who was matriculated at Pembroke College in 1667 and was vicar of Thundridge, Herts., in 1713 (AO). It is not known when the book came to Exeter.

Exeter library identifications are, on fol. ir, a title of s. xviii, ‘Wiclefi Manuale cui titulus Pauper Rusticus’, ‘Q1–24 Gall’ (deleted), ‘171.B.4’, ‘Coxe XLIV’ (pencil) and the round book stamp. The book stamp is also on the front pastedown and ‘171.B.4’ is upside down on the back pastedown. ‘4’ is on a round paper label at the top of the spine and ‘6’ on a square paper label at the bottom.