Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate: Poetry on governance and death

Title

Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate: Poetry on governance and death

Shelfmark

MS. Selden Supra 53

Place of origin

English

Date

15th century, second quarter

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

ii (modern paper flyleaves) + 158 + 1 (medieval flyleaf) + ii (paper flyleaves, foliated 160 and 161) leaves

Hands

Fols. 1r–158r written by the ‘Selden scribe’ in Anglicana formata, also found in Cambridge, Queen's College, MS. 12. See Linne R. Mooney, ‘A Scribe of Lydgate’s Troy Book and London Book Production in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century’, in Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts: Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna, ed. by Simon Horobin and Aditi Nafde (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), pp. 19–42.

Decoration

Marginal headings in red, written by the scribe.

Fine miniature depicting a man on his deathbed with attending priest and approaching skeleton (fol. 118r).

Texts begin with 4-line pink and blue parti-coloured initials highlighted in white on solid gold ground, with a foliage pattern in the centre of the letter; at the edges, gold ground leading to sprays with green leaves and blue, red, and gold balls.

Smaller two-line blue lombard initials, red pen-work flourishing; one-line blue initials with red pen-work flourishing.

Blue paraphs with red penwork decoration in prose sections

Marginal scribbles, fol. 91v. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 888, pl. LXXXIV)

Binding

Brown tanned calf over laminated pulpboard.

Acquisition

Acquired by the Bodleian in 1659

Provenance

Richard Burnett (inscription, 16th century): evidently responsible for marginal annotion after fol. 83r.

John Selden (1584–1654)