Anthology of English and Scottish poetry ('The Sinclair manuscript'); Scottish, after c. 1489

Title

Anthology of English and Scottish poetry ('The Sinclair manuscript'); Scottish, after c. 1489

Shelfmark

MS. Arch. Selden. B. 24

Place of origin

Scottish

Date

after c. 1489

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Irish

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Paper. Barker-Benfield lists the watermark-content of every leaf in the Appendix to the facsimile (see pp.36-41). The distribution of watermarks confirms that the manuscript was made up of quires of bifolia before the gutters were trimmed. Seven watermark patterns have been identified, all of which can be matched in Briquet and/or Piccard to common patterns used in France, Germany, and the Low Countries in the late fifteenth century. These are (as cited by Barker-Benfield): ‘Lettre Y’ (Briquet, 9198), ‘Armoiries. Trois Fleurs de Lis posées deux et une. – Armoiries de France’ (Briquet, 1808), ‘Armoiries. Troid Fleurs de Lis … with letter t’ (Briquet, 1739-41), ‘Chien’ (Briquet, 3627), ‘Coeur’ (Briquet, 4324), ‘Armoiries. Trois Fleurs de Lis … without supplementary external designs’ (Briquet, 1806), and ‘Étoile’ (Briquet, 6056).

Physical extent

iv (modern endleaves) + 231 + ii (modern endleaves, foliated 232-233)

Hands

The manuscript was copied by two main scribes, both writing in a secretary book hand (see M.B. Parkes, plate 13.ii, English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500 (Oxford, 1969; rpt. 1980)). The first scribe wrote fols. 1-209v, stopping halfway down the page at line 1239 of The Kingis Quair, and probably also fol. 229r (see below). The first leaf of the manuscript is a cancel and replaces the original (presumably lost) first page of Troilus and Criseyde. Whether this leaf was written by the same scribe at a later date or a third scribe has been the topic of debate (see R.K. Root, 1914; W.A. Craige, 1940). The identity of this scribe has been suggested by George Neilson (1899) as the Scottish scribe James Graye, although this has been refuted. The first scribe’s hand has been identified in three other Scottish manuscripts: National Library of Scotland, MS acc. 9253; St John’s College, Cambridge, MS G.19 (187); and an unnamed late fifteenth-century Latin and Scots manuscript in the possession of the Right Honourable the Earl of Dalhousie. The second scribe wrote fols. 209v-228v. The identity of this scribe has been linked with ‘V. de F.’ whose name appears in Part VI of Cambridge University Library, MS Kk.1.5, but this is unconfirmed. The hand of fol. 229 closely resembles the first scribe, and potentially once belonged to a now lost quire which was originally bound earlier in the manuscript. The short poems on fols. 231v-230r are in another hand (or hands) to the main scribes.

Decoration

(fol. 1r) A historiated initial, seven lines high, containing four figures (two male, two female) in the foreground of a green field with a figure pointing with a golden speer from above. Behind the figures is the walls of a city. One of the figures is labelled ‘Troylus’ and another ‘Cr[ ]’ in gold.

There are 21 demi-vinets (or bar-borders) across the manuscript which include penwork tracery, gold studding, blue acanthus leaves, strawberries, and floral shapes in blue and gold. The majority include birds. The demi-vinets mark significant points of division between texts and within Troilus and Criseyde: fols. 1v, 41v, 67r, 91v, 111v, 120v, 132r, 134r, 137v, 138v, 152v, 192r, 111r, 163r, 166r, 172v, 177r, 180r, 185r, and 187v.

Decorated initials appear at the beginning of Books III-V of Troilus and Criseyde, with shades of blue wash on a gilt background infilled with florals. More simplistic initials appear at the beginning of five texts, once within Troilus and Criseyde, and at the beginning of each legend in The Legend of Good Women. These are characterised by a gilded and quartered design in purple and blue.

Ascenders are occasionally decorated, perhaps by a later hand. The arms of Henry, 3rd Lord Sinclair appear on fol. 118v.

Binding

Prior to its disbinding in 1993, the manuscript was bound in seventeenth-century calfskin which was re-backed in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Disbinding revealed that the seventeenth century binding was not a conventional sewn binding, but rather comprised a series of broad horizontal slots which had been cut in the paper and filled with glue in order to attach lengths of cord. This technique was necessary as the quires had been trimmed on all four sides (due to damp damage) and thus were no longer attached at the fold.

The manuscript is currently preserved as a sequence of detached singletons, each independently encapsulated in Melinex, and ordered following the hypothetical arrangement of the original quires.

Acquisition

Acquired by the Bodleian Library either in 1654 or in September 1659.

Provenance

The manuscript appears to have been compiled for Henry, Lord Sinclair (d. 1513) (created lord Sinclair in 1489), whose arms appear on fol. 118v and whose ownership is noted on fol. 230v: ‘liber Henrici domini Sinclar’. Further evdience for dating is the note on fol. 120r that King 'James IV' (reigned from 1488) was born in 1472.

The manuscript likely remained in the Sinclair family for some time, as the names ‘Elezebeth synclar’ (fol. 231r) and ‘Jen Sinclar’ (fol. 231v) are also recorded.

Other names present include ‘Agnes findlason’, ‘Mr John Duncan’, ‘patrik schiner’, ‘Lawrence smolo’, ‘villem crusstance’, and ‘William’ – possibly a Sinclair. The name ‘Donald Gorm’ on fol. 231v could pertain to the late sixteenth-century chief of the MacDonalds of Sleat in Skye, however this name could also represent a form of ‘album amicorum’. This page also contains the note ‘Charmois 1592’.

John Selden: in his collection on his death in 1654.

Title

Chaucerian poems

Shelfmark

MS. Arch. Selden. B. 24

Summary

Chaucerian poems:

Fol. 1, 'The book of Troylus' in five parts, by Chaucer, with some marginal notes. Fol. 118 is imperfect. Seven lines on the Troilus follow on fol. 118v (beg. 'Blak be thy bandis'), and above them is an almost contemporary shield bearing Quarterly 1st and 4th azure an antique ship with one mast and unfurled sail, within a tressure counter-flory, 2nd and 3rd azure an antique ship with three masts and furled sails, over all an escutcheon bearing argent a cross engrailed sable (for Sinclair): see the Athenæum, Dec. 30, 1899.

Fol. 119, Short Chaucerian poems, often without titles:

Fol. 119. Balade de bon conseyl, by Chaucer: at end 'Explicit Chauceris counsaling'

Fol. 119. Prosperity: at end 'Quod Chaucere': really part of John Walton's Prologue to his translation of the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boëthius: beg. 'Richt as pornert ': see the Athenæum, Dec. 28, 1895

Fol. 119v. A poem (not Chaucer's) beg. 'Deuise prowes and eke humylitee | That maidnys hath jn euerich wise ', 49 lines: at end 'Quod Chaucere quhen he Was rycht auisit', and a note that the scribe's 'princeps Jacobus quartus' was born March 17, 147 2/3, in the monastery of the Holy Cross, near Edinburgh: this could not have been written before 1488: probably in the hand of James Graye, see Athenæum, Dec. 16, 1899

Fol. 120v. John Lydgate's Complaint of the Black Knight, here without author's name, and entitled at end 'The maying and disport of Chaucere'

Fol. 130. Thomas Hoccleve's Mother of God, here without title: at end 'Oracio Galfridi Chaucere'

Fol. 132. Chaucer's 'Compleynt of Mars'

Fol. 136. 'The Compleynt of Venus', at end 'Quod Galfridus Chaucere'

Fol. 137v. A poem beg. 'O hie Emperice and quene celestiall', 48 lines: at end (wrongly) 'Quod Chaucere'

Fol. 138. 'Leaulte vault richesse', beg. 'This warldly joy', 8 lines

Fol. 138v. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, but lines 246 to end are wanting, a leaf being lost

Fol. 142. The Parlement of Foules, by Chaucer, wanting lines 1-14, and with a peculiar ending, only here found: at end 'Here endis the Parliament of Foulis . Quod Galfride Chaucere'

Fol. 152v. The 'Legendis of Ladyes' or Good Women, by Chaucer; at end 'And thus ended Chaucere the Legendis of Ladyis'

A leaf is missing after fol. 189.

Fol. 192, 'Heirefter followis the Quair, maid be King James of Scotland the first, callit The Kingis Quair and maid quhen his Ma[jesty] wes in Ingland': beg. 'Heigh in the hevynnis': the hand changes on fol. 209v; the title (fol. 191v) is in a rather later hand: at end 'Explicit etc. etc. Quod Jacobus primus Scotorum rex Illustrissimus'. The unique MS., and the only authority for the title, of the Kingis Quair, i.e. the King's Poem (short enough to be written on a single quire), written round the episode of king James's courtship of Joan Beaufort. The attribution to king James i of Scotland (d. 1437) has been denied by J. T. T. Brown (The Authorship of the Kingis Quair, 1896) but reasserted by J. J. Jusserand, R. S. Rait, and others, and again doubted by the latest editor of the text (dr. A. Lawson, 1910).

Fol. 211v, More short poems:

Fol. 211v. Thomas Hoccleve's Letter of Cupid, here without title or author's name

Fol. 217. A poem beginning 'Befor my deth this lay of sorow I sing', 185 lines

Fol. 219. The Lover's Complaint, beginning 'Because that teres weymenting and playntee', 63+114 lines, prologue and piece: at end 'Here endis the lufaris complaynt, etc.'

Fol. 221v, 'The Quare of Jelusy ...': beg. 'This lusty May': at end 'Explicit quod And[rew ?]': the paper is rubbed away after 'And', and the word has been taken to be 'Auch' or even 'Auchē', see the facsimile in Lawson's edition (1910), where what seems the end of the signature is the word 'to' seen through the paper from the other side. The unique MS. of this poem, which is printed by Lawson in his edition of the Kingis Quair.

Fol. 229, A leaf bearing poems beginning 'My frende, gif thou will be a seruiture', 32 lines, and 'Thy begyning is barane brutelness', 14 lines: and the first part (12 lines, imperfect) of another, beginning 'Man be als mery as tho ...'. Fol. 230 also bears some imperfect poems, beginning '... a horse of gold yow go'. On fol. 231 is also a poem beginning 'O Lady I shall me dres with besy cure'. Fol. 229 appears to be in the first hand of the MS., the rest early 16th cent.

Facsimiles of fols. 192r, 211r, 221v, 228v are in Lawson's edition, and of fols. 192r., 211r in Skeat's 1911 edition, of the Kingis Quair, and one of fol. 41v in R. K. Root's MSS. of Chaucer's Troilus, pl. xxii. A full description of the contents of the MS. is in Brown's Authorship at p. 70, and in E. P. Hammond's Chaucer (1908), p. 342.

There are many scribblings and autographs. Five are of the family of Sinclair, see above, on fols. 79, 230v, 231, 231v. There are two lines in Gaelic on fol. 231v signed 'Misi Domnall Gorm': the name recurs on fol. 230v. 'Channois, 1592' is on the same page. Two Findlason signatures are on fol. 229 and one on fol. 230v: 'Patrik Schiner' on fol. 230v: 'John Duncan' on fol. 229: 'Edward Walker' on fol. 155: farm notes on fol. 229v: see more in Brown's Authorship, p. 77: all 16th cent. early or late.

Date

Written in two (or three) hands late in the 15th century by Scottish scribes, see below

Language

English

Physical facet

On paper, with a miniature, illuminated borders, capitals, etc.

Physical extent

233 Leaves

Custodial history

Manuscript 3368 acquired by the Bodleian Library