Anthology of Lydgate's verse. xv.

Title

Anthology of Lydgate's verse. xv.

Shelfmark

MS. Ashmole 46

Place of origin

English, Bury St Edmunds (see Kathleen Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts II, no.112).

Date

Third quarter of the fifteenth century, after 1461 due to the replacement of all references to Henry VI, for whom the text was written, with the name of Edward IV (for instance, folio 85v fforte Edward.

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

i (modern end leaf, parchment) + i (modern end leaf, paper) + 164 (parchment) + i (modern end leaf, parchment)

Hands

Anglicana Formata with Secretary influence, in a consistent professional hand of the late fifteenth century. Typical double-compartment a, looped ascenders on d, l, b, and h, and sigma-shaped s. The g closed with a separate crossbar and the angular looped d with a triangular lower lobe suggest a hand with Secretary influences of the second half of the fifteenth century, perhaps the third quarter. In their edition of Lydgate's Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund (2009), Anthony Bale and A.S.G. Edwards identify this scribe's hand in two other fifteenth century manuscripts of this text: British Library, MS Yates Thompson 47 and an un-numbered manuscript owned by the Duke of Norfolk. Bale and Edwards suggest this scribe was based in Bury St Edmunds, either within the Abbey or in a secular environment. Kathleen Scott identifies a total of ten manuscripts containing this hand, which she dubbs the 'Edmund-Fremund scribe', all containing works by Lydgate (Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, 1982). Four of these are copies of the Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund. There is ongoing debate regarding the full extent of the scribe's contribution to British Library MS Harley 2255. The Quarto Catalogue suggests the manuscript shares a scribe with the presentation copy of The Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund, British Library MS Harley 2278, however a comparison of the scripts suggests they were copied by different individuals, although likely in the same environment in Bury St Edmunds. MS Harley 2278 can confidently be dated to between 1434 and 1444 (due to its connection to Henry VI and his sojourn at Bury St Edmunds Abbey in 1434), whereas MS Ashmole 46 suggests a date of several decades later after 1461 (due to the replacement of references to Henry VI with the name of Edward IV). The dates therefore also make it unlikely that these two manuscripts shared a scribe.

Decoration

Bale and Edwards suggest the artists who decorated MS Ashmole 46 also decorated British Library, MS Yates Thompson 47 and an un-numbered manuscript owned by the Duke of Norfolk, which also share a scribe with MS Ashmole 46. They also note similarities in the decoration of British Library MS Harley 2278 (the presentation copy of The Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund for Henry VI). Scott (1982) adds to this list British Library MSS Sloane 2464, Harley 1766 (folios 42v-99r), and Harley 2255 (folios 113v-153v) - manuscripts which also contain the hand of the Edmund-Fremund scribe (see Hands). Scott also identifies this artist in British Library MS Cotton Vespasian B.xii, not affilliated with the Edmund-Fremund scribe.

Fine miniature on folio 1r of a poet (presumably John Lydgate) in monk's habit with an empty scroll kneeling before a king (Henry VI or Edmund IV) who holds an arrow and scepter and sits on a canopied throne. Figures coloured in white, grey, blue, and gold, on a ground of red and green with gold designs. Framed by blue and gold bars on three sides. A similar miniature, in the same style and colours, appears in British Library MS Yates Thompson 47 and the un-numbered manuscript owned by the Duke of Norfolk. The miniature in MS Ashmole 46 is significantly worn over the figure of the poet, likely post-reformation damage provoked by his monk's habit. In comparison with the Yates Thompson and Norfolk manuscripts, MS Ashmole 46 is far less lavishly illustrated with only this singular miniature.

Partial borders on three-sides (upper, left, and lower margins) on folios 1r, 4v, and 97r, developing from a three-line decorated initial (in the style below), with bars on the left-hand side of the text in gold, pink, and blue, decorated with sprays of foliage and gold disks,

Two and three-line decorated initials throughout in gold on a quartered red and blue ground with white designs, with extended spray work ending in gold balls and leaf motif along the inner margin.(See Pächt and Alexander iii. 895, pl. LXXXVI.)

Two line paraphs mark each stanza throughout, alternating blue with red flourishes and gold with green flourishes.

Edge gilding in gold.

Binding

The binding is made of gilt punched leather, using the technique whereby repetitive patterns of geometrical shapes were punched onto the parts of the design that would be left unpainted. It has been coloured with a yellow-gold glaze or tinted varnish, and is decorated with abstract floral designs and a mixture of overlapping punch patterns. On this technique, see Posthuma De Boer, Martine, E. F. Koldeweij, and Roger M. Groves, Gilt Leather Artefacts (2016).

The leather covers paste boards typical of the sixteenth century, and shows remnants of two metal clasps with flower motif pins, which were once attached to leather straps. Comparable hardware can be seen in the bindings of Matthew Parker from the second half of the sixteenth century, now Corpus Christi College Cambridge SP.66, SP.57, and SP.244.

The binding is recycled from a larger piece of punched leather, likely a sixteenth century panelled wall hanging or screen - although the dating of the punched pattern is much harder to determine. Similar designs are found on sixteenth century Italian wall hangings in the V&A Collection (items O304822, O304824, and O369581) which suggest a plausible place and date of origin.

Although this leather was prevalent in luxury homes and churches from the sixteenth century, the practice of recycling leather wall hangings into book bindings is a rare phenomenon. A few examples can be found on printed books which were bound in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Italy and Spain. The binding of MS Ashmole 46 represents one of the earliest known examples of this practice, and to date is the only known manuscript with this style of binding. It is also the only example identified thus far in England.

The current binding is not the manuscript's original binding, as the text block has been trimmed and the page edges gilded at a later date after its production. This binding was likely made before 1588, as it does not match the style in which Sir Thomas Tresham, who owned the manuscript in 1588, bound his manuscripts with his family crest embossed in the centre of the front cover (see British Armorial Bindings, Tresham, Thomas (1543-1605), stamps 1, 2, 3). Paper pastedowns, that on the left board with watermark, hand with five-pointed star (or flwoer).

Acquisition

The manuscript was kept in the Ashmolean until 1860, when the collection was transferred to the Bodleian Library .

Provenance

The hand of John Stow, 1525?-1605 appears on folios 131v and 133v. Stow's annotations appear in numerous other Lydgate anthologies and miscellanies, including manuscripts of the Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund MS Yates Thompson 47 and the Arundel Castle manuscript.

In 1588 the manuscript was owned by Sir Thomas Tresham (1543-1605), a prominent member of the landed gentry and recusant. Folio 49r contains his ownership inscription dated 1588: T. Tresami . M . et Amicorum credo eh. The et Amicorum (and of friends) was a popular formulation of ownership by an individual collector which implied that he shared the book with his circle of friends. Credo was Tresham's personal motto. Tresham leaves the same style of inscription in his copy of the 1589 edition of Antonio of Nebrissa’s Dictionarium latino-hispanicum (see Barker and Quentin, Library of Thomas Tresham, 50). Tresham was sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1573 and knighted in 1575. When he acquired the manuscript, Tresham had just emerged from a long period of imprisonment from 1581 for recusancy. It is not listed in his inventories, edited in Barker, Quentin, and Robinson, The Library of Thomas Tresham & Thomas Brudenell.

The margin of folio 93r contains the erased name Thomas in a fifteenth century hand, now only legible under UV light.

The name Edward Woorsoppe me tenet is recorded on folio 49r in a sixteenth century hand.

Owned by the poet William Brown(e), author of Britannia’s Pastorals (1613–16) and Oxford alumnus (matriculated 30 April 1624). His name appears on folio 1r: W. Browne and his annotations on the parchment flyleaves and throughout the text block. Browne is known to have owned other manuscripts with Lydgate and Lydgatean material, such as BodL MS Ashmole 45, MS Ashmole 40, MS Ashmole 59, BL Additional MS 34360, BL Lansdowne MS 699, Durham V ii 15, and Durham V ii 16.

The manuscript was later owned by Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), who acquired other manuscripts from Brown(e), for instance MS Ashmole 59 and MS Ashmole 40.

Bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum by Elias Ashmole in 1692 as part of his donation of 1,100 printed books and 600 manuscripts.