PILGRIMAGE OF MAN'S LIFE
Vellum, 10.5 x 7, ff. 136 + 4, 29 lines to a page. 15th cent., well written.
Old binding, skin (once red) over boards.
Donor, T. C. S. Priced 20s.
Collation : 2 flyleaves, 18 – 178, 2 flyleaves.
Contents :
English version of the Romance of the Pilgrimage of Man’s life, by William de
Deguileville Monk of Chaalis : with Northern forms.
First page in rubric in larger hand than the text.
To folke of this regioun the whilke has na dwellynge Place here : Bot alle as
sayse Saynte Paule be thaye riche be they pouer, etc.
-Undyrstandes nowe the Sweuyn that mette me in religioun atte The Abbay
of Chalice as I was Sclepynge in my Bedde. Pars prima.
Me thought as I was Sclepande that I was a Pilgrim
Ends 136b : Whilke godde of his grace graunte that alle crysten qwikke and deed.
Here endes the romaunce {th}t a monke made, etc.
... taken off the romaunce off the Rose whare in the arte of lyfe es onclosed.
Praies ffor hym that made it ffor hym {th}t garte it be made and also ffor hym
that wrate it. Amen.
On flyleaf. Wylleam polle the hermet of Bethe (?) grete my god master Ryche.
Wylleam Ryche.
On another flyleaf in capitals : Robertus, and, larger : Villelmus.
Edited from University Library MS. Ff.v. 30 (with reference to this MS.) for the Roxburghe Club, by W. Aldis Wright, M.A., in 1869.
Negative Microfilm in St John's College Library.
See Guillaume de Deguileville, The Pilgrimage of the Lyfe of the Manhode Vol. 1, ed. Avril Henry (Oxford, 1985).
The scribe of this MS. also copied British Library MSS Egerton 2006 and Additional 37790. See M. Laing, 'Linguistic Profiles and Textual Criticism' in Middle English Dialectology: Essays on some Principles and Problems, ed. M. Laing (Aberdeen, 1989), p. 189.
Fols 108v - 112 contain a version of Chaucer's 'A. B. C.' The MS. was used by Skeat in his edition of the poem. See Geoffrey Chaucer, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. W. W. Skeat (Oxford, 1894).