CHAUCER

MRJ number
235
College classmark
L.1

Vellum, 10 x 6.75, ff. 119 + 2 + 8, mostly 5 stanzas of 7 lines to a page.  15th, and 16th cent.

Collation :  1 flyleaf, a12 – g12 (12 canc.) h12 – k12, 1 flyleaf, aa4 bb4.

Contents:

        I.      Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseide         .               .               .               .         f.    1

The dowble sorowe of Troilus to tellen.

Some variants from a printed edition are noted in a xviith cent.

    hand.  The MS. was consulted by Professor Skeat for his

edition; he thinks it perhaps earlier than 1450.

Ends f. 119b:

ffor loue of mayde and moder thyn benyngne.

Expl. liber Troili et Criseidis.

Eight scribbled lines of English follow:

Thys world ys suttell and dissayvabull, etc.1

On the flyleaf:

Iste liber pertinet Johanni Treuehall ex donacione (erasure).

On the verso various scribbles.

       II.     The testament of Criseide (by Robt Henryson).             .               .               121b – 128b

In a hand of cent. xvi: at first 5 stanzas, then 10 on a page:                          (or 15 pp.)

    A doly season till a carefull dite

    Should correspond and be aequivalent

                                …

Ending:  Of faire Creiseid as I haue said before,

               Sith shee is dedd I speake of her noe more.

Expl. Lib. Troili et Creiseidos.

Ed. by Skeat, Chaucerian and other pieces, no. xvii.

1.  Printed in Carleton Brown, A Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse Pt. 1 (Oxford, 1916), p. 231.

Manuscript extra information

Negative Microfilm in St John's College Library.

Chaucerian and other pieces is a supply volume to W. W. Skeat (ed.), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford, 1897), pp. vff and 327ff. Skeat did not use this MS.

R. Beadle and J. Griffiths (eds), St John's College, Cambridge, Manuscript L. 1: a facsimile (Woodbridge, 1983).
L. Benson, 'Chaucer's spelling reconsidered', English manuscript studies 1100-1700 3 (1992), 18, 26.
J. Boffey, 'Annotation in some manuscripts of Troilus and Criseyde', English manuscript studies 1100-1700 5 (1995), 3, 12.
A. Butterfield, 'Mise-en-page in the Troilus manuscripts: Chaucer and French manuscript culture', Huntingdon Library Quarterly 58 (1995), 49-80.
F. J. Furnivall (ed.), Three more Parallel Texts of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (London, 1894).
J. Roberts, Guide to scripts used in English writings up to 1500 (London, 2005), pp. 200-2, no. 45, pl. 45, C6.
M. C. Seymour, A catalogue of Chaucer manuscripts 2 vols (Aldershot, 1995-97), vol. I pp. 67-78.
B. A. Windeatt (ed.), Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus & Criseyde: a new edition of 'The Book of Troilus'  (London and New York, 1984), pp. 110-113.
H. H. Wood (ed.), The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson (Edinburgh, 1933), p. 231.

Exhibited at Le Livre Anglais, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1951. See Catalogue no. 32.