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Detailed record for Egerton 1991
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| Author |
John Gower |
| Title |
Confessio amantis (begins imperfectly) |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (London) |
| Date |
1st quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
English with some Latin |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Artists |
Attributed to a follower of Herman Scheerre |
| Decoration |
1 small column-wide miniature of the Lover kneeling before the priest Genus, with a partial foliate border, in colours and gold (f. 7v). Large decorated foliate initials with partial foliate borders, in colours and gold, at the beginning of the books. Smaller initials in gold on red and blue grounds with foliate extensions into the margins. Small initials in gold with blue or purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. |
| Dimensions in mm |
380 x 260 (275 x 175) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 214 (+ 5 paper flyleaves at the beginning, and 3 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. |
| Provenance |
Sir Edward Dymoke: note stating that this manuscript was given to him at Scarborough Castle, 5 April 1609, by his aunt, Lady Catherine Burghe [widow of William de Burgh, Lord Burgh], to whom it descended from her mother, Elizabeth [daughter of Sir John Blount, mistress of Henry VIII] wife, successively, of [Gilbert Talboys] Lord Talboys, and [Edward Clinton] Lord Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln (f. 1v).
Marginal note of the birth of Henry Clinton, 6 June 1542 (f. 2).
Elyzabeth Clynton, 16th century: inscription of her name (ff. 34, 94), and 'The lorde Clyntone. Elesabyth Talboys your eneme to thomost take yowr parte wo schale tho yt be charloft Wylschper' (f. 143).
Inscriptions, 16th century: 'Anne Pellam' and 'Amias Willoughby' (f. 212v).
John Brograve, by 1682: note on the author, dated 1682 (4th flyleaf [f. ii, A]).
Thomas Tragiscus, Bohemus, 17/18th century: Latin acrostic (5th flyleaf [f. iii, B]).
Francis William Caulfield, 2nd Earl of Charlemont: his sale, 6 August 1865 (note on 3rd flyleaf [f. i]).
Bought by the British Museum, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829). |
| Notes |
One of 13 manuscripts containing an image of the Lover's Confession. See J. A. Burrow, ‘The Portrayal of Amans in ‘Confessio Amantis’’, Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments, ed. by A. J. Minnis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983), pp. 5-24 (p. 12 n. 7).
The first recension of the text. |
| Select bibliography |
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1853-1875 (London: British Museum, 1877), no. Eg. 1991.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1929), no. 99.
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 225 n. 5.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 169, 248 n. 86.
The English Works of John Gower, ed. by G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols (London: Early English Text Society, 1900-01), I, Confessio Amantis, Prol.-Lib. V. 1970, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 81, p. cxlvii.
A. I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes, 'The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century', in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts & Libraries: Essays Presented to N. R. Ker, ed. by M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (London: Scolar Press, 1978), pp. 163-210 (pp. 177-78, 195-96).
J. A. Burrow, ‘The Portrayal of Amans in ‘Confessio Amantis’’, Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments, ed. by A. J. Minnis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983), pp. 5-24 (p. 12 n. 7).
Jeremy Griffiths, 'Confessio Amantis: The Poem and its Pictures', in Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments, ed. by A. J. Minnis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983), pp. 163-78 (p. 177).
Kathleen L. Scott, ‘Design, Decoration and Illustration’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 39, pl. 2b).
C. Paul Christianson, A Director of London Stationers and Book Artisans 1300-1500 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1990), p. 158.
Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Studies, 17 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), 8 n. 3.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, 74, 87, 110, 168.
Siân Echard, 'Designs for Reading: Some Manuscripts of Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'', Sources, Exemplars, and Copy-Texts: Influence and Transmission, Essays from the Lampeter Conference of the Early Book Society 1997, ed. by William Marx, Trivium, 31 (1999), 59-72 (pp. 63, 64 n. 17, 65, 66, 68, 69).
Nicholas Perkins, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes: Counsel and Constraint (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), pp. 120 n. 107, 155, 156 n. 19.
Douglas Gray, ‘Gower, John (d. 1408)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11176, accessed 8 Jan 2008].
Derek Pearsall, ‘The Manuscripts and Illustrations of Gower’s Works’, in A Companion to Gower, ed. by Sian Echard (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), pp. 73-97 (pp. 74, 81, 87, 88, 90, 91, 96, 97). |
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f. 7v
Lover's Confession |
f. 142v
Decorated initial |
f. 194
Decorated initial |
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