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Manchester. The John Rylands Library, English MS 85

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Source
Manchester Digital Collections
Library
The John Rylands Library
Shelfmark
  • English MS 85
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • End 14th/beginning 15th century
Language
  • Middle English
Title
  • Wycliffe Treatises
Agent
Description
  • Extent:
    80 folios (v+80+iv) Leaf height: 142 mm, width: 95 mm.
    Binding:

    blind-tooled brown morocco, 19th century.


    Decoration:

    There are numerous 2-line initials in blue ink with red penwork flourishes.


    Acquisition:

    Purchased by Enriqueta Rylands in 1897 from Henry Yates Thompson, and later transferred to the John Rylands Library.Accession no. R4999.


    Layout:
    19 or 20 long lines. Written height: 93 mm, width: 65 mm.
    Collation:

    Collation of folios 2-81:

    Quires 1-48
    Quire 54 (folios 34-7),
    Quires 6-108
    Quire 114 (folios 78-81).

    Secundo folio:kide crist (folio 3r).

    Quires 1-9 are signed a-i in the usual late medieval way, except that in quires 1-5 the leaf numbers are written below the quire letters (cf. English MS 87).
    Script:

    Written in gothic textura from folios 2r-36v

    The hand changes at item (2) folio 37r-81v. Written in gothic textura


    Subject(s):
    Theology--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500; Bible. Old Testament; Religion; Christianity
    Abstract:

    Various treatises attributed to John Wycliffe but of doubtful authorship, including On the Ten Commandments, On the Lord's Prayer, The Mirror of Sinners and the parts of The Pore Caitif known as The Charter of Heaven and The Three Arrows of Doomsday.

    (1) folios 2r-37r, 'Here bigynneþ þe abcde. and next pater noster aue marie and crede and next þe heestis and oþer þingis shortli touchid to helþe of euery persoone þat þenkiþ to be saued.' Divisible into eighteen sections: (a-e) folio 2r-v , The alphabet (a-z, ȝ, þ, 7, est, amen), Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, Creed, Blessing; (f) folios 2v-9r, On the ten commandments, 'Alle manere men shulde holde... ony man doiþ', printed from this copy by Kellogg and Talbert, pp. 371-6 (see Bibliography below); (g) folios 9r-13v, On the deadly sins, 'Pride and Enuye... do to ihesu crist': Jolliffe, A check-list of Middle English prose writings of spiritual guidance, F.21a; (h-n) folios 13r-19r, Seven pieces setting out the five wits of body and of soul, the seven spiritual virtues, the seven works of corporal and of spiritual mercy, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven sacraments; (o) folio 19r-v, A prologue, 'This litil compilation biginneþ wiþ praier... and not oonli bi drede', which looks back to (b, d, f) and forward to (p-r) and occurs with (p-r) also in Durham Cathedral A. IV. 22, pp. 98-116; (p) folios 19v-24v, 'þe twelue lettyngis of preier': Jolliffe, M.4; (q) folios 24v-25v, 'Of beleeue in general. Also touchinge þe crede... and come to bliss'; (r) folios 25v-37r, 'Of diuerse degrees of loue': Jolliffe, G.3.

    (2) folios 37r-54r, Þe pater noster, exposition on the Lord's Prayer attributed to John Wycliffe (this and the next three titles are running titles). 'Siþ þe pater noster is þe best praier þat is... in blisse and ioie wt hym to wone wt outen eende. Amen'. Shirley, A catalogue of the original works of John Wyclif, English 64 (see Bibliography below). Thomas Arnold (ed.), Select English works of John Wyclif, vol. 3, pp. 98-110. Cf. English MS 90 , item (2).

    (3) folios 54v-63v, Þe mirrour of synners. Jolliffe, F.8. Horstmann, Yorkshire writers, vol. 2, pp. 436-40 (see Bibliography below). Cf. Lambeth Palace Library MS 3597, item (3).

    (4) folios 64r-72v, Þe chartir of heuene. Part of The Pore Caitif: Jolliffe, B.5.

    (5) folios 72v-81v, 'Þe þre arowis. Who þat wole haue in mynde þe dredful day of dome... upon þe rode tre. Amen'. Basically the same, but fuller than the text printed by Horstmann, vol. 2, pp. 446-8. Cf. Lambeth Palace Library MS 3597, item (3).

    (6) folio 1r-1v, Text on the flyleaf, twenty-three lines on the recto and twenty-five on the verso, all more or less faded: the first sentence begins 'Wymen schulden make ensaumple as hester þt was a qwene to aray hem' and another sentence begins 'Also seint poul repreueþ'.


    Foliation:

    foliated 2-81 (modern foliation). Folios ii-iv, 1 and 82-4 are parchment flyleaves.


    Format:
    Codex
    Material:
    Parchment
    Provenance:

    There are several early inscriptions as follows: 'Iste liber constat Iohanni Ade Cum magno gaudio et honore' (folio 83v ), end of 15th century; Thomas Wylkes (folio 4v), 16th century; William Wester[t]on (folio 84r); Willym Vycary (folio 84r); Thomas Page[t] (folio 84r); Marg[are]tt Kyghtley (iv_r), 17th century.

    Once part of the library founded in 1684 by Archbishop Thomas Tenison 1636-1715 in the church of St Martin in the Fields, London: see the catalogue of 1786 by Samuel Ayscough (British Library, Add. MS 11257), no. 75. Sotheby's sale of Tenison's library on 1 July 1861, lot 97; sold to Lilly for Lord Ashburnham for £37 10s.

    Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham. Appendix no. 27B.

    . He purchased the Ashburnham Appendix in May 1897 and almost immediately resold the manuscript to Mrs Rylands.

Place
  • Preferred form
    • England (United Kingdom)
    Original form
    • England
    Other form
    • Angleterre
    • Angleterre (?)
    • Angleterre.
    • Angleterre ?
    • Anglaterra
    • Inglaterra
    • Engeland
    • Angleterre (Salisbury ?)
    • Anglaterra (Salisbury?)
    • Inglaterra (Salisbury?)
    • England (Salisbury?)
    • [Oxford?]
    • [England]
    • England, Norwich?
    • England, Canterbury, St. Augustine's Abbey?
    • England, Cornwall?
    • England, St. Albans?
    • England, North?
    • England, York?
    • England, Witham?
    • England, Winchester or St. Albans
    • England, Reading or Leominster
    • England, Cirencester?
    • England, Sherborne?
    • England, Worcester?
    • England, Bury St. Edmunds?
    • England, Tewkesbury?
    • England, East Anglia?
    • England, Peterborough?
    • England, Mercia?
    • England, Canterbury, Christ Church?
    • England, Canterbury, St. Augustine's?
    • England, Winchester?
    • England, Oxford?
    • Flanders (possibly executed in England)
    • England and Netherlands
    • England, Canterbury?
    • England, West Midlands?
    • England, London?
    • England, Crowland?
    • England, Wessex?
    • England, Reading?
    • England, Northeast?
    • England, Southeast?
    • England, Ely?
    • England, Winchester or Hereford?
    • England, Salisbury?
    • England, Oxford or Salisbury
    • German (but made in England)
    • England, South East (?)
    • England. Peterborough (?) or Lincoln (?)
    • Hereford?, England
    • England, Durham ?
    • England, Durham?
    • England, probably Durham
    • England, Oxford (?)
    • England, possibly Oxford
    • England (?Oxford)
    • England, Durham (?)
    • England, London/Westminster
    • Unknown, possibly London and Cambridge
    • Royal Chancery, London; Cambridge
    • Engeland (?)
    • England (II)
    • I. England
    • [Engeland]
    • see more
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  • Provided by The University of Manchester. Zooming image © University of Manchester Library, All rights reserved. Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
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