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Cambridge. Corpus Christi College, Parker Library MS 61

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Source
Parker Library On the Web (Cambridge)
Library
UK, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Parker Library
Shelfmark
  • MS 061
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • 1400 - 1425
Language
  • Middle English
Title
  • Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 061: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde || Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
Agent
Description

  • Summary: The copy of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde in CCCC MS 61 was made c. 1415-25, long after the poet's death in 1400. The poem was written at some time before 1385. This copy was planned as a luxury edition to contain over ninety illustrations, but only the full-page frontispiece was painted, with blank spaces left at the positions intended for the other pictures. In that frontispiece Chaucer is shown reading his poem to the English court. The patron of this manuscript is unknown, but it is likely to have been the prominent male figure dressed in a gold-embroidered costume in the centre of the courtly group. The book belonged in 1570 to the author, Stephen Batman, a chaplain of Matthew Parker, and shortly after became incorporated in the archbishop's collection.


    Contents :


    1v-150r - Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde || Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde

    Note: On f. 1v is a full-page painting of the most beautiful quality. I take it to be in the very best style producible in England at the beginning of the fifteenth century. There is a solid border of conventional foliage (scarlet, blue, pink) on delicately pricked gold ground, outside this are tendrils, gold besants and coloured leaves. The ground of the picture is gold, wonderfully patterned. In the foreground the poet in a wooden pulpit with scarlet cloth before him is addressing a group of seated and standing ladies and gentlemen, including a prince in gold robe and a lady in a diadem. The listeners are intent on the speaker. Behind him on R. the ground slopes up steeply, with trees. The middle distance is divided off by a ridge of rock sloping up to R. Beyond it in upper R. corner is a gay turreted castle coloured pink. In front of this a group, the foremost figures of which are a crowned queen in blue over white: a noble in scarlet with wreath by her. To them kneels on L. a prince in gold holding a gold cap or crown. He is attended by others. In the distance in L. upper corner is a dark castle on a rock, and some brightly clad small figures are descending the path from it. The picture has suffered to a slight extent from rubbing, but is a very beautiful thing.

    incipit: (2r) The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen

    explicit: (2v) And how that she forsook hym er she deyde

    Note: (3r) blank. Doubtless a picture was intended

    incipit: (4r) It is wel wist how that the grekes stronge

    Note: A space for a picture is left on every leaf in Book I, making 23

    Note: Liber I ends f. 26v

    Note: (27r) Liber II, spaces for 36 pictures

    Note: (63r) Liber III, spaces for 13 pictures

    Note: On f. 63r is

    Note: Ihesu mercy lady helpe me Dorote Pennell (or -tt)

    Note: (93v) Liber IV, spaces for 8 or 9 pictures

    Note: On f. 108r is pencilled Knyvett

    Note: (119v) Liber V, spaces for 14 pictures

    Note: On f. 147r is scribbled (xv): notnarf drawde ( = Edward Franton) which also occurs on the flyleaf

    explicit: (150r) ffor loue of mayde and moder thyn benigne. Amen

    rubric: (150r) Explicit liber Troily

    Note: (the same scribbled below and erased)

    Note: (150v) This is my booke / S. B.? Stephen Batman / geven to me by Mr Carr the xvij of Decembre ano 1570

    Note: (151r) A receipt in English

Rights
  • Images courtesy of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For higher resolution images suitable for scholarly or commercial publication, either in print or in an electronic format, please contact the Parker Library directly at parker-library@corpus.cam.ac.uk
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