Linne R Mooney & Derek Pearsall 
A Descriptive Catalogue of the English Manuscripts of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis [PDF ebook] 

Winner of the 2022 John Hurt Fisher Award from the John Gower Society



First comprehensive catalogue of the manuscripts of one of the most important medieval works, with full descriptions of their features.


The
Confessio Amantis is John Gower’s major work in English, written around the time that his acquaintance Geoffrey Chaucer was writing the
Canterbury Tales. Extant manuscripts are numerous. At the end of the nineteenth century G. C. Macaulay had described the forty manuscripts then known to survive in the introduction to his edition, but some of these descriptions were very brief, and of course the other nine of whose existence he was then unaware were not included. This descriptive catalogue of all of the surviving manuscripts containing the
Confessio is the first work to bring together extensive detailed descriptions of its forty-nine complete manuscripts and numerous fragments and excerpts; it will enable scholars of Middle English literature and manuscript studies to compare features across the corpus of surviving manuscripts or read detailed descriptions of individual manuscripts. Each description in this catalogue covers the manuscript’s contents, artwork, physical qualities such as size, material, collation, foliation, etc., as well as additions by later users and provenance. There is also a lengthy introduction giving an overview of the corpus, and appendices for reference to the current whereabouts of the manuscripts, fragments and excerpts, and listing Gower’s Latin and French works that appear in some of the manuscripts. Eight colour illustrations provide context for discussions of the miniatures and illuminated borders of some manuscripts.

قائمة المحتويات

Introduction


MANUSCRIPTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

1. Cambridge, University Library MS. Dd.8.19

2. Cambridge, University Library MS. Mm.2.21

3. Cambridge, Pembroke College MS. 307

4. Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College MS. 63

5. Cambridge, St Catharine’s College MS. 7

6. Cambridge, St John’s College MS. B.12

7. Cambridge, Trinity College MS. R.3.2

8. Glasgow University Library, Hunterian MS. 7

9. London, British Library MS. Additional 12043

10. London, British Library MS. Additional 22139

11. London, British Library MS. Egerton 913

12. London, British Library MS. Egerton 1991

13. London, British Library MS. Harley 3490

14. London, British Library MS. Harley 3869

15. London, British Library MS. Harley 7184

16. London, British Library MS. Royal 18.C.xxii

17. London, British Library MS. Stowe 950

18. London, College of Arms MS. Arundel 45

19. London, Society of Antiquaries MS. 134

20. Manchester, Chetham’s Library MS. 6696

21. Nottingham, University Library, Middleton Collection MS. WLC/LM/8

22. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Arch. Selden B.11

23. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 35

24. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Bodley 294

25. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Bodley 693

26. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Bodley 902

27. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Fairfax 3

28. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Hatton 51

29. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 609

30. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Lyell 31

31. Oxford, Christ Church MS. 148

32. Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS. 67

33. Oxford, Magdalen College MS. Lat. 213

34. Oxford, New College MS. 266

35. Oxford, New College MS. 326

36. Oxford, Wadham College MS. 13


MANUSCRIPTS IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE

37. Cologny, Switzerland, Martin Bodmer MS. CB 178

38.
olim Marquess of Bute 85 (now in a private collection in Europe)


MANUSCRIPTS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

39. Chicago, IL, Newberry Library MS. +33.5

40. New Haven, CT, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Osborn MS. fa. 1

41. New York, NY, Columbia University Library MS. Plimpton 265

42. New York, NY, Pierpont Morgan Museum and Library MS. M.125

43. New York, NY, Pierpont Morgan Museum and Library MS. M.126

44. New York, NY, Pierpont Morgan Museum and Library MS. M.690

45. Philadelphia, PA, Rosenbach Museum and Library MS. 1083/29

46. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, Firestone Library MS. Garrett 136

47. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, Firestone Library MS. Taylor 5

48. San Marino, CA, Henry E. Huntington Library MS. EL 26 A 17

49. Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library MS. SM.1


Appendix I: Summary List of Manuscripts, with date, lines missing, other contents

and note of Macaulay’s classification; with Fragments (brief descriptions) and

Extracts listed at the end

Appendix II: Manuscript Sigla used by Macaulay, in Alphabetical Order

Appendix III: Gower’s Latin Addenda to the
Confessio and Other Pieces, not by

Gower, that Appear in
Confessio Manuscripts


Works Cited

Index of Manuscripts

General Index

عن المؤلف

The late Derek Pearsall was Emeritus Gurney Professor of Middle English Literature at Harvard University; he wrote extensively on Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Lydgate, including biographies of Chaucer and Lydgate, an edition of the C-text of Langland’s Piers Plowman.