PROJECT RESOURCES / MANUSCRIPT DESCRIPTION
Yale University, Beinecke Library MS 660
Described by: -
Source:
Revision Date: June 1st, 2010
Heading
Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, with Privity of the Passion, mid-3rd quarter C15?Condition of the MS
Missing opening page and other losses; a part of fol. 79 has been torn from the book, and this leaf a precedes an entirely missing quire.; the leaves are soiled and show many signs of handling.Number of Items
2Title(s) of Pseudo-Bonaventuran Text(s)
The Privity of the Passion.Incipit
- Item 1:
[Begins imperfectly]:
"Which flour preservith man frome dethe
Vnto the vertue who so liste take hede
That in a gardyne amyddes of na?areth
So feyre somtyme ganne to spryng ad [sic] sprede
Thorugh the worlde bothe in lenght and brede
The odoure fressh and also swetnesse
Hertes conforteth of alle her hevynesse" fol. 1r (Lauritis ed., ll. 71-77).
- Item 2: *Iste liber primo fuit compositus in latino sermone per
quendam fratrem minorem cardinalem nobilem doctorem
Bonaventuram nomine postea translatus est in lingua
Anglicanam pro minoribus latinum non intelligentibus per
quendam canonicum Walteru Hiltonum nomine in amore
dei valde deuotum professorem in theologia
Prologus
Whoso desires for to fynde comforte and gostly gladnes in þe passion and in þe cros of oure lorde ihesu criste hym nedeth not a besy thought to dwell theryn . and all other besynes forgoten and sett at nought", fol. 77r.
*The Incipit is of a form regularly found in conjunction with the Pricking of Love, and it may be no coincidence that this Incipit heads the Prickinge in Durham University Library, Cosin MS v.iii.8, where the text is preceded by the Privity. The Incipit differs only slightly in the Beinecke MS, with the addition that Hilton is 'professorem in theologia'.
Colophon
-Secundo Folio
- "her light daweth to avoide all offence", fol. 2.
- "loveandly how felawly and how homely he gothe", fol. 78r (Horstmann, 199:1-2).
Explicit
- Item 1: "Thus endeth the purificacione of oure lady/To trew cristen mene she is mene for mercy", fol. 76v.
- "And inwardly ioy which ioy he hath ordeyned for all tho that hertely love
hym. Which ioy and comfort he graunt vs that with his precious blode bought
vs Ihc xpc / qui cum patre &c. pater etc.
Explicit"
, fol. 91r.
Languages of the MS
-Detailed Description of Contents
- Item 1: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, begins imperfectly, fols 1-76v.
- Item 2: The Privity of the Passion, fols 77r-91r.
Estimated Date of Production
Mid-3rd quarter C15.Writing Support
ParchmentFoliation
iv (paper C18?) + 91 fols + ii (paper C18?)Dimensions of Page and Writing Space
- Leaf size: 202 x 140 mm (approx.)
- Writing Space (item 2- item 1 has no ruling on the right side of the page): 160 x 93 mm (approx.)
Collation
18 -1 (wants 1), 2-118, 126 -1 (wants 1); an entire quire is missing after fol. 79 with the loss of text in Horstmann, 201:11 ('lanternes')-209:7 ('downe').Layout
1 column, item 1 (verse) 32-43 lines, item 2 (prose) 33-36 lines, frames in crayon, with single pricks marking these lines- the verse text has only 3 framing lines, the prose has 4.Rubrication/ Ordinatio
- Initials: Spaces for initials only, normally 2-line, with a 3-line space at the beginning of the Privity.
- Titles, Headings, Rubrics: The Incipit and chapter headings to the Privity are written in a larger script and a thicker duct than the main text, and set against a double virgule, which provide subdivisions more generally in the text in the manner one would expect of a paraph; single virgules or single dots act as commas and full-stops. There is no red ink used in the book; marginal nota marks divide Lydgate's verse into stanzas (no spaces are taken throughout the work).
- Other: Catchwords are penned beside an L-shaped flourish.
Illustration
-Number of Scribal Hands
1Style of Hands
Described by Arn as "a Bastard Secretary hand with an admixture of Anglicana forms, especially the complex g and s, although the simpler final s is used on occasion. The hand lacks the 'zig-zag' quality of most secretary hands and presents in facta a very pleasing collection of loops, great regularity of forms, and an unusual degree of cursiveness...It is a good cursive bookhand" (178).Estimated Date of Hands
Mid C15- 3rd quarter C15.Scribal Annotation
There is little scribal annotation other than corrections to Lydgate's text and a note on fol. 58, beside the line 'he named was _Ihc_ of echone', "de nomine Ihesu" and on fol. 59v beside the explanation of the name Christ is "de nomine xpi".Notable Dialect Features
-Localisable on Google Earth
(click markers to view sample dialect forms)
N/AAnnotation and Marginalia
- Fol. 33r: 'Vid. Chaucer's Life', written beside Lydgate's reference to "The noble rethore poete of Bryteyn', C19?; the same hand writes lib. 2. cap. 15, referencing more exactly Lydgate's mention of John of Salisbury's Policarticon.
- Fol. 38v: '[__] Sondaye at night was christ borne...', written at an angle to the text, but during Lydgate's account of events during the Nativity.
- Fol. 91r: "Vnto ye hoost pha - raos chariettes haue I/compared the O my love thy cheke & thy necke as beaut[iful] (trimmed) as ye turtles And"; this is written around the explicit, beneath the ending of the Privity, and seems to be a version (perhaps remembered) of the Song of Songs 1: 9-10, which reads "To my company of horsemen, in pharao's chariots, have I likened thee, O my love. Thy cheeks are as beautiful as the turtle-dove's, thy neck as jewels". Arn argues that this C15-C16 annotator chose the passage as a response to the close of the Privity, "[c]ontemplating the love between Christ and his followers...he chose to quote the elegant and passionate love poetry of the Song of Songs, in which (in the usual medieval interpretation) Christ longs for the soul as the lover for the beloved" (185-6).
Graffitti
- Fol. 1: an ink drawing of a pair of shears or scissors in the margin of the text, with points pointing down, and several abortive attempts at the drawing below.
- There are many C15-C16 pen trials in the book, sometimes with the writer imitating lines from Lydgate's verse in the margin.
- Fol. 34v: 'Casse', written in large bold letters at a right angle to the text, C15-C16.
- Fol. 40v: At a right angle to the text someone has penned nearly all of the Incipit to thePrivity; a different hand pens a part of the Incipit on fol. 54v; both hands are C15-C16.
- Fol. 57v: 'Isto liber dico vere(?) ad I____ P_____ si : quis nomen [_____] Johannes : Callen si nomen? abis?', C15?
- Fol. 63v: 'This Indentur', C16?
Names recorded, signatures, ex libris marks
- Bookplate of Sir William Dudley of Clapton, Northants; formerly Marquess of Bute MS F. 16; bought by Mr. and Mrs. H.P. Kraus in 1983, and donated to Beinecke Library 1985/6 .
- "Iste liber frances comsitus(?)", fol. 48r, in the margin at a right angle to the text.
- "William Sende / Thomas", upside-down beneath the text, on f. 48v, C15?
- The name "Robert roper" or "Robert Prestone" apparently occurs on a note on 91v (see Catalogue description and Mary-Jo Arn, 184), C15-C16.
Notes
There are hints at possible priestly or learned ownership in conjunction with signs of a middling mercantile provenance for the text (the shears/scissors on fol. 1 perhaps signifying a member of the Drapers' company).
The Incipit to the Privity makes it likely that the scribe used DUL Cosin v.iii.8 (or a close congener) as exemplar, and has taken the Hilton ascription and applied it to the Privity. For a tangential discussion of the ascription to Hilton in the Prickinge of Love see Michael Sargent, "A New Manuscript of the Chastising of God's Children with an Ascription to Walter Hilton".
Arn's article on the Bute MS supplies a portion of text missing in the Thornton MS version (used by Horstmann for his edition in Yorkshire Writers); .References and Other Resources
Yale Online Catalogue Entry
Joseph A. Lauritis, A critical edition of John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady (Pittsburgh : Duquesne University, 1961).
Mary-Jo Arn, "The Bute Manuscript of The Privity of the Passion (Yale University, Beinecke MS 660)", Manuscripta 34 (1990): 177-89.
Michael Sargent, "A New Manuscript of the Chastising of God's Children with an Ascription to Walter Hilton", Medium Aevum 46 (1977): 49-65.
Heading
Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, with Privity of the Passion, mid-3rd quarter C15?
Condition of the MS
Missing opening page and other losses; a part of fol. 79 has been torn from the book, and this leaf a precedes an entirely missing quire.; the leaves are soiled and show many signs of handling.
Number of Items
2
Title(s) of Pseudo-Bonaventuran Text(s)
The Privity of the Passion.
Incipit
- Item 1:
-
[Begins imperfectly]:
"Which flour preservith man frome dethe
Vnto the vertue who so liste take hede
That in a gardyne amyddes of na?areth
So feyre somtyme ganne to spryng ad [sic] sprede
Thorugh the worlde bothe in lenght and brede
The odoure fressh and also swetnesse
Hertes conforteth of alle her hevynesse" fol. 1r (Lauritis ed., ll. 71-77). - Item 2: *Iste liber primo fuit compositus in latino sermone per
quendam fratrem minorem cardinalem nobilem doctorem
Bonaventuram nomine postea translatus est in lingua
Anglicanam pro minoribus latinum non intelligentibus per
quendam canonicum Walteru Hiltonum nomine in amore
dei valde deuotum professorem in theologia
Prologus
Whoso desires for to fynde comforte and gostly gladnes in þe passion and in þe cros of oure lorde ihesu criste hym nedeth not a besy thought to dwell theryn . and all other besynes forgoten and sett at nought", fol. 77r.
*The Incipit is of a form regularly found in conjunction with the Pricking of Love, and it may be no coincidence that this Incipit heads the Prickinge in Durham University Library, Cosin MS v.iii.8, where the text is preceded by the Privity. The Incipit differs only slightly in the Beinecke MS, with the addition that Hilton is 'professorem in theologia'.
Colophon
-
Secundo Folio
- "her light daweth to avoide all offence", fol. 2.
- "loveandly how felawly and how homely he gothe", fol. 78r (Horstmann, 199:1-2).
Explicit
- Item 1: "Thus endeth the purificacione of oure lady/To trew cristen mene she is mene for mercy", fol. 76v.
- "And inwardly ioy which ioy he hath ordeyned for all tho that hertely love
hym. Which ioy and comfort he graunt vs that with his precious blode bought
vs Ihc xpc / qui cum patre &c. pater etc.
Explicit"
, fol. 91r.
Languages of the MS
-
Detailed Description of Contents
- Item 1: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, begins imperfectly, fols 1-76v.
- Item 2: The Privity of the Passion, fols 77r-91r.
Estimated Date of Production
Mid-3rd quarter C15.
Writing Support
Parchment
Foliation
iv (paper C18?) + 91 fols + ii (paper C18?)
Dimensions of Page and Writing Space
- Leaf size: 202 x 140 mm (approx.)
- Writing Space (item 2- item 1 has no ruling on the right side of the page): 160 x 93 mm (approx.)
Collation
18 -1 (wants 1), 2-118, 126 -1 (wants 1); an entire quire is missing after fol. 79 with the loss of text in Horstmann, 201:11 ('lanternes')-209:7 ('downe').
Layout
1 column, item 1 (verse) 32-43 lines, item 2 (prose) 33-36 lines, frames in crayon, with single pricks marking these lines- the verse text has only 3 framing lines, the prose has 4.
Rubrication/ Ordinatio
- Initials: Spaces for initials only, normally 2-line, with a 3-line space at the beginning of the Privity.
- Titles, Headings, Rubrics: The Incipit and chapter headings to the Privity are written in a larger script and a thicker duct than the main text, and set against a double virgule, which provide subdivisions more generally in the text in the manner one would expect of a paraph; single virgules or single dots act as commas and full-stops. There is no red ink used in the book; marginal nota marks divide Lydgate's verse into stanzas (no spaces are taken throughout the work).
- Other: Catchwords are penned beside an L-shaped flourish.
Illustration
-
Number of Scribal Hands
1
Style of Hands
Described by Arn as "a Bastard Secretary hand with an admixture of Anglicana forms, especially the complex g and s, although the simpler final s is used on occasion. The hand lacks the 'zig-zag' quality of most secretary hands and presents in facta a very pleasing collection of loops, great regularity of forms, and an unusual degree of cursiveness...It is a good cursive bookhand" (178).
Estimated Date of Hands
Mid C15- 3rd quarter C15.
Scribal Annotation
There is little scribal annotation other than corrections to Lydgate's text and a note on fol. 58, beside the line 'he named was _Ihc_ of echone', "de nomine Ihesu" and on fol. 59v beside the explanation of the name Christ is "de nomine xpi".
Notable Dialect Features
-
Localisable on Google Earth
(click markers to view sample dialect forms)
N/A
Annotation and Marginalia
- Fol. 33r: 'Vid. Chaucer's Life', written beside Lydgate's reference to "The noble rethore poete of Bryteyn', C19?; the same hand writes lib. 2. cap. 15, referencing more exactly Lydgate's mention of John of Salisbury's Policarticon.
- Fol. 38v: '[__] Sondaye at night was christ borne...', written at an angle to the text, but during Lydgate's account of events during the Nativity.
- Fol. 91r: "Vnto ye hoost pha - raos chariettes haue I/compared the O my love thy cheke & thy necke as beaut[iful] (trimmed) as ye turtles And"; this is written around the explicit, beneath the ending of the Privity, and seems to be a version (perhaps remembered) of the Song of Songs 1: 9-10, which reads "To my company of horsemen, in pharao's chariots, have I likened thee, O my love. Thy cheeks are as beautiful as the turtle-dove's, thy neck as jewels". Arn argues that this C15-C16 annotator chose the passage as a response to the close of the Privity, "[c]ontemplating the love between Christ and his followers...he chose to quote the elegant and passionate love poetry of the Song of Songs, in which (in the usual medieval interpretation) Christ longs for the soul as the lover for the beloved" (185-6).
Graffitti
- Fol. 1: an ink drawing of a pair of shears or scissors in the margin of the text, with points pointing down, and several abortive attempts at the drawing below.
- There are many C15-C16 pen trials in the book, sometimes with the writer imitating lines from Lydgate's verse in the margin.
- Fol. 34v: 'Casse', written in large bold letters at a right angle to the text, C15-C16.
- Fol. 40v: At a right angle to the text someone has penned nearly all of the Incipit to thePrivity; a different hand pens a part of the Incipit on fol. 54v; both hands are C15-C16.
- Fol. 57v: 'Isto liber dico vere(?) ad I____ P_____ si : quis nomen [_____] Johannes : Callen si nomen? abis?', C15?
- Fol. 63v: 'This Indentur', C16?
Names recorded, signatures, ex libris marks
- Bookplate of Sir William Dudley of Clapton, Northants; formerly Marquess of Bute MS F. 16; bought by Mr. and Mrs. H.P. Kraus in 1983, and donated to Beinecke Library 1985/6 .
- "Iste liber frances comsitus(?)", fol. 48r, in the margin at a right angle to the text.
- "William Sende / Thomas", upside-down beneath the text, on f. 48v, C15?
- The name "Robert roper" or "Robert Prestone" apparently occurs on a note on 91v (see Catalogue description and Mary-Jo Arn, 184), C15-C16.
Notes
There are hints at possible priestly or learned ownership in conjunction with signs of a middling mercantile provenance for the text (the shears/scissors on fol. 1 perhaps signifying a member of the Drapers' company).
The Incipit to the Privity makes it likely that the scribe used DUL Cosin v.iii.8 (or a close congener) as exemplar, and has taken the Hilton ascription and applied it to the Privity. For a tangential discussion of the ascription to Hilton in the Prickinge of Love see Michael Sargent, "A New Manuscript of the Chastising of God's Children with an Ascription to Walter Hilton".
Arn's article on the Bute MS supplies a portion of text missing in the Thornton MS version (used by Horstmann for his edition in Yorkshire Writers); .
The Incipit to the Privity makes it likely that the scribe used DUL Cosin v.iii.8 (or a close congener) as exemplar, and has taken the Hilton ascription and applied it to the Privity. For a tangential discussion of the ascription to Hilton in the Prickinge of Love see Michael Sargent, "A New Manuscript of the Chastising of God's Children with an Ascription to Walter Hilton".
Arn's article on the Bute MS supplies a portion of text missing in the Thornton MS version (used by Horstmann for his edition in Yorkshire Writers); .
References and Other Resources
Yale Online Catalogue Entry
Joseph A. Lauritis, A critical edition of John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady (Pittsburgh : Duquesne University, 1961).
Mary-Jo Arn, "The Bute Manuscript of The Privity of the Passion (Yale University, Beinecke MS 660)", Manuscripta 34 (1990): 177-89.
Michael Sargent, "A New Manuscript of the Chastising of God's Children with an Ascription to Walter Hilton", Medium Aevum 46 (1977): 49-65.