Windsor, St. George's Chapel Library, MS E.I.I.

• 1. Richard Rolle, Emendatio Vitae (Latin), incipit, "Hic inc duodena capitula exposicione Ricardi heremite de hampole", explicit, "Expl. regula viuendi feliciter sec. Ricardum eremitam de Hampole"; fols 1r-20v.



• 2. Proverbs in Latin and Middle English, fols 21r-28v; the writing continues in the margins of 29r-36r (for discussion and edition of this item see Horrall, "Latin and Middle English Proverbs"). Begins:
  Assit huic operi presentia pneumatis almi
  Quod res hic scripta finem dignum sit adepta
  In the begynynge of this dede
  Pray we god that he us spede
  Tys thynge ys writtin and same layd
  Of wyse men sawes that than haue said
  That before oure tyme haue beyn [...]
  fyrst are verses in latyn made
  that sythen are turned in englishe brade
  the verses for clerkes that latyn can
  the englishe for ylke a lewde man
  Ends:
  Rebus in humanis tria sunt peiora dracone [...]
  Ther long to man here things thre
  Y^t are wors than the dragon may be
  a bitter wyfe and vnkynd
  an yll felow a feynd frend
  W^t these a servant may be cald
  As wyly as the foxe and fals



• 3. Incipit, ''These ben þe ten comanndements", begins, "I warne eche leode þat lyf in londe", ends, "kindely to kepe his comanndment", IMEV 1379, fols 29r-30v.



• 4. English verse prayer, incipit, "A deuoute preier to owre lord ihesu crist", begins, “A Ihesu þi swetnes who mi3t it se”, ends, "wiþ þee to wone wiþouten eende. Amen", IMEV 1781, fols 30v-32v.



• 5. Richard Maidstone, Seven Penitential Psalms, incipit, "Here biginniþ þe seue salmes", begins, “To goddis worshipe þat deere us bou3te”, ends, "Graunte us oo god & persoones thre. Amen",IMEV 3755 (ed. Valerie Edden, Richard Maidstone's Penitential Psalms, [1990]); fols 32v-52v. This text, along with the conjoined items 6-7, is present in MS Laud Misc. 174.



• 6. ME translation of Thomas of Hales, Lyf of Oure Lady, (ed. Sarah Horrall), fols. 53r-87v. Item 5 has been added beneath the text as a means of complimenting and continuing this item.



• 7. Extract from the 'Middle English Meditationes de Passione Christi, fols 88r-95r; begins with Mary and others at the foot of the cross, (chapter 79 of the MVC and chapter 8 of the Meditationes de Passione) and continues to the end. The Middle English Meditationes has clearly been chosen to compliment the preceding text; indeed, the Latin original is considered to be a text in the style of the MVC, "Thomas is in fact writing almost exactly the same kind of work as the slightly later and enormously influential Meditationes vitae Christi" (Horrall, 296); the two texts also occur together in the only other copy of the ME Lyf, Laud Misc. 174.



• 8. Middle English proverbial verse, margins of fol. 89r.



• 9. English verse, added by a C15 owner/reader, "At our begynyng god vs spede in grace and vertu /to prosede" ends, "Do way man & thyng they thowght yf thow / thynke euyl turne it to nowght he is wise and / wele tawght that can bere an horne and blow it not", SIMEV 432, fol. 95v.



• 10. Latin prayers from a Book of Hours, the first here, reflecting on the Passion:
  "[D]eus qui uoluosti pro redemcione mundi a iudeis
  reprobari a iuda traditore osculo tradi vin=
  culis alligari & sicut agnus innocens ad
  victimam duci ante conspectum Anne & Cayphe
  Pilati et Herodis indecenter offerri a falsis tes
  tibus [__] flagellis et oprobiis uexari
  spinis coronari sputis conspui colaphis cedi clavorum
  aculeis perforari in cruce levari inter latrones
  deputari felle et aceto potari lancea vulnerari
  Tu domine per has sanctissimas et verissimas penas
  tuas quas ego indignus peccator recolo & per sanctissimas
  crucem tuam libera me indignum famulum .n. in
  serui et perducere me digneris miserum peccatorem
  quo perduxisti latronem in dextera tua crusifixum.
  Qui cum domino patre viuis regnas deus per omnia saecula"
  (For another, very slightly abridged version of this text, see fol. 37v of Aberdeen University Library MS 25, 'The Burnet Psalter' [click links for digital facsimile].

  The next prayer begins, "[C]rux fidelis arbor mitis uerus amor [...]"; fol. 95v; the text is relatively well laid out, and was possibly added by a practiced book scribe. Beneath the text a later C15-C16 hand provides an Explicit/Colophon, "Explycit Robert bewyche / plenum A^o xxii h^cii vii^ti".

• Leaf Size: (approx.)
• Writing Space: 140 x 80 (approx.), prose items only.

1-2⁸, 3¹² (fols 17-28; initially a quire of 8, with completed signatures, bi-iiii; 4 leaves added to extend the quire after fol. 24, which have been prepared for copying as the rest of the gathering; fols 21-8, however, remained blank until the C16); 4-10⁸ (fols 29-84); 11^{8 -1} (wants 4 [after fol. 87]), 12 (unable to verify, poss.a quire of 6 wanting the last leaf- fols 92).

Quires 2 and 3 have the signatures 'a' and 'b'; (due to an unfortunately situated snake weight in the images consulted in this description) only some signatures were visible in the second section of the MS, with quires 8, 10 and 11 marked 'l', 'n' and 'o'. It would thus appear that there are some missing quires between 1-3, and 4-12, or perhaps between 4-6 and 7-12 (as although by the same scribe, it is possible that these may be separate booklets).

• Initials, items 1, 3, 4 5 and 7: 2-line capitals with pen work flourishes announce the beginning of each chapter (or the beginning of the shorter works), and a 1-line initial heads the preceding rubric in items 6-7 Spaces with guide letters are left in item 10 .
• Titles, Headings, Rubrics, 1, 3, 4 5 and 7: Chapter headings in red, and with chapter number (Roman numerals) beside, against a paraph; side notes (rubricated?) underlined and set against paraphs.
• Other: Both scribe A and C pen only a single catchword rather than a phrase.

5:
• A: item 1


• B: items 2 and 8


• C: Items 3-7


• D: item 9


• E: item 10.

5:
• A: well written hybrid Textura / Anglicana.


• B: highly cursive unprofessional C16 hand.


• C: well written hybrid Textura / Anglicana, similar script to A but a different hand- eg. different graphs for 'g' (descender flattens beneath the body of the letter and does not rejoin the main lobe, whilst scribe A pens a figure-of-eight version); the hand bears comparison with hand C in Laud Misc. 23, although, again, the scripts manifest enough differences to suggest these are different scribes.


• D: clear cursive Anglicana, well written but not a book hand.


• E: Anglicana formata.

Scribal sidenotes are fully collated from this MS and Laud Misc. 174 in Sarah Horrall's edition of The Lyf of Oure Lady. Laud Misc. 174 is very similar, but has some differences in titling and notation, often vernacularising, or using plainer terms. Eg. the note giving the source "Scolastica Historia", in the St. George's Chapel MS, becomes "þe storye of scoolmen" in the Laud MS (although in the first instance of reference, the St. George's book refers to the book in Latin and English, "In Historia Scolastica þat is in þe storie of scoole men", fol. 61v). This text is notable in both Latin and English recensions, for its thorough referencing of sources, something promised in the prologue to both Latin and English versions, "I haue set openly in þe margin bi what auctorite all þingis ben strengþid" (Horrall, 29:6-8).  Both MSS contain the appropriate marginal appartus for this text.

Sarah Horall detected many Northernisms in her analysis of the proverbs (items 2 and 8):

The northern spelling qw for OE hw predominates (13 x) over the wh spelling (7 x), and ME qu is also spelled qw (qwert 362). Although good appears twice, the form gud or goud is more common (12 x)...The vocabulary also suggests a northern provenance: tytter/rather 373, tynsel/loss 446, sclyke/such 531, ware/spring 655, tynes/loses 669. The form kyrke (707, 856) although not exclusively northern, is predominantly so. (Horral, 1983, p. 346)

Dialect in other parts of the book, which do not share these northern characteristics are prob. South East Midland.

• Fol. 5r: "John Shelmerdine His booke"; on fol. 38r this name is repeated with the date "Anno Dom 1690" C17.



• Fol. 45r: "John Holme Rector of Brewrton in Cheshire His Booke Anno Dom 1641" [with a fleur-de-lis drawn beside]; the same ownership ascription occurs on fol. 50r, this time with the date 1638.



• Fol. 50r: "Isaac Ogden Anno Dom 1699".



• Fol. 95v: Explicit subsequently added to item 10 by "Robert bewyche"; Ian Doyle suggests an identification with a London citizen named Robert Bewyk, who died in 1513, and was buried in St. Clement-without-the-bars, or a Robert Bexwyke of East Lambrook in Somerset, who died c. 1502-10 (Doyle, II, 34-5).Contents.



• Fol. 96v: Bond between "Will Reydon" and "John Smith", C15-16.

Sarah M. Horral, ed., The Lyf of Oure Lady: The Middle English Translation of Thomas of Hales' Vita Sancte Marie (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1985).

_ _ _, "Latin and Middle English Proverbs in a Manuscript at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle", Mediaeval Studies, 45 (1983), 343-84.

M. R. James, "The Manuscripts of St. George's Chapel, Windsor", Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, The Library, 13 (1932-3), 55-76.