Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Descriptions of Individual Manuscripts
- Manuscripts in the United Kingdom
- Manuscripts in Continental Europe
- Manuscripts in the United States of America
- 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
- Volumes Already Published
- PlateSection
12 - London, British Library, MS Egerton 1991
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Descriptions of Individual Manuscripts
- Manuscripts in the United Kingdom
- Manuscripts in Continental Europe
- Manuscripts in the United States of America
- 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
- Volumes Already Published
- PlateSection
Summary
Confessio Amantis, with Latin addenda
London, s.xv, first quarter
Contents
1
(fols 1ra–214ra) Confessio Amantis Prol. 135–VIII.3114*end
Which al þe world haþ ouertake [badly rubbed]< > Oure ioye mai ben endeles [badly rubbed]
Prol. (fol. 1ra) wants 1–134, 454–594; Book I (fol. 6rb); Book II (fol. 28vb); Book III (fol. 51vb, but English text fol. 52ra); Book IV (fol. 69vb); Book V (fol. 93vb); Book VI (fol. 142vb); Book VII (fol. 158ra); Book VIII (fol. 194ra).
An original first leaf is lost, with text of Prol. 1–134. The first surviving leaf is smudged. A leaf is lost after fol. 2, with text of Prol. 454–594. The closing folios, from fol. 210, are rubbed, damp-stained and badly discoloured.
Text: collated by Macaulay (sigil E): Ic. Macaulay (ed., Works, II.cxlvii–viii) notes some agreements with MSS of the two later recensions, and thinks the exemplar of E ‘must have had some corrections’. ‘On the whole’, he says, ‘the text of E is probably the best of its class’. It is one of the two MSS (the other is Bodleian, MS Bodley 294) that has the narrator refer to himself as ‘Iohn Gowere’ at I.161.
For further information about the following Latin and French addenda that Gower caused to be added to MSS of the Confessio, see Appendix III.
2
(fol. 214rb) ‘Explicit iste liber’
Explicit iste liber < > sub eo requiesce futurus
Longer six-line version with added dedication to Henry IV.
Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.478.
3
(fol. 214rb) ‘Quam cinxere freta’
Quam cinxere freta < > stat sine meta With rubric ‘Epistola super huius, etc.’ Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479.
4
(fol. 214rb–va) ‘Quia vnusquisque’
Quia unusquisque < > specialiter intitulatur
Earlier version, favourable to Richard II.
Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479.
Illustration
Removal of original leaves 1 and 4 probably indicates former presence of prefatory miniature and Nebuchadnezzar picture. There is a twelve-line miniature (75 x 75 mm.) at fol. 7vb (middle), after I.202, illustrating the Lover kneeling before the confessor Genius.
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- Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021