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
29 - Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 609
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 (ten leaves lost), with Latin addenda
London, s.xv, first quarter
Contents
1
(fol. 1ra–170rb) Confessio Amantis, Prol. 1–3114*
Torpor hebes sensus scola par | ua minimusque, etc. (6 lines of Latin verse).
Of hem þat writen us tofore < > Oure ioie may ben endeles. Amen.
Prologue (fol. 1ra); Book I (fol. 8vb); Book II (fol. 28rb); Book III (Latin verses 1–4, fol. 47ra; Latin verses 5–8, Latin gloss, English text and initial, fol. 47rb); Book IV (Latin verses, fol. 61vb; Latin gloss, English text and initial, fol. 62ra); Book V (fol. 81va) wants one leaf after fol. 109 (5550–5739), one leaf after fol. 111 (6140–6325), and eight leaves after fol. 118 (7676–7844end, also VI.1–1373); Book VI (fol. 119ra) wants 1–1373; Book VII (fol. 124rb); Book VIII (fol. 153vb).
Text: collated by Macaulay (sigil L): Ic. ‘In correctness of text and spelling the text is decidedly inferior to [other members of the group]’ (Macaulay [ed.], Works, II.cxlix). There are close associations with C [Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 67] in Prologue and Book I (Macaulay [ed.], Works, II.cxlviii), perhaps, suggests Griffiths (‘The Poem and its Pictures’, 171), as the result of the retention of a portion of an exemplar ‘in order to standardise the shifting positions of miniatures’.
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. 170rb) ‘Explicit iste liber’
Explicit iste liber < > pagina grata britannis
Earlier four-line version, without dedication to the earl of Derby.
Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.478.
3
(fol. 170rb) ‘Quam cinxere freta’
Quam cinxere freta < > stat sine meta
With preceding rubric, ‘Epistola super huius’
Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479.
4
(fol. 170rb–170va) ‘Quia vnusquisque’
Quia unusquisque < > specialiter intitulatur
Earlier version, favourable to Richard II.
Macaulay (ed.), Works, III.479–80.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Descriptive Catalogue of the English Manuscripts of John Gower's Confessio Amantis , pp. 208 - 212Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021