A Handlist to manuscripts in Trinity College Dublin, covering all 79 Middle English prose manuscripts and indexing more than 539 separate items.

Handlist to the rich collection of manuscripts contained in five major libraries across New York, giving a full account of their provenance.

Cambridge University Library’s collection (Dd-Oo) includes over one thousand medieval western manuscripts, including examples of Middle English prose composition. The current handlist covers 207 manuscripts, and indexes more than 1250 separate items.

Handlist to the rich collection of manuscripts contained in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with full indices.

This volume provides detailed descriptions of Middle English prose materials found in the important manuscript collections of seven Cambridge Colleges: Christ's, Emmanuel, Jesus, Selwyn and Sidney Sussex Colleges, Peterhouse and Trinity Hall. The texts fall roughly into two categories: religious and devotional, or scientific. The former include Wycliffite New Testaments; Emmanuel College's complete Wycliffite Bible; Richard Rolle's Commentary on the Psalms in Sidney Sussex College, and, in Trinity Hall, the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards in a splendid manuscript designed forpresentation to Richard II. In the second category, there are several of outstanding interest: Jesus College Q.G.23 is a beautifully decorated English translation of the Chirurgie of Guy de Chauliac, while Peterhouse MS 75 is the sole manuscript of The Equatorie of the Planetis.
As with all previous volumes in the series, this Handlist concludes with an alphabetical index of Incipits and Explicits intended to form part of an eventual Index of Middle English Prose.

Angela M. Lucas is a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

In 1755 Richard Rawlinson bequeathed his vast collection of books and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library. The manuscripts alone numbered over 5,000, and the 167 of these which contain Middle English prose are indexed in this Handlist. These are divided fairly evenly between religious and secular texts: Rawlinson does not seem to have been interested in any particular genre; if a book was old and deemed to be of historical interest it entered his collection, either as an acquisition or a contemporary transcription. Scriptural and devotional writing is represented by copies of the New Testament, three different works by Rolle and three by Hilton, Love's Mirror, a Primer, Sacerdos Parochialis, The Chastising of God's Children, The Mirror of Our Lady, The Mirror to Lewd Men and Women, excerpts from the works of St Catherine of Siena and St Bridget of Sweden, Mirk's Festial, other sermons, Wycliffite treatises, the only English copy known of William Thorpe's Testimony, prayers, several copies of Pore Caitiff, and more. Secular and political writing includes versions of Mandeville's Travels, John Fortescue's On the Governance of England, translations of two works by Alain Chartier, and The English Conquest of Ireland. There is a rich selection of historical prose, with ten Bruts in whole or part, royal genealogies, accounts of royal weddings and of the coronation of Richard II, descriptions of court etiquette, the deposition of Richard II, the challenge for the English throne of Henry IV and his speech of acceptance. Scientific and utilitarian prose is illustrated by Chaucer's Astrolabe, grammatical treatises, alchemical writings by Lull and Ripley, medical treatises, especially urologies, and, in a lighter vein, extracts from the J.B. Treatise on hunting and country life, as well as separate works on hawking, angling and gardening. The abundance of recipes, medical, culinary and veterinary, singly and in collection, have been treated in this Handlist in particular detail.Sarah Ogilvie-Thomson is a former lecturer in language and medieval literature at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

This volume is a vital research tool for anyone working with Middle English prose texts. It is designed to give immediate access to the indices now found separately in the first twenty descriptive manuscript catalogues published as The Index of Middle English Prose. This single new volume enables scholars to quickly find all surviving manuscript copies of a particular text. In addition to an index of first lines, the volume contains other finding aids in the form of an index of final lines and of acephalous and atelous texts. A general index covers subjects, rubrics and titles, and there is also a summary contents list for each of the twenty published catalogues.

The Hatton and e Musaeo manuscript collections are important donations given to the Bodleian Library during its formative years in the seventeenth century, contributing substantially to its status as a national and international archive. The Hatton collection, associated with the aristocratic family that traces its lineage to Sir Christopher Hatton, chancellor of England during the reign of Elizabeth I, is best known for its Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, the oldest extant manuscript of Benedict's Rule, as well as collections of Old English homilies of Wulfstan and Aelfric (with glosses by the "Tremulous Hand of Worcester"). Among its Middle English manuscripts are religious texts, including Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, commentaries by Richard Rolle on the psalms and ten commandments, chronicles such as the Brut and an assortment of manuscripts ranging from political prophecies and grammar treatises to compendia of medical recipes. The e Musaeo collection, so called because it was originally an eclectic group of manuscripts stored in the librarian's study, also has a variety of significant texts, ranging from the religious and devotional (a Wycliffite New Testament, Love's Mirror, and Heinrich Suso's treatise The Seven Points of True Love and Everlasting Wisdom); to the scientific and medicinal: Chaucer's Astrolabe, Friar Henry Daniel's Liber Uricrisiarum; and to the historical and the popular: the Brut and Mandeville's Travels. Patrick J. Horner, FSC (a De LaSalle Christian Brother) is Professor of English at Manhattan College.