Gower, Confessio Amantis, written by five principal scribes with a sixth adding missed text to the work of the third.

London, s.xv, first quarter.

Contents

(fols 1ra–183vb) Confessio Amantis, Prol. 1–VIII.3114*

Prologue (fol. 1ra); Book I (fol. 7rb); Book II (fol. 26rb); Book III (fol. 46ra); Book IV (fol. 61rb); Book V (fol. 81va); Book VI (fol. 124rb); Book VII (fol. 137va); Book VIII (fol. 167ra). Book VIII ends at the bottom of fol. 183vb; in the margin a modern pencil note reads ‘clxxxiv gone’ (the MS foliation is in Roman throughout). The usual Latin ending rubrics and poems may have been on this lost leaf.

Text: Ia (Macaulay [ed.], Works, II.cxl–cxli; sigil M). Macaulay notes the close relationship between this MS and Bodleian, MS Bodley 902.

Illustration

This manuscript includes both of the usual miniatures, that for Nebuchadnezzar’s dream on folio 4rb, after Prol.578, and that of Amans kneeling before a seated figure of the Confessor on folio 8rb, before I.203. The first, in the text column for folio 4rb, after twelve lines of text and extending over thirteen lines, is enclosed in a thick bright blue frame with white highlights. The king lies in a bed with pink hangings behind his bedhead (on left of image), crowned and with forked beard, his shoulders appearing draped in white bedclothes above the sheet, turned down over blue bed covering. The Man of Metal stands at the right, beneath the foot of the bed, with arms outstretched and left forearm and hand breaching the frame. His feet and shins, and all of his upper torso and arms, are silver-grey while his thighs and abdomen are gold. A backdrop of red with gold foliage patterns fills the upper part of the framed image. The second miniature is squeezed into the right margin of folio 8rb, again in a bright blue frame with white highlights, and taking up the equivalent of twelve lines of text.