Manuscript, on parchment, in a single hand, of Chaucer's Treatise on the astrolabe
Description:
In Middle English., Layout: single columns, mostly of 28 lines., Script: English bookhand., Decoration: initials in blue with red penwork., Presentation inscription on verso of front flyleaf: Augustus W. Franks, the gift of Sir David Dundas., Ownership inscription on verso of front flyleaf: C. H. Read., Tipped in: autograph letter signed from D. D. to A. W. Franks, 1877 February 11., and Binding: nineteenth-century full calf; in case.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400.
Subject (Topic):
Astrolabes, English literature, English prose literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of John Rolfe (1585-1622), A true relation of the state of Virginia, autograph manuscript
Description:
The author, best known for his part in the colonization of Virginia under the governorship of Sir Thomas Dale (d. 1619) and his marriage to the Indian princess Pocahontas (d. 1617), wrote this account after his return to England in 1616 to show the suitability of Virginia for colonization., In English., Script: Written in Gothica Cursiva (Secretary)., The acidity of the ink has damaged the paper., and Binding: Original paper wrappers.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Virginia
Subject (Name):
Rolfe, John, 1585-1622.
Subject (Topic):
English literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, Description and travel, and History
Manuscript, on parchment, of the "extended version" of the Brut Chronicle
Alternative Title:
Chronicles of England
Description:
In Middle English., First leaf and end of text lacking., Layout: single columns with varying numbers of lines., Script: English bookhand., Decoration: blue initials with red penwork., and Binding: sixteenth-century blind-tooled calf over wooden boards. Later leather title tags on spine, gilt.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
English literature, English prose literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript fragment, on parchment, containing portions of chapters 214 and 221 of the Middle English prose Brut
Description:
In Middle English., Marginal note indicates that these two leaves served as a wrapper for a copy of Gabriel Harvey's The trimming of Thomas Nashe., Layout: single-column, 29-32 lines., Script: secretary., and Decoration: initials in blue with red penwork.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Brutus the Trojan (Legendary character), English literature, English prose literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment (thick) of 1) Notes on the baronial Clare family of Gloucester, in chart format, from a manuscript contemporary with or slightly earlier than the main text (art. 3). Name of the appropriate King of England appears on the left in a red circle [concludes with King Edward IV, 1327-77], and a short history of certain members of the Clare family are added on the right. 2) Genealogical tree, added between 1450 and 1500, establishing the claims of King Edward IV (1461-83) to the kingdoms of England, France, Castile and Leon. 3) Brut Chronicle, up to 1419, but the final leaf of text has been torn out
Description:
In Middle English., Script: Written by a single scribe in neat Anglicana formata. Running titles and marginal notes added by later hands., Illuminated initial, 6-line, on f. 1r, pink on gold ground, with blue, green, and pink acanthus leaves, and white highlights; full bar-border with swirling acanthus leaves in same colors as for initial; black hair-spray in outer margins. Heading and chapter numbers in red. Small initials, 2-line, blue with red flourishes, for most chapters. Paragraph marks alternate red and blue., Parchment is well thumbed and worn, especially f. 1r; some loss of text., and Binding: 17th-18th centuries. Covered in brown calf, blind-tooled, with a brick-colored, gold-tooled label, probably a later addition.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Great Britain
Subject (Name):
Clare family. and Edward IV, King of England, 1442-1483.
Subject (Topic):
English literature, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and History
Manuscript on parchment of Brut Chronicle to 1333, the earliest stage of the Middle English text
Description:
In English., Script: Written by at least two scribes in neat Anglicana formata., Plain initials, 9- to 2-line, in blue, throughout text. Headings and chapter numbers in red, with blue spiral line-fillers. Paragraph marks for headings in blue, for text in blue or red. Remains of guide-letters for rubricator., Parchment is stained and worn; some portions of text illegible., and Binding: Fifteenth century. Original wound, caught up sewing on four tawed, slit straps. Boards made of bifolios of vellum with a piece of leather wrapped around them, but not covering the spine. Sewing breaking.
Manuscript on parchment, in a single hand, of the "second version" of John Hardyng's Chronicle. While the manuscript has lost perhaps 36 leaves from the beginning of the work, it is textually complete from the reign of Vortigern on. There is a final entry referring to Elizabeth Woodville as the queen of Edward IV. The final leaves of the volume contain an anonymous sixteenth-century poem, A lamentable complaint of our saviour Christ; an eighteen-line carol in Middle English which begins "By resone of ii and power of one;" and a page of notes in a single sixteenth-century hand on executions at Smithfield in London between 1531 and 1534
Description:
In Middle English., Ownership inscription of "John Ravell" at the end of the Chronicles text, along with other notes., Layout: single columns of approximately 42 lines., Script: English bookhand., Binding: seventeenth-century full calf. Red leather spine tag, gilt: "M. S. Hist: of England / From Vortvmrk to Edw. 4.", and Previous shelfmark: MS. L. J. I. 10.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Hardyng, John, 1378-1465?
Subject (Topic):
English literature, English poetry, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Narrative poetry, English (Middle)
Manuscript on parchment of portions of Saint Aldhelm, De laude virginitatis, copied probably in Canterbury or Worcester. With glosses in Anglo-Saxon added between 950 and 1000, which may be of Kentish origin
Description:
In Latin and Anglo-Saxon., Script: Written by two scribes, Scribe 1, ff. 1r-9v: a vigorous and well spaced Anglo-Saxon minuscule; preference for minuscule d; strokes of letters often extend well into margin at end of line. Scribe 2, ff. 10r-26v: slightly cramped hand; preference for uncial d. Anglo-Saxon glosses added by several hands either in small upward-leaning Caroline minuscule or in a somewhat larger script that uses insular letter-forms., Decorative initials, 5- to 2-line, in black surrounded by red dots; smaller initials, 2- to 1-line, in red, often with traces of yellow. Letters, stroked with red, many now oxidized; occasional punctuation in red., Folios 8, 9, and 22 have been used as wrappers; mutilated with loss of text. Significant water damage on ff. 19r-20v, 26r; rewritten by later scribe., and Binding: ca. 1850. Olive paper case with "Middle Hill boards," bound by George Bretherton of Gloucester who worked for Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1848-51.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Aldhelm, Saint, 640?-709.
Subject (Topic):
Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)., English literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript fragment on parchment bifolium. Conjugate leaves originally from the same manuscript as Beinecke MS 401. Stitching holes in center of bifolium; outer margins trimmed with some loss of text
Description:
In Latin and Anglo-Saxon., For the script see MS 401; MS 401A was written by Scribe 2., and Decorative T on f. 2r, black initial surrounded by red dots.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Aldhelm, Saint, 640?-709.
Subject (Topic):
Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)., English literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval