{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin", "value": "1400-1450. According to William Walter Skeat, the copy of Piers Plowman<\/i> in this manuscript was made in the early fifteenth century. Henry Yates Thompson, in a printed description of the manuscript dated \"June 1909\" pasted onto f. [ii] verso, dates it to c. 1420. In more recent scholarship, the copy is dated to the first half of the 15th century [Kane and Donaldson (1988), p. 14]; the middle of the 15th century [Ker (1977), p. 239]; and second quarter of the 15th century [Doyle (1986), p. 39; Hanna (1993), p. 39]. The copies of The Lay Folk's Mass Book<\/i> and Old English Grace<\/i> were added by a different hand and probably at a later stage. According to Simmons (1879), following information provided by William Walter Skeat, the latter texts were copied around the year 1450. EnglandDialectal features suggest that the scribe was educated in London and was copying from an exemplar copied in an Oxfordshire dialect (see further notes under Language(s))." }, { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "England" }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "

Newnham College MS 4 was probably commissioned by an owner whose heraldic badge or rebus has been drawn no less than four times in the manuscript's lower margins (ff. 1r<\/a>, 35r<\/a>, 68v<\/a>, and 98v<\/a>). This badge/rebus consists of an eagle displayed with a Lombard letter 'L' in red ink on its chest and standing on a green mound. If it is a heraldic badge, then it is not recorded in Michael Powell SiddonsHeraldic badges in England and Wales<\/i> (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009). If it is a rebus, which seems more likely, then the eagle probably refers to the first name 'John' or surname 'St John'. Reading the rebus as 'L over St John', a possible solution is 'Oliver St John'. Considering the manuscript's dating, he could have been Sir Oliver St John of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire; Spelsbury, Oxfordshire; and Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire (d. 1437), the great-great-great grandfather of Oliver St John, 1st Baron St John of Bletso (d. 1582). His ownership of a Piers Plowman<\/i> manuscript would fit with what else is known about book ownership by the St Johns of Bletsoe. The family owned a Middle English translation of the Legenda Aurea<\/i>, known as the Gilte Legende<\/i>, dating to the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century (London, British Library, Harley MS 4775<\/a>) and perhaps also a printed copy of William Caxton's Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers<\/i> (London, 1477) London, British Library, C. 10 b. 2<\/a> [STC 6828]). Another possible solution is 'John Elred' - reading the rebus as 'John red L' - in which case the commissioner may have been John Elvered, also spelled 'Elred', who occurs as rector of Oxburgh, Norfolk, in 1386. Elred held this position until 1416 when his will was drawn up on 1 October and proved on the 16th of that month. According to the Dictionary of British Arms<\/i>, vol. 2 (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1996), p. 132, 'John Elred' used a seal with an image of St Michael slaying the dragon at its centre, a coat of arms with St Clare on his its right side, and a coat of arms with an eagle displayed on its left side (for a reproduction, see Sigilla Antiqua: Engravings from ancient seals attached to deeds and charters in the Muniment room of Sir Thomas Hare, baronet of Stowe-Bardolph, 2nd series (1862), no. 3.8.). <\/p>

Perhaps owned by Lionel Tollemache (1708-1770), 4th Earl of Dysart, of Helmingham Hall, Suffolk: the manuscript is perhaps identifiable with a book in the handwritten Catalogue of MSS and Printed Books in the Library at Helmingham Hall Suffolk of 1762, described as follows: \"Petri Plowman [on Vellum]. Bound in rough calf\". The Tollemache's evidence of ownership may have been removed from the manuscript: glue stains on the centre of the inside of the upper cover<\/a> indicate that a bookplate is missing. Traces of glue on the upper outer corner of the inside of the front cover suggest that a label is missing on the exact location where Helmingham manuscripts typically have a small label [Edwards (1999), p. 426]. If the identification is correct, then the manuscript was probably already owned by Lionel's ancestors and passed down the Tollemache family of Helmingham Hall after his death. Although the Helmingham manuscripts were largely sold off through auctions in the 1960s and 1970s, Newnham College MS 4 may have been among the many items that were stolen from the Tollemache family by the Suffolk antiquary William Stevenson Fitch (1792-1859) in the 1820s and 1830s. For the identification of Newnham College MS 4 with the Helmingham Hall manuscript, see Edwards (1999), and Edwards and Griffiths (2000), p. 64.<\/p>

Joseph Brooks Yates (1780-1855), antiquary, merchant, slave trader, grandfather of Henry Yates Thompson: As indicated by a handwritten note \"Inherited from Jos B. Yates 1856\" on the printed ex libris of the library of Henry Yates Thompson, the manuscipt once belonged to Joseph Brooks Yates and was passed down by him to his grandson, Henry Yates Thompson. For further details about their acquisition of medieval manuscripts, see Eve Lacey's introduction Henry Yates Thompson (1838\u20131928)<\/i> in this catalogue record.<\/p>

Henry Yates Thompson (1838\u20131928), collector of illuminated manuscripts, newspaper proprietor, and grandson of Joseph Brooks Yates: A printed ex libris from the library of Henry Yates Thompson (gold-stamped: \"EX MUSAEO HENRICI YATES THOMPSON\" bears the handwritten note: \"Inherited from Jos B. Yates 1856\". His ownership inscription on f. [ii] recto<\/a>: \"H. Yates Thompson - Liverpool 1856\"; but not listed in the four catalogues of his library, including lists of rejected manuscripts, published between 1898 and 1912. For further details about their acquisition of medieval manuscripts, see Eve Lacey's introduction Henry Yates Thompson (1838\u20131928)<\/i> in this catalogue record.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: ii + 109 + ii leaves. Leaf height: 295 mm, width: 185 mm. ff. 1-106 measure 295 x 185mm and ff. 107-109 measure 285 x 180mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "1400-1450" }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, Newnham College, MS 4" }, { "label": "Donor(s)", "value": "Thompson, Henry Yates, 1838\u20131928" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

On the upper half of f. [i] recto<\/a> is a paper pastedown with a printed description of the manuscript that, according to an added handwritten note by Henry Yates Thompson, was taken \"from a Catalogue of an exhibition of MSS to which I lent this volume\". This exhibition catalogue lists the manuscript, here given the title \"Pierce the Ploughman's Vision\", as no. 84. The source of this description was previously unknown but is now identified as the catalogue of an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts at the clubhouse of the Liverpool Art Club in 1876 (see Liverpool Art Club: Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts<\/i> (Liverpool: Liverpool Art Club, 1876), pp. 45-46 [no. 84]).<\/p>

On the lower half of f. [i] recto<\/a> is a note written in the hand of Henry Yates Thompson on observations on this manuscript's copy of Piers Plowman<\/i> made by Walter William Skeat.<\/p>

Folio [ii] recto<\/a> features a paper bifolium containing a handwritten letter by William Walter Skeat in which he gives thanks to Henry Yates Thompson for borrowing the manuscript to him, dated 9 December 1869 (ff. [iia] recto-[iia] verso<\/a>); and paper clippings with a printed description of the manuscrpt by Skeat from his EETS volume (f. [iib] recto<\/a>.<\/p>

Folio [ii] verso<\/a> contains a paper pastedown with a printed description of the manuscript signed by Henry Yates Thompson, dated June 1909.<\/p>

On the inside of the rear cover<\/a> is a note written in pencil: \"Rev. T.F. Simmon, Dalton Holme [...]\".<\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Literature" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "This catalogue entry draws on N.R. Ker and Alan J. Piper Medieval manuscripts in British libraries<\/i>, 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969\u20132002), II (1977): Abbotsford-Keele, pp. 239-240; and C. David Benson and Lynne Sandra Blanchfield, The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: The B-version<\/i> (Cambridge: Brewer, 1997), pp. 51-54 (as 'Y')." }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "Middle English and Latin; the dialect has been described as North Oxfordshire but 'in a residual way' [Doyle (1986), p. 39], London with diluted Western forms [Samuels (1988), p. 206]; and 'London language with underlying North Oxfordshire forms' [Hanna (1993), p. 39]" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

18th-century reversed brown calf over boards, triple-filetted blind-tooled borders on the front and rear covers; the spine has five raised bands with blind-stamped motifs flanked by blind-tooled triple-filets, and a red leather label with a gold-stamped inscription: \"MSS\".<\/p>

A paper card that is kept with the manuscript contains a printed formula for books that are rebound with funding from the Newnham Associates. This card has been filled in to state that the manuscript was 'rebound' - referring to the production of the dark blue storage box in which the manuscript currently lives - in 2004 in memory of \"Lady Hamilton (Jenkins)\" who matriculated from Newnham College in \"1932\". An entry for this year in the College Register, kindly provided by Eve Lacey, Librarian of Newnham College Library, identifies her as Winifred Mary Jenkins (1913-2000, NC 1932), daughter of Hammond Beaconsfield Jenkins and Edith Swinburne Dixon.<\/p>

Binding height: 310mm; width: 190mm; depth: 35mm.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Condition", "value": "Wormholes in the manuscript's final leaves. The lower margin of f. 2 was cut out (but no loss of text)." }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

ff. 1r-104r<\/a> have been copied by a single hand working in a neat Anglicana Formata<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>

ff. 1r-104v<\/a> have been copied by a single hand working in a less fluent Anglicana Formata<\/i> than that of ff. 1r-104r<\/a>.<\/p><\/div><\/div>" }, { "label": "Physical Location", "value": "Newnham College Library" }, { "label": "Abstract", "value": "

William Langland (c. 1325\u2013c. 1390), Piers Plowman<\/i><\/b><\/i><\/p>

This manuscript, dating to the first half of the 15th century, contains the B-Text of William Langland's Piers Plowman<\/i>, the allegorical dream-vision poem, accompanied by The Lay Folks' Mass<\/i> and a short Old English Grace<\/i>, all written in Middle English. Piers Plowman<\/i> was likely copied c. 1420, while the following two texts are thought to have been added up to 30 years later.<\/p>

Piers Plowman<\/i> is written in alliterative Middle English verse. The poem describes the journey of the poet-narrator, Will, who falls asleep while wandering the Malvern Hills in the West Midlands region of England, and enters a \"merveillous swevene\" (a dream) (f. 1r<\/a>, l. 11). The text proceeds through a sequence of dream-visions, or 'passus', which engage allegorical tropes and figures to explore the nature of Christian devotion, the institution of the Church, and the social and religious issues of late fourteenth-century England. Throughout Will's dreams, he seeks the allegorical figure Piers the Plowman, a journey which represents the Christian way of life as a movement toward salvation. The complex satire, however, is also famously resistant to systematic interpretations, and the poem frequently plays with the boundaries between the concrete and the allegorical, the theological and the political, and community and the individual self. The result is a multi-layered and self-theorizing text, which has been the subject of many decades of academic work, and which continues to offer a rich, albeit famously challenging, source for literary, theological, philosophical, and historical scholars alike.<\/p>

Langland's poem exists in multiple versions and survives in over 50 manuscript copies, presenting a challenge for any modern reader attempting to identify a single 'text'. The versions are usually categorised into three groupings, known as the A, B, and C versions. The A-Text is thought to have been produced in the later 1360s (after 1362), the B-Text a decade later (c. 1377\u2013before 1381), and the C-Text a decade later still (after 1388). The A-Text is the shortest version, running to around 2,500 lines, while the latter two versions run to around 7,700 lines. The B-Text, as found in the present manuscript, adds seven more dreams to the A version, including two dreams-within-dreams.<\/p>

This manuscript witness of Piers Plowman<\/i> is a well organised and neatly copied text. The manuscript boasts an elaborately decorated border on the first page, decorated initials at the start of each passus, red and blue paraph markers, and red ink for proper names, marginal headings, and Latin phrases. The scribe has adhered to the page rulings, which locate 40 lines to each page. Blank lines have been left after each paragraph. With this professional presentation, the manuscript reproduces what Simon Horobin has called a 'professional metropolitan' layout (2014, p. 184), of a kind with Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.17<\/a>, also containing the B-Text, which has been used as a base text for many modern editions. Other such copies include Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 581<\/a> and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Poetry MS 38<\/a>. It is not known for whom this copy was produced: the lower margins of four pages (ff. 1r<\/a>, 35r<\/a>, 68v<\/a>, 98v<\/a>) contain an eagle drawn with a red 'L' on its chest, standing on a green mound with wings outstretched, but the name of this owner has not been identified.<\/p>

This witness (listed as no. 'xvi' and collated as 'Y') was used by W.W. Skeat in his editions of Piers Plowman<\/i> for the Early English Text Society, first published in 1886. Skeat proposed a single author for the different versions of the poem, and though this gave rise to many years of authorship controversy, it is now generally agreed that the poem is the work of a single poet.<\/p>

The second and third texts in the manuscript are written in a different hand. The second, The Lay Folks' Mass<\/i> (also known as The Lay Folks' Mass Book<\/i>), is a Middle English guide to the mass originating from the late 14th century. It survives in various forms in nine manuscripts, including the present copy. The poem is written in rhyming couplets, offering descriptions of the actions of the priest and recommended responses for the congregation (e.g. \"A large cros on the thyn make / Seyeng thus in this maner\" [Make the sign of a large cross on yourself / Saying the following in this manner], f. 105r<\/a>, ll. 34\u201335). The present version was edited together with five other variants by Frederick Simmons for his EETS edition, published in 1879 (the remaining three manuscripts were discovered later).<\/p>

The final text in the manuscript, the short Old English Grace<\/i>, is a verse prayer in six lines, and can be found in four other manuscript witnesses. The prayer appears to have been a grace to be said before supper, and asks God to bless the bread and ale to be consumed, just as he blessed the bread at the Last Supper (Maundy Thursday: 'mawde', in this version). The text was also edited by Simmons in his EETS edition of The Lay Folks' Mass Book<\/i> (1879, p. 60).<\/p>

The Lay Folks' Mass<\/i> and the short Old English Grace<\/i> are more plainly presented than Piers Plowman<\/i>, with black and red ink used throughout in alternating sections. Plainly decorated elongated brackets are used to group the couplets of the former text, with alternating colours used for text and bracket respectively. Red ink is also used for initials on each line. All texts in the manuscript are written in a neat Anglicana Formata, though the scribe of Piers Plowman<\/i> has a more uniform hand, while the hand of The Lay Folks' Mass<\/i> and Old English Grace<\/i> is less consistent in size and placement on the line. Neither scribe has been identified.<\/p>

The manuscript's paratextual materials include various notes of ownership and editorial work. On the verso of the front binding, an ex libris reads \"EX MUSÆO HENRICI YATES THOMPSON, Inherited from Jos B. Yates 1856\". The plate indicates the manuscript's ownership by the collector Henry Yates Thompson, who inherited it from his grandfather, Joseph Brooks Yates, and later donated it to Newnham College (see Provenance). On the opposite page is pasted a clipping from \"a Catalogue of an exhibition of illuminated MSS to which I [Henry Yates Thompson] lent this volume\", with corrections to the printed description added in the same pen as this note. On the following folio, another pasted slip folds out to reveal a letter penned by W.W. Skeat to Thompson, including the clipping of his description of the manuscript in his EETS edition. In this letter, Skeat notes that the \"MS. proved very useful\", and that he has categorised it in \"sub-class b of Class B\" of his scheme for the Piers Plowman<\/i> witnesses. In the description, Skeat thanks \"Mr Thompson in an especial manner for his kindness in lending me this MS, and so enabling me to become thoroughly acquainted with its contents at my leisure\".<\/p>

Dr Hannah Lucas
Newby Trust Research Fellow
Newnham College<\/p>

Henry Yates Thompson (1838\u20131928)<\/b><\/i><\/p>

This manuscript was donated to Newnham College Library in 1906 by Henry Yates Thompson (for his ownership, see the Provenance section), who inherited it 50 years earlier from his maternal grandfather, Joseph Brooks Yates. The UCL database Legacies of British Slave Ownership records that, at the point of abolition in 1833, Joseph Brooks Yates was associated with claims relating to 18 estates and 2287 enslaved people in Jamaica. It is therefore likely that Joseph Brooks Yates acquired the manuscript from the financial proceeds of slave-ownership.<\/p>

Henry Yates Thompson was a renowned manuscript collector. In this pursuit, he was influenced by Joseph Brooks Yates, who bequeathed ten illuminated manuscripts to his grandson. Yates Thompson inherited an enthusiasm for collecting too, and claimed that his passion for antiquarian books 'came from his maternal grandfather Joseph Brooks Yates, of Liverpool [...] Yates Thompson published a portrait of him in 1912, acknowledging that his \"example made me a collector of manuscripts\"' [De Hamel (1991), p. 79]. Yates Thompson was famous for limiting his collection to one hundred and selling old manuscripts every time he bought another to add to his collection. This collecting policy meant that he sold or gave away almost all the manuscripts he inherited from his grandfather once he found better copies. He and his widow presented some 50 rare books and manuscripts to Newnham College. Other notable beneficiaries were the Fitzwilliam Museum and the British Museum. Henry Yates Thompson appears to have been meticulous about recording the provenance of his books and manuscripts. This has allowed Newnham College to identify two medieval manuscripts and four early printed books that were originally in the collection of Joseph Brooks Yates. This is one of the medieval manuscripts.<\/p>

Henry Yates Thompson engaged directly with the question of slavery during his lifetime. He travelled across America during the Civil War and recorded his journey in diary entries, newspaper articles, and letters arguing with family members. He was a supporter of the North and the Union, and an advocate for abolition. His compiled writings [An Englishman in the American Civil War: the diaries of Henry Yates Thompson, 1863<\/i>, ed. Chancellor (1971)] provide source material of interviews and encounters with slave owners and occasionally with enslaved or formerly enslaved people.<\/p>

Eve Lacey
Librarian
Newnham College Library<\/p>" }, { "label": "Former Owner(s)", "value": "Tollemache, Lionel, 1708-1770; Yates, Joseph Brooks, 1780-1855; Thompson, Henry Yates, 1838\u20131928" }, { "label": "Title", "value": "William Langland, Piers Plowman" }, { "label": "Author(s) of the Record", "value": "Dr Hannah Lucas, Newby Trust Research Fellow, Newnham College, with supplements by Dr Clarck Drieshen, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist, Cambridge University Library" }, { "label": "Material", "value": "Parchment (Quires 1-13, and 15: FHHF<\/i>; Quire 14: HFFH<\/i>)" }, { "label": "Collation", "value": "