{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin", "value": "15th century (probably compiled over a period of time during the later 3rd and 4th quarters of the century). England, probably Nottinghamshire.

As Keiser (1999) has pointed out, the later copies of legal instruments in Item 28 make frequent reference to William Booth or Bothe (d. 1464), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and later archbishop of York, and to others associated with him, notably members of the Worsley family. The appearance of the handwriting, and the possible dating of some of the watermarks to c. 1469 and c. 1477, tend to suggest that the manuscript may have been compiled over a period during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The fact that Scribe C, who must have added item 27 at a date after 1483 (when the sweating sickness first appeared in England) also collaborated with Scribe A in the copying of item 6, lends substantial support to this suggestion. <\/p>

Items 26, 28 and 32 strongly suggest that the principal compiler of the manuscript (Scribe A) was a member or servant of the religious community at the collegiate church of Southwell, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire. In order to compile Item 28 he must have had access to the archive of William Booth, who often stayed at the archiepiscopal residence at Southwell, and in whose church he was buried in 1464. Item 26 indicates that the compiler was directly associated with a member of the Worsley family family, whose extensive connections with the community at Southwell (and with Booth) are evident in Item 28, and more generally in the Southwell visitation records of the later fifteenth century (printed by Leach (1891)). Regarding the contents of the manuscript, it is relevant to note that hawking and hunting were amongst the clerical misdemeanours identified during the visitations, and that there are also allusions to the fact that the community was troubled by plague from time to time.<\/p>

Verweij (2006-09)<\/div><\/div>
" }, { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "England, probably Nottinghamshire." }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "

John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely: no. 114 (f. 3r<\/a>) in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ<\/i> (c. 1697).<\/p>" }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: i + 130 + i leaves. Leaf height: 210-220 mm, width: 140-150 mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "Arts and Humanities Research Council" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "15th century (probably compiled over a period of time during the later 3rd and 4th quarters of the century)." }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Ll.1.18" }, { "label": "Donor(s)", "value": "George I, King of Great Britain, 1660-1727" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

Notes in pencil by Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886), University Librarian 1867-1886, concerning the loss of leaves from the manuscript, usually written in the corners of the lower margin (see. ff. 4v<\/a>, 13v<\/a>, 63r<\/a>, 72v<\/a>, 145r<\/a>, 150v<\/a>).<\/p>

Collation formula by the hand of H.L. Pink (rear pastedown<\/a>). From Quire 5 onwards, and continuing a sequence begun by an earlier, probably 19th-century hand, Pink also added quire numbers to the lower right-hand corner of the recto side of the first leaf of each quire, and '+' in the same location to the first leaf of the second half of each quire. Pink also made notes throughout the manuscript, in locations where he judged leaves to be missing (see, for example, the upper margins of ff. 3r<\/a>, 17v<\/a>, 26v<\/a> etc).<\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Medicine; Cooking, Medieval; Heraldry; Hunting" }, { "label": "Associated Name(s)", "value": "Pink, H. L.; Bradshaw, Henry, 1831-1886; Pine, John, 1690-1756" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "

A description of this manuscript and a transcription of part of its text was produced by Sebastiaan Verweij as part of Scriptorium: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online<\/i> (2006-09), a three-year AHRC-funded Resource Enhancement Project based in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. The digital images, descriptive metadata and transcriptions from this project have been archived on Apollo<\/a>, the University of Cambridge's Digital Repository, and have also been made available via a dedicated collection page on the Cambridge Digital Library<\/a>.<\/p>

The description of the manuscript was revised in 2024 by James Freeman, as part of Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries<\/i>, a two-year Wellcome-funded Research Resources Project based at Cambridge University Library. The revised description draws on the study of the manuscript in Richard Beadle, 'Cambridge, University Library, MS Ll.1.18: a Southwell miscellany', in Pursuing Middle English manuscripts and their texts: essays in honour of Ralph Hanna<\/i>, ed. by S. Horobin and A. Nafde (2017), pp. 99-112 and on Margaret Connolly, Manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge (Dd-Oo)<\/i>, Index of Middle English Prose 19 (2009), pp. 312-19. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "Middle English and Latin. Middle English with dialectical features locatable to Midlands and Nottinghamshire [LALME]" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

Marbled paper cover over pasteboards, parchment tips, half calf, red leather spine. Probably 1950s/1960s. <\/p>

Spine label from an ?18th-century binding preserved on the front pastedown<\/a>. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Condition", "value": "

The manuscript is soiled and badly damaged in parts, with many leaves missing. The extremely fragmentary remains of ff. 63-65<\/a> have been repaired and remounted, and ff. 66-74<\/a> show signs of heavy repair. One worm hole starts at f. 91<\/a>, with over ten worm holes appearing in the final f. 150<\/a>.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

'As regards handwriting, Ll.1.18 at first gives the impression that it was the work of many hands, but (apart from very minor marginal additions) there were in fact only three: A, who wrote the bulk of the manuscript, probably over a period of time; B, who collaborated fleetingly with A early on, and who reappears to contribute a short later addition; and C, who appears in one quire only, a distinct booklet that A took into his compilation, and went on to use himself. Hand A's successive stints are often clearly discernible in frequent changes of pen or ink (or both), and his work shows signs of having been carried on intermittently, and probably in informal circumstances, as exemplars sporadically became available. The hands of all three scribes show variable mixtures of current anglicana<\/i> and secretary<\/i> features characteristic of the latter half of the fifteenth century, and both the duct and the selection of features in A's contributions were clearly affected by language, text type and the space available on the page.'<\/p>