Western Medieval Manuscripts : Anthology of Geoffrey Chaucer's literary works, with other texts

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>There are several reasons why MS Gg.4.27(1) (hereafter 'Gg') occupies a special place among early manuscript copies of Geoffrey Chaucer's writings. It has however seen some vicissitudes during its long life, which need to be mentioned. Compiled somewhere in East Anglia (probably not far east of Cambridge) a couple of decades or so after the poet's death in 1400, Gg constitutes the only surviving attempt to gather most of his poems between the covers of a single book, before collected editions of his works began to appear in print in the early 16th century. Like a few other Chaucer manuscripts, Gg was once extensively illustrated and decorated, but sadly most of the leaves carrying the artwork were cut out sometime during the sixteenth century, carrying away with them significant quantities of the text. Chaucer's language was by this time becoming increasingly difficult for readers to understand, especially so in the shape of the East Anglian dialect of Gg's main scribe, and the manuscript might well have been discarded or used as a source of scrap parchment, as was the fate of many other medieval books. Fortunately, in or around 1600, it was rescued by an Elizabethan antiquary named Joseph Holland, who set about rectifying some of the damage, and 'improving' the manuscript in other ways. Among other things, he commissioned <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(1062);return false;'>replacement leaves</a> to supply the parts of the text that had gone missing during the previous generation, together with a glossary, an engraved picture of Chaucer as a 'title page', and some account of the life of the poet. Most of these materials came from a new collected edition of Chaucer's works that had been published by Thomas Speght in 1598.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>It was in this strange hybrid state that Gg reached the University Library, probably in 1664, as part of the collection of Richard Holdsworth, who had been Master of Emmanuel College. There it remained, relatively undisturbed, until the mid-19th century, when it came to the notice of Henry Bradshaw, at first a keeper of manuscripts and subsequently University Librarian, who possessed the distinction of being not only the most accomplished bibliographer of the time, but also its most knowledgeable student of Chaucer's writings. In 1865, Bradshaw decided to return Gg as far as possible to its original state. With great care and skill he disbound the manuscript, and removed the leaves inserted by Holland to the back of the book, establishing in the process its original construction, and the continuity of the texts. In addition, he brought to light various features of the book which have since further enhanced its interest and importance, notably the fact that it contains a unique revised version of one of Chaucer's most accomplished and characteristic poems, the <i>Prologue to the Legend of Good Women</i>; and, moreover, that it had originally included at least one full-page picture. It is thus essentially Bradshaw's reconstruction that we see when we open Gg.4.27(1) today. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>These, and no doubt other episodes in Gg's chequered past, have effaced whatever evidence it might have contained as to who commissioned or compiled it, or who first owned it. It is however clear that, as an example of early 15th-century bookmaking, Gg stands apart from the London metropolitan book trade that produced the kind of up-market manuscripts in which Chaucer's writings were first transmitted, such as the Ellesmere Canterbury Tales (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll7/id/2838'>San Marino (CA), Huntington Library, MS EL 26 C 9</a>) and the Corpus Troilus and Criseyde (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/dh967mz5785'>Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 61</a>). By contrast, art historians are of the opinion that Gg's illustrations are no less 'provincial' in style than the East Anglian dialect of its scribes. Whoever obtained the exemplars from which the latter worked seems to have been a resourceful and perhaps well-connected admirer of Chaucer whose aim was to preserve as far as possible his entire literary legacy. A separate copy of Chaucer's <i>Treatise on the Astrolable</i> (spotted by Bradshaw in <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_9078'>Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. e Mus. 116</a>), which is also in the hand of Gg's main scribe, may have been part of the same campaign. Gg's unique copy of a revised version of the <i>Prologue to the Legend of Good Women</i> has been mentioned, and its texts of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> and the <i>Parlement of Foules</i> have been judged especially important by modern editors. The only major work that eluded the compiler was the <i>House of Fame</i>, and the early version of John Lydgate's <i>Temple of Glas</i> (? c. 1420), included at the end of Gg, may have been intended as a substitute. The subject of the <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(272);return false;'>missing full-page picture</a> that originally stood between the end of Gg's copy of <i>Troilus</i> and the beginning of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> also invites speculation in this context. Might it have been another elaborate author portrait, similar to the celebrated frontispiece to the deluxe copy of Troilus and Criseyde at Corpus Christi College, affirming Chaucer's identity and status? </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Whatever the precise motives underlying the compilation of Gg, it plays a significant role in the origins of a cultural tradition devoted to venerating Chaucer as the first recognisably great English author, and a distinct literary personality. Joseph Holland's early modern attempt to reconstitute the book as such speaks to this impulse, while two centuries or more later we find Henry Bradshaw industriously peeling away the later accretions and seeking to restore what is left of the original monument, as it were. Bradshaw's activities sparked an interest in the manuscript, which (as the accompanying bibliography shows) has continued actively down to the present day. Following in Bradshaw's wake, F.J. Furnivall swiftly printed most of the contents in his series of Chaucer Society publications during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and towards the end of the twentieth another landmark was reached when the entire manuscript was published in a three-volume photographic facsimile, with an elaborate descriptive introduction. The digital images furnished here constitute a further phase of development, and offer many avenues of enquiry for the future. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Richard Beadle<br />Professor of Medieval English Literature and Palaeography emeritus<br />St John's College, Cambridge</p>