Later Version Wycliffe Parablis of Solomon, etc.

Archive Unit
  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 133 Eng MS 83
  • Dates of Creation
      End 14th/beginning 15th century
  • Physical Description
      1 volume. v + 149 + vii folios, foliated i, 1-160 (modern foliation). ff. 1-4 and 154-7 are vellum endleaves. 1r and 157v were once pasted down; 'they come no doubt from the sixteenth-century binding' (Ker). Dimensions: 98 x 66 mm. Collation of ff. 5-153: 18, 26 (ff. 13-18), 3-148, 158 lacking 3 after f. 116, 16-198. Condition: foredge heavily trimmed, cropping many marginal annotations. Medium: vellum. Binding: gold-tooled red morocco, 18th century.

Scope and Content

Later Wycliffite version of Proverbs, together with extracts from Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, and quotations from the Bible and the Fathers.

Contents: (1) ff. 5-88, Proverbs in the later Wycliffite version. Not in Forshall and Madden. Headed 'þese ben þe parablis of salamon'. No prologue.

(2) ff. 88-145v. Extracts from the later Wycliffite version of: (a): f. 88r, Ecclesiastes, extracts from chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7-10, and all of chapter 12: 'and here suen a fewe textis of ecclesiastes. Weyward men... eiþer yuel'. (b): f. 92v, Song of Songs, 8: 6-7. (c): f. 93r, Wisdom, chapters 1-9 and 16: 29: 'Here sueþ a part of sapience fro þe bigynninge til nyne chapitris ben eendid'. (d): f. 117r, Ecclesiasticus, chapters 1-3, beginning imperfectly 'þat wisdom' (1: 9), extracts from chapters 4-8 and 10-12, all of chapter 13, extracts from chapters 14-16, all of chapter 19, and extracts from chapters 20-3, 25, 27-9, 32, 33 and 35.

(3) ff. 146-153v, Quotations from the Bible and the Fathers in 29 paragraphs: 'The wraþþe of god is turned in to merci to men þat forsakiþ synne... deeþ of soule'. Spaces for the 29 headings have not been filled: directions for the headings in the margins have been cut into by the binder.

Script: Gothic textura. Written space: 70 x 50 mm. 16 long lines.

Secundo folio: þou wiþ vs.

Decoration: 4-line gilded initial on a blue and pink ground on f. 5r; 3-line gilded initial on a blue and pink ground on f. 88v; numerous 2-line initials in blue ink with red penwork flourishes.

Other features: Manicules on ff. 7r, 10v, 12r, etc.

Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 407-8. By permission of Oxford University Press.

Acquisition Information

Purchased by Mrs Enriqueta Rylands from Henry Yates Thompson in 1897, and later transferred to the John Rylands Library. Accession no. R4997.

Custodial History

(1) 16th-century inscription on f. 4 in 'a good bold hand' (Ker): 'This booke (honorable Syr) amongest others of great pryce wrytten in parchment. were preserved from the fyer in the tyme of the late kynge E. the vith by my stepfather and after by me new covered and reserved as holy reliques the others in latyne this in the olde Saxon English tongue wch I am bolde to presente to your vewe and readynge yf you can take delyghte therin.'

(2) Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham. Appendix no. 27A.

(3) Henry Yates Thompson. He purchased the Ashburnham Appendix in May 1897 and almost immediately resold the manuscript to Mrs Rylands.

Bibliography

N.R. (Neil Ripley) Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 407-8.

G.A. (Godfrey Allen) Lester, The index of Middle English prose. Handlist 2, a handlist of manuscripts containing Middle English prose in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester and Chetham's Library, Manchester (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), pp. 12-13.