Later Version Wycliffe New Testament

Later Wycliffite version of the New Testament.

Contents: Forshall and Madden, no. 159. They note peculiar readings by a second hand; Ker was unable to find more than a corrector's amendments of omissions. The order is Gospels, Apocalypse (ff. 114v-130v), Pauline Epistles, Acts, Catholic Epistles. Usual prologues. f. 131r and v are blank before Romans, which begins a new quire. ff. 239-240v are blank.

Script: Gothic textura. Written space: 117 x 85 mm. 2 columns, 31 lines and, from f. 58, 35 lines.

Secundo folio: gidere.

Decoration: Red and blue penwork frame around f. 2v. 5-line initials at the beginning of each book in red and blue ink with penwork infill and flourishes; numerous other 2-, 3- and 4-line initials in blue with red penwork infill and flourishes.

Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 405. By permission of Oxford University Press.

Purchased by Mrs Enriqueta Rylands from Henry Yates Thompson in 1897, and later transferred to the John Rylands Library. Accession no. R4993.

(1) Lea Wilson, F.S.A., Wycliffe scholar. Described by him in his Bibles, Testaments, Psalms, etc. (1845), pp. 139-40 (see Bibliography below).

(2) Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham. Appendix no. 22.

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

Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850), vol. 1, MS no.159.

N.R. (Neil Ripley) Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 405.

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), p. 7.

Lea Wilson, Bibles, Testaments, Psalms and other books of the Holy Scriptures in English in the collection of Lea Wilson, esq, F.S.A., etc. (London: printed at Chiswick by Charles Whittingham, 1845).