Later Version Wycliffe Old Testament

Later Wycliffite version of part of the Old Testament, now containing only 1 Kings 28: 5 to Ecclesiasticus 16: 2, with numerous leaves missing between these points.

Contents: Part of the Old Testament in the later Wycliffite version. Not in Forshall and Madden. A 'handsome and large-scale copy' (Ker) which originally contained the four books of Kings, the second book of Chronicles, and the five sapiential books on well over 300 leaves (the text goes straight on within quires from 4 Kings to 2 Chronicles and from 2 Chronicles to Proverbs) but contains now only 1 Kings 28: 5 'filisteis' to Ecclesiasticus 16: 2 'traueilis of hem', with probably 23 leaves missing between these points, including all between Proverbs 19: 4 'richessis' and Ecclesiastes 2: 6 'wode of' after f. 192, where two quires are missing.

Script: Gothic textura. Written space 160 x 108 mm. 2 columns, 24 lines.

Decoration: Good 5-, 6- and 7-line initials in blue and pink with white penwork and floral infill on burnished gold grounds, with gilded bar borders on the five remaining pages where new books begin: 2-4 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Proverbs (ff. 5r, 40v, 83v, 124r and 174r). Numerous 3-line initials in blue ink with red penwork infill and flourishes.

Other features: A pair of ruled lines in each margin. The running title is between the lines at the top and the quire signature is in the box where the lines in the lower margin cross those in the outer margin on rectos. Elaborately framed catchwords: 'in god is al euer was and euer schal' is in the frame on f. 18v. Grotesques and floral extensions grow out of the ascenders on the top line of some leaves, e.g. ff. 107r, 109v, 110r.

Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 407. 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. R4996.

(1) According to Ker, 'No 83' at the head of f. 1r, on the left, indicates that the manuscript was once part of the library founded in 1684 by Archbishop Thomas Tenison (1636-1715) in the church of St Martin in the Fields, London: see the catalogue of 1786 by Samuel Ayscough (British Library, Add. MS 11257), no. 36. Sotheby's sale of Tenison's library on 1 July 1861, lot 12; sold to Lilly for Lord Ashburnham for £150.

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

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

Edward Carpenter, Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury: his life and times (London: S.P.C.K., 1948), pp. 23-6.

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

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. 11.

Sotheby's, Catalogue of a highly valuable collection of manuscripts, formed by Archbishop Tenison... [to be] sold by auction, by Messrs. S. Leigh Sotheby & John Wilkinson... on Monday the 1st day of July, 1861, etc. (London: printed by J. Davy and Sons for S. Leigh Sotheby & John Wilkinson, 1861).