Known as the Corser Manuscript after one of its previous owners, this volume contains two works: the first is a manuscript copy of the Pricke of Conscience; and the second is an exposition on the Lord's Prayer attributed to John Wycliffe. The Pricke of Conscience is divided into 8 books with additions in Latin prose and English verse. Also contained in the manuscript, on ff. 1 and 66, are badly defaced accounts relating to payments to a certain Stanlou by parishes of the diocese of Vannes in Brittany.
Contents: (1) 'The myȝt off þe fadur almyȝti ... þt for ous fouched saff to henge.' Ed. Richard Morris, The pricke of conscience (see Bibliography below). For this version in eight instead of seven parts, much as in Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS 60, see K.D. Bülbring in Englische Studien, xxiii (1897), pp. 23-8, and H.E. Allen, Writings of Richard Rolle (1927), pp. 388-93. The two points at which the largest amounts of Latin and English are interpolated into the text are: between lines 192 and 193, 440 lines of English verse interspersed with Latin prose (ff. 2v-7); between lines 6894 and 6895, Latin prose (ff. 39-41, 46-8) and 563 lines of English verse interspersed with Latin tags and longer pieces of Latin (ff. 41-6). After line 9474 come 112 lines of English verse (f. 61r, col. b, line 19 to f. 61v col. b, line 41), most of them taken from lines 6346-6401, which do not occur in their usual place after f. 37r, col. a, line 3. Part 8 begins in this section (f. 61r, col. b, line 29) 'Nou off þe viii part...'. At the end (f. 62v) is a note in Latin: 'Hoc nomen consciencia componitur ab hoc preposicione... agendorum et non etc'.
(2) ff. 63-65v, Exposition on the Lord's Prayer attributed to John Wycliffe, 'Sith the pater noster ys the beste preyer þat is... blisse and ioye with him with outen ende Amen.' W.W. Shirley, A catalogue of the original works of John Wyclif (1865), English 64. Thomas Arnold (ed.), Select English works of John Wyclif (1869-71), vol. 3, pp. 98-110. Cf. English MS 85 , item (2).
Script: 'More or less current anglicana' (Ker); item (2) is in a different hand from (1). In item (1) n, m and u are usually made of straight, backward-sloping strokes. Written space: 277 x 200 mm. 2 columns, 48-52 lines.
Secundo folio: Al holy writ (f. 3).
Decoration: Nine 4-, 5-, 6- and 7-line initials in blue ink with red penwork flourishes and infill on ff. 2r, 8r, 11r, 14v, 19v, 26r, 37r, 51v and 61r; numerous 2- and 3-line initials in the same style.
Other features: ff. 1 and 66 comprise two pieces cut from an account roll (?) of which the dorse (ff. 1v and 66r) was left blank. f. 66v is hardly legible. f. 1r contains thirty-five entries dating from the 14th century, all but five of them beginning 'la paroessz de...': no. 34 begins 'lislle de bellislle' and no. 35 'lissle de quibeuron'. The formula continues after the place-name with 'Ransone et paie au dit stanlou' and a sum of money in francs which varies from 30 to 350. The places referred to are in the diocese of Vannes. Presumably these accounts belonged to an English receiver (Stanlou/Stanlow) during Edward III's wars in Brittany. A John de Stanlow was with the army in France in 1346 (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1345-1348, p. 507).
Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 413-14. By permission of Oxford University Press. Prof. Robert Lewis assisted Ker with the description of item (1).