Collection ID: 0028 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Confessio amantis

Authors

• Gower, John, 1325?-1408 (http://viaf.org/viaf/120695167)

Other related names

• Aberdeen, William Gordon, Earl of, 1679-1745, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/66323394)
• Rosenbach, A.S.W. (Abraham Simon Wolf), 1876-1952, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/56752944)

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

MS 1083/29
(Philadelphia, United States, Rosenbach Museum & Library)

Publisher

Rosenbach Museum & Library

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Origin

Place

England

Summary

This manuscript contains the Confessio amantis, a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower. The summaries and elegiacs are written in Latin, as rubrics. The text consists of the first version, dedicated to Richard II, with verses to Chaucer. This copy lacks the final original page of fifty-eight lines; the final folio (162) is a replica replacement by the twentieth-century scribe, Edward Johnston, dated 14-15 September, 1924.

Notes

• Second front flyleaf is an original (or early) parchment leaf, with early annotations in a sixteenth-century English hand consisting of a nostalgic verse, signed H.S., mentioning Hanton Paget, estate of William, 1st Baron Paget, Secretary of State under Henry VIII
   

Extent

Ii+162+ii; 287 x 204 mm bound to 298 x 212 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto

Collation

1-20 (8), 21 (2, +1 +2 leaf in position 2 has been replaced)

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Original horizontal catchwords on lower right versos at: 8v, 16v, 24v, 32v, 40v, 48v, 56v, 64v, 72v, 80v, 88v, 96v, 104v, 112v, 120v, 128v, 136v, 144v, 152v

Binding

Nineteenth-century blue gilt morocco

Layout

Two columns of fifty-nine lines each, ruled in purple ink; written area (inclusive of both columns): 213 x 140 mm

Decoration

Two historiated initials (the author writing, fol. 1r; Nebuchadnezzar's dream, fol. 3v); illuminated initials and leaf sprays at the beginnings of each book

Script

Gothic--anglicana

Scribe: John Carpenter (as identified by Mooney and Stubbs, 2013, pp. 86-106)

Colophon

Modern colophon by Edward Johnston on fol. 162r (replica leaf), in Latin and in English

Provenance

• Belonged to the Earl of Haddo, afterwards Lord Aberdeen
   

Related resources

• The Rosenbach Company, An exhibition of fifteenth century manuscripts and books in honor of the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: The Company, 1940), p. 10.
• The Rosenbach Company, English Poetry to 1700 (New York: The Company, 1941), p. 185, no. 368.
• Anderson, David, Sixty bokes olde and newe: manuscripts and early printed books from libraries in and near Philadelphia illustrating Chaucer's sources, his works and their influence (Knoxville: New Chaucer Society, The University of Tennessee, 1986), p. 99.
• Mooney, Linne R. and Estelle Stubbs, Scribes and the city: London Guildhall clerks and the dissemination of Middle English literature, 1375-1425 (York Medieval Press, 2013), pp. 86-106.
• Edwards, A.S.G., "Buying Gower's Confessio Amantis in Modern Times" in John Gower in England and Iberia: Manuscripts, Influences, Reception, ed. Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and R. F. Yeager (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, D. S. Brewer, 2014), pp. 283-284 (chapter pp. 279-290).
• Mooney, Linne, Simon Horobin, and Estelle Stubbs, Late Medieval English Scribes, ISBN 978-0-9557876-6-9, [accessed 2017/05/24]. (http://www.medievalscribes.com)

Keywords

• 15th century
• English
• England
• Gothic book hand
• Historiated initial
• Notable binding
• Literature -- Poetry

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Rosenbach Museum & Library MS 1083/29: Confessio amantis are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Rosenbach Museum & Library MS 1083/29: Confessio amantis. This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• Flyleaf 2 recto — Early ownership note
• fol. 1r — Confessio Amantis; incipit: Off hem þat writen us before... (fol. 1r); explicit: Oure joye mai ben endeles. (fol. 162r)
• Flyleaf 2 recto — Early ownership note

Decorations

• fol. 1r — Historiated initial O, Author portrait
• fol. 1r — Illuminated border
• fol. 3v — Historiated initial A, Nebuchadnezzar's dream
• fol. 3v — Illuminated border
• fol. 6v — Illuminated initial I
• fol. 6v — Illuminated border
• fol. 23r — Illuminated initial N
• fol. 23r — Illuminated border
• fol. 40v — Illuminated initial I
• fol. 40v — Illuminated border
• fol. 54r — Illuminated initial U
• fol. 54r — Illuminated border
• fol. 72r — Illuminated initial F
• fol. 72r — Illuminated border
• fol. 108v — Illuminated initial T
• fol. 108v — Illuminated border
• fol. 119v — Illuminated initial I
• fol. 119v — Illuminated border
• fol. 147r — Illuminated initial T
• fol. 147r — Illuminated border