The James Catalogue of Western Manuscripts

Table of contents in red:
Continentur in hoc libro Primo
Ymagines historialiter figurate pandentes ordinem processumque
Apologetici libri de omni statu humane nature docentis.
Item prefatus apologeticus liber in quatuor actus diuisus a Magistro Thoma Cancellario Wellensis Ecclesie compilatus.
Item libulus de laudibus duarum ciuitatum et sedium per supradictum Cancellarium Wellensem collectus.
Item eiusdem Epistole quatuor laudes optimi ac beneficentissimi domini sui loquentes.
Item libellus metricus poetice compilatus de Iudicio solis in conuiuiis saturni . cuius libelli autor ignotus existit.

A series of full-page pictures of most delicate stippled work. Green, white, and blue, and occasionally a pale red, are the colours employed. Each is in a dull red frame. The execution is of the highest order. Each has an inscription below it. The pictures belong to the first of the tracts contained in the volume.

1. Actus Primus. The Fall of the Angels. In C. on a throne under an arrased canopy, with curtains knotted up into round balls, sits the Father, an aged figure, in cope and imperial crown. On L. stand the obedient Angels (13 in number), some six-winged, some two-winged, adoring.
On R. the rebel angels fall, changing as they go into demons: the foremost plunges into the earth.
On L. in front lies Man, nude, looking up.
2. In C. Man throned in ermined robe and diadem. God on L. puts sceptre and orb into his hands. On R. in front is Sensualitas, a lady holding an apple. On L. Ratio, a crowned lady holding a mirror, and attended by two angels.
3. Man throned, he takes the apple from Sensuality and breaks his sceptre (Original Righteousness) over the face of Reason, who holds the mirror up to him. The angels still attend her. The orb is dropped on to the step of the throne.
4. Man, whose robe has fallen off, sits nude on a settle. Sensuality on R. seated by him. He holds the mirror. Reason, wounded and alone, turns her back on him.
5. Man nude fleeing through a wilderness: again on R. he is seen hiding behind a bare thorn bush.
6. Actus secundus. God stands in a landscape. On L. Reason kneels and points to her wounds. On R. Man summoned by God, creeps from behind the tree.
7. God gives to Man, clad in a skin robe, a wooden spade shod with iron and a scourge.
8. Actus tercius. In a room God throned: four steps lead up to the canopied throne: before them is a wooden bar, at which stand Reason and her advocates, Truth and Justice, then Man with spade and scourge, and his advocates, Mercy and Peace.
9. God descends from his throne and embraces Man. Mercy and Peace, Truth and Justice, also embrace.
10. In a landscape God in imperial crown, but clad in a skin tunic like that of man, stands by Man and introduces him to four men on L. -the Four Virtues. A Warrior in plate armour (Fortitude), a man with balance (Justice), one in a hat (Prudence) and one holding a small scroll (Temperance).
11. Actus quartus. In a vestibule - Man's house - Man (aged) is sitting holding his scourge and spade. About him stand the Four Virtues, the mailed man being at the door on R. A toothless old man (Fear of Death) kneels and holds out a letter to Man.
12. The same scene. Charity, a kneeling angel, is introduced to man by Prudence: and Fortitude pushes Fear of Death out of the door.
13. A similar scene. Man seated in the Centre. The Four Virtues behind him. In front on L. Death, a nude bony corpse, pierces his side with a lance. On R. Charity stands holding a crown.
14. A similar scene. Man, young once more, is throned. Fortitude crowns him, Prudence gives him the orb, Justice the sceptre, and Temperance puts the robe about his shoulders.
A blank page follows.
On the verso:
15. In a room with arrased or painted walls and tiled pavement sits Bp Bekynton in a chair with arrased canopy. By him is a crozier-bearer who holds a portifory in his hand by the circuit edge of the binding. Before the Bp kneels Chaundler in a gown and hood, giving him a book with clasps and a 'bag-binding.' The Bp wears a tippet or
cappa, and his mitre is above his head, seemingly not touching it.
This picture has often been reproduced: last in Williams's Somersetshire Libraries.

Below is the dedication.
Humilis Thomas C. alme Uniuersitatis Oxonie et Ecclesie Cathedralis Wellen. Cancellarius ad insignem dom. et literatissimum presulem D. Thomam de Bekintona Wellen. et Bathon. Pontificem seipsum cum presenti opuscule et sua omnia.
1. f.9 Liber apologeticus de omni statu humane nature docens. Argumentum
Audebo ne tue magnanimitati exiguum opus hoc et pene
abortiuum.
f.10b Actus primus
Magna equidem cordi res est.
The book is in dramatic form, but in prose throughout.
It ends on f.34.
Ad insignem dominum etc. etc. (as before) liber expl. de omni statu humane nature docens.
2. f.34 Ad literatissimum etc. Thomam de Bekintona Well. et Bath. Ep. in futuras laudes duarum ciuitatum et sedium suarum Argumentum incipit
Scio nonnullos reuerendissime pater dare satis intelligere.
f.34b Inc. libellus de laudibus duarum ciuitatum etc. et primo Andreas de fontibus domino Episcopo suo dicit
It is a contention between St Andrew for Wells and St Peter for Bath, with Daniel as judge.
Ends f.44
osculo signate in eternumque inuicem diligite et uiuite. Amen.
Ffinit sentencia.
Ad insignem etc... libellus feliciter explicit Et uiuet in euum ut sapiens Iudex decreuit Wellensis Ep^us. Amen.
3. f.44b Four letters of Thomas Chaundeler to Bekyngton
i. Solent qui amicitias
from Winchester College.
ii. Multa iacent animo.
Ibid. 5 January.
iii. Si dici potest optarem dicere.
From Oxford.
iv. Amicicie beneficiorum.
Ibid. 4 Kal. Jan.
Ends f.47b. See Bekynton's Correspondence, Rolls Series, I.264-76.
4. f.48 Libellus metricus poetice compilatus de Iudicio solis in conuiuiis saturni super mortalitate hominum que per orbem terrarum diffusa est et de remediis contra illam. Sequitur prologus
Postquam materias plures in mente reuolui.
Prologue ends.
Et ne deficiam super hiis que pandere tendo,
Auxilium mihi det qui regnat trinus et unus. Amen.
f.50 Text
Atria saturni firmis fundata columpnis
Auster habet longo qui nobis limite dictat.
The occasion of the poem is the Black Death of 1348, as is seen in a rubric on f.52b.
Hic describitur primum minutum primi gradus arietis et
introitus solis in eundem gradum A.D. M^o. CCC^o. XLVIII^o. etc.
Ends f.65b
Scribere nec potui . labor explicit . annue christe
Amodo ne talem patiantur secula cladem. Amen.
Expl. libellus etc. -de remediis contra illam cuius autoris nomen ignoro.
Two blank leaves, and one fly-leaf follow.

See also the introduction to Bekynton's Correspondence, Rolls Series, I.xlix, by the Revd G. Williams.

Another of Chaundler's pictured MSS. is at New College Oxford (no. 288). There are also works of his in MS. Titus A. xxiv. He was warden of Winchester College in 1450, of New College in 1453, Chancellor of Wells 1454, of Oxford 1457-61, of York 1467.

Aylmer, G., and J. Tiller, ed., Hereford Cathedral: a history (London, 2000)

Brantley, J., Reading in the Wilderness: Private Devotion and Public Performance in Late Medieval England (Chicago, London, 2007)

Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts (1908), no. 158 + pl. 109.

Chaundler, T., Liber Apologeticus de Omni Statu Humanae Naturae = A Defence of Human Nature in Every State (c. 1460) / a Moral Play by Thomas Chaundler ; Edited from Manuscript with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes by Doris Enright-Clark Shoukri, Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association 5 (London, 1974)

Davidson, C., Illustrations of the Stage and Acting in England to 1580, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 16 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1991)

James, M. R., The Chaundler MSS: Introduction on the Life and Writings of Thomas Chaundler (London, 1916)

Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3, 2nd edn (London, 1964)

Renardy, C., 'Un temoin de la Grande Peste: Maître Simon de Couvin, chanoine de Saint-Jean l'Évangeliste à Liege (d. 1367)', Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire 52 (1974), 273-92.

Robinson, P., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1988), no. 353, pl. 273 [datable between 1457 and 1461, written at Oxford]

Scott, K. L., Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Iluminated in the British Isles 6, 2 vols. (London, 1996), no. 103, ill. 390, 392, col. pl. 16.

Scott, K. L., Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts (London, 2006)

Shoukri, D. E.-C., ed., Thomas Chaundler: Liber apologeticus de omni statu humanae naturae (c.1460): a Moral Play, Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association 5 (London, 1974)

Smith, J. A., 'Woodcut Presentation Scenes in Books Printed by Caxton, de Worde, Pynson', Gutenburg-Jahrbuch 61 (1986), 322-43.

Woolgar, C. M., The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven, London, 2006)

Wragg, R.D., The guild book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library, Egerton MS 2572): study and edition (Woodbridge, 2021)