The James Catalogue of Western Manuscripts

Shelfmark B.15.17
Manuscript Title

William Langland, Piers Plowman

Alternative Title

Piers Plowman

James Number 353
Century 14th
Physical Description

28-30 lines on a page. Plainly written, with rough but good ornament.

Provenance

Given by Willmer.

Donor Wilmer, George (c.1583-1626), Alumnus Of Trinity (Matric 1598)
Size (cm) 29.5 x 20.5
Folio 147 ff.
Material Parchment
Language Middle English
Collation

18-168 172 188 l910 (wants 10 blank).

Notes

See printed catalogue entry for additional information.

IIIF Manifest URL https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/b.15.17/manifest.json
Online Since 04/02/2014

Contents

On this MS. Skeat (Piers Plowman, II. p. lxviii.) says that it represents Text B, group b. It was printed in extenso by T. Wright.

1. f.1 Piers Plowman.
In a somer seson . Whan softe was þe sonne.
Ends f.130b
And siþþe he gradde after grace . til I gan awake.
Explicit hic Dialogus Petri Plowman.

2. f.131 A Treatise of Sin. In double columns of 34 lines
In euery synful man or womman þ t is bounden in dedly synne.
Ends f.147a pray for me . þe grace of Ihesu crist be wiþ þee and kepe þee. Amen.

3. f.147 A short poem of the love of Christ
Printed in Rel. Ant. i. 166.
beg. Crist made to man a fair present
his blody body wiþ loue ybrent.
ends Thanne shal my loue be trewe and fyn,
And loue in loue shal make syn. Amen.

In the binding is a bit of a xvth cent. document: the name Huysshe occurs often: also the name Gaynsford.

Bibliography

Benson, C. D., and L. S. Blanchfield, The manuscripts of Piers Plowman: the B-version (Cambridge, 1997)

Echard, S., Printing the Middle Ages, Material Texts (Philadelphia, Pa., 2008)

Greg, W. W., Facsimiles of Twelve Early English Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College Cambridge (Oxford, 1913), no. 7.

Horobin, S., and L. R. Mooney, A Piers Plowman Manuscript by the Hengwrt/Ellesmere Scribe and its Implications for London Standard English, Studies in the age of Chaucer 26 (Norman, Okla,2004) p. 65-112.

Kane, G., and E. Talbot Donaldson, ed., Piers Plowman: the B version: Will's visions of Piers Plowman, Do-well, Do-better and Do-best: an edition in the form of Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, corrected and restored from the known evidence with variant readings, rev. ed. (London, 1988)

Matsushita, T., ed., A glossarial concordance to William Langland's The vision of Piers Plowman: the B-text, 3 vols. (Tokyo, 1998-2000)

Mooney, L. R., The Index of Middle English Prose Handlist 11: Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1995), p. 18.

Mooney, L. R., Chaucer's Scribe, [Offprint from] Speculum: a journal of medieval studies. Vol.81, no.1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006) p. 97-138.

Schmidt, A. V. C., ed., The vision of Piers Plowman : a critical edition of the B-text based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, 2nd ed. (London, 1995)

Stanley, E. G., 'The B version of Piers Plowman: a new edition [review]', Notes and Queries n.s. 23 (1976), 435-47.

This work is copyright the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License