Three North-West Midland Manuscripts.
- Author/Editor
- Luttrell, C. A.
- Title
- Three North-West Midland Manuscripts.
- Published
- Luttrell, C. A. "Three North-West Midland Manuscripts." Neophilologus 42 (1958): 39-50.
- Review
- The three manuscripts Luttrell refers to in his title are London, British Museum, MS Harley 2250 which includes the unique text of "St Erkenwald"; Glasgow, University Library, MS Hunter V.2.8 (388), of the unique "Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy"; and Manchester, Chetham Library, MS A.7.38 (6696), of the "Confessio Amantis." He offers substantial evidence of the "date and localisation" (39) of each and then goes on to describe the implications of this information for understanding the "state of alliterative poetry in the Mersey region in the sixteenth century" (48). Gowerians, however, will be largely interested in his identification of the copyist of both the Chetham manuscript and the cursive portion of Hunter manuscript as Thomas Chetham (c. 1490-1546), grandson of the Thomas Chetham suggested by Macaulay. Luttrell's paleographical evidence establishes that the hand of the two manuscripts is the same, and the same as that of household documents "among the Clowes deeds" (43) in the John Rylands Library. Paper-stock evidence from the Hunter manuscript eliminates consideration of the elder Thomas Chetham because he died before the paper was produced, and a series of rental rolls in the hand of the younger Chetham indicate three datable phases of his hand, enabling Luttrell to specify the copying date of the Chetham "Confessio" as "apparently written between 1533 and 1537" (46), and presumably executed at Nuthurst where the Chethams resided in South Lancashire, Luttrell explains, as is indicated in the signatures at the end of each of the literary manuscripts. N.B.: Throughout, Luttrell cites the Chetham manuscript of the CA as A.6.11 rather than A.7.38, following the error in Macaulay. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]
- Date
- 1958
- Gower Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Confessio Amantis