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Notes
W. W. Greg, "On Certain False Dates in Shakespearian Quartos," Library, 2nd ser., 9 (1908), 113-131, 381-409.
The Problem of the Missale speciale, passim. Although Stevenson's analysis of the paper in the Missale speciale seems indisputable, his dating of the text, and the use of watermarks to date early texts in general, have been seriously questioned by Curt F. Bühler; see "Watermarks and the Dates of Fifteenth-Century Books," SB, 9 (1957), 217-224, and "Last Words on Watermarks," PBSA, 67 (1973), 1-16.
See, for example, his "New Uses of Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence," SB, 1 (1948-49), 149-182; "Watermarks are Twins," SB, 4 (1951-52), 57-91; "Chain-Indentations in Paper as Evidence," SB, 6 (1954), 181-195; and "Paper as Bibliographical Evidence," Library, 5th ser., 17 (1962), 197-212. G. Thomas Tanselle's "The Bibliographical Description of Paper," SB, 24 (1971), 27-67, admirably surveys analyses of paper by John Carter and Graham Pollard, Stevenson, and others, and suggests methods of presenting the results of paper analysis in descriptive bibliographies. One fruitful analysis of paper evidence which appeared after Tanselle's survey is found in David V. Erdman's The Notebook of William Blake (1973), pp. 2-7.
Chapman wrote in Cancels (1930), p. 33, that "if a watermark is certainly absent when it should be present, or present when it should certainly be absent, or is the wrong watermark, then the leaf is a cancel"; Chapman acknowledged that this test is only negatively valid. Clifford Leech explained a disturbance in a seventeenth-century text partially on the grounds that in the quarto format one sheet cannot produce three unwatermarked leaves ("A Cancel in Southerne's The Disappointment, 1684," Library, 4th ser., 13, [1932-33], 396). See also Ronald B. McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (1927), pp. 222-30.
See my article, "The Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript: Cotton Vespasian D. viii.," which will appear in Leeds Studies in English.
Graham Pollard, in "Notes on the Size of the Sheet," Library, 4th ser., 22 (1941-42), 107, discusses the practice of transcribing sheets before they were cut. This method of "imposing" material as printers were later to do would have been most practical in producing multiple copies of fixed texts. It is unlikely that Vesp. D. viii. was written down in this way since it was a one-off job and was compiled as it was being transcribed. I am greatly indebted to Dr. A. I. Doyle for advice on this and other questions about the study of paper manuscripts.
Watermark AB1 measures about 61 x 11 [26.5|27] 10 and is similar in design to Briquet 13055 and 13056. Mark AB2 measures about 68 x 14[25|32]4.5 and its design is in part horizontally inverted with respect to AB1. (See Tanselle, "Bibliographical Description of Paper," pp. 46-48, for an explanation of the notation of watermark dimensions.)
The term "multi-folded" is used in this sense by G. S. Ivy in "The Bibliography of the Manuscript Book," The English Library before 1700, eds. Francis Wormald and C. E. Wright (1958), p. 38. See n. 20 in the present study.
Despite Allan Stevenson's assurances to the contrary ("Chain-Indentations in Paper," p. 182), it is occasionally very difficult to distinguish the mould-side of a leaf from the felt-side. This is sometimes the result of heavy wear, or of washing and pressing, but in other instances it may be a function of the qualities of the particular kind of paper one is examining. In Vesp. D. viii., for example, paper with the mark IJ is comparatively easy to examine in this regard while paper with the MN watermark is extremely difficult. I indicate the leaves of which I have been unable to identify the mould-side by a question mark above the folio number.
CD1 measures about 42 x 2[36.5|5], CD2 about 44.5 x [3.5|37.5|2]. The mark generally resembles Briquet 9477, although it differs in detail from that tracing. CD1 is distinguished from CD2 by several details in the design, including a defective ray opposite the "Y" in "YHS."
Folios 51-52 contain watermark EF, a one-armed pot surmounted by a cross which measures about 40 x 5[15]5. This mark does not correspond to tracings in any of the watermark collections, but it contains some similarities to Briquet 12496, 12498, and 12501.
Some confusion was evidently caused by the inclusion of a group of plays at precisely the time that D/F quire was being transcribed (see Spector, "Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript"). This resulted in significant physical alteration of the manuscript, and it is possible that a leaf preceding f. 49 was lost as part of this process. If so, D/F quire was originally a twenty.
See Spector, "Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript." The two blank leaves which have survived from the original text, ff. 105 and 120, both occur between plays (I discount f. 96 and the flyleaves of Passion Play 2 [f. 164] and the "Assumption of Mary" play [f. 213], since these are all additions to the original manuscript; see notes 17, 27, and 28 in the present study).
Since these leaves have been mounted uncut as a bifolium, the watermark is intact. It measures about 70 x 1[20]7 and is a long, graceful hand surmounted by a pentangle; a "B" or some similar form is on the palm and a bit of lacing appears at the wrist. This mark does not correspond to any of the tracings in the watermark collections.
See K. S. Block, The Ludus Coventriae, EETS ES 120 (1922), p. xxviii. Miss Block suggested that one additional leaf originally followed f. 91 while two leaves followed f. 94, and mistakenly added that "the correspondence of watermarks in this quire supports this." See also my "The Genesis of the N-town Cycle," Yale Univ. Diss., 1973, p. 107.
Ivy, p. 38. Dr. Ivy argues that multi-folding involved folding the sheet first on a line parallel to the longer side, then on a line parallel to the shorter side. In Vesp. D. viii., however, the folding in each case seems to have been the other way around, with the first fold parallel to the shorter side, the second parallel to the longer side.
For an arrangement which is more typical of the bifolium method of quiring, see the watermark sequence in Harley MS. 2013, as represented later in the present article.
See Esther L. Swenson, An Inquiry into the Composition and Structure of the Ludus Coventriae, Univ. of Minnesota Studies in Language and Literature, no. 1 (1914), p. 55; W. W. Greg, Bibliographical and Textual Problems in the English Miracle Cycles (1914), p. 115; and Spector, "The Genesis of the N-Town Cycle," pp. 65-70. All of O quire appears to be Bunch of Grapes paper while the rest of Passion Play 1 consists of paper with the mark of a Bull's Head surmounted by an X. This mark, which I designate IJ, bears some resemblance to Briquet 14184 and 14189. IJ1 measures about 74 x 2[32]8; IJ2 measures about 70 x 7[29]6 and differs slightly in design from IJ1.
The cancellation of catchwords on f. 148v provides evidence about the stages in which O quire was interpolated; see Swenson, p. 55, and Greg, Bibliographical and Textual Problems, p. 115.
Note that the mould-side patterns in K and L quires rules out the possibility that ff. 122-25 comprise a single whole sheet. Interestingly, if K/M quire was formed by folding whole sheets, it would originally have been a twenty.
KL is a variety of Two Crossed Keys watermark which resembles Briquet 3887. KL1 measures about 47 x 14.5[16.5|25.5]4.5, and KL2, which differs in minor details from its twin, measures about 51 x 6[24|18]15.
These leaves contain a Two-Wheeled Cart watermark which resembles Briquet 3528. MN1 measures about 69 x 12.5[19|22]8 and is slightly different in design from MN2, which measures about 69 x 12[20|20]10. This play may have been the last substantive addition to the cycle; see Spector, "Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript."
Passion Plays 1 and 2 (quires N and P-T) appear to have been transcribed at a different time from the rest of the manuscript; see Spector, "Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript." Quires E, K, L, and O and the "Assumption of Mary" (ff. 213-222) have already been discussed.
Ivy observes that the scribes' tendency to shorten their quires when little of the text remained to be copied is particularly noticeable (p. 41).
It is worth noting that an examination of the distances between the sewing holes in each leaf confirms the findings of the present study. These measurements are tricky to compile since the holes in many cases enlarged in an irregular fashion or were otherwise distorted, but they can identify within very general limits the constituents of quires; this is therefore a good form of corroborative evidence, at least.
Mark A is a one-handled pot. A1 measures 58.5 x [20], A2 58.5 x [20|1]. Mark B is also a pot with one handle of which twin B1 measures 48 x 1[17.5]3.5 while twin B2 measures 46.5 x 1[17.5]3.5 and differs slightly in appearance from B1. Mark C is a large and elaborate two-handled pot. C1 measures 74.5 x [4.5|20.5|4], C2 74.5 x [6|21|3.5]. When viewed right-side up from the mould-side of the paper, C1 is to the left of the deckle while C2 is to the right. Mark D is a pot with one handle, surmounted by a crescent. D1 measures 73.5 x [4.5|22] as against a measurement of 70.5 x [7.5|21] for D2. Of these marks, only D is similar to the watermark tracings: it bears some resemblance to Briquet 12803 and Heawood 3583. The foliation I employ is that of the modern foliater rather than Bellin's.
One very tentative exception is f. 205, the last leaf in the codex, which may be mould-side-recto. This is uncertain, however, because it is unusually difficult to distinguish the mould-sides of the paper in the final gathering. To make matters more difficult, the conjugate leaf of f. 205 is absent (as indicated by the watermark sequence). In any event, the remainder of this quire appears to conform to the normal pattern in the manuscript in which the first half of the gathering is mould-side-recto, the second half mould-side-verso.
For a different collation of this codex, see R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, eds., The Chester Mystery Cycle, EETS SS 3 (1974), I, xix.
I wish to thank Dr. A. I. Doyle, Professor Norman Davis, Richard Proudfoot, N. R. Ker, and Martin Stevens for their advice and encouragement concerning watermark study. I am grateful to the officials of the British Library for allowing me to examine Vesp. D. viii. and Harley 2013, and to the American Council of Learned Societies, which provided generous fellowship support.
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