University of Virginia Library

Transcription of Texts

There are two significant patterns in the transcription of the manuscript's text that can help us construct its production history: one is created by the different scribal hands and the other is generated by the different work stints of the scribes. The manuscript as it exists today is comprised of what were three different booklets: the first booklet consists of quires 1-6, the second, quires 7-9, and the third, quire 10.[3] At least eleven different scribes were involved in the writing of the manuscript. In the first booklet, which contains the Clerk's Tale, five different hands are evident in the copying of the text. All of the scribes wrote in secretary hands and their writing is relatively neat and fairly easy to read. The large number of different hands is unusual, and the pattern of alternation they form is even more so, especially in the sixth quire, as even a cursory analysis reveals.[4]

The bulk of the writing in the first booklet of the MS was done by three scribes, with over half, 46 folios (the first two quires and quire 4, which contain about 70% of the Life of St. Albon) written by Scribe 1.[5] Scribe 2 transcribed about twenty folios: all sixteen folios of quire 3 (ff31-46) and the recto side of folio 63 in quire 5. Both quires contain the Life of St. Albon. In addition, Scribe 2 copied almost three folios in three different stints in the sixth quire. Scribe 3 is responsible for all except one folio of the fifth quire, where the first four folios contain the text of St. Albon and the rest, ten folios, hold the Clerk's Tale. He copied virtually all of the Clerk's Tale. In all he is responsible for twenty two folios—fourteen in quire 5 and eight in quire 6. The other three folios contain different shorter works. Scribes 4 and 5 are minimally involved in the copying of the manuscript, and only in the eccentric sixth quire. Scribe 4 has three different stints amounting to about four folios, and scribe 5's total contribution to the transcription is only two lines on f92v.

For the most part in the first five quires of the first booklet, the different scribal work stints coincide with the quire divisions. Scribe 1 inscribes the first three quires, and has no more involvement in the copying of the manuscript. Scribe 2 writes the fourth quire. This pattern is slightly modified in the 5th quire: Scribe 2 copies the recto side of f63, the first folio in the quire. Then scribe 3 takes over and continues his stint to f83, line 28, whence scribe 2 finishes up the Clerk's Tale and the ballad, "Truth." In addition, scribe 2 has two more short stints in quire 6.

The continuing presence of scribe 2 at key junctures in the writing indicates that he probably functioned in a supervisory role in the transcription of the first booklet, at least in the medial or later stages of it.[6] His initial stint, which includes quire 4, ends on the recto of the first folio of quire 5. Most likely he was marking out the page format for scribe 3, who takes over the copying and completes quire 5 and about one third of quire 6 in his first stint. That scribe 2 was acting as a supervisor gains plausibility because he begins his second stint on line 29 of f83, taking over from scribe 3 to finish up the Clerk's Tale. He also executes two more short stints in quire 6 including the last work in this booklet, Lydgate's Testamentum. So scribe 2 has continuing, if interrupted, involvement in the transcription of the booklet, copying at least some part of five of the eight different works that are in it.

These include all three of Chaucer's works in the manuscript, as well as the major works by Lydgate, St. Albon and the Testamentum. And his stints come at key junctures: he ends the Clerk's Tale and begins "Anelida" and completely transcribes the ballad, "Truth." However, scribe 3 also plays a significant role in the copying of the MS. He ends St. Albon, with its elaborate colophon, and begins the Clerk's Tale. He also begins Lydgate's Testamentum, including its title, and the short poem, "Uppone a Cross," which he titles and copies completely.

The analysis thus far shows that the two scribes, 2 and 3, who were involved with the transcription of the Clerk's Tale played key roles in the overall transcription of the first booklet. It also shows that they worked in close proximity to each other, probably in the same shop, and that scribe 2 acted in a supervisory role.[7] My analysis also suggests that either the ordinatio was not fully worked out when the copying of the booklet was begun, or, more likely, that the original production plan was abandoned in the course of its transcription. A more detailed examination of the pattern formed by the work stints of the different scribes in the eccentric sixth quire strongly suggests that the latter was probably the case: the production of the booklet was increasingly interrupted and finally halted at the end of the sixth quire.