University of Virginia Library

II

By recovering these witnesses of the Parts and Things belonging to a Ship and
placing them alongside one another, their textual and material affinities emerge.
Some scribal similaritieshighlight links between otherwise diverse copies: the
copyist of BL Add. MS 21571 took care to produce a highly decorative portable
copy, but at another time wrote more workmanlike portions of BL Harley MS
2301, a larger, plainer version, as one of a group of hands. The manicules pres-
ent in BL Harley MS 6268 and BL Sloane MS 207 appear in identical locations.
The textual content of these two manuscripts is also very similar, suggesting that
despite their different owners, scribes, and bindings one was produced using the
other, or both were copied from the same source.

Figure 1 indicates the textual relationships among the surviving manuscripts.
Dashed lines denote a slight, but noteworthy, degree of influence or similarity

[Description: FIGURE I.Textual relationships among the surviving manuscripts of Mainwaring's Parts and Things Belonging to a Ship. ]

between witnesses that appear otherwise unrelated. This data has been gathered
through a textual comparisonof the witnesses, in combination with a consid-
eration of material similarities and factors such as dating and provenance. All
the manuscripts' dictionary entries were collated, including their order. 14 The
comparison does not include the lost copy dedicated to Buckingham,but it
does include the copy dedicated to Zouche, using the microfilm reproduction in
the British Library. 15 It also includes the 1644 printed edition, which follows a
similar textual pattern to Crane's manuscripts. The results provide an account
of the transmission and alteration of the Parts and Things belonging to a Ship fol-
lowingits initial presentation, based on the textual and material nature of its
surviving witnesses.

Two textual traditions emerge: the early Parts and Things belonging to a Ship
text (labelled in roman type), and the modified Nomenclator Navalis text (labelled
in italics). The Parts and Things belonging to a Ship tradition derives from Crane's
early cluster of similar copies which share textual characteristics common to all
other copies, suggesting that at least some of these were repeatedly recopied
texts. These manuscripts are the Sutherland Collectioncopy, National Maritime
Museum Caird Library MS LEC/9, the Devonshire Collection copy, National
Library of Wales Herbert of Cherbury MS E4/2, and SP 16/127. The three
Crane copies (the Sutherland Collection copy, Caird MS LEC/9, and the De
vonshire Collection copy) are textually identical, except that Caird MS LEC/9
lacks the entry 'wast' ('betweene the maine-mast and the fore-castle'), and the
Devonshire collection copy enters 'harpings' ('the breadth of [the ship] at the
bowe') in a different location. Similarly, SP 16/127 introduces the new entry
'girdling' ('to double plancke [...]aboue the water lyne'), and National Library of
Wales Herbert of Cherbury MS E4/2 relocates 'the runner' ('a roape which [...]
doth belong to the Garnet'). Because of these variations, it cannot be assumed
that these copies were directly copied from one another, but it is clear that they
formed, or are related to copies that formed, an early group of witnesses. None
of these manuscripts containsa date, but several can be estimated: Herbert of
Cherbury's interest in Buckingham's naval expeditions appears to have begun in
the late 1620s and early 1630s, and the State Papers copy isdocketed as enter-
ing the Office in 1628. Caird MS LEC/9 in particular contains a text found in
a number of other copies.

Crane's Lambeth Palace MS 91 (MS 6 in the Navy Records Society edition)
and Lambeth Palace Sion College MS L.40.2/E48 share all the dictionary en
tries found in Caird MS LEC/9, of which four have been relocated (sprit-sail-
top-mast; shore; halliards; quarter-deck). It is probable that Crane produced
Lambeth Palace MS 91 and Lambeth Palace Sion College MS L.40.2/E48 to-
gether. Although the manuscripts are not dated, Robert Naunton, described
in the Lambeth Palace Sion College MS L.40.2/E48 dedication as 'one of his
Majesties most honorable priuy Coun-
sell', was suspended from the Privy Council from January 1621 until January 1625, so the manuscript's production must
have pre-dated his disgrace or post-dated his return. 16 Caird MS LEC/9 is also
very similar to the transcription of Mainwaring's dedicated copy to Zouche, BL
Sloane MS 207. BL Sloane MS 207 shares all of Caird MS LEC/9's entries,
but relocates eight of them ('shore'; 'former'; 'further'; 'furthering lines'; 'hale
or over-hale'; 'sheer hookes'; 'taught'; 'chase'). Most similar to the lost Zouche
copy and BL Sloane MS 207, however, is BL Harley MS 6268. Only one entry
becomes displaced during the copying of BL Harley MS 6268 ('passarado' - 'any
roape where with we hale-downe the sheate-blocks'), and the presence of shared
manicules indicates that BL Harley MS 6268 could feasibly have been copied
directly from the lost Zouche copy or from BL Sloane MS 207. Again undated,
this chain of manuscripts is likely to have been produced in the late 1620s.

The early presentation manuscripts are equally similar to BL Add. MS 48165
as they are to to BL Sloane MS 207, with BL Add. MS 48165 also relocating eight
entries ('standing ropes'; 'holesome'; 'way of the ship'; 'draught'; 'dregg'; 'drift-
sail'; 'keenke'; 'sprit-sail-top-mast'). Lastly, also resembling Caird MS LEC/9,
the 1644 printed Seamans Dictionary moves four of Caird MS LEC /9's dictionary
entries ('cocks'; 'sheere-hookes'; 'fish'; 'sheevers'), divides 'calm and be-calming'
into two entries, and omits 'boate' (used 'to carry-forth and waigh the sheate-
anchor'). The printed text continued to provide a basis for the later editions of
1666, 1667, and 1670. 17 That a copy so like the early dedicated manuscripts was
available in 1644 is a testamentto the persistence of this version of the Parts and
Things belonging to a Ship, which appears to have generated copies for over twenty
years, including more than half of the surviving manuscripts of the work.

Within the Parts and Things belonging to a Ship title tradition, variations be-
tween witnesses primarily arose from the relocation of entries, rather than from
the introduction of new definitions or the omission of previous ones. By contrast,
textual variations in the Nomenclator Navalis manuscripts are characterised by the
adaptation of text through the addition or exclusion of content, rather than its re-
ordering or retitling. The Nomenclator Navalis tradition emerged when a Parts and
Things belonging to a Ship text, which was similar to Caird MS LEC /9, was copied
with a new title and a number of new entries. BL Harley MS 2301 is an early
version of the resulting manuscript tradition, recognisable by the changed title,
and a greater variation of entries. BL Harley MS 2301 contains four terms absent
from the Parts and Things belonging to a Ship group ('dredge'; 'cunting'; 'garland';

'running-rope'), omits Caird MS LEC/g's 'sillender' (the 'hollow concaueof a
peece of ordnans'), relocates'breaming' ('when a boate [...] is brought a-ground
to be trimed'), and separates 'buoy' ('a peece of wood [...] which floates right
over the anchor') from 'buoyant' ('when any thing is apt to ffloate'). Although
BL Harley MS 2301 is undated, further Nomenclator Navalis copies derived from
this version were produced at relatively early dates, suggesting an immediate
contemporary desire to augment or alter the dictionary for further use. 18

The greatest number of seventeenth-century additions to the text occurred
between the Caird MS LEC/g group and BL Harley MS 2301, but small varia-
tions also arose between other Nomenclator Navalis copies. Lambeth Palace MS
268 alters the text of BL Harley MS 2301 by exchanging 'hale or overhale' ('pull-
ing a roape')for 'hale or hailing' ('calling to [a ship]'), while BL Add. MS 48157
adheres to BL Harley MS 2301's text, only omitting 'floane' ('when any of the
sheates are not haled-home') fromthe list of terms. This unique omission, as well
as BL Add. MS 48157's 1633 dating, suggests that it was produced separately,
and at a later time than the chain of Nomenclator Navalis texts represented by the
manuscripts BL Harley MS 2301, Lambeth Palace MS 268 and BL Add. MS
21571, a manuscript which contains all the alterations of BL Harley MS 2301
and Lambeth Palace MS 268, but also adds the term 'bay' ('when two pointes
or head lands lie soe farr of [...] that there ys made [...] a hollownesse'). The
final manuscript in this chain of texts is the nineteenth-century copy BL Add MS
76660. This version embodies all the alterations of BL Harley MS 2301, Lambeth
Palace MS 268 and BL Add. MS 21571, but omits many entries ('wast'; 'carvel
work'; 'case'; 'caskets'; 'crow trees'; 'lee'; 'skegge'; 'stern sheets'; 'the strap'; 'wash
a ship') and shortens 'entring ropes' ('the roapes which hang by the side of the
ship') to 'entring'. It is notable that this final Nomenclator Navalis copy in the chain,
despite being produced around two centuries later, omits obsolete terms, but
does not noticeably update or contribute to the remaininginformation.

One remaining manuscript occupies an unusual position with respect to this
model of transmission. Crane's 1626 undedicated manuscript University of Il-
linois MS 0211 resembles an adapted version of BL Add. MS48165, sharing the
earlier manuscript's unique locations of 'keenke' ('a litle turne [...] in a cabell')
and 'sprit-sail-top-mast' ('vide
top-mast') and adding the new entry 'jocant' ('vide
buoyant'). However, its first 38 folios, constituting the majority of A to C, do not
follow BL Add. MS 48165, and instead resemble BL Harley MS 2301, Lambeth
Palace MS 268 and BL Add. MS 21571 of the Nomenclator Navalis tradition.