Confessio Amantis

London, s.xv, first quarter, early.

Contents

(fols 1ra–161vb) Confessio Amantis, Prol. 1–VIII.3061*

On fol. 162ra-b, a modern hand adds the remaining fifty-two lines of the poem to VIII.3062*–3114*, and also, in red, ‘Explicit iste liber’. In a note added beneath ‘Explicit iste liber’, Edward Johnston explains that the lines were added by him 14–15 September 1924, imitating the script of the MS, and using Macaulay as base but archaising the spelling of medial ‘s’ by using long ‘s’ and also by using ‘u’ for ‘v’. He also adds strapwork in the style of the scribe, and includes at the beginning of the eighth line on fol. 162ra (VIII.3070*) a small gold initial with blue flourishing such as appears throughout the MS [Edward Johnston (1872–1944) was a calligrapher and designer of typeface, famous for designing the sans-serif typeface used on the London Underground.]

Prologue (fol. 1ra); Book I (fol. 7ra); Book II (fol. 23b); Book III (fol. 40va); Book IV (fols 54ra–71vb, as far as explicit and incipit and Latin verses only; illuminated initial and border for first line of English text at top of fol. 72ra); Book V (fols 71vb/72ra–108rb, as far as explicit and incipit of Book VI only; Latin verses begin at top of fol. 108va); Book VI (fols 108rb/108va–119vb); Book VII (fol. 119vb); Book VIII (fols 147ra–161vb, or 162rb including modern leaf).

The MS was not known to Macaulay. Text: version Ic (see David Anderson [ed.], ‘Sixty Bokes Olde and Newe’: Catalogue of the Exhibition in Philadelphia on the occasion of the Fifth International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, 1986 [Knoxville, 1986], 99–101).

Illustration

On fol. 1ra is a ten-line historiated initial (O) depicting a seated figure with a book in his lap, presumably Gower, bearded (see Figure 3). He sits in a bed on a grassy knoll (dark green), the bed having red hangings dotted with what are probably gold fleurs-de-lys, its high headboard to right and foot of the bed to left, so that the wall behind the bed is seen above the figure’s left shoulder, red, thickly covered with gold branches or foliate patterns.