M.F. Wakelin, Susan Powell, and Alan Fletcher have made notable contributions to cataloguing and describing manuscripts containing the sermons of John Mirk. But these descriptions are scattered throughout a variety of articles and dissertations. Drawing on this previous scholarship and on my own examination of each manuscript, this appendix provides a unified list of the major Festial manuscripts. It also helps to clarify further distinctions between the Group A and Group B manuscripts and provides transcriptions of the two prayers and the prologue. Finally, it contains a brief introduction to the minor manuscripts of Mirk's Festial.

British Library MS Cotton Claudius A II

Description: Fifteenth century, 1425–50. 158 folios. Manuscript written in several different hands and includes 74 Festial homilies (the most in any extant version, ff. 1v–123v) and Instructions for Parish Priests (ff. 127r–152v). It includes the usual prayer and prologue and – as Wakelin remind us – the relatively rare homilies on St. Winifred, St. Alkemund, the death of Nero, and the Lord's Prayer. The sermons begin with First Sunday in Advent and end with Dedication of a Church. As Wakelin noted, the compilers of this manuscript clearly were concerned with pastoral needs. This collection would have provided readers with all the necessary information to conduct everyday duties such as baptism and confession; weekly duties such as preaching; and a calendar to remind them of upcoming feasts and celebrations (ff. 152v–153r).