MS. Ashmole 41
Summary Catalogue no.: 6921
Summary Catalogue no.: 8099
Middle English composite manuscript in two parts, A The Prick of Conscience, B miscellany of religious verse and prose (both s. xv1)
Physical Description
Collation
Catchwords in first part only, on folios 11v, 19v, 27v, 35v, 51v, 59v, 67v, 75v, 83v, 91v, 99v, 107v, 115v, and 123v, in scrolls. Leaf signatures occasionally visible in both parts but predominantly trimmed.
Condition
Binding
Late seventeenth-century calf binding over pasteboards, with raised bands and gold-tooled laurel wreath on spine, typical of Elias Ashmole's collection. Restored in December 1955.
A more specific binding date can be suggested from the flyleaves. The watermark on the rear flyleaf can be identified as Churchill, 'Foolscap' 348 (1935), dated to 1672 from a manuscript in Worcester Cathedral Library by Churchill. The same watermark appears in Folger Shakespeare Library, C 185, Cabala, Sive, Scrinia, Sacra, printed for G. Bedell and T. Collins in London in 1663.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
The difference in condition and size of the two parts of the manuscript suggests they initially circulated separately and bound together much later. Provenance for each part has been recorded separately.
The manuscript was later owned by Elias Ashmole, who signs his name in the upper margin of folio 1r and adds a note to the verso of the flyleaf opposite: ‘This treatise de Stimulo Conscientiae was written by Richard Rolle alias de Hampole, a hermite, who dyed on Mich'as day 1349, and was buryed in Hampole Monastery neere Doncaster in Yorkshire. Vide Baleum fo: 431.’. It is likely that Ashmole aquired the two composite parts separately and combined them into one volume when he rebound them in the 1660-70s, as it was his practice to compile multiple booklets.
The manuscript was bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum by Elias Ashmole in 1692, in one volume, as part of his donation of 1,100 printed books and 600 manuscripts.
The manuscript was kept in the Ashmolean until 1860, when the collection was transferred to the Bodleian Library .
MS. Ashmole 41 – Part 1 (fols. 1-133)
Contents
Text imperfect. Begins incomplete at line 63 due to the later loss of the first leaf. Lines I.100-159, I.299-364, and I.498-II.17 also missing due to the later loss of leaves. Extracts of up to sixty lines also missing without loss of leaves, possibly due to a corrupt exemplar. Belongs to group IV of the textual tradition. The dialect has been located to central Staffordshire.
Physical Description
Layout
Frame ruling in brown crayon, and interlinear ruling in graphite, in a single column of usually 34 long lines. Ruled space 185 × 100 mm.
Hand(s)
One hand throughout, in a bold and neat anglicana formata.
Decoration
Latin rubrics interlinear and marked with blue paraphs.
Glosses, in margin, rubricated and marked with blue paraph.
The beginning of each part is distinguished by an illuminated initial on a red and blue ground with white details, of between three and four lines, which extend vertically and horizontally into the margins extending into a partial bar border decorated with flourishes, spray, and daisy bud motifs. Each initial is preceded by a rubric with blue paraph. With the exception of part two, which began on the excised leaf between folios 9 and 10, and the seventh part, which is present and but lacks a rubric. See also Pächt and Alexander iii. 977.
Text marked with blue paraphs folios 36v-54r, and alternate red and blue paraphs folios 105v-106v.
The ownership mark of Antony Alderle on folio 131r begins with a strapwork initial A elaborately drawn with blank scrolls, faces, and pen flourishes.
Marginal drawings (see Additions).
History
Provenance
LALME locates the dialect of The Prick of Conscience scribe to Staffordshire. The branch of the stemma to which it belongs (IV) contains manuscripts which have been located to Worcestershire and Staffordshire (MV 40: North Worcestershire; MV 31: Lichfield, Staffordshire; MV 36: North Worcestershire; following Britton, 1979), suggesting a possible area of origin for the first part of the manuscript.
A rhyme written on folio 131r shows that al least the first part of the manuscript (containing The Prick of Conscience) was owned by Anthony Alderle in 1567: ‘Antony Alderley ys oner of this boke & ho so ever will say the contrary wytnes I haue of god almity Willam Hedge(?) will not say the contrary’. This rhyme is in the same hand as the rubric and colophon which open and close the text.
A fifteenth-century annotation in the lower margin of flyleaf ii recto, written upside down, records: ‘Swynsdon In Wylt re …’, possibly in the same hand.
Fol. 133r, ‘... Thomws(?) Huett dic' quod’, 16th century
This part of the manuscript was likely bound as a single text codex before it was compiled with part 2, as the outer flyleaves show evidence of rust, possibly from clasps, and bookworm damage.
MS. Ashmole 41 – Part 2 (fols. 134-159)
Contents
Verse. Incomplete, lacking the poem's beginning. 69 lines in alexandrine verse present.
Prose. Incomplete.
Prose. Incomplete.
Prose. One of seven witnesses of the text, and the only incomplete fragment. Belongs to the RB textual tradition.
Verse. Incomplete, missing lines 1-92.
Prose. Folios 136v-137v contain a table of contents which lists the twenty seven chapters of the text, beginning ‘These ben þe titles of þis bok folwyng’, and ending ‘Recapitulacion of all þese matters to fore and of some maner of prayers’. The Chastising of God's Children begins on folio 137v. The text is incomplete, ending during the fourteenth chapter. Something in the margin of folio 137r has been erased and obscured with a strip of black ink (illegible under UV).
Physical Description
Layout
Single column throughout, between 26 and 35 unruled lines. Some leaves, but not all, are frame ruled. Written space 190 × 120 mm.
Hand(s)
The second part of the manuscript contains the hands of two scribes, the first copying folios 134r-6r (containing Poem on the Passion of Jesus Christ, Religious treatise on reason, will, and mind, Religious poem on counsel, þe Reule of þe Liif of Oure Lady, and Song of Love to Jesus), and the second copying folios 136v-159v (containing only The Chastising of God's Children).
The first hand is a neat and consistent anglicana formata.
The second hand is a larger and more cursive anglicana with secretary a.
Decoration
Folio 135r, Religious treatise on reason, will, and mind, opens with a five line blue lombardic capital with elaborate red pen flourishes which extend down the gutter. Two line lombardic capitals in the same style mark the beginnings of the next two texts on folio 135v.
Folio 136r, Song of Love to Jesus, has braces in the outer margin to signal the rhyme scheme.
On folio 136v, red and blue lombardic capitols mark each item in the table of contents of The Chastising of God's Children. The text opens with a two line blue lombardic capital with red pen flourishes which extend into the vertical margin. Subsequent textual divisions are marked with rubricated titles and the same lombards as the table of contents in alternating red and blue, followed by two-line blue lombards with red flourishes. Red paraphs throughout.
The Chastising of God's Children is extensively annotated by one hand, in a late-fifteenth/sixteenth century cursive, who leaves annotations in the margins of most folios. The lower and outer margins of folio 148 are filled with three stanzas of verse, unrelated to the main text and thought to be unique: ‘Syns partyng is the caus of peyn | Wherin can be no stedfast staye | Suche gr… at lengthe may grow agayn | To led my hert in a happye waye ’; ‘ Why I of partyng do complain | I shall you tell yf yow wyll here | I loued un witout dysdayn | Whyche in myn hert I hold so dere | That yf I had ben lord or kyng | and al thyngs haue at myn desyer own wyll | She shold haue ben ladye of everye thyng ’.
Several annotations have been erased or covered with ink, for instance on folios 146v, 153r, and 157r. These annotations were added before this part of the manuscript was trimmed as several are cropped.
History
Provenance
The condition of the external leaves of the second part, and its loss of leaves, suggest this booklet may have circulated in a limp binding. This part shows evidence in the centre of the gutter of previous sewing before the present binding.
There is little evidence for the provenance of this part due to its fragmentary state. Various late 15th/16th century names and scribbes including fol. 136r, ‘Henry Scales’; fol. 142v, ‘Rogiers(?)’; fol. 144v, ‘Boothes sone edward S …’ (the name ‘Boothes’ also appears on the facing folio); fol. 149v, partly excised, ‘ard G(?)ownes’; fol. 159r, ‘Item for stelyng of the’.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Print resources:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2023-02-10: Charlotte Ross Revised with consultation of original.