19 - London, Society of Antiquaries, MS 134

Summary

Confessio Amantis, with Latin addenda; also Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady (beginning lost), Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes, and Walton’s translation of Boethius (last two-thirds lost)

London, mid-fifteenth century

Contents

1

(fols 1ra–30ra) John Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady, Book II (cap. 13), line 222–VI.462end

Therfore quod pees now wole y not fayne < > To kepe & saue from alle aduersite. Amen. | Explicit vita beate Marie

Lacks 1110 lines at the beginning (Book I has 889 lines), which would occupy nearly seven leaves. Lacks II.674–990, perhaps through loss of leaves in an exemplar.

DIMEV 4080, NIMEV 2574. J. Lauritis with R. Klinefelter and V. Gallagher (eds), A Critical Edition of John Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady, Duquesne Studies, Philological Series, no. 2 (Pittsburgh, 1961). Description of Antiquaries, MS 134, 45–46.

2

(fol. 30ra) ‘Pees makeþ plente’ (three short gnomic couplets)

Pees makeþ plente < > Grace groweþ aftir gouernaunce

DIMEV 4354, NIMEV 2742. Written in red, last line in black. For text, see Lauritis et al. (eds), Life of Our Lady, 27. Also appears at the end of the Life of Our Lady in Bodleian, MS Rawl. poet. 140 (see Lauritis et al., 27, n. 7; MMBL, I.306), and in another MS of the Confessio, Princeton UL, MS Taylor 5, fol. 193vb.

3

(fols 30va–249rb) Confessio Amantis Prol. 1–VIII.3114*end

Torpor hebes sensus scola parua labor minimusque, etc. (6 lines of Latin verse). Incipit prologus libri qui vocatur Gower. Of hem þat writen vs tofore < > Oure ioye may ben endeles. AMEN

Prologue (fol. 30va); Book I (fol. 38ra); Book II (fol. 61ra); Book III (Latin text fol. 84ra, English text fol. 84va); Book IV (fol. 103ra); Book V (fol. 127va) lacks a leaf between fols 134 and 135 = V.1159–1318; Book VI (fol. 176vb); Book VII (Latin text fol. 192rb, English text fol. 192va); Book VIII (Latin text fol. 228vb, English text fol. 229ra).