MS 354

Summary

Described Thomas James 341; Bernard 342; James, Corpus 354; Ronald Waldron, ‘The MSS of Trevisa's Translation of the Polychronicon: Towards a New Edition’, Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990), pp. 281–317. Brief description in Ronald Waldron, John Trevisa's Translation of the ‘Polychronicon’ of Ranulph Higden, Book VI: An Edition Based on British Library MS Cotton Tiberius D. VII, Middle English Texts 35 (Heidelberg, 2004), p. xxxvi; Index of Images 91.

[1]

f. 1

Isidorus libro 14^o we redeþ in stories that grekes wone […] called the lond \the/ grete grecia that lond hight sumtime […]perea the sterre that led the grekes whan they seyled thider [.] was […] loode sterre hespera that is venus afterward that lond …

f. 182^v

… þey schuld not profyte there but lityll at þat tyme ffor þe tyme of þe delyueraunce wase not þit [sic] commyn men seith also þat þis ioachym þat he descryued as it were by prophecye þe maners …

John Trevisa's translation of Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon. The upper right-hand corner of the first page is dirty, torn and in places not easily legible. IPMEP 605. Wells III:9; Wells Rev. 8:2866 [21]. MEP, p. 143. Begins imperfectly in Book I, ch. 23, at a point corresponding to vol. 1, p. 199, line 1 of Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis: Together with the English Translation of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Churchill Babington and Joseph R. Lumby, 9 vols., Rolls Series 41 (London, 1865–66). The text ends imperfectly in Book VII, ch. 22 at a point corresponding to vol. 8, p. 43, line 5 of the Rolls Series edition. Waldron notes that parts of chapters 9 and 10 in Book VI (Rolls Series 6:471 to 7:15) are missing, as well as a section at the end of ch. 29 of the same book, extending into ch. 14 of Book VII (Rolls Series 7:245 to 7:437). In chapters 14–26 of Book VI the MS contains the Minor Version of the text (cf. Waldron (2004), pp. 79–183, alternate pages).