Sir John Mandeville' "Travels in Middle English"

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England, S.
Date		between 1410 and 1420
Language		English
Script		Gothic cursive
Decoration		113 marginal miniatures in colours and gold, in the lower margins, some labelled by the scribe. Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds with penwork decoration in white.
Dimensions in mm		245 x 170 (165 x 125), written in two columns
Official foliation		ff. 61 (+ 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end, and 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the end, ff. 1-3 are medieval parchment flyleaves)
Form		Parchment codex
Binding		BM/BL in-house.
Provenance		Inscribed 'D. and Y. Knottesford', 15th century (f. 2). Added itinerary from the Northern Europe to Florence, partially excised, late 15th century (f. 2). Added drawing of points of a compass with names of the winds in Italian, late 15th century (f. 3). Two added drawings of a head and of a vessel, 15th-16th century (ff. 14v, 17v). Inscribed names of some members of the Osborne family: Harry, William, Anthony, Raff, John, and Thomas, 16th century? (f. 2). Edward Banister, recusant and patron of the arts, inscribed with his name (f. 1). John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 8); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 1258 (see The Lumley Library, 1956); passed to Henry, prince of Wales. Henry Frederick, prince of Wales (b. 1594, d. 1612), eldest child of James I: his collection became part of the Royal Library. Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
Notes		Catchwords. This manuscript and Harley MS 3954 are the two most fully-illustrated English copies of the text (see Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts,1996, p. 209).
Select bibliography		Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 15 and passim. George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, pp. 249-50. Malcolm Henry Ikin Letts, Sir John Mandeville: The Man and his Book (Batchworth Press: London, 1949), pp. 146-47, 169, pl. X. Anna C. Paues, 'The Name of the Letter 3', Modern Language Review, 4 (1911), 441-54 (p. 445). J. W. Bennet, The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville, Modern Language Association of America. Monograph Series, 19 (New York, 1954), pp. 290-91 The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 158. M.C. Seymour, 'The English Manuscripts of Mandeville's Travels', Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 4 (1966), 169-210, no 10. Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), fig. 87. Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 70A [with further bibliography]. The Defective Version of Mandeville's Travels, ed. by M.C. Seymour, (Oxford: The Early English Text Society, 2002), p. xxi. Jane Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 199.