The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part IV. The link Man of Law-Squire is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens of Moveable Prologues p. 21; the link Shipman-Pardoner is printed ibid. p. 29; the link Squire-Merchant is printed ibid. p. 43; the link Merchant-Franklin is printed ibid. p. 50.

Order of Tales:-A Gamelyn B2 impf., B1 F1 E2 D E1 F2 Nun's Priest G C Sir Thopas, Melibeus H I.

Fragment B2 opens with the spurious link Pard.-Shipman, 12 lines, quite out of place in that connection. The Shipman and the Prioress follow, and then the Monk, with his headlink beginning "When ended was the tale of Mellibe", but with Melibeus out of place also. The Nun's Priest's headlink and that of Sir Thopas are inappropriate to their positions. The Clerk's Tale does not end ready for the Merchant, and there is no Merch. prologue; the Merchant's epilogue appears after the Clerk's Tale, and introduces the Franklin.

A clue to the arrangement back of the confusion shown in Mm is found in the existence here of a system of old numbering to the Tales, appearing also in Corpus, q. v. These numbers are:Reeve iii, Man of Law v, Wife of Bath vii, Summoner ix, Franklin xii, Prioress xviii, Sir Thopas xix, Parson xxiv. This is confirmed by the Corpus markings, but does not at all fit the present order of the codex. As noted under Corpus, the sequence indicated for the archetype is A Gamelyn B1 F1 D E1 E2 F2 G C B2 H I. Note the similar displacement of Shipman and Prioress in the Petworth MS.

(6) In Cambridge Colleges

Dr. Montague Rhodes James, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, has compiled catalogues of many of the MS collections in Cambridge and else where; see his book On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury, Cambridge, 1895, and his study of The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, London, 1904. His Cambridge catalogues include Jesus College (1895), King's (1895), Sidney Sussex (1895), Peterhouse (1899), Emanuel, and, most extensive of all, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1900-04, 4 vols. Dr. James is now engaged upon the MSS of Corpus Christi, Cambridge. The long-needed catalogue of the Pepys collection is now planned; see Nation 1907 II: 141.

Pepys 2006, Magdalen College: Described in Mod. Lang. Notes. 19: 196-98; contains Melibeus and the Parson's Tale, besides minor poems by Chaucer, etc.

Trinity College, R 3, 3: Described in James as above, II: 50. On vellum, in double columns, 42-46 lines to the column. Written in a fine pointed book hand, neat and clear, beginning on 1a of first booklet. Close of Parson's Tale lacking; other gaps, see James.

The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part II. The link Man of Law-Squire is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens of Moveable Prologues p. 23. The MS was used by Morell and by Tyrwhitt; brief note in Skeat IV: xiii.

Order of Tales:-A B1 F1 E2 E1 D G C Nun's Priest H Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk, Shipman, Prioress, F2 I.

The Clerk's Tale ends ready for the Merchant, but there is no Merchant's headlink. The headlink to the Nun's Priest is entirely inappropriate to its position; it appears in the short form, see p. 242 here. There is a spurious prologue of four lines to Sir Thopas; only 30 lines of that Tale are present, then comes the 48-line link to Melibeus, with two more spurious lines added: "When ended was the tale", etc. No headlink to Shipman. The Prioress has no endlink introducing Sir Thopas. The word Manciple is altered to Franklin in the Parson's headlink.

Trinity College R 3, 15: Paper, XV century, of 316 leaves, 30 lines to a page usually. Gaps here and there, see James II: 65; lacks 56 lines at beginning of Prologue. Before the Canterbury Tales are entered copies of the Eight Goodly Questions, To the King, and Chaucer's Prophecy, in a hand later than the body of the MS, "possibly after 1600." Hence these may be copied from the prints. Piers Plowman's Crede, following the Tales, is in this same hand.

The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part III. The link Man of Law-Squire is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens of Moveable Prologues p. 17; six lines of the Verba Hospitis or comment on the Clerk's Tale, treated by the MS as a link PardonerFranklin, are printed ibid. p. 52.

The MS was used by Morell and by Tyrwhitt; brief note in Skeat IV: xii. It is described in James II: 65, and by Todd, Illustrations pp. 119-121.

Order of Tales:-A BF1 E2 D E1 C2 F2 G1 C1 Shipman, Melibeus, Monk, Nun's Priest, H I.

The Clerk does not end ready for the Merchant, but the Merchant has his headlink,-no epilogue, no Squire's prologue. There are no Words of the Franklin, no tales of Prioress or Sir Thopas, and no link Shipman-Prioress. The interruption to the Monk is in the short form, see p. 242 here. There is no Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

Textual agreements between this MS and Caxton's first ed. are very marked, so far as comparison has been made. Koch, in his ed. of the Pard. Tale, pp. li, lii, notes this; and my comments in Modern Philology 3: 170, 171 have been confirmed, so far as the Prologue and the coarse additions to the Merchant's Tale are concerned, by examination of the MS, which agrees with Caxton in those points.

(7) In Private Possession, etc.

Ashburnham: The four MSS of the Canterbury Tales belonging to the late Earl of Ashburnham, and marked in his library Ashburnham Appendix 124, 125, 126, 127, were sold by the present Earl, with the entire Appendix collection, to Mr. Yates Thompson, in 1899. Mr. Thompson, reserving such volumes as he desired for his own library, put the rest into the market;

hence the sale of this part of the Ashburnham MSS is sometime spoken of as the Yates Thompson sale. The four MSS were purchased as follows: Ashburnham 124 by Mr. Lawrence Hodson, sold again in 1906 with Mr. Hodson's library, and purchased by Quaritch; Ashburnham 125 by the nation, now Brit. Mus. Adds. 35286, q. v.; Ashburnham 126 by Prof. McCormick of St. Andrews; Ashburnham 127 by Quaritch.

Ashburnham 124, see below under Hodson (2).

Ashburnham 126 is imperfect; its copy of the Clerk's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part VI.

Ashburnham 127 is described by Quaritch, Catalogue No. 193, p. 17, as a small folio on vellum, of 576 pages if perfect. Mutilations are frequent; eight leaves are missing between Man of Law and Squire, eight in the tale of Melibeus, and six at the end of the MS. According to Quaritch, “a careful and excellent text, the orthography of which is so close to that of Chaucer's own that the versification runs smoothly, with very few traces of the metrical irregularities which are apparent in other MSS." The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part V.

On the collection and the sale see: Hist. Comm. MSS Report VIII, Appendix 3, p. 106; Book Prices Current XIII: 559, XIV :647; Fletcher, English Book Collectors, pp. 382 ff.; Ellis in Quaritch's Dict. of Eng. Book Collectors, pt. X; Zeitschr. f. Bücherfreunde I, pt. 1, p. 281; pt. 2, p. 590; II, pt. 1, p. 186. On the late Lord Ashburnham's refusal to allow transcription from his MSS see Temp. Pref. pp. 5-6.

Askew I and II: For descriptions of the MSS thus entitled by Tyrwhitt see under Adds. 5140 of the British Museum and Egerton 2864 of the same library, recently Hodson-Ingilby as described below.

Canby: Mentioned in Bernard 9185.6. Furnivall inquires regarding it in N. and Q. 1871 II: 526. Used by Urry.

Cardigan: A MS of the Tales belongs to Lady Cardigan, who, according to Furnivall, p. 8 of the Ch. Soc. Announcements, and to Koch, ed. of the Pard. Tales p. xxxiii, will not permit any one to examine it.

Chandos: Urry mentions a MS thus entitled, regarding which Furnivall inquires in N. and Q. 1871 II: 526.

Cholmondeley: Now belonging to Lord Delamere, see Delamere below.

Delamere: In the possession of Lord Delamere. Described by Furnivall, N. and Q. 1872 I : 353; Furnivall there says that this is Urry's Cholmondeley MS. Contains several articles other than the Cant. Tales, for which see ref. cited. On vellum, in double columns, date about 1450 according to Furnivall. The Cant. Tales has lost 22 leaves, comprising most of Fragment D and part of the Clerk's Tale, also lines 1-176 of the Prologue, etc. Order of Tales: A, Gamelyn (no link to A), Squire with link to Man of Law, Merchant, Man of Law, Wife of Bath impf., Clerk impf., no link to Merchant, spurious link, Franklin, G C B2 HI. There are four spurious lines at the end of Thopas; there is no NP endlink; the Retractation is present. (Description cited.)

Devonshire: In the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. According to the note, p. xvi of preface to the Ch. Soc. Specimens Part I, the order of Tales is A B D E F C B G H I.

The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens part I.

Ellesmere: In the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere. Printed entire by the Chaucer Society in its Six-Text, and also separately. See Flügel in Anglia 30: 401-412, on A New Collation of the Ellesmere MS. Described by Todd, Illustrations p. 128 ff.; by Furnivall, Temp. Pref. pp. 44-50.

Order of Tales:-A B1 D E F C B2 G H I.

A page is reproduced Ch. Soc. Autotypes, and in Garnett and Gosse's Engl. Lit., vol. I, as frontispiece. Dated by the Ch. Soc.

ca. 1420.

The miniatures of the pilgrims with which this MS is ornamented are reprod. in color by the Ch. Soc. with the Six-Text and with each of the eight separate prints of Cant. Tales MSS issued by the Society.

Ely: Urry used a MS which he mentions under this title; Furnivall inquired regarding it in Notes and Queries 1871 II: 526.

Fenwick: See under Phillipps below.

Glasgow, the Hunterian Museum, V, i. 1: Written by Geoffrey
Sparling of Norwich and his son in 1476; see Hist. MSS Comm.,
Report III: 424.

The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens, Part II.
Order of Tales:?

Haistwell: See Egerton 2726 of the British Museum, London.

Helmingham: In the possession of the Tollemache family, Helmingham Hall, Suffolk.

Order of Tales:?

The Pardoner's Tale is printed Ch. Soc. Specimens, Part III. Hengwrt 154: In the possession of Mr. W. E. Wynne, Peniarth.

Printed in full by the Chaucer Society in their Six-Text, and separately. Described in Hist. MSS Comm. Report II, p. 106; Temp. Pref. pp. 50-51. Folio 204a is reprod. Ch. Soc. Autotypes; there dated ca. 1450.

The gaps in this MS are in the Ch. Soc. print supplied from Royal 18, Harley 1758, Adds. 5140. In the Athen. 1872 II: 208 ten Brink is cited as of the opinion that this MS is a hybrid, copied in general from an imperfect MS of the Ellesmere type, the missing pages supplied from a MS of the Harley 7334 type.

Hodson: Four MSS of the Canterbury Tales were until 1906 in the possession of Mr. Lawrence W. Hodson of Compton Hall, near Wolverhampton, England. In 1906 most of the Hodson library was sold at auction by Sotheby, and three of the MSS described below were purchased as follows: Hodson-Ingilby and Hodson-Norton for the British Museum, Hodson-Ashburnham 124 by Quaritch. In 1905 Mr. Hodson most kindly sent me notes and collations of his MSS, excerpts from which are here given.

(1) The Norton MS, No. 59 in Skeat's list, IV : xv, and not in Koch's list, see note to p. xxxi of his ed. of the Pard. Tale. This MS, Mr. Hodson says, is on vellum, of 214 leaves, 38 lines to the page, written in a very good court hand, and originally decorated with illuminated capitals and half-borders; but every illuminated page has been cut out, and it is only by an occasional "set-off" on a following page that it is possible to get any idea of the extent of the decoration. "It belongs to the Petworth group, and corresponds with the Petworth MS in many of its readings." Contains Gamelyn; the order of Tales is: A Gamelyn BFE DE' F G C B H I.

It has one, and perhaps two, spurious prologues to the Doctor, and a spurious prologue to the Shipman; the Man of Law's endlink introduces the Squire; the Words of the Franklin are given to the Merchant; the end of the Clerk's Tale, as indeed the beginnings and ends of nearly all the Tales, has suffered mutilation as described, so that the MS has many gaps in the text.

Now MS Brit. Mus. Egerton 2863.

(2) The MS formerly Ashburnham Appendix 124; No. 49 in Skeat's list, IV: xiv; described in Quaritch's Catalogue