Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing a selection of works by Thomas Hoccleve 
, written in his own hand between 1421 and 1426 intended as a presentation copy for Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. The layout, three spaced stanzas per page, divided by a line starting with a 2 shape, is like that of two other autograph manuscripts, Huntington Library, HM 111 and 744, which are close in dimensions yet not identical in page ruling. Two quires (f.1-12) were presumably missing at the beginning by about 1600, when John Stow supplied the lost matter, from an unidentified manuscript copy. A large number of people have written on this book, leaving names, notes or scribbles. It was owned by John Stow, then William Browne, before coming into the hands of George Davenport, by whom it was presented to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.
Paper (16th/17th century), f.3-12, (folio by chainlines and watermarks, with watermark of a glove with “RB” in the cuff, closest to Briquet “Main” no. 11365 (used in Holland in 1557, of a type used up to 1600), very cropped, c. 225 x 165 mm.
Parchment, quires with flesh-side outermost.
foliated, (late 18th century?), 1-94, repeating 22; corrected, 19th century, and now 1-95.
110 (paper), 2-118, 124 wants 4 (blank ?)
Quire 1: leaves severely cropped. Written space c. 175 x 110 mm; framed in soft brownish grey, five 7 line stanzas per page.
Quires 2-12: pricking in outer margin only, almost all cropped away at the start. Written space c. 150 x 100 mm; ruled in soft brown, 23-24 long lines, the first on or above the top ruled one. Pricks (7) have also been noticed in the inner halves of the top margins of f.15-20, as if those sheets had been originally designed for short and wide warrants, orientated at 90° from the present pages, of the form customary in the Privy Seal office.
Quire 1: written in the distinctive small current hand of John Stow, with catchwords on almost every page.
Quires 2-12: written in fluentsecretary , expertly, by Thomas 
Hoccleve , sidenotes smaller, and headings in larger set script. Original Latin sidenotes in Hoccleve's smallest script to items (1), (2a), (3b). A few corrections, by Hoccleve , by cancellation (f.24r,33v, 62r, 63v), erasure, interlineation (e.g. f.31v, 80r, 93v), or on an erasure (e.g. f.50v, 92r).
Quire 1: not executed - 3 line spaces for initials to item (1a) and (1b).
Paraphs to mark changes of speaker and other emphases in text, and for Latin citations in margins, in gold or blue. Initials: to items (1c)-(1e), (2a)-(2c), (3a)-(3c) and (4), 2 or 3 line, in gold, on grounds of deep pink and, except to item (4), blue, decorated with white, and with marginal sprays in black touched with green and with gold balls and trefoils.
Stow adds side notes on f.20v and 24v. Many 16th century marginal annotations.
Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century)
Written in England, London, between 1421 and 1426.
Apparently written for presentation to Joan Beaufort, countess of Westmorland (1396-1440), see item (4). Inscription:
“Offord”, f.49r outer margin, in brown, probably in Hoccleve's hand, and so referring to his colleague in the Privy Seal office (see Brown 1971, p. 262 n.2, dates his service c.1408-c.1422). The note could be to the “wrecche” of the stanza alongside, or may be an instruction of some sort, e.g. for the champ initial on the same page.
“Ann (??) Rechard”, f.29r upper margin, earlier 15th century, scrawled in plummet, possibly an instruction, not now readily visible.
“Thomas carter”, f.14r; “Of all thinges that I can fynde Hope dothe helpe the carefull mynd quod carter”, f.36v; other couplets so signed on f.54v, 55v, 56r; cf. “Thys ys John hancok ys boke ho so euer saye naye the deuyll of hell bere Thomas carter a waye”, f.37v; “Thomas you be a good scriuener”, f.41r, in the same hand, after an epistolary phrase. The date 1550 expressed in words, f.67r. Latin dicta, at various points, in an accomplished italic hand, resembling that of “W [notarial knot] Barnabe”, f.66v, end 15th century; also identification of sources, added to marginalia, f.64v-65r.
Among less fragmentary mid-late 16th century inscriptions and scribbles: “Johan Medwell, m[aster ?] my Lord Chamberlain per Prise”, f.14r; “Per me peter hardy of halyfax [Yorks. ?] ows this boke” [and more smeared], f.16r; “Tomas Gardynnyr (?)”, f.18r; “Per me gabriell curtys”, “Thomas Kyngston hath Rede this goddly boke”, both f.26v; “Thomas kaye the sonne of thomas kay”, f.28r; “Geffarye thurgood”, f.68r, 84r; “To Thomas Wylton of Kyrke Lande ...”, f.68v; “William Wylton of Kyrke lande in the counte aforseide” f.79r, mentioning Bishop Bonner (c. 1540-69); “Richard lyon”, f.69r; “John Jaclin & Elizabethe his wellebelouede wiffe”, f.74r; “robert ascue/askewe”, f.75v, 82r; “John Bargains Ann 1551”, f.84r; “Radufus wilcockes”, f.94v; “Thomas onslow”, “Edmound huncok”?), both f.95v.
John Stow (1525?-1605) presumably owned the manuscript:
he supplied the text of f.3-12, and there are marginal notes in his hand, f.20v, 24v. “WBrowne”, f.3r, 14r, inscriptions by the poet (1591-1643?), who published the "Tale of Jonathas", presumably from this copy, in his Shepheardes Pipe (1614). A note possibly in his hand on f.21r. He acquired other manuscripts which had been Stow's, and owned Cosin MSS V.ii.13, 14, 15, and perhaps 16. “.s./.a.”, f.3r, in mid 17th century ink, a bookseller's cipher, as found in other manuscripts of Browne's in the Cosin and other libraries. “Geo. Davenport. 1664.”, on a piece of paper, from a previous end leaf, stuck on the present 19th century pastedown; his notes on the contents and the author, f.1r, 2r, from John Pits, De Scriptoribus Angliae (1617); also “Perlegi. 1666.”, f.95r.
This group of works is the opening part of what is called "The series" by modern scholars, written in seven line stanzas, rhyming ababbcc (apart from (1e) which is prose).
Written by John Stow to supply missing pages from original manuscript
Written, in part (up to f.12v) by John Stow to supply missing pages from original manuscript, which starts at f.13).
Derived from the Gesta Romanorum.
Translated extract from the Horologium Sapientie by Heinrich Suso. Seven line stanzas, rhyming as item (1).
Prose
Derived from the Gesta Romanorum.
Prose moralisation of (3b)
A single stanza, rhyming ababbcbc. The only known copy, it presumably refers to the whole of this manuscript: the subscription is in the same hand; the letters of Hoccleve's name were touched up in blacker ink, 16th or 17th century, but are original rather than added.
C.-M. Briquet, Les filigranes: dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600 
(Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968)
Brown, A. L., "The Privy Seal clerks in the early 15th century" in Bullough, D. A. & Storey, R. A., The study of medieval records: essays in honour of K. Major (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 261-81
Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis
dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at
various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including
catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.
,
Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).
Edwards, A. S. G., "Medieval manuscripts owned by William Brown of Tavistock (1590/1?-1643/5)", in Carley, James P. & Tite, Colin G. C., ed., Books and Collectors 1200-1700: Essays presented to Andrew Watson (London: British Library, 1997), 441-449
Thomas Hoccleve : a facsimile of the autograph verse manuscripts Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino (California), MSS HM III and HM 744; University Library, Durham (England), Cosin MS V. III. 9 , ed. Burrow, J. A. & Doyle, A. I., Early English Text Society ss 19 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
Thomas Hoccleve . Works: the minor poems, in the Huntington Library MS. HM 111 (formerly Phillips MS. 8151) the Durham Univ. Cosin MS V. III. 9, and Hungtington Library MS. HM 744 (formerly Ashburnham MS. Additional 133) ed Furnivall, F. J. and Gollancz, I. Revised by Mitchell, J. and Doyle, A. I., Early English Text Society es 61 & 73 (London: OUP, 1970)
Thomas Hoccleve's Complaint and Dialogue , ed. Burrow, J. A., Early English Text Society os 313 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
Thomas Hoccleve. "My compleinte" and other poems , ed. Ellis, R. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001)
A new index of middle English verse , ed. J. Boffey & A. S. G. Edwards (London: British Library, 2005)