Transcribed from: Bodleian Library
Images scanned from Bodleian Library
This is an encoded description and selected transcription of an Elizabethan poetic miscellany held in the Bodleian Library.
Seven pages of the manuscript have been transcribed in full (fols. 6v, 12r-v, 13v, 17v, 44r-v) and a parallel translation into English is provided for all the Latin texts. The selection illustrates the eclectic nature of the collection and its value in preserving texts of historical and literary importance. The miscellany is also of interest for what it can tell us about the preoccupations and tastes of the compiler, and I have made some suggestions about how we might read the contents as a quasi-diary in the provenance section of this edition.
I have also provided an annotated bibliography of scholarship on the manuscript and much of the detail about its provenance is based on original research.
The transcription was encoded in TEI P5 XML by Jessica Edmondes.
The
Foliated 1-65. The Arabic numerals are placed regularly in the top right-hand corner of the recto of each leaf; the script and ink appear to be contemporary with the volume's compilation. Following on from this, every 5th leaf is numbered in pencil to 80. The remaining leaves (folios 81-88) are unnumbered. There is another sequence of foliation from 1-9 on fols. 29v-37r.
4o: 1-108118 (-5)
The centrally-placed watermark is divided by the fold in the quarto leaf and conjugate pairs feature opposite ends of the watermark. The quires of eight leaves were most likely formed by folding two sheets together.
There is one missing folio in the final gathering (fol. 85) and a paper stub remains with a few remnants of text where the leaf has been torn.
The text is well spaced with generous margins. No ruling or pricking visible, but some leaves are folded to mark eight or four columns, for example in the glossary/medical index (fols. 45-62) and the list of non-conformists (fols. 38-41). A couplet copied horizontally in line with the fore-edge with the text facing outwards (i.e. to read the text the volume has to be turned so that the fore-edge faces the reader) appears on each side of the following folios: 1r-8v, 14v-15r, 16r-17r and 18r. Stanzas are numbered 1-8 on fol. 44r and line numeration at five-line intervals appears on fol. 44v.
The principal contents of the manuscript comprising the original miscellany from folios 1-44 (apart from two short entries in different hands discussed below) and a single page towards the end of the volume on fol. 87v reversed are written in a pure secretary hand belonging to Edward Gunter. The hand is fairly cursive but has some characteristic mid-century features, such as 't's bending to the right and long descenders formed with thick pen strokes (especially 's' and 'f'). Distinguishing characteristics include the sweeping tail of 'g' which crosses over the head to link with the following letter and a graph only found in the terminal position of English words that looks like 'z' but has a sweeping tail which forms a loop below the line and continues above the line curving over the head. This graph cannot be taken for a 'z' since the scribe employs the more regular secretary form in primary, medial and terminal positions throughout the manuscript. It seems likely therefore that this unusual graph is an idiosyncratic form of 's' (the 'c+3' type); the elaborate flourish might indicate a missing letter i.e. the graph stands for 'es'. Gunter also employs the more usual 'es' brevigraph consisting of a large loop attached to a terminal letter. Other features of the hand include the 'h' which has lost most of its rounded body and has a long linking tail; two types of 'r' (the '2' and 'twin-stemmed') and the exclusive use of open reversed 'e'. Gunter's hand is fairly uniform over the course of the manuscript suggesting that the collection was compiled over a concentrated period of time.
There are two different hands that appear in the midst of Gunter's entries and were probably contributions from his friends; (1) on fol. 17r a quatrain is written in an unidentified early Elizabethan secretary (with graphs formed by heavy pen strokes) containing distinctive letter forms such as the open spurred 'a', regular c+3 form of 's', broken 'e' and open headed 'g' with a cross bar; (2) on fol. 18r three lines from Virgil with an English translation beneath written in unidentified italic (with a few secretary graphs, for example, 'k' and 'd'). The use of a elaborate punctuation mark (. ~ .//.) to mark the end of each text not used elsewhere in the manuscript suggests that this is not Gunter's italic hand.
A couplet at the top of an otherwise blank page at the end of the manuscript on fol. 84v is written in another pure Elizabethan secretary with letter forms (such as greek 'e') not found in any of the other distinct hands identified in the manuscript.
The inscription on the fore-edge fold of vellum cover (see
below) is written in the secretary hand of one of
On the back fly-leaf reversed in jottings, signatures and pen trials appears the
italic and secretary hands of the compiler's sister
The name
Original 16th century vellum binding held together with three leather thongs laced through the cover at the joints.
Two pages from a 14th century missal have been used as pastedowns (see Madan).
The inscription on the inside vellum cover fold gives
a terminus a quo (earliest possible date) for this manuscript of February 1563 when
A portion of the manuscript, from fols. 45r-64v and fols. 81r-81v, was filled much
later.
The first owner of the manuscript and sole compiler of its principal contents (i.e.
up to fol. 44v) as To his welbeloved brother Edward Gunter gent at
lincōles
It records the gift of the blank volume
to Edward Gunter with an imperative from his brother to fill the pages with useful
knowledge ('geve these to spede'). At the end of the volume the fly-leaf is covered
with jottings, pen trials and doodles in conjuction with a name signed variously as
'Eline', 'Eliner' and 'Eliner gunter'). Elinor was clearly using the page to
practice her signature and to try out different scripts for example 'Be it knowen
vnto all men by thes presentes' is copied out twice in full (and the first few words
many more times further down the page) in a secretary hand with some ill-formed
graphs and in a more competent italic script. The prominence of the signatures on
the back fly-leaf and the entries, already mentioned, signed with the letters E and
G has led to the suggestion that the volume was compiled by Elinor
(
Edward and Ellen (diminutive of Elinor) are listed as children of Geoffrey Gunter
of
Edward Gunter descended from a solid country gentry family, and at the time of
making his final will on 11 October 1585, 'sick and diseased in bodye'
(
At the time of making his will Edward was head of the Gunter family and he passed
on the ancestral inheritance to
Edward Gunter was probably in his early thirties when he became a member of
Lincoln's Inn and began to compile his personal miscellany. (We have dates of birth
for two of the Gunter boys. John the third son, according to the information given
in the Kintbury Church brasses, must have been born in 1536, and Brian, the fourth
son, as Sharpe surmises 'on the estimate of his age that he gave during the Star
Chamber investigations, was born about 1540'; OED
n. 1)—in which the law students would have participated, if
not in the dramatic action certainly in the dancing at the end of the show.
As an eligible young bachelor
Another locus of anxiety for Edward was a sensitivity about social status. Members
of the Inns of Court in the sixteenth century, being largely populated by the sons
of the landed gentry, had a highly developed sense of social distinction. Being well
descended was a particular obsession of the period, and an impressive genealogy and
coat of arms became increasingly desirable as external proofs of status. As Laurence
Stone suggests 'nothing could be more damaging than to cast aspersions on a man's
ancestry' (
A later owner of the manuscript whose name appears in the lower right-hand corner
of the last leaf verso is identified in
Bequeathed to the University by
This is a diplomatic transcription that retains the original spelling (including u for v, i for j, and ff for F),
punctuation, capitalisation, and lineation.
Abbreviations including brevigraphs and contractions (where omissions are indicated by superscript characters) are recorded in both the original and the expanded form encoded with the elements <choice>, <abbr>, <expan> and <ex>.
The element <del> is used for scribal deletions with the attribute "type" used to indicate the nature of the deletion.
The element <note> is used exclusively for editorial notes.