MIDDLE ENGLISH PROSE, PRINT, AND PROVENANCE IN TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN MS. 352

• Published in: Medium aevum Vol. 92; no. 2; pp. 297 - 315
• Main Authors: Pattwell, Niamh, Scattergood, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature 01.07.2023
• Subjects: 16th century; Attention; Catholicism; English literature; Historical text analysis; Landowners; Middle English; Prose; Spirituality; Europe
• ISSN: 0025-8385; 2398-1423

In a short article in Medium Ævum 2018, Margaret Connolly drew attention to a number of unrecorded copies of Middle English verse and prose in Trinity College Dublin, MS. 352.1 She noted extracts from Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, from Dives and Pauper, and 'some memento mori verses'.2 Since then, in our work on the Index of Middle English Prose for Trinity College Dublin and A Catalogue of the Middle English Manuscripts of Trinity College Dublin, we have had reason to examine in detail MS. 352, which has led to a number of interesting findings.3 These include: (i) the discovery of extracts from a third Middle English prose text, William Flete's Remedies Against Temptation, which have not been recorded previously;4 (ii) that most, if not all, of the material in MS. 352 has been copied from print exemplars; (iii) that the likely owner and copyist of MS. 352 is not the former Prior of Hinton Charterhouse, Edmund Horde, but his nephew of the same name. A small thick volume of 291 paper leaves, measuring 150 x 100mm, MS. 352 was donated to the library by Canon John Lyon, who catalogued the manuscripts in 1745 .5 It is written in the same Tudor legal hand throughout, with the exception of some later material added on fols 227r-33r and an undeciphered script added in the spaces leftby the original compiler. The early part of the manuscript encourages a personal, devotional relationship with God, paying particular attention to God's mercy, which is 'soo great that itt passeth all oure werkes'.8 This adaptation of Psalm cxlv.9 by the compiler of MS. 352, which he copied from Flete's Remedies where it correctly reads 'it passeth alle his werkes', reflects the emphasis on God's munificence in the face of the 'degeneracy' of humanity and an understanding of the importance of 'inner faith over outward works'.9 Writing about Marian Catholics, Lucy Wooding argues that such an emphasis was shared by reformers on both sides of the religious divide up to and including the early years of Elizabeth's reign when a more rigid orthodoxy took hold. In the final section, we will explore the question of the provenance of MS. 352, and the ways in which this manuscript provides some indications of the reading habits and access to books of a gentleman landowner in Ewell, Surrey, who had strong loyalties to the 'old' faith.