THE MALORY MANUSCRIPT

LOTTE HELLINGA AND HILTON KELLIHER

I N March 1976 the British Library purchased from the Warden and Fellows of WinchesterCollege the famous manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's English cycle of Arthurian tales,now numbered Additional MS. 59678. Almost immediately upon transfer to its new homethe manuscript went on display in the Caxton quincentenary exhibition, held in the King'sLibrary, next to the only complete copy known of Caxton's Morte d'Arthur (1485) thathad been generously loaned for this purpose by the Pierpont Morgan Library of NewYork. A certain piquancy was added to their temporary conjunction here by the suggestion,then only recently put forward, that the two volumes had once before occupied premisestogether, namely Caxton's office at Westminster during the 1480s. The notes that followpresent the evidence for this exciting possibility, disclose new information regarding theearly history of the manuscript, and conclude with some random observations on itsmake-up and transcription. Needless to say, however, several promising avenues ofinvestigation still remain to be explored.

T H E M A L O R Y M A N U S C R I P T A N D C A X T O N

LOTTE HELLINGA

It may appear esoteric to study textual history through the faintest traces of ink, too faintto be legible, let alone to constitute anything that can be construed as a text. The circum-stances and considerations which led me to do so for the Malory manuscript in connectionwith Caxton's edition of Malory's text of Le Morte d'Arthur, are partly but not whollyfortuitous. A chance remark of Mrs. Mirjam Foot in connection with preparations for theCaxton exhibition, followed by reading a few of the publications which showed theexistence of interesting textual variants, reawakened my interest in the fate of texts inthe hands of printers in the earliest period of printing. The Malory manuscript was atthat time still in the possession of the Fellows' Library at Winchester College. Thelibrarian, Mr. Paul Yeats-Edwards, very kindly granted me permission to examine themanuscript in order to satisfy my curiosity whether there was any visible trace of its havingpassed through the hands of compositors in a printer's workshop.

A preliminary examination showed that the manuscript did not bear any trace ofcalculations made by a compositor to set his text by formes, or any other ofthe marks that

91

compositors are known to make. These may merely consist of tiny dashes, and could there-fore have been easily overlooked. This meant that the manuscript had certainly not beenused as printer's copy by compositors. By the time ofthe first edition ofLe Morte d'Arthur,which was completed on 31 July 1485, Caxton had his books set by forme (two pages infolio, or four pages in quarto at a time) as is proved, for example, by the surviving printer'scopy of the Nova Rhetorica which was printed at Westminster, probably in 1479.' Thispractice continued well into the seventeenth century, and therefore the subsequent earlyeditions of Le Morte d^Arthur (which all derive from Caxton's edition) are likely to havebeen set according to the same method.

However, there was something else to connect the manuscript with a printer's office.On some pages smudges and blots were visible. These appeared to me to be traces ofa kind of ink evidently diff'erent from the inks used by the scribes of the manuscript. Infact such traces are familiar to incunabulists. Many incunabula bear testimony to thedifficulties of manufacturing a quick-drying oil-based ink by showing smudges or offsetsof type resulting from contact with insufficiently dried pages. In the Malory manuscriptthere were traces of shapes in some margins which resembled printing types. However,there were many more traces of deep black ink used by printers (as opposed to the variousshades of brown used by scribes), which appeared on top ofthe writing.

On a second expedition to Winchester I brought an ultraviolet lamp in the hope ofincreasing the contrast in colour between the marginal ink-stains and the paper, thusrevealing more ofthe shapes. The shapes in the margin of leaf 186 verso appeared underultraviolet light and with the help of a mirror to be off'sets of three lower-case letters,which closely resembled Caxton's type 4. Although convincing to me, this was a far fromsatisfactory identification from the point of view of presentable evidence.

The best course of action seemed to be to try to photograph the offsets, under ultra-violet light. Mr. Yeats-Edwards, who by that time fully shared my interest, very kindlyproposed to bring the manuscript to the British Library, where five pages were photo-graphed by Mr. Graham Marsh. Unfortunately, the outcome was only partly successfuland seemed to show less than what had been visible to the naked eye under the ultravioletlamp. In the marginal shapes the defective offsets of type could be distinguished, andagain, they might well be Caxton's type. They certainly showed the somewhat irregularoutline of a fifteenth-century type, but this was not evidence unambiguous enough toconvince sceptics; and by then, after a more thorough study of the literature on this text,I was fully aware that there might well be sceptics.

In this rather unsatisfactory state of affairs the matter had to be left for quite a long time.In the meantime the Malory manuscript changed its home and came to repose in theBritish Library, and I also moved to London. Subsequently the Malory manuscript wasone ofthe star exhibits in the Caxton exhibition, until the end of January 1977. This gaveme over a year to ponder the question of the difference between the inks used by scribesand printers and how to identify the shapes in the offsets, especially those which werevisible on top of the writing in normal light but had become an indistinguishable blackmass under ultraviolet.

92

The inks used for writing and for printing in the fifteenth century (and later times) aretotally different substances. Scribes' ink, which was used for writing with a quill, was inthe fifteenth century either a mixture of gallnuts with water to which a black organic saltof iron, other salts, and a little gum arabic were added, or a similar mixture without thegallnuts.' A water-based ink could not be used for printing with metal types, as the inkwould not spread evenly over the letter. Pressure would cause a water-based ink to beabsorbed too deeply in the paper, as can be seen in most blockbooks. Printers thereforemade use of oil-based ink, a substance that was closely similar to paints, which had beenin use for some time already. The adaptation of painters' material for printing is animportant part of Gutenberg's invention. There are no recipes known for fifteenth-century printing ink, but it probably consisted of boiled nut oil or linseed oil, distilledturpentine (rosin), and lampblack made from burning pitch resin. The resulting mixturewas a deep black ink, that still, after 500 years, glistens on the paper. The brownish shadesof writing ink are formed to a large extent in the fibres ofthe paper by a process of oxidationon exposure to the air which takes place after writing. On close inspection the effect isentirely different from the effect of printing ink. Much care was given to the preparationof printing inks in the incunable period, as is witnessed by the outstanding results.Nevertheless the ink-makers were not always successful in overcoming all technicaldifficulties. In C. H. Bloy's book on the history of printing ink, from which much oftheforegoing is abstracted, the obvious necessity of making a quick-drying ink for the printingof books is a recurrent theme.^ It is as if the English incunable printers had more difficultyin finding the correct quick-drying formula than printers in most other centres of typo-graphy. English incunabula seem to have more than their share of smudges, off sets, andheavy thumbmarks. William Blades made a similar observation on Caxton's ink when heremarked that it was ofthe weakest description, very sloppy, and that the 'spuing' oftheink marred the effect of type of good quality."* But the problem of ink in the wrong placewas not entirely restricted to English printers. Quite spectacular off'sets can be seen insome continental incunabula, no doubt caused by insufficiently dried pages. Also, manu-scripts which are known to have been used as printer's copy occasionally show traces ofprinting ink and offsets.

When the Malory manuscript came off" exhibition at the end of January 1977, theopportunity to make a more thorough investigation at last arose. This was done in theConservation Workshop ofthe Department of Manuscripts, with the assistance and muchpractical advice of Mr. Victor Carter, without whose aid it would not have been possibleto do this work. My aim remained to find 'shapes' which could be identified as 'types'.A typographical identification would not only prove that the smudges were caused byprinting ink, but would also establish whose printing ink caused them, which is really theonly point of interest.

I examined the manuscript page for page with the aid of a magnifying glass, followedby the examination of each page with the Level Development infra-red viewer (modelIRV-MSI). The magnifying glass helped the eye to distinguish the difference in colourand texture between the scribes' inks and the printing ink. The infra-red viewer provided

93

a very accurate optical distinction between the two kinds of ink. Under infra-red light thescribes' inks, both a dark brown and a lighter shade, became pale, while a red ink, whichwas copiously used in the manuscript for writing all names which occur in the text,disappeared altogether. The spots of printing ink seemed to ffoat on top ofthe now palerwriting. In other words, the two inks absorbed the infra-red radiation in a completelydifferent manner. This proved to be an infallible method of checking the observationsmade with the naked eye. It has been suggested by Dr. Walter Oakeshott that the offsetsmight have been caused by the darker ofthe two inks used in the manuscript.^ In fact onerather dark offset on leaf 179 recto, which at first sight might appear similar to the otheroff sets, proved to be an off"set of scribes' ink: under infra-red light it nearly disappearedand behaved in the same way as the written text.

Having established that the off'sets were caused in all other cases by an ink that wasintrinsically different from the scribes' ink, I checked for every instance whether the offsetwas imposed over the writing. For this I used the binocular microscope with magnifica-tions ranging from 3 v up to 24 - . In each case it was observed that the offsets formedpatches on top ofthe writing. The different nature ofthe two inks became again very clearunder high magnification.

In all I found sixty-six places in the manuscript where traces of printing ink werevisible.*^ Many of these traces were blots or smudges without any definite shape. Manyother offsets formed merely a ffock of black specks in which perhaps the regularity ofthetype-set page which caused it can be detected, but nothing more. A small number of offsetsseemed to be more clearly defined so that an attempt could be made to establish the formofthe types that had caused them, via a printed page. In this part ofthe examination, whichrequired an exact identification of forms, I ran into difficulties due to the limitations oftheinfra-red viewer. Shapes when seen under the infra-red viewer lose their definition toa considerable extent. It is also quite impossible, of course, to reverse the image for easieridentification. I therefore proceeded to use the infra-red viewer as the means to establishexactly which shapes to examine, and having established that, to examine the shapes withthe naked eye aided by a magnifying glass and a mirror. In this way I recognized the offsetsof a number of lower-case types, but, more significantly, also the quite unmistakableflourishes and arabesque angles ofthe capitals that belong to Caxton's types - unforgettablycompared by George Painter with Burgundian tall felt hats and winklepicker shoes. Therethey were, the merest shadows of them, mirrored in the Malory manuscript. It waspossible to measure two of these elusive appearances using a magnifying glass witha 010 mm scale, and even to trace them on the facsimile ofthe manuscript.*^ Both testsled to the same conclusion. The tracing and measurements match exactly the capitalsB and F which belong to Caxton's type 4. The offsets of these two capitals are incomplete.

At this stage I ended the extremely time-consuming examination with the naked eye,in the expectation that infra-red photography would yield a much more satisfactory result.

At first, however, it appeared that this expectation was highly optimistic. Five pageswith offsets were photographed in the B.L. photographic studio, using infra-red lighting,with the disappointing result that the writing, which had appeared pale under the infra-

94

,

J. Area of unidentified offset in the Malory manuscript, fol. 314 verso. Photograph withinfra-red

It ^ n q c c atiO $ie mcY t^ctc ^

tn

eecR

] f g ? f ^ panft mu(]l?ttie/t^ci> fcnCc 5

•notttc an&? ^ie ptonffg( nj offc pCacce t^aiS ^ ii fcmed? ^ C ft> cnct^ mat)/tQat 0

1) conquer^ a gtc6ecDn(w*Sj»»)<9c ftirftecjO B nainco pancwiw /ca? C ^

^. 2. Area of unidentified offset in a Caxton Fig. 3. Area of clear offset in a Caxton editionedition printed in type 4, Godfrey of Bo lay ne, printed in type 2*, Cordyal, C.11.C.2, fol. d3

C.11.C.4, fol. 6.8 recto verso

red viewer, remained obstinately visible in the photographs. Mr. Graham Marsh then tookthe initiative to consult the Forensic Science Laboratory ofthe Metropolitan Police, whereextensive experience of infra-red photography has been obtained in the investigation offorged documents. We were cordially invited by the head of the Section Documents,Mr. D. M. Ellen, to come and talk the problem over with the photographer, Mr. K. E.Creer. The Forensic Science Laboratory has a number of pieces of sophisticated equip-ment to aid in the investigation of forgeries. For the problem of visually separating twokinds of ink three were particularly relevant: the infra-red image converter, a moreelaborate version of the infra-red viewer, used with a choice of filters, a large number offilters used in photography, and the infra-red luminescence box, which in the case oftheMalory manuscript did not prove effective.^ As none of these aids are available in the B.L.photographic studio, Mr. Ellen offered to make a number of photographs for us in theForensic Science Laboratory. It was possible to accept this offer, thanks to permission ofthe British Library Board and the aid of all authorities concerned, and to bring the Malorymanuscript, properly escorted, for one day to the Laboratory.

I had selected five pages with offsets which promised to be identifiable. After examina-tion with the infra-red image converter Mr. Creer decided to use an 88 A filter with high-contrast infra-red plate Kodak IN. The results seemed first not as dramatically spectacularas was hoped, in that the scribes' writing remained visible. But in the photographs theoffsets became darker and some shapes which had not been noticeable before becamevisible now. By tracing these shapes and placing them over types in original Caxtoneditions it was possible to make the following positive identifications:

leaf 159 recto, line 13: Capital F from Caxton's type 4. Defective lower-case w fromCaxton's type 4, see figs. 4, 7. (w not reproduced.)

leaf 186 verso, line 7/8: Capital B from Caxton's type 4, see figs. 5, 8. This page showsmany more defective offsets of type. ^

leaf 407 recto, line 4: Lower-case y and s from Caxton's type 2, see figs. 6, 9.leaf 407 recto, line 6/7: Lower-case m from Caxton's type %?

Fig. 4. Off"set of F of Caxton type 4 in Malory manuscript, fol. 159 recto, line 13. Photographwith infra-red (reversed)Fig. 5. Offset of B of Caxton type 4 in Malory manuscript, fol. 186 verso, line 6/7. Photographwith infra-redFig. 6. Offset of y of Caxton type 2 in Malory manuscript, fol. 407 recto, line 4. Photograph withinfra-red (reversed)Fig. 7. Tracing of offset of F and w (reversed) Fig. 8. Tracing of offset of defective B (reversed)Fig. g. Tracing of offset of y (reversed) Fig. 10. F and w of Caxton type 4Fig. II. B of Caxton type 4 Fig. 12. y of Caxton type 2*Fig. IJ. Area of type of Caxton type 4, showing B, F, and w. Godfrey ofBoloyne, C.11.C.4, fol. a2rectoFig. 14. Area of type of Caxton type 2*, showing y. Cicero, De Senectute, translated into English,C.io.b.6, fol. 1.2 verso

96

Fig. 4 -5 Ftg.6

. JO

Fig. 8

? pie M) tcmcm6wun<

Ftg.Q

Fig. 12

s fxmc j

c^ent conquctoiuo fe>) f7a?> tij tcmcm6caunoe-an& tcma^nO ? b C ' ? ^ fo fi^C a6j>oe it) pctpc6tcC me

p no ^gc me?) off couwgc f^CO 6i6c cnfampSp ecmp:g(c

fuC ano ^nncftc/J^i>:r< fo: godoce qiiatc3?^n) ^at:D t§c Ci&xatce of ^tj? c^ixcfe* J^ox t^$ vccup^radot) of t ^

of ofItj

mac

manct

jfupc

The other two pages which were photographed (fol. 314 verso, fol. 424 recto), showclearly fragmentary shapes of type, but I have not been able to identify them. It is certainlypossible, even likely, that on these and on other pages there are more offsets which, givenenough time, may be recognized as caused by identifiable types. It is doubtful, though,whether these possible identifications would add much to what the combination of typeslisted above can tell us. Moreover, the patience and endurance of all who have so generouslyhelped in this investigation of what must have seemed at times trivial to the point oftheridiculous, has been stretched to the limit and should not be tried any more. My warmestgratitude goes out to all, in particular to Mr. Ellen and Mr. Creer.

What conclusion can now be drawn from the identification of these types? Caxton'stype 2 was his only text type when he arrived in Westminster in 1476. It was in constantuse until 1482, when it made its last appearance as a text type. It was used only once again,c. 1483, for headlines in the second edition ofthe Canterbury Tales, in which type 4* wasused as text type. It was never used by any other printer. Type 4 was introduced by Caxtonin 1480 as a smaller, more economical alternative to type 2 to be used for larger works.It became his main text type in 1483, and went out of use at the end of 1485. Wynkyn deWorde revived it for a short time when he took over his late master's printing shop, lock,stock, and barrel. He used it for only two editions in 1493, with considerable modification.After that the type disappeared for good. Both types were once recast while Caxton usedthem. The offsets do not allow one to draw any conclusion about which state ofthe typecaused them.

The many offsets and traces of printing ink in the manuscript are a strong indication ofits prolonged and intensive use in or near a printer's workshop; not as printer's copy, butmost likely in preparing a copy which was then used by the compositors. The combinationof two types of Caxton identified in the offsets, one of which was used only by Caxton,seems to make the conclusion inescapable that this phase of intensive use ofthe manuscripttook place in Caxton's office. The combination ofthe two types indicates that this musthave taken place after the introduction of type 4 in 1480, and not later than 1483, whentype 2 disappeared for good, probably in the melting pot.

Before we turn to other arguments it is necessary to consider the other evidence whichmay or may not link the manuscript with a printer's workshop. There is the fragment ofan indulgence printed on vellum, which was printed by Caxton in 1489.'° This was usedto mend a tear in leaf 243 ofthe manuscript. The weight which has been attached to thepresence of this fragment varies. Dr. Victor Scholderer, who identified the fragmentshortly after the discovery ofthe manuscript, remarked that it proved only that the manu-script had been bound at one time by a binder in London. He may have assumed that thefragment was found in the binding, and apparently he considered it as a piece of printer'swaste. Dr. Scholderer's opinion was quoted by Professor E. Vinaver in his introductionto his edition of the text.^^ Dr. Oakeshott has - rightly - maintained that in itself thepresence of the fragment proves nothing.^^ It is in fact not at all difficult to think of asituation in which an indulgence was cut up and used to mend the manuscript at a laterdate. A much later date even would have to be postulated in that case as indulgences, once

issued, remained for a long time hallowed documents which were treasured among othervaluables. They are found among family papers, in archives, carefully preserved by latergenerations. They were not likely to be cut up for profane purposes. It is not possible tobe sure whether the fragment is from a used indulgence, or from an unused copy that hadremained unsold or was rejected as printer's waste. The typesetting is identical to thatin the unique copy in Trinity College, Dublin.'-^ Part of the types are defective. This ismostly due to the dissolving effect ofthe glue which was used to paste the fragment on tothe paper. But part of the printing was not touched by glue and seems also defective,notably the initial I which seems not to have 'taken' well, as happened quite often inprinting on vellum. Here we may recall some very pertinent remarks which Mr. GrahamPollard has made on the use of indulgences as printer's waste:'. . . the only place in whichthey are likely to be found as waste is the shop of their printer', and '. . . waste paperor vellum can seldom have strayed from the place where it was first considered to bewaste'. ' Perhaps a diligent search will yield a few exceptions to these rather dogmaticstatements, but I do not think there will ever be many.^^ if ^e may conceive a hierarchyof likelihoods, it seems far more probable that the fragment was a piece of waste ratherthan part of an issued indulgence, and that it was used in or near the workshop.

To sum up the conclusions reached so far: offsets of printing ink in many places in theMalory manuscript show that it has been used intensively in close contact with damp pagesof books printed by William Caxton between 1480 and the end of 1483. The presence ofa fragment of an indulgence printed by William Caxton agrees with the evidence for thepresence of the manuscript in or near the workshop in Westminster, and shows that itmust have remained there at least as late as 1489.

The first of many questions that now should follow is as to how the offsets may have goton to the manuscript. Offsets, as has been said before, are caused by freshly printed pageswhich have not had time to dry completely, and which were too heavily inked in the firstplace. It is possible to picture someone working with the manuscript, reading it or copyingit, who was from time to time interrupted when freshly printed proofs or pages of whateverbook was at that moment in production, were brought in from the press. These he wouldsometimes put on top of the opened pages of the manuscript. This is easiest to imaginewhen the person in question combined the functions of master-printer and of editor - aswas the case with Caxton. Another possibility might be that at times the clean side ofprinter's waste, printed on one side, was used for copying the text ofthe manuscript. Theprinted side would then rest on the manuscript.

There are many more questions now to be raised, the foremost of which is whether thetextual evidence allows us to infer that this was the manuscript that Caxton copied inpreparation of his edition. And if this is so, how did he acquire the manuscript? Whendid he receive it? Why did he copy it?

The Arthurian legends were first mentioned by Caxton in his prologue to Godfrey ofBoloyne, the printing of which was completed on 20 November 1481. If by that timeCaxton had the Malory manuscript in his possession, the patron who delivered it to himmust be sought in the circle of his noble protectors of that period. The circumlocutory

99

evasiveness in his prologue to Le Morte d''Arthur on this point may well be explained bythe extreme political uncertainty ofthe days when he completed the book, just before thebattle of Bosworth.'^ Would his patrons of former times be mentionable or unmentionableby the time he sent his book into the world, next week, next month?

If, once the Malory manuscript was available to him, Caxton decided to copy it out,he must have had sound reasons for doing so. At first sight it seems a daunting task foranyone to undertake the copying of a volume ofthe size ofthe Malory manuscript. Caxton,however, cannot have been easily put off by writing or copying, in spite of the words inhis very first production: " . . . my penne is worne, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myneyen dimmed with overmoche lokyng on the whit paper . . . ' . He must have filled thousandsof pages with his translations and with compilatory work, such as his text of the GoldenLegend is now known to be. On textual collation ofthe Malory manuscript and Caxton'sedition it appears that substantive variants are relatively scarce, in comparison with thevast stretches where the texts agree, but there is an incessant occurrence of accidentals:punctuation, spelling, accidence, and to a lesser degree vocabulary have been alteredconstantly. As Professor Blake has remarked, the style of Malory's text apparently offendedCaxton, and he thought it necessary to alter it according to his own stylistic preferences.'^It seems also likely that Caxton introduced textual corrections by consulting other sources.Physically it would be impossible to make all these changes in the manuscript, certainlynot when it had to be returned to an owner in a presentable state. It might psychologicallyalso be helpful to anyone correcting a text critically, to copy it out, thus forming the textanew. These considerations lead naturally to the most important question: are the textualvariants between the manuscript and the first edition such that a direct derivation ispossible?

At this point I should like to elaborate a little on the interest which led me to examinethe Malory manuscript in the first place. When studying a manuscript of a translationinto Dutch of Raoul Ie Fevre, The History of Jason, I found that the manuscript was casb-offand marked by a compositor. The casting-off agreed with the edition printed at Haarlemin 1485 by Jacob Bellaert. Therefore there could be no doubt that there was a direct linkbetween the manuscript and the printed text without an intermediate stage.^^ Still, therewere many textual variants between the two sources, accidentals in spelling and punctua-tion, but also many substantive variants - corrections, mistakes, and many 'improvements'ofthe text: doubling, the addition of epithets, and, more significant, the elucidation ofambiguous passages, embellishments, and textual expansions. These occurred in patches,according to the wandering attention or inspiration ofthe compositor who set the greaterpart of this text. This showed that the compositor, working in his own language, witha text which we would now bring under the category of 'fiction', had far greater freedomthan tradition, and the discipline of textual history, would allow for. If no direct linkbetween these two sources for the text had been established by the compositor's marksin the manuscript, they might have been assigned a collateral relation in the stemma oftextual derivation. Nor was this example wholly isolated. There are a few publicationsabout printer's copy used in the fifteenth century in which a similar phenomenon is

100

described J^ That was the reason why, after noticing that many ofthe variants betweenthe Malory manuscript and Caxton's text were strikingly similar to what I had seen asvariants introduced independently from his copy by Jacob Bellaert's compositor, I wentto Winchester to see if there was any material evidence to link the manuscript with aprinting house.

The freedom in the production of texts in this period, at least a certain kind of texts,can be harshly condemned as inaccuracy, textual corruption, 'violence' done to the text.A more positive interpretation is, however, possible. A revealing expression was used byGeorge Kane in his edition of Piers Plowman where, in describing a similar phenomenon,he speaks of the participation of scribes in the meaning of the poem. " Participation, anactive, creative revision ofthe text for which he felt responsible as publisher, is just whatby now we may have come to expect from Caxton. Textual variants need therefore notnecessarily be an obstacle to the deduction of direct derivation between two versions, whenmaterial evidence is presented which seems to indicate the direct link. But before comingto any such conclusion the textual evidence has to be scrutinized again, reckoning with thelikehhood of editorial intervention and compositorial freedom, in order to decide whetherthe variation between the two versions allows us to conclude that Caxton's printed texthad this manuscript as source.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT

HILTON KELLIHER

From at least the beginning ofthe nineteenth century until its final recognition by WalterOakeshott in 1934 this bulky manuscript of medieval English prose, its pages brightenedby the red ink that was throughout used for proper names, including in four differentplaces that of its author, remained unknown and to all intents unidentified in the Fellows'Library of Winchester College. No one knows for certain when it came into the College,but Dr. Oakeshott's latest thoughts on the matter were published by the Times LiterarySupplement on 18 February 1977, in a review-article on the facsimiles ofthe manuscriptedited by Neil Ker for the Early English Text Society and of the Pierpont Morgan copyof Caxton's printed version edited by Paul Needham for the Scolar Press. This involvedan attempt to associate the copying ofthe manuscript with the Arthurian revival consciouslypromoted by the birth and christening of Henry VIFs eldest son. Prince Arthur, at Win-chester in i486, and according to this theory the volume was probably transferred fromits supposed place of origin, the Cathedral, to the College Library about the middle oftheseventeenth century.

On the recto of a blank leaf that is now fol. 348 a hand of the later sixteenth century,perhaps that of an adolescent, has after tracing the armorial watermark written the name'Richard FoUowell' in several styles of handwriting and several different spelhngs.-' Aftera search in the standard reference works for this period had failed to reveal not merely thisindividual but any who bore that surname, in any of its forms, providence pointed the

IOI

investigation towards W. P. W. Phillimore's Calendar of Wills Relating to the Counties ofNorthampton and Rutland (Index Library, 1888) which records several Follwells andFollowells between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, most of whom diedwithin a small area lying between Towcester and Daventry. The earliest of the name is'Richard Fowlwell', evidently a tenant farmer of some little substance, who 'bying sike inbody and hole of mynde' made his will on 26 January 1534/5" ^^ ^^^ parish of Litch-borough, where the lord ofthe manor was a certain Thomas Malory. Moreover one oftheprovisions runs 'I bequethe to Master Mallaries iiij children to ev^ryoon of them oontheve Shippe', that is, a sheep that has been once shorn. Tempting as it would have beento ascribe the present jottings in the manuscript to one of these children and especiallyperhaps, from the initials *R' (or 'Ri') and 'M' that occur on fol. 347, to Richard Malory,born some time between 1527 and 1535 and mentioned in his father's will of 7 April1552, ^ the hand itself precludes a dating much earlier than the last two decades ofthecentury. This leaves two main possibilities: either Richard Followell had, through hisson John, a grandson who bore his name or else a later owner copied his name from anotherpart ofthe manuscript, such as the cover or ffyleaves, that is now lost. One ofthe inscrip-tions on fol. 348 has been expanded by Neil Ker to read 'Richard Fellwell is my nameand w[ith my pen I wrote the same]' and might be taken to support either supposition.It seems not unreasonable, however, to infer that the manuscript remained at Litchboroughduring the greater part ofthe sixteenth century.

The understandable preoccupation of literary historians with identifying the author ofthe greatest English Arthurian cycle has left little time to spare for the investigation of anybranch ofthe Malory family that is not known to have produced a Thomas before 1470.Leaving aside the Malorys of Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire, north-easternNorthamptonshire, and Tachbrook in Warwickshire it has been established that threehouses bearing the name were settled in the north-western parts of Northamptonshirefrom at least the end ofthe thirteenth century. The Malorys of Draughton, first record6dabout 1277, became around 1315 lords of Win wick and eventually, by the marriage ofthepresumed author's great-grandfather, of Newbold Revel just over the Warwickshireborder.^ These Malorys are thought to have been related by descent to the lords of Weltonwho can be traced from the end of the thirteenth century in an unbroken succession ofJohn Malorys.-^ Legal records witness some bartering of lands among these cousins;a glance at the map of Northamptonshire will show how small an area confined theirrespective lordships, and the greatest distance that a Malory might have traversed in hisvisits was the twenty miles from Newbold to Litchborough (fig. 15).

According to the Northamptonshire historian Baker, ^ when the earliest known memberofthe Litchborough branch died in 1329 seised ofthe manor, Simon Malory of Winwickcontested that this Richard Malory had 'held of him and his predecessors certain landsand tenements in Winwick, by a more early feoffment than that by which they werepossessed' of Litchborough. Richard's son and heir. Sir Peter Malory (fl. c. 1308-85),received in 1346 by the testimony ofthe Black Prince a pardon for some unknown crime'for his good service in the war of France', became both escheator and sheriff of the county

102

fit

Fig. 75. Detail from Saxton's map of Northamptonshire, 1576, showing Litchborough (centre)and other seats ofthe Malorys. Newbold Revel, formerly Fenny Newbold, lies on the river Avon,

four miles north-west of Hillmorton.

103

about 1349-54, though imprisoned in the Fleet in 1353 for debts owed to Queen Philippa,and in 1363 was released with his son Giles from Newgate at the intervention of KingDavid of Scotland. Interestingly enough he is said to have devised all his lands to JohnMalory of Winwick, grandfather ofthe 'knight prisoner', by deeds dated 1366 and 1367,possibly being led to this course by his worsening finances.^"^ His son Sir Giles seems tohave restored the fortunes of the house by taking as his first wife, though without royalconsent, a rich heiress, the daughter of Sir Richard Baskerville of Herefordshire. Hesubsequently became Member of Parliament for the shire and about 1398 was describedas 'late chief steward to Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick', father of Sir Thomas'scommander at Calais in 1414;^^ in this capacity he was required by the crown to assistin securing Earl Thomas's lands during their temporary forfeiture.^^ The links betweenthe various branches of the Malory family and the Beauchamps at about this time seemto have been strong. Between the time of Sir Giles's death shortly after 1403 and anattestation, recorded by Baker, of Robert Malory of Litchborough in 1471 apparently theonly known reference to the lordship relates to the feudal aid that was levied in 1428 ofone John Malory 'pro di. f. in Lynchebarowe, quondam Petri Malory'.^^ It is just con-ceivable that this refers to (Sir) John of Newbold Revel, who might still have been innominal possession ofthe manor from his father, but more likely altogether that it impliestwo otherwise unknown generations in the family; that is, a son of Giles, born probablyabout 1370 and called after his grandfather, and his son, born around the turn of thecentury, whose name descended in due course to his grandson. The Robert of 1471 wouldnot have been born much before 1425 and died in 1487, shortly before his son John wasattainted, with several other Malorys from the same area, for supporting John, Earl ofLincoln in the attempt to set Lambert Simnel on the throne of Henry VII. Although Johnwas pardoned in the following year and his goods and chattels were returned to him thelordship was granted to Sir John Turberville, a knight of Bosworth Field who becameGovernor of Calais and died in 1502. One suspects, however, though without the supportof Baker or other sources, that John continued to reside in the manor-house and that thelordship was restored to him in 1503, when his attainder was reversed.^' At all events hisson Thomas was in 1522 formally confirmed in or granted, 'in consideration ofthe servicesof the said John', all the lands belonging thereto, and by the time of his death in 1552had succeeded in augmenting his estates with lands formerly belonging to Canons AshbyPriory and St. James's Abbey, Northampton.^^ He was lieutenant of Whittlewood forestin 1533-4, escheator ofthe county before 1542, named on the commissions ofthe peaceand of gaol-delivery in the following year, and in 1550 was charged with collecting a pay-ment of relief voted by Parliament.^^ Little more is known about him, though in the 1530svarious complaints about his behaviour were sent to Richard Cromwell.^'* By his wifeAnne he had the four children mentioned in Followell's will of 1535, the eldest beingRobert, born about 1527, who married a lady called Ursula and had a son, Thomas, whowas christened at Litchborough in October 1550. 5 in 1551 Robert, finding himself indifficulties, conspired to commit perjury and bettered this in the following year withhighway robbery in Bedfordshire - shades of Sir Thomas! - that earned him some time

104

in the Tower, together with a heavy fine of a hundred pounds on his release.^" After hesold the manor in 1572 nothing is heard of him or of his son, though on a manuscript mapofthe south Midland counties, part of an atlas owned about 1576-90 by William Cecil,Lord Burghley, the name of 'M*" Mallory', written over Litchborough, is one of twentythat are marked in red ink in Northamptonshire.^^ At the beginning of the nineteenthcentury Baker noted that 'his descendants continued resident here in indigent circum-stances till within these few years'.

This sketchy account of the Litchborough Malorys throws no direct light on thequestion that most urgently requires an answer, namely how could the manuscript havefound its way from Caxton's office at Westminster to the manor-house of Thomas Maloryof Litchborough by the second quarter of the sixteenth century? Of several possibleexplanations the easiest assumption is that it was copied in the first place for a memberof this branch, lent to the printer through the offices of an intermediary who knew bothparties, and returned after use. We do not yet know for certain where the manuscript wascopied, though terminal dates for transcription seem fairly secure as the compilation itselfdates from 1469 or 1470 and work on the printing of Le Morte d'Arthur must have begunby the early spring of 1484 at the latest, but possibly began earlier ;38 we must also allowfor the fact that offset from Caxton's type 2 (in use not later than 1483) appears in themanuscript. Investigation of the watermarks and scribal hands may help to narrow theselimits further. At any rate, by 1469 or 1470 Sir Thomas's son Robert was apparently deadand his grandson Nicholas was a boy of four years of age, while the Litchborough Robert,born about 1425 and living until 1487, the distant relative and near neighbour of theauthor, or his son John who was attainted in the latter year, would be of age to haveinterested themselves in such a work. There is, of course, no real evidence that they didso, but in view of contemporary practice regarding names it is a strange coincidence thatThomas Malory of Litchborough, who must have been born after the death ofthe author,is the only Thomas, apart from his own grandson, to appear in that branch. It is justpossible that Malory's version was brought to Caxton's attention, and the copy delivered,somewhat earlier than 1483, since in the preface to his Godfrey of Boloyne of November1481 he took particular notice ofthe great and many volumes of Saint Graal, Galahad, andLauncelot de Lake, Gawain, Perceval, Lyonel and Tristram', though one may remark thatthis description does not entirely fit Malory's cycle. The evidence of the fragmentaryindulgence that was used to repair the manuscript suggests that it remained in Caxton'spossession until some time after 1489, and at all events therefore it cannot have beenamong the goods and chattels that were restored to John Malory in 1488: on the otherhand if it were still in possession ofthe printer at his death it would not have been difficultfor his successor Wynkyn de Worde, who himself published two editions of the Mortein 1498 and 1529, to have returned it to the owner, especially as after the death of theauthor's grandson in 1513 the Malorys of Litchborough were the only surviving housestill to be found in their ancestral home in that part of the Midlands. Finally, assumingthat it remained there until towards the end of the century it may, as Dr. Oakeshott hassuggested, have reached Winchester at some time during the next hundred years, though

105

by a different route. The records of the College show that a 'Thomas Mallorie' enteredas a Scholar in 1617, though as he was the second son of Thomas, Dean of Chester, himselfthe younger son of Sir William Malory of Studeley in Yorkshire, this may be no morethan an amusing coincidence.^^

The source of Caxton's 'copy unto me delyverd' may have been a local connection ofthe Litchborough Malorys. It has been suggested by George Painter*" that the particulargentleman to whom strong views on the historical existence of King Arthur are ascribedin the preface to the Morte, and the only begetter of Caxton's copy text, who are probablyone and the same, was Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, who was executed in June1483 and whom therefore the cautious printer could not mention by name. Rivers hadbeen arrested by order ofthe future Richard III in April of that year in his native countyof Northampton, for the Wydevill or Woodville family had been settled at Grafton (Regis)since before the fourteenth century and had, prior to their sudden rise following ElizabethWoodville's marriage to Edward IV, occupied the same important offices in the countyas had in their turn the Malorys of Litchborough.'^* Moreover, as perhaps the mostinffuential man in that area after the death ofthe Kingmaker, and above all for our purposesa devotee of jousts and chivalric ideals. Rivers was the likeliest of Caxton's known patronsto have been aware of the existence of a version of Arthurian romance made by theWarwickshire knight whom he may have encountered at the siege of Alnwick in the winterof 1462-3.-*- Certainly the connection with Rivers played an important part in the pro-duction of Caxton's press in its early years. In 1477-9 Caxton published three translationsby him, one of which was twice reprinted, while in Caxton's own prologues and epiloguesto these publications much is made ofthe closeness ofthe literary connection, and a noteof respectful intimacy can even be detected.**^ Caxton is thought to have translated at hiscommand the Order of Chivalry^ which was printed in 1484 after his patron's death. Thesudden reverse in the fortunes ofthe Woodville family turned the connection into a matterof delicacy for Caxton, although he did not deny it entirely, and it must have been easyforhis contemporaries to see through his allusions to the 'gentle and noble esquyer', at whoserequest and from whose copy Caxton had made his translation.

THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

A detailed description of Additional MS. 59678 is to be found in Neil Ker's introductionto the Early English Text Society's facsimile, but several remarks may be added here.The paper used is French and of three principal stocks, not two as has been supposed; itswatermarks are reproduced here from beta-radiographs (fig. I6A-C). The first of them,comprising a Gothic P surmounted by a quatrefoil and having a single diagonal linethrough its base, is some 70 mm in height and occurs at only two points, in fols. 45-92and fols. 277-300: it is similar to Briquet's no. 8661, recorded at Paris in i477.'*^ The othertwo are variants of the arms of France within a crowned shield, but are decidedly nottwins. The first to be encountered in the manuscript, which appears in fols. 9-44,197-220,

106

Fig. i6. Watermarks of Additional MS. 59678.A. Arms of France, with pendant. Fols. 9-44,197-220, 229-36, 325-32, 334-9. 349-96, and437-52. B. Gothic letter P. Fols. 45-92 and277-300. c. Arms of France, without pendant.Fols. 93-i96> 221-8, 237-76, 301-24, 333/34O>

341-8

229-36, 325~32, 334-9> 349^96, and 437-52, is centred within a pair of chain-lines spacedat about 37 mm; it has a pendant resembling a broken F and measures over all 70 mm.Briquet has nothing similar to this mark, though his no. 1685 resembles the other variety,which occurs on all the remaining folios, and is recorded at Paris and Neubourg in 1471and Cleray in 1480. This mark, which measures some 60 mm from top to bottom, has nopendant and the outer edges ofthe crown cross the chain-lines, spaced at 35 mm: a similarone was traced (in Additional MS. 38637, fol. 182) by Michael Beazeley from a documentdated 1475 in Canterbury Cathedral Library.

The earlier of the two hands that appear in the manuscript is that of the scribedesignated A, who is thought to have been the principal copyist; his script, in Ker'sphrase, 'begins by being basically anglicana and ends by being basically secretary', whilehis fellow, scribe B, practises a rather more ffuent and readable form of secretary. A roughestimate ofthe division of work between them, based upon the Oxford Standard Authorstext to avoid the discrepancy caused by A's having maintained a higher average of wordsto the line and lines to the page, shows that B copied just over four per cent more ofthetotal text than A, although his hand is seen on some eight per cent more ofthe manuscriptleaves. At the outset the two worked simultaneously on the Tale of King Arthur (nowfols. 9-7ob), after which they divided the remaining copy into two major portions of whichthe first, comprising all the tales from Arthur and Lucius to Tristram (fols. 7i-346b) wastaken by B while A took the rest, from the Sankgreal to the Morte proper (fols. 349-484),returning to help with part ofthe Tristram (fols. 191b 229) when he had completed hisown allocation. It seems as if for a brief while B was going to take over the precedingepisode in the Tale of King Arthur (fols. 35-44b) also, but after completing what A hadbegun on the first page he relinquished it altogether and carried on with Arthur and Lucius.As a result the two quires that include the Torre and Pellinore episode (fols. [33]-44b)present a very irregular appearance: three pages of Balyn and Balan (fols. [33]-34) arefollowed by a whole blank page (fol. 34b), inexplicable at this point, and then the Torr^,the first page of which (fol. 35) is copied in two hands. Moreover scribe A in estimatingthe length of his remaining copy reduced the second quire to six leaves only, but even thentwo leaves had to be left blank at the end; these were removed at the time, as a red inkstain on fol. 44b and its offset on fol. 45 show. As a guide to the binder therefore the word'Arthure' was written in red at the fold of the bifolium in which that episode begins(fols. 35b, 38), and 'in tried' similarly in brown ink on the next (fol. 36b), which occupies thecentral position in the quire. Possibly the letters 'for(-?)', written at the bottom outsidecorner ofthe third leaf, in place ofthe normal numbering, are part of this process.

Several other features occurring within this section of the manuscript are worthy ofattention. More than a dozen carefully drawn hands point to the text from the marginsof scribe A's portion (fols. 9b-42b) of this tale; they are found nowhere else in the volumeand may be rather later than the copying. Scribe B's section (fols. 45-7ob) for no apparentreason totally lacks the marginal annotations copied in red that frequently appear else-where, though it must be said that they are absent also from fols. 231 to 293b and fols.301b to 346b in the Tristram. Judging from occasional inaccuracies of placing they seem

108

tU^ y^£o^9t^4L opijp* '***i|

^ ^

Additional MS. 59678, fol. 35, showing the hands of scribes A (top eight lines) and B

Additional MS. 59678, fol. 71, showing blind scratches thatappear to read 'Know Know All men by the[se presents]'

to have been transferred rather mechanically from the exemplars, which presumablyalso lacked them at these points. At fol. 23 occurs a crudely-written note of this kind,itself unique in being copied in brown ink in a hand that does not resemble that of A or B,that preserves two words otherwise omitted from the text by a scribal oversight. Thereis some possibility that the same hand executed on fol. 296b the blind scratch that reads inpart 'the red sete', in the episode that Vinaver has called The Red Cite'. More interestingperhaps are two elucidations of imperfectly written words in the text ('strene' and 'strange')that are found in the margins of fols. 22b and 61 written in a strikingly neat and characterfulcontemporary hand and greyish ink. A similar ink has been used to encapsulate severalred side-notes that were not already distinguished thus (e.g. on fols. 79b-83 and 398b-4i4b).The impression given is of a casual but scrupulous corrector, and it is not impossiblethat the hand emanates from the printing-house. In this connection we may point to tracesof red crayon on fols. 348 and 409, for such a medium was used at this early date by printerswhen adding technical instructions to copy. In the former case it was used for a markresembling a capital S. Finally, we may note that in at least one section ofthe manuscript(fols. 37ob-4O3b /)i25.?/m) small crosses have been scratched at various points beside the text,possibly by a copyist who wished to mark his place in the original. These, though themerest details, are the sort of indications that we must look for when considering whetheror to what extent a particular text was used in printing, or in estimating the nature ofthescribes' own copy.

The appearance of unity with which, except at a very few points, the scribes were ableto invest the copy precludes all but the rarest glimpses of what lay behind it. Assumingthat they were working simultaneously we must conclude that their copy-text consistednot of a similar compilation disposed in a single volume but of a number of separate manu-

I I O

scripts, whether bound or in loose gatherings, comprising sometimes one tale and some-times perhaps two. The Tale of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere and Le Morte d''Arthurproper seem to have stood together in the copy-text because of Malory's words 'Andby cause I have loste the very mater of Shevalere de Charyot I departe frome the tale ofsir Launcelot and here I go unto the morte Arthur . . . And here on the othir syde folowyththe moste pyteuous tale ofthe Morte Arthure sannz Gwerdon'. Equally it is clear from thedetails given above of its transcription that the Tale of King Arthur must have been com-prised in loose quires that could be apportioned between the copyists. The colophon tothat tale, which denotes an interruption in Malory's work of translation, probably survivesfrom the initial period of composition, while the final one of all, dating the compilation ofthe 'hoole book' to between March 1469 and March 1470, must have been added oncompletion ofthe series as we now know it.

The death ofthe author only a year or two after the completion of his work, in circum-stances of physical and possibly financial restraint, seems to argue against the multiplica-tion of copies of this final collected version during his lifetime, though there are stronga priori indications that the present manuscript was not compiled under his supervision.Its text abounds in errors of the sort that careless scribes, working at speed and seldomchecking back by their exemplars, would have made. Most of them are easily corrected,such as omissions of particles and letters or inversions of word-order, but graver errorsof omission, especially those resulting from homoeoteleuton, are depressingly frequentand may range from a single phrase to several lines of text. Nonetheless Caxton's versioncorresponds in general very closely with that ofthe manuscript, due allowance being madefor the division into books and chapters - though even this coincides to a remarkableextent with divisions that occur in the manuscript - the wholesale rewriting of Arthur andLucius, and numerous smaller changes of vocabulary, grammar, and style that the printermade in the interests of readability. Detailed study ofthe text is outside the scope ofthepresent notes, but it has been pointed out that in cases of corruptions where a guide issupplied by the original French, Caxton shows nearly twice as many correct readings.'*^Omissions are often repaired where the text ofthe manuscript is manifestly deficient. ButCaxton's version differs from the text of the manuscript also in places where there is nocause to suspect an error. We are sufficiently well acquainted with his editorial methodsto realize that the collation of two or more texts for the purpose of publication was notbeyond his patience or ambition. More than one source has been recognized, for example,in his Golden Legend (1484 and 1487) which, though mainly translated from a Frenchversion, incorporates elements from several Latin and one English source, together withhis own editorial deletions and additions. It is possible that for the Morte d'Arthur Caxtonconsulted French sources when he was in doubt about the clarity of the text and his owncapacity to emend it; the number of places where Caxton agrees with French sourcesagainst the Malory manuscript, as noted by Sally Shaw, may perhaps be taken as anindication of this method of editing. Yet we may not lightly reject the assumption uponwhich Professor Vinaver has based his Oxford text, that Caxton had another authoritativewitness to hand for at least some parts ofthe work.

I l l

1 Duff 368. The printer's copy is extant in theVatican Library, Cod. lat. 11441. See J. Ruys-schaert, *Les manuscrits autographes de deuxoeuvres de Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagniimprimees chez Caxton', Bultetin of the JohnRylands Library, 36 (1953-4), PP- i9i-7-The manuscript was cast-off for setting byformes.

2 D. V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniquesof Medieval Painting (Nevi York, 1956), pp. 80-3.W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelatter{Leipzig, 1896) quotes on p. 239 an English recipe'to make texte ynke' with 'grene vitriole, raynewater and gome' as ingredients. The dark inkused in the later part of the Malory manuscriptmay have also contained some form of carbonpigment.

3 C. H. Bloy, A History of Printing Ink, Baits andRotters, 1440-1850 (London, 1967).

4 W. Blades, The Life and Typography of WilliamCaxton (London, 1861-3), 11, p. xlvi.

5 T.L.S., 18 Feb. 1977, p. 193.6 Traces of printing ink observed on:

fols. 9, II, 12, 13, 17, 26b, 27b, 28, 39, 43b, 72b,92, ioob, IOI, 122b, 132b, 136, 138b, 140b, 156,158, 158b, 159, 162b, 163, 185b, i86b, 187b,i88b, 189b, 195b, 247b, 248, 266b, 269, 270b,271b, 299, 312, 314b, 329b, 336b, 338, 341b, 385,385b, 386b, 387, 390, 395, 405, 407, 408, 409,410b, 412, 413, 414, 415, 415b, 418b, 419b, 420b,421,424,433.

7 On fol. 159, line 13 (trace of F); fol. i86b, line 6(trace of B).

8 K. E. Creer, 'Unusual Photographic Techniquesin Document Examination', Forensic Science., 7(1976), pp. 23-9. D. M. Ellen and K. E. Creer,'Infrared Luminescence in the Examination ofDocuments', Journal of the Forensic ScienceSociety, 10 (1970), PP- 159-64-

9 The s and m from type 2 are not reproduced.10 DufF2i2.11 E. Vinaver (ed.). The Works of Sir Thomas

Malory (Oxford, 1967), i, p. cii, n. 5.12 T.L.S., 18 Feb. 1977, p. 193.13 Reproduced by E. G. Duff, Earty English Printing

(London, 1896), pi. VIL14 G. Pollard, 'The Names of Some English

Fifteenth-Century Binders', The Library., 5thser., 25 (1970), p. i95> "• 3, P- 196-

15 This opinion is based on the indulgences printedin the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. Theindulgences so far recorded offer no exceptions.

nor, I think, do the recorded copies of indulgencesprinted in England.

16 G. D. Painter, Witliam Caxton. A QuincentenaryBiography of England's First Printer (London,1976), pp. 146-7. The preliminaries were prob-ably, although not necessarily, the last part ofthebook to be printed, after the completion of thevolume on 31 July 1485.

17 N. F. Blake, 'Caxton prepares his Edition oftheMorte Darthur\ Journal of Librarianship, 8(1976), p. 277. Cf. the extensive analysis ofthestylistic and linguistic features of Caxton's editionby Sally Shaw in her 'Caxton and Malory',Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett (Oxford,

1963), PP- "4-45-18 The manuscript is MS. Add. 10290. See

L. Hellinga, Methode en praktijk bij het zettenvan boeken in de vijftiende eeuw (Amsterdam,1974), and 'Notes on the Order of Setting aFifteenth-Century Book', Quaerendo, 4 (1974),pp. 64-9.

19 G. Bone, 'Extant Manuscripts Printed from byW. de Worde with Notes on the Owner RogerThorney', The Library, 4th ser., 12 (1932),pp. 284-306; R. W. Mitchner, 'Wynkyn deWorde's Use of the Plimpton Manuscript of DeProprietatibus Rerum', The Library, 5th ser., 6(1951), pp.7-18.

20 G. Kane (ed.). Piers Ptowman: The A Version.Will's Visions of Piers Plowman and Do-Welt(London, i960), pp. 136-7.

21 The forms are Followell, Follwell, and Felwell.The name also appears, spelled 'Richarde Fol^weir, along the outer margin of fol. 114b. Variouscapital Rs and, in pencil, 'Richard' occur onfols. 344-8-

22 Northamptonshire County Record Office:Northants Wills, Series i. Book E, fol. 129b.My thanks are due to the staff of this institutionfor their patient assistance and helpful advice.

23 Ibid., Book I, fols. 325, 325b.24 Add. MS. 41316, fols. i7b-2O, 161-5 (from Sir

Henry Ellis's collections).25 Information compiled from references in P.R.O.,

Catalogue of Ancient Deeds, iv: see index, under'Malory'.

26 George Baker, The History and Antiquities ofthe County of Northampton, i (London, 1822-30),p. 406. Baker is quoting from John Bridges'History. . . of Northamptonshtre, rev. P. Whalley,

( 7 9 ) P 7 527 P.R.O., Cat. Pat. Rolls, 1345-1348, p. 494; JJ50-

112

I354^ pp- 477> 5^6; Cal. Close Rolls, 1349-1354,PP- 295, 300, 413, 541; 1354-1360, p. 420;1360-1364, p. 562; and Baker, op. cit.

28 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1381-1385, p. 599; 1385-1389^p. 225; 1396-1399, p. 370; Cal. Close Rolls,

1385-^389^ PP- 119. 495; 1392-1396^ P- 278;^30-^399. P- 277; 1399-1402, p. 330; J402-1405, p. 125; Cat. Inquis. P.M., i-j Ric. II, p. 7;1392-1399, pp. 158, 159; and 1399-1422, p. 136.

29 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1396-1399, pp. 308, 466, 479;and Cal. Close Rolls, 1396-1399, p. 163.

30 P.R.O., Feudal Aids, iv, p. 38.31 Baker, op. cit.; Rolls Series, Materials for . . . the

Reign of Henry VII, 11, pp. 187, 251; Cal. Pat.Rolls, 1485-1494, p. 208; Cat. Inquis. P.M.: 2ndSeries: 20-24 Henry VII, p. 507; Cal. Fine Rolls,1485-1509, p. 331; and Rotuli Parliament or um,VI, p. 526a.

32 P.R.O., Letters and Papers . . . of Henry VIII,vol. Ill, pt. Ill, p. 865; and Baker, op. cit.

33 Letters and Papers . . . of Henry VIII, vi, pp. 6,584; VII, p. 135; vol. xviii, pt. I, p. 285; vol. XX,pt. I, pp. 314, 316; and Cal. Pat. Rolls Edw. VI,V, p. 356.

34 Letters and Papers . . . of Henry VIII, Addenda,vol. I, pt. I, p. 353; and see n. 33.

35 Information from H. I. Longden's pedigree-notes in the Northants Record Office.

36 Cal. Pat. Rotts, 1557-1558, pp. 401, 402, 428;Acts ofthe Privy Council, 1556-1558, pp. 320,398, 417;and Cat. S.P. Dom., 154-;-1580, p. i n .

37 Baker, op. cit.; Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1566-1569,PP- 308, 309; and Royal MS. 18 D III, fols. 43b,44 (the exact date of the map is unknown).

38 The sequence of watermarks 1-5 in Le Morted^Arthur may perhaps be taken to indicate thatprinting started in the second half of 1483. SeePaul Needham's introduction to the Scolar Pressfacsimile, 1976.

39 T. F. Kirby, Winchester Scholars (1888), p. 167;George Ormerod, History of Cheshire, 2nd edn.,I (1882), p. 421; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses; andWalker Revised, ed. A. G. Matthews (Oxford,1948), p. 91.

40 Painter, op. cit., p. 147.41 G.E.C., Complete Peerage, xi (1949), under

'Rivers'.42 Ibid., and see Vinaver, op. cit., I, p. xxv.43 Painter, op. cit., p. 88.44 Briquet, Les Filigranes, rev. Alan Stevenson

(Amsterdam, 1968).45 Sally Shaw, op. cit., p. 152.

Figs. I, 4, 5, and 6 by courtesy of the Director of the Metropolitan Police Forensic ScienceLaboratory.