Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, Queens' College, MS 24

Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes

Introduction: During a lengthy career as a clerk for the Privy Seal, Thomas Hoccleve (an associate and disciple of Chaucer) achieved distinction as a poet of some renown. Having fallen into obscurity soon after his death, Hoccleve’s poetry has recently undergone positive reassessment, not least on account of its many autobiographical passages. Their colourful descriptions of, for example, his youthful dissipation, mental illness, and pecuniary difficulties have informed recent research into the formations of subjectivity in early modern literature. Hoccleve gained greatest fame for The Regiment of Princes, a lengthy poem addressed to the future Henry V. In the long prologue Hoccleve describes a conversation in which he is advised by an old man to seek the good lordship of Prince Henry by addressing a poem to him, after which the poem’s second half accordingly advises the prince of the virtues necessary to a good ruler. Once Henry became king in 1413, Hoccleve continued to write for and about him, for example, celebrating the king’s triumphal return from France in 1421. Queens’ MS 24 is one of forty-three extant manuscripts of the poem dating from around Hoccleve’s lifetime (another in the same hand is held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Selden Supra 53). It has been suggested that the absence of leaves from this copy is due to the removal of a picture of Chaucer (eulogised by Hoccleve in the text), whose image is sometimes found in other contemporary copies. An indulgence printed by William Caxton and dated 1489 was originally laid in the volume and is now preserved separately at X.17.12. The indulgence was granted by Johannes de Gigliis, Papal Nuncio in England, and was intended for those who subscribed 4, 3, 2 or 1 gold florins ‘ad impugnandum infideles’, i.e. for the 1490 crusade against the Turks. Various sixteenth-century annotations record debts relating to previous owners, and indicate that the volume resided in Shropshire at that time. Queens’ MS 24 was given to the College in the eighteenth century by a Queens’ alumnus, the Revd Massie Malyn (1688–1727, matric. 1705).

1.1. 1r-70v

Thomas Hoccleve, De regimine principum

Language(s): English with Latin

Incipit: 1r: Musing vpon the restles besynes

Explicit: 70r: To wiche yow bringe þe auctor of pees

Final rubric: 70v: Amen

1.2. 1r-70v

Verba compilatoris ad librum

Language(s): English

Rubric: 70v: Verba compilatoris ad librum

Incipit: 70v: O libel booke who ¥af to þe hardinesse

Explicit: 70v: That knoweth he whom no þing is hid fro

Final rubric: 70v: Mercy and grace

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 2r: Thus ilke night

Form: codex

Support: Parchment

Extent: 2 parchment stubs (one waste from Latin manuscript) + 1 (printed waste) + 70 + 3 parchment stubs (one waste from Latin manuscript) + 1 (printed waste). 310 × 212-217 mm.

Foliation:

Late 19th/early 20th-century foliation:

1-70

Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the first leaf recto of each quire, possibly by M.R. James. Full foliation added after digitisation.

Collation

The manuscript comprises eight quires composed of eight leaves; one missing quire; and one quire composed of 10 leaves with 4 leaves missing.

Quire 1⁸ (ff. 1-8)
Quire 2⁸ (ff. 9-16)
Quire 3⁸ (ff. 17-24)
Quire 4⁸ (ff. 25-32)
Quire 5⁸ (ff. 33-40)
Quire 6⁸ (ff. 41-48)
Quire 7⁸ (ff. 49-56)
Quire 8⁸ (ff. 57-64)
Quire 9 (missing)
Quire 10^10-4 (ff. 65-70: 2 leaves missing after f. 68 and 2 others after f. 70)

1-8⁸ 9 (missing) 10^10-4 (5, 6, 9, 10 missing)

First half of each quire is signed.

Catchwords.

Layout

218 × 114-170 mm. 39-40 verse lines (7 lines per stanza for Regiment of Princes), ruled in dark brown ink, written below top line.

Hand(s)

Gothic bookhand (cursive)

Decoration

Ornamental initials (7 ll.) in pink or blue with white decoration on a gold ground with foliate and acanthus motifs, with three-sided bar and spraywork borders with foliate and acanthus motifs for main text divisions on ff. 1r, 31v.

Ornamental initials (3 ll.) in gold on blue and dark pink with white decoration and spraywork for lesser text divisions (e.g. 26v, 52v, 64v).

Paragraph marks (1 l.) in alternate blue with red pen-flourishing and gold with blue pen-flourishing for verses.

Additions

An indulgence printed by William Caxton and dated 1489 was originally laid in the volume and is now preserved separately at X.17.12. The indulgence was granted by Johannes de Gigliis, Papal Nuncio in England, and was intended for those who subscribed 4, 3, 2 or 1 gold florins ‘ad impugnandum infideles’, i.e. for the 1490 crusade against the Turks.

Alternative title provided in a later hand (18th-century?) on f. 1r: 'This Poem is usually call'd "Consolatio sibi a Sane oblata", by Thomas Occleve, a Disciple of Chaucer'.

Binding

Second half of 16th century, calfskin over internally bevelled wooden boards, sewn on four double (split cord?) supports, blind-tooled central panel and edge design creating a lozenge-shaped band within two rectangular bands, with busts of men and women, foliate and geometric motifs, heads with three faces, initials W.L. and F.P. (Oldham CH.c(2) and HM.h(7)); cream and pink endbands; remains of two straps and clasps (closing front to back); repairs to spine.

Fragment of 14th-century manuscript waste from a volume in Latin used as stubs at front and rear with pen-flourished initials in blue and red. Printed waste used as flyleaves from a theological work: Alexander Carpentarius , Destructorium vitiorum (Cologne, 16 August 1485) (USTC 742494), leaf O4 at front and O5-6 at rear.

History

Origin: First half of 15th-century (c.1420-1440) ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

44r: 17th-century inscription of Vernon Aston.

70v: 16th-century memorandum related to debts and herriots in Badger and Ackleton, Shropshire: 'Memorandum that Humfrey Blackman of Badger in the countye of Salop saythe that one halligraves wyffe ioynt takyr w^th her husband overlyved her husband and dyed and that in his remembraunce thear was payd to Thomas Kynnersley Esq. and then lord of Ackleton after the deathe of the said wydowe ij oxen for a harryott by reson she held a yard land in Akleton of the Lord aforesaid and for her husbund that dyed before her was lykewyse answered ij oxen for a harryott due after his deathe. Allso he remembreth that after the deathe of Rowleys wyffe the lord of Akilton challendged a harryott...'. This note seems to indicate that the manuscript was at one time in Shropshire (James).

Presented to the Library in the early 18th-century by the Rev. Massie Malyn , LLD, Queens' alumnus (mat. 1705). Gift recorded on f. 1r: 'Bibliothecae Coll. Regin. Cantab. dono dedit vir Reverendus Mascie Malyn LLD hujus Collegii quondam alumnus'.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry derives predominantly from data assembled for the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Cambridge Illuminations project (publication forthcoming) and draws on the description in M.R. James, A descriptive catalogue of the western manuscripts in the library of Queens’ College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905).

Availability

For further information on the availability of the manuscript, please contact Queens' Old Library and Special Collections.

Bibliography

A catalogue of the library of the college of St. Margaret and St. Bernard, commonly called Queen's College in the University of Cambridge, Horne, Thomas Hartwell (London, Society of Queen's College, 1827)

A descriptive catalogue of the western manuscripts in the library of Queens' College, Cambridge, James, M.R. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1905)

English blind-stamped bindings, Oldham, J. Basil (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Immaterial Texts in Late Medieval England: Making English Literary Manuscripts, 1400–1500, Wakelin, Daniel (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Funding of Cataloguing

Dr Virge James in memory of the late Dr Nigel James (Queens' mat. 1960)

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, Queens' College, MS 24

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