The Merchant’s Tale / en Pleyyng with May’s Age in Oxford, New College MS 314 /pleyyng-mays-age-oxford-new-college-ms-314 Pleyyng with May’s Age in Oxford, New College MS 314 Lucy Fleming Issue number (2023): 20 Notes category Library Manuscript MS 314 Geoffrey Chaucer The Merchant’s Tale The Canterbury Tales

MS 314 (c. 1450–70) is something of an infamous manuscript among Chaucer scholars. At first glance, it seems like a fairly standard copy of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s famous unfinished poem. Absent the illuminations and gilding of more celebrated manuscripts such as the Ellesmere, the simple rubrication of MS 314 might even strike readers as plain. However, it takes only a brief page-through to realise that this manuscript is hardly as tight-laced as its stiff binding would suggest.

 

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library, Oxford, MS 314, f. 82v [detail]

 

²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Library and Archives, Oxford
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