The New Morgan Manuscript of Titus and Vespasian

Abstract

Under their number 1881, Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins listed ten manuscripts which contain the romance of Titus and Vespasian written in couplet form. Since the publication of the Index, however, at least two more manuscripts of this work have come to light, the Earl of Derby (Knowsley Hall) codex and another recently acquired by the Pierpont Morgan Library. The present investigation concerns the latter manuscript, for which the following description may be supplied:M 898, collection: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Manuscript on vellum (5 5/8 ⋉ 3 7/8 inches). Collation: a-m8 n5, wanting al = 100 leaves. 20 lines. Written (black ink with chapter headings or résumés in red, and rubrication in blue) in England in the fifteenth century. Bound in nineteenth-century brown morocco by F. Bedford. With the book-plate of Sir Henry Hope Edwardes (his library was sold at Christie's, 20 May 1901).