Description of The Dream of the Pilgramage

S: New York, Public Library, MS, Spencer 19

Construction S contains 136 vellum leaves cropped to approxiamtely 19 by 27 cm. It has parchment flyleaves (ABC-D) and pastedowns and retains a medieval binding of white doeskin over bevelled oak boards. This binding once had two overhanging clasps. S has seventeen regular qires of eight leaves, with medieval signatures beginning x1-4 and then continuing with a1-4 through q1-4. The modern hand that has numbered the folios in the upper right-hand corner of each recto has begn with the flyleaves, whereas another modern hand has numbered the leaves correctly in the lower left-hand corner of each recto.

Contents On fols. 1r-133v, S contains a copy of the Soul that includes a table of contents on fols. 1r-3v and the translator's epilogue on fol. 133r-v. The manuscript has no scribal colophon.

Text The leaves in S are ruled for a single column of text, measuring approximately 11.5 by 17 cm. Although the columns are ruled, the number of lines per page varies randomly from thirty-three to thirty-six. Two scribes copied the text in Textura bookhands that date from the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Scribe A worked on fols. 1r-10v, and Scribe B worked on fols. 11r-133v. One word was lost in the transition . . .

Decoration

Illustration S contains twenty-six illustrations by a single artist and dated to about 1430. The illustrations have the following locations and subjects: . . .

Provenance S's complete state, its early date, and its relationship with the group of manuscripts from the area of Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire make it an important copy of the Soul. Though S is almost as finely crafted and ornate as H, it similarities to E, Laud 740, and the copy of The Myrror for Devote People owned by Lord Scrope suggest that S was produced by an organized group of artists supplying books to members of the aristocracy with ties in the Northeast Midlands in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Evidence about S's earliest known owner appears on flyleaf Av, where a fifteenth-century hand has written, "Liber domini Thome Comorworth militis." Sir Thomas Cumberworth of Somerby, Lincolnshire, was Sherif and Member of Parliament for Lincolnshire and died in 1451. Cumberworth's will records his gift of a copy of the Soul, which he calls "my boke of grasdew of the sow[l]e," to the priest at the chantry of the Virgin Mary founded by Cumberworth in the parish church at Somerby in 1437. Cumberworth's gift of "my boke of grasdew" to the priest of the other chantry he founded indicates that he owned a copy of the prose Life as well. Though Cumberworth's name does not appear in Laud 740, this may well be his copy, given its similarities to S. Cumberworth's interest in books is clear from his other gifts. To various clerics in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, he gives seven more devotional books, including a Latin psalter, a roll of prayers, Hilton's De vita contemplativa et activa, a book on the Passion (perhaps Richard Rolle's), and a copy of De vita Christi (perhaps Love's Mirrour). To his nephew, Robert Constable, Cumberworth leaves an unidentified black book, and to Roberts wife, Agnes, a copy of the Canterbury Tales. Cumberworth's other gifts, including a gilt chalice to theCharterhouse at Hull and jewelled beads and tablet to John, Cardinal Kemp of York, indicate not only Cumberworth's wealth and partronage ofreligious artifiacts, burt also his links with institutions associated with other copies of the Soul.

S became the property of Dame Agnes Radcliffe, the daughter of Henry, Lord Scrope of Bolton, Yorkshire, and Elizabeth Scrope, whose father, Lord Scrope of Masham, owned the copy of The Myrror for Devote People with border decoration similar to that in S. When Dame Agnes's husband, Sir Richard Radcliffe of Sedbury, Yorkshire, died at Bosworth field in 1485, she became a vowess at the Convent of St. Andrew at Marrick, Yorkshire. Dame Agnes probably left S to the convent at her death, since the record of the gift on flyleaf Cv by her step-daughter or daughter-in-law, Isabelle Lumley, asks for mercy on Dame Agnes' soul: "Here beginnith the boke cald Grace Dieu giffen unto the Monestarye of Marrik by Dames Agnes Radcliff onn whose sowl Ihesu haue mercye. Amen. Per me Isabell Lumley." A member of the convent must be responsible for the similar inscriptions in a late fifteenth-century hand on flyleaf Cv and fol. 133v.: "Iste liber constat Monasterio Sanctimonialium Sancti Andree Apostoli de Marrycke. Si quis illum alienauerit vendiderit seu frat cum fuerit senten ciam maioris excommunicaciionis mini[m]e euadat sed periculum eterne dampnacionis mourrat. Ihesu mercy Lady helpe Amen" and "Iste liber constaat Monasterio Sanctimonialium Sancti Andree Apostoli De Marrycks. Si qis eum alienauerit sentenciam maioris excommuni cacionis sed periculum eterne dampnacionis mourrat. Ihesu mercy Lady helpe Amen." Since the prioress of the convent when it was dissolved in 1539 was Christabella Cowper, S may have passed through her to John Cowper whose sixteenth-century inscription appears on flyleaf Cr: "By me John Cowper anrs these buke." By the seventeenth century, S was in the possession of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, who died in 1632. His descendent Lord Leconfield, sold the manuscript out of his collection at Petworth House, Sussex, in April 1928. The New York Public Library acquired S for its Spencer Collection of Illustrated Books later the same year.

Rosemarie Potz McGerr, ed. (1990), The Pilgrimage of the Soul; A Critical Edition of the Middle English Dream Vision, Garland Publishing, pp. lxxx-lxxxiv.