Apocalypse with commentary

Apocalypse, with the text interspersed with commentaries, but without prologues.

Contents: Apocalypse with commentary, bearing certain similarities to the earlier Wycliffe version, but with many differences. Collated, but not fully, as Ry, by Fridner, An English fourteenth century apocalypse version (see Bibliography below). Modernized as compared with Fridner's base text. Each section of text is underlined in red and followed by a section of commentary. There are usually three or four sections in each chapter. The commentary begins 'Þe openynge of seint ioon bitokeneþ prelatis of holi chirche' and ends 'in bodi and in soule and dwelle wiþ him wiþouten ende AMEN'.

Script: Gothic textura. Written space: 140 x 87 mm. 2 columns, 31 lines.

Secundo folio: of holi chirche.

Decoration: One 3-line initial in blue ink with red penwork flourishes on f. 1r; numerous 2-line initials in red.

Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 414-15. By permission of Oxford University Press.

Purchased by Mrs Enriqueta Rylands from Henry Yates Thompson in 1897, and later transferred to the John Rylands Library. Accession no. R4988.

(1) Sir Edward Dering (1598-1644), antiquary and religious controversialist. 'Edoardus Dering Miles et Baronettus' surrounds the arms of Dering on the front cover, as on Bodleian Library, Lyell 1 and Lyell empt. 3, and other manuscripts. The Dering shelfmark 'L. 1. 8' is inside the front cover. Sale of the Surrenden (Dering) collection at Puttick and Simpson, 8 June 1858, lot 1596.

(2) Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham. Appendix no. 26.

(3) Henry Yates Thompson. He purchased the Ashburnham Appendix in May 1897 and almost immediately resold the manuscript to Mrs Rylands.

Elis Fridner, An English fourteenth century apocalypse version with a prose commentary, edited from MS Harley 874 and ten other MSS, Lund Studies in English, no.29 (1961).

N.R. (Neil Ripley) Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 414-15.

G.A. (Godfrey Allen) Lester, The index of Middle English prose. Handlist 2, a handlist of manuscripts containing Middle English prose in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester and Chetham's Library, Manchester (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), pp. 31-3.