Ne - peterrobinson/CTP2 GitHub Wiki

Manuscript name and Mosser link

Oxford, Bodleian Library, New College, Oxford MS 314. Mosser: Ne.

Original construction

38 quires of 8 (304 folios) and three quires of six (quires 4, 9 and 14): 322 folios.

Missing folios

The first quire (folios 1-8) is missing, as are the least three leaves of the last quire (folios 320-322). RT finishes on 319v.

Added folios

None.

Absent text corresponding to the missing folios

GP 1-570 (folios 1-8).

Notes

There is considerable disorder in PA. The text appears in the following order, with the shifts occurring in mid-page. The capitals beside each letter give the original order, as they should appear:

1-98
532-580	E	(folio 277r-279r; 4 pages)
162-273	B	(279r-283v; 9 pages)
687-735	G	(283v-286v; 6 pages)
320-532	D	(286v-296r; 19 pages)
99-161	A	(296r-298v; 5 pages)
582-687	F	(298v-303r; 9 pages)
273-320	C	(303r-305v; 5 pages)
735-		(305v-end)

This disorder may be explained as follows: seven blocks of text, of rather differing lengths, have been reshuffled in the exemplar, and the reshuffled text copied in the order here given. A key to understanding what happened is that the core units of reshuffled text was around 50 paragraph units, which would fit on two leaves, or four pages. Thus blocks E G A C were all written on two leaves, with blocks B and F comprising four leaves and block D eight leaves.

We can posit then that before the disordering, the exemplar contained PA 99-735 in three quires of eight, as follows:

Quire 1:

leaves 1 and 2 (conjoint with 7 and 8): PA 99-161 (Block A)
leaves 3-6: PA 162-273 (Block B)
leaves 7-8 (conjoint with 1 and 2): PA 273-320 (Block C)

Quire2: PA 320-532 (Block D)

Quire 3:

leaves 1 and 2 (conjoint with 7 and 8): PA 532-580 (Block £)
leaves 3-6: PA 582-687 (Block F)
leaves 7 and 8 (conjoint with 1 and 2): PA 687-735 (Block G).

The existing order would then have been reached by swapping the two outer leaves of the first and third quires, so that E and G change places with A and C. Thus E and G go into the first quire, around B; the second quire containing block D is not affected; and A and C go into the third quire, around F. This reshuffled text is then copied into Ne, to give the results we see here.

One may compare: Ha4 which contains PA 98-161 on 263r to 264v; 161-281 on 265r-268v; 282-320 on 269r-270r; 320-529 on 270v-277r, etc.

Concordance of the traditional foliation (as reported by Mosser) and the new foliation

Traditional (Mosser)	New CT foliation
1-311	9-319