Confessio Amantis, lacking ending and possibly Latin addenda London, s.xv, late, a copy of Caxton’s print of 1483, with his table of contents

Contents

1

(fols i–iv verso and 1–2r) A table of contents for the Confessio, copied by the scribe from Caxton’s edition, precedes the text of the Confessio. It is headed ‘Confessio Amantis by John Gower’, in a later hand, and ‘Hatton 51’ in a much later hand. There follows Caxton’s introduction to the poem, in red, beginning: ‘This book is intituled confessio amantis that is to saye in englysche the confessyon off the louer maad and compyled by Johan Gower squyer born in walys in the tyme off the kyng richard the second which book treteth how he was confessyd to Genyus preste off venus vpon the causes off loue…&c’. (fol. i recto). For full text, and discussion of the table of contents, see Blake, ‘Caxton’s Copy-Text’, 189–94; see also Echard, ‘Pre-Texts’, 276–79; Nafde, ‘Gower from Print to Manuscript’, 189–200; and Alex da Costa, ‘“That ye mowe redely fynde… what ye desyre”: Printed Tables of Contents and Indices 1476–1540’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 81 (2018), 291–313.

2

(fol. 2v–205v) Confessio Amantis, Prol.I–VIII.2408

The last leaf is bound backwards, so that the ‘last line’ cited above actually appears at the bottom of fol. 205rb (the bottom line of fol. 205vb is VIII.2269). Five or six leaves would suffice for the remaining lines of the poem and the usual concluding Latin addenda.

Prologue (fols 2v–12va); Book I (fols 12va–30vb); Book II (fols 31ra–51va); Book III (fols 51vb–68va) wanting a leaf after fol. 59, with 1314–1475; Book IV (fols 68va–91a-va) wanting a leaf after fol. 81, with 2118–2268; Book V (fols 91a-va–136b(ult)-rb) wanting, except for stubs, a leaf after fol. 120, with 5169–5334, and a leaf after fol. 130, with 6774–6914; Book VI (fols 136b(ult)-va–150vb); Book VII (fols 150vb–189va); Book VIII (fols 189vb–205vb) five or six leaves lost after fol. 205, with 2409–end.