Described Hardwick & Luard: i.228; Manly & Rickert i.100–7; Seymour 2 pp. 43–7.

[1]

f. 127v

After most hartie commendacions vnto yowe this shall be to certify yowe that all your right lovynge and hartie frendes here in these parties are in goode health and merie thankes be vnto godde whoo in lyke maner haue them all right humbly commended vnto your mastershippe pertyfiynge yowe allso that as concernynge yow all this shalle further to signyfye vnto yowe that nowe syne the fayre of seynt bartillmewe last past theyr be ambassadours comen vnto london from the …

Beginning of a letter. By a later hand than that of the main text. Manly & Rickert (i.104) suggest that this might refer to the visit of Danish ambassadors to London in August 1496.

[2]

f. 160v

A ʒong man called melibeus myghty and riche bygat vp on his wyf that called was prudence a doughter which that called was sophie up on a day bifel that he for his disport is went in to þe feldes him to pleye his wyf and eke his doughter hath he laft wiþinne his hous of which the dores weren fast j shette …

f. 177

… he is so free and so mercyable þat he wole for ʒeuen vs oure giltes and bryngen vs to the blisse that neuere hath ende amen.

‘And heere bigynneth the Tale of Melibeus’, heading f. 160v; ‘Heere is ended Chaucers tale of melibe and bygynneth the prologe of the monkes tale’, colophon f. 177. Chaucer, ‘Tale of Melibee’, Canterbury Tales. IPMEP 18; Wells XVI:66. Ed. Riverside Chaucer pp. 217–327.

Other texts: IPMEP lists 60 MSS containing Melibee; see also Riverside Chaucer p. 1118. For other copies already indexed see IMEP 1 indexing HM 144 [10]; IMEP 2 indexing Manchester Rylands Eng 113 [1]; IMEP 8 indexing Oxf. Christ Church Col 152 [1], Corpus Christi Col 198 [1], New Col 314 [1], and Trinity Col 49 [1]; IMEP 11 indexing Camb. Trinity Col R.3.3 [1] and R.3.15 [1]; IMEP 16 indexing BodL Laud misc 600 [1]; IMEP 18 indexing Camb. Fitzwilliam McClean 181 [1]. See Ii.3.26 [1], Gg.4.27 [1] and Mm.2.5 [1].