A study of the codicology of four early manuscripts of the Canterbury tales.

This thesis is a study of the physical features of the four earliest manuscripts of the
Canterbury Tales all dated to the first years after the death of Geoffrey Chaucer. I assess
the ways in which codicological examination can contribute to the understanding of a
complex textual tradition and inform the study of the text.
The thesis is divided into two volumes. The first volume contains the seven
chapters which make up the thesis. The first chapter contains a review of the printed
editions of the poem since Caxton's first edition of 1476 and a summary of the most
important contributions of scholarship in the twentieth century. It reveals that many
influential editions and much scholarship on the textual tradition of the poem have been
achieved with scant consultation of the extant manuscripts. The second chapter addresses
the problems which have arisen as a result of this neglect and offers suggestions for a
different approach to manuscript analysis which will be provided as a result of the
examination of the manuscripts in the remainder of the thesis. Chapters three to six
contain detailed analyses of the four manuscripts in the survey: Aberystwyth, National
Library of Wales MS. Peniarth 392D (Hengwrt), Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS. 198
(Corpus), London, British Library MS. Harley 7334 (Harley 4), and California, San
Marino, Huntington Library MS. El. 26 C 9 (Ellesmere). In chapter seven, I summarise
the findings and offer suggestions for future research.
The second volume contains all the appendices numbered 1-20 followed by 22
Plates. For each manuscript there are four or five separate appendices which provide
details of the following: a visual overview, a detailed analysis of individual quires, a list of
all rubrics, lines added, omitted or variant in each manuscript, and a list of catchwords.