A New Manuscript of More's English Works

Abstract

The emergence of a previously unknown manuscript of the English writings of Thomas More is a matter of obvious scholarly interest. But its appearance in such a form as the one discussed below must raise concerns for the integrity and wellbeing of what is clearly a document of some importance.

Since 2013, various single leaves from a manuscript containing several of More's English works have been offered at different auction houses in England and North America. These are those of which we are currently aware, listed in order of sale:

• (i) Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers, Ludlow, Shropshire, 14 February 2013, lot 56; lot 128: a single leaf from More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; paper with a ‘hand and star’ watermark’; described as ‘Sir Thomas More attacks William Tyndale … an extract from the papers relating to the dispute’. The only side reproduced in the catalogue comprises 941/23–942/24 of the Yale edition;¹ sold for £750 (hammer).

• (ii) Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers, Ludlow, Shropshire, 21 May 2013, lot 128: a single leaf from More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; paper; described as ‘Sir Thomas More attacks William Tyndale . an extract from the papers relating to the dispute’. The only side reproduced in the catalogue comprises 320/30–322/1 of the Yale edition.

• (iii) Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers, Ludlow, Shropshire, 26 November 2014, lot 344: a single leaf from More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; not identified as such; paper; described as ‘from a Tudor legal work mentioning the case of Thomas More’. This comprises 929/7–930/6 (recto); 930/7–930/35 (verso) of the Yale edition; sold for £240 (hammer). The text breaks off near the bottom of the page in mid-sentence; cf. (x) below.

• (iv) Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers, Ludlow, Shropshire, 26 November 2014, lot 344A: a single leaf from More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; not identified as such; paper; described as ‘from a Tudor legal work mentioning the case of Thomas More and also mentioning Tyndall’. The only side reproduced in the catalogue comprises 318/22-319/23 of the Yale edition; sold for £200 (hammer).

• (v) Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers, Ludlow, Shropshire, 26 November 2014, lot 345: a single leaf from More's Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; not identified as such; described as ‘Tudor Manuscript, taken from a Tudor legal work’; paper. It comprises 939/11-940/15 (recto); 940/15–941/22 (verso) of the Yale edition; sold for £220 (hammer).

• (vi) Chiswick Auctions, London, 18 March 2015, lot 122; a single leaf from More's A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (with the running title Dyaloge of dyvers maters), not identified as such; paper; described as ‘Tudor Manuscript Leaf taken from a Tudor legal work, 2pp sm folio in fine condition, written in English in an attractive hand’; (estimate of £200–400); unsold; re-offered Chiswick Auctions, June 24, 2015, lot 270; untraced. The verso (the only side reproduced) comprises 327/35-328/36 of the Yale edition.

• (vii) Chiswick Auctions, London, 18 March 2015, lot 123; a single leaf from More's, Confutation of Tyndale's Answer; not identified as such; it is described as in (vi) above; paper, 175 × 247 mm; unsold (estimate as for lot 122 above); re-offered June 24, 2015, lot 271 (unsold) and again 27 September 2017, lot 25 (described as ‘LUTHERAN RELIGION’; sold for £418.20 (including 23 per cent premium) against an estimate of £100–£150. The purchaser immediately consigned it to Dreweatt & Bloomsbury for sale on 6 December 2017, lot 45 (estimate £3,000–5,000), where it was identified as from More's work. It comprises 926/36-929/7 of the Yale edition. The leaf was unsold and remains with the consignor.

• (viii) Addison & Sarova Auctions (Georgia, USA), 5 November 2016, lot 189; a single leaf from More's The Answer to a Poisoned Book; not identified as such; paper, 170 × 244 mm; vertical chain lines; gloved hand with trefoil watermark. It comprises 153/25–156/2 of the Yale edition.² Unsold and purchased post-sale by University of Pennsylvania Libraries for $100. Now Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, MS Coll. 591, folder 46, Leaf 1.

• (ix) Addison & Sarova Auctions (Georgia, USA), 26 August 2017, lot 61; a single leaf from More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies; not identified as such; paper, 174 × 246 mm; vertical chain lines; gloved hand with trefoil watermark. described as: ‘Tudor Manuscript leaf, 16th century’. It comprises 328/36-331/6 of the Yale edition.³ Purchased by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries against two under-bidders for $550. This leaf is now Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, MS Coll. 591, folder 46, Leaf 2.

• (x) Forum Auctions, London, 22 March 2018, lot 138: a single leaf from More, The Answer to a Poisoned Book. paper; unsold. It comprises (recto) 158/20-159/16; (verso) 159/16–30 of the Yale edition. The text breaks off there, about a third of the way down the page, after the opening words of a sentence ‘ffor he’. The rest of the page is blank; cf. (iii) above. Re-offered by Forum 7 June 2018, lot 52; sold for £200 (hammer).

• (xi) Addison & Serova, 18 August 2018, lot 242; a single leaf from More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies; not identified as such; sold for $1,300 to an unidentified buyer. It comprises (recto) 331/6–332/10; (verso) 332/10–333/11 of the Yale edition.

All these leaves are in the same hand, in the same layout, copied in a single column, unruled and varying between 33 and 39 lines to the page, generally with running titles and catchwords at the bottom of recto and verso, and are approximately the same size. They contain parts of three different works of More: six leaves (i–v, vii above) from his Dialogue Concerning Heresies; two leaves (viii and x above) from his Answer to a Poisoned Book; and two leaves (vi and ix above) from his Confutation of Tyndale's Answer.

The emergence of parts of such a manuscript is of obvious potential textual significance. Excerpts from the Confutation of Tyndale's Answer do survive in manuscript. There are extracts in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ballard 72 (SC 10857), fols. 51v–81r, and Ampleforth Abbey, MS 31, both copied from the 1557 edition.⁴ There are other extracts from both it and the Dialogue Concerning Heresies in Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. 12. 41, fols. 223r–276r. But there is no previous record of any manuscript version of the Answer to a Poisoned Book.

It is possible that these leaves are themselves copied from printed editions. But there are some indications of substantive variation that make this doubtful. For example, in the unlocated leaf from the Dialogue Concerning Heresies (vi above), there are various variants. With the Yale edition providing the lemma, these are:

328/16; we] he;

328/18; in] on;

328/24 that deleted and changed to superscript the;

328/26 he deleted and changed to we currente calamo;

In the University of Pennsylvania leaf from this manuscript (ix above), the text at one point varies:

331/4 I had proued you] that I ÍthisÍ proved youe

Clearly the emergence of these leaves is of some importance to students of More. It is impossible at present to be clear on the actual size of the original manuscript. None of the leaves that has so far appeared is foliated or paginated. But the three works of More thus far identified are all large ones, and the separate leaves all come from points deep in the texts that do not seem to be obvious points for excerption.⁵ This fact raises the possibility that they may be evidence of the existence of a substantial manuscript collection of More's English prose writings. But this is not a wholly secure assumption: in both (iii) and (x) above the transcription is abandoned in mid-sentence. Without a fuller understanding of the contents of the manuscript it is hard to draw conclusions.

But the question inevitably arises: why are these leaves being sold in the way they are, through smallish auction houses in England and North America where their sale would excite limited interest? The failure to identify most of these leaves as from works of More is also strange: (i), (ii), and (xi) were identified as by More but not by work; (iii)-(v) sold by the same auction house were not identified; the leaves sold by Chiswick (vi–vii) and Addison and Serova (viii–ix) are also not identified as by More. Only with leaf (vii), when it was resold by Bloomsbury, and with leaf (x) are works identified by both author and title. The inconsistency in the treatment of the leaves sold at Mullock's (i–v above) is particularly puzzling.

All of which adds to the mystery that surrounds the dispersal of these leaves. What is potentially an important source for the texts of various of More's works remains in an indeterminate situation. Particularly frustrating is the uncertainty about the extent of what remains in private hands and how it might be dispersed. If the leaf-by-leaf disposal continues then the challenges that confront scholarship will increase proportionately to the efforts at reconstruction that will become necessary. One can only hope that the vendor (or vendors) and those engaged in selling these leaves will seek a more responsible solution, one that could be to the advantage of everyone, by selling the rest of the manuscript in its entirety in a single transaction.

Footnotes