Gens sans argent: A New Holograph Manuscript by Thomas Hoccleve

Abstract

This article introduces an unknown personal holograph manuscript by Thomas Hoccleve: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O. 7. 43. The new manuscript, only recently digitized, has never been associated with Hoccleve; in fact, it has lived under the radar of literary scholarship for the last six hundred years. The manuscript is here described, then it is demonstrated palaeographically that it is written in Hoccleve’s hand; the contents are discussed with some of the implications of this discovery. In conclusion, it is suggested that the manuscripts bequeathed in 1738 by Roger Gale to Trinity College could preserve four others that the poet may have owned, raising the probability that the Gale bequest represents a portion of Hoccleve’s private library.

CAMBRIDGE, TRINITY COLLEGE [henceforth TCC], MS O. 7. 43 is a small, unassuming manuscript, measuring only 180 × 125 mm (7.1 × 4.8 inches). The vellum codex consists of forty-three folios, bound in five quires of eight, with a sixth quire wanting four leaves, though no text appears to be missing at the end. Quire signatures are found on the recto and run through quires 1–5, starting at ‘O’ and ending in ‘S’, marking only the first first four leaves in each quire. There are no quire signatures in the final quire. The manuscript starts imperfectly, and while the contemporary alphabetical quire numbering suggests that thirteen quires are missing, it is impossible to tell how many leaves have indeed been lost. But because the opening section of O. 7. 43 corresponds to a particular division in Hoccleve’s Formulary (London, British Library, MS Add. 24062) yet misses the first five folios of that section, it is likely that the original manuscript was indeed longer. The text in the main body of the new manuscript, fols. 1r– 40r, is written in a generously spaced single column, containing on average 20 lines,¹ deco rated with red and blue initials. The text box measures 71 × 112 mm (2.8 × 4.4 inches).

The entire manuscript is written exclusively in Latin by a single scribe, Thomas Hoccleve, using two tiers of his Privy Seal Secretary hand. His hand writing survives in eight manuscripts that can be grouped into three categories: (1) holographs (Durham, University Library, MS Cosin V. iii. 9; San Marino, Huntington Library, MSS HM 111 and 744;² and the present manuscript); (2) manuscripts in which his hand predominates (BL, MSS

Harley 219 and Add. 24062 [the ‘Formulary’]);³ and (3) manuscripts with short stints or corrections in his hand (TCC, MS R. 3. 2, and Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 392 D [the ‘Hengwrt Canterbury Tales’).⁴ Identifications of other manuscripts have been attempted without success, and these can be firmly rejected on palaeographical grounds.⁵ In addition to these eight manuscripts, more than 1,000 documents in the National Archives have been securely identified as written in Hoccleve’s hand.⁶

In TCC, MS O. 7. 4 the module stays consistently at 3 mm (0.1 inches) measured at the x-height. The first part of the manuscript (fols. 1r–40r) and all but the first two lines on fol. 42v (Fig. 1) are written in Hoccleve’s document-grade Privy Seal Secretary hand, which is deployed elsewhere in certain documents in his hand and throughout his stints in Harley 219 and Trinity R. 3. 2. This hand is upright and angular, often written with a narrow nib, and eschewing certain lower-tier letter forms. The chronology on fols. 40v–41r (Fig. 2) and the first two lines on fol. 42v (Fig. 1) are written in a less formal grade of his handwriting, usually reserved for his three known literary holographs (Durham, Cosin V. iii. 9, and Huntington Library, HM 111 and 744 [henceforth HM 111 and HM 744]). This grade is less angular, with a slight tilt, and deploys certain letter forms not used in the higher document grade, such as the round ‘W’, as I have shown in my analysis of Hoccleve’s handwriting in the context of the Privy Seal.⁷ The overall aspect of the hand and the distribution of Hoccleve’s letter forms across the two grades of the script in O. 7. 43 correspond to my analytical description of Hoccleve’s handwriting, expressed in three rules, A–C, as follows.⁸

A. Aspect: the execution of the hand must match Hoccleve’s upright Privy Seal Secretary hand with its characteristic loose spacing for higher-grade (e.g. TCC, R. 3. 2, Harley 219, TNA records) and lower-grade (e.g. Huntington and Durham MSS) varieties. Hoccleve’s hand is unusual in consistently employing two different angles for f and long-s: at the beginning of a line or sentence in initial position the graphs are written at an angle of 87 degrees, but in subsequent words and positions they are set at 80 degrees.⁹

This is consistently the case in TCC, O. 7. 43. Even in the short lines in this small manuscript, Hoccleve’s f and long-s at the start of a line are more upright than subsequent instances (e.g. fol. 38v, ll. 7 and 11), while the letter spacing is generous and frequently inconsistent (fol. 5r; Fig. 3), particularly in the lower-grade informal hand typical of his literary holographs (see fol. 40v, especially l. 12, ‘Innocentius’). For identified examples of his higher grade hand, see TCC, R. 3. 2, fol. 83v, column a, l. 1 (Fig. 4); for the lower grade, see HM 111, fol. 43r, ll. 10 and 11 (Fig. 5).

B. Associative probability of letter forms more common to Hoccleve than to other scribes, by grade: most if not all forms must be present. In the case of the higher grade, these must be the coat-hanger g and the lower-bodied h [see step C for the higher grade]. For the lower grade these are round-topped A, the round-w, the coat-hanger g, the lower-bodied h, and the z-shaped tironian et with a tail that curls back up through the head of the letter.¹⁰

Typical letter forms for Hoccleve predominate in this manuscript, with both his g with tail and his characteristic coat-hanger g in frequent use (fol. 5r, l. 1, ‘graciam’, l. 12, ‘ego’ [Fig. 3]; fol. 42v, l. 12, ‘negligens’, l. 14, ‘lege’ [Fig. 1]), the latter being only shared with his colleagues John Hethe and John Offord; however, the instances in this manuscript capture Hoccleve’s own forms, both in the higher and lower grades (compare with TCC, R. 3. 2, fol. 83v, ll. 17 and 18 [Fig. 4], and HM 111, fol. 43r, ll. 13 and 14 [Fig. 5]). The lower-bodied h also appears in both grades: higher (fol. 5r, l. 16, ‘hac’ [Fig. 3]; compare with R. 3. 2, fol. 83v, l. 1, ‘whyles’ [Fig. 4]) and lower (fol. 40v, l. 2, ‘Archiepiscopus’, l. 7, ‘Thomas’ [Fig. 2]; see HM 111, fol. 43r, l. 16, ‘seemeth’ [Fig. 5]). The lower grade also includes the round-topped A (fol. 40v, ll. 1–2, ‘Anno’, ‘Anselmus Archiepiscopus’ [Fig. 2]; compare HM 111, fol. 43r, l. 1, ‘At’ and l. 4, ‘And’ [Fig. 5]). The round-w only appears in Hoccleve’s lower grades of handwriting, exemplified in the informal hand of his literary holographs and the minuting hand in his formulary, BL, MS Add. 24062. Hoccleve’s deployment of this graph in O. 7. 43 is consistent with the rule for his usage, and this letter form is limited to English terms or (place) names in the lower grades of his hand writing. In the case of this manuscript, the round-w is used on fols. 40v–41r, where it appears in five instances, all of which are English or indigenous terms: fol. 40v, l. 16, ‘Lewes’ [Fig. 2]; fol. 41r, l. 4, ‘Wallie’, l. 6, ‘Edwardum’, and l. 14, ‘Edwardus’ and ‘Berewyk’; compare with HM 111, fol. 43r, l. 1, ‘Wel’ and 18 further instances on this page [Fig. 5]; as expected, this form is not used in Hoccleve’s higher-grade stint in TCC, R. 3. 2). The use of the round-w in the Privy Seal Secretary hand is sensitive to grade and not to the choice of language.¹¹ The graph is a specific usage of Hoccleve’s office and not an individual scribe’s characteristic. Finally, the z-shaped tironian et with a tail that curls back up through the head of the letter appears in the higher grade (where, according to step B, its presence does not constitute conclusive evidence; see fol. 5r, l. 19), while forms in the lower grade in O. 7. 43 are simpler, sometimes curling but without the long tail (compare with HM 111, fol. 43r, ll. 7 and 15 [Fig. 5]).

C. Associative probability of letter forms not attested to occur together among Hoccleve’s peers: coat-hanger g, lower-bodied h, and, for the lower grade, y with a tail that curls back up through the head of the letter. Only if combined do g and h in the standard grade, or all three letter forms in the case of the lower grade, amount to the single feature of Hoccleve’s handwriting that does not occur in any of the texts identified to have been written by his peers.¹²

The combined presence of the coat-hanger g and the lower-bodied h in the standard grade confirm Hoccleve’s hand based on letter forms (in addition to step A defining aspect). Although the vernacular letter y is not used by Privy Seal clerks when writing in Latin, Hoccleve’s form is indeed deployed here in the lower grade when writing place names on fol. 40r, l. 2, ‘Sempryngham’, and l. 14, ‘Berwyk’ (Fig. 6); compare with HM 111, fol. 43r, l. 13, ‘thyng’, and l. 14, ‘lykyng’, for instance (Fig. 5). Therefore all three conditions for identifying Hoccleve’s handwriting have been met, with the result that TCC, MS O. 7. 43 is a firm and certain identification of a new Hoccleve holograph.

This identification is confirmed by the contents of this manuscript. The main body of O. 7. 43, fols. 1r–40r, is an adapted digest of Hoccleve’s Formulary, BL, MS Add. 24062. Crucially, O. 7. 43 includes two of the three documents in Add. 24062, in which Hoccleve refers to himself through initials. These instances occur on fol. 5r, ll. 13–14, ‘Eapropter ego T. H.’ (Fig. 3) and fol. 5v, l. 11, ‘ego T. H.’. The identification of TCC, MS O. 7. 43 as a holograph written by Hoccleve raises the tally of known Hoccleve holograph manuscripts to four, in addition to the four manuscripts in which his hand is attested.

The ornamented initials, executed in blue and red, were certainly not produced by Hoccleve. Frequently the spacing between an initial and the following letter is large, suggesting that Hoccleve judged the space needed for an initial and started the line with an indent, leaving room for the hand executing the initials (e.g. fol. 18r, l. 8, ‘Scio’, l. 15, ‘Sicut’, or fol. 19r, l. 4 from the bottom, ‘Speramus’). That the initials were not written by Hoccleve is borne out by item 1038, fol. 14r, l. 1, where ‘S’ has been executed instead of ‘L’ in ‘Lingue’.

Date and provenance

TCC, MS O. 7. 43 joined the collections of Trinity College in 1738 as part of a substantial bequest by Roger Gale, who left his father’s library to the college. The manuscript’s earlier provenance cannot be reconstructed at present. According to the website of Trinity College’s Wren Digital Library, the fully digitized version of this manuscript was made available online on 23 September 2019. However, the reception history of O. 7. 43 is one of omissions. This particular manuscript has never been the subject of a study, and not only has it not been connected to Hoccleve in the past, so far I could deter mine, it has only been referred to on five occasions, each time in passing.¹³ I should add that this manuscript has not been discussed in any of the literature on medieval formularies and letter collections. In the truest sense, then, O. 7. 43 is a finely written holograph manuscript by a major medieval English poet that has been hiding in plain sight.

Despite the close relationship between O. 7. 43 and Add. 24062, it is not easy to establish the order in which the two manuscripts were produced. Although the sequence of letter extracts in section I and the order of papal letters in section II forms a subset of the longer contents in Add. 24062, there are also additions to both sections in O. 7. 43 that are not contained in Add. 24062. In addition, both manuscripts consist of extracts and copies of original diplomatics that could collectively be considered a common exemplar in a codicological sense. However, since Add. 24062 is already a hastily written working digest that imposes order on this selection, it is not necessary to posit a further copy, not least because Add. 24062 was most probably designed for reference use in the Privy Seal Office, while the original documents remained available in Westminster or their nearby place of enrolment.

However, there is some evidence for the idea that BL, MS Add. 24062 preceded TCC, MS O. 7. 43. There are a few noteworthy errors in the new manuscript. Some entries that appear as one unit in the ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’ portion in Add. 24062 are split into two items (984 and 1028) in the corresponding part of O. 7. 43 (Section I, ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’; see below). These could be errors while copying from Add. 24062, a manuscript with highly dense folios written in a low-grade script. One such error has been avoided on fol. 7r in O. 7. 43, where the third initial, ‘S’, appears to have been incorrectly intended as a decorated initial marking a new section which would have split the entry in the wrong place. A remedial blue paragraph marker has been added in this place.

Somewhat more telling, certainly for the order in which Add. 24062 and O. 7. 43 were written, is a case of Hoccleve misreading himself: ‘Vestrum’ in item 1077 (Add. 24062, fol. 185r, l. 4) has become ‘Vnam’ in O. 7. 43, fol. 17v). However, ‘Vestrum’ in Add. 24062 is abbreviated, leaving in place only ‘V’ followed by ‘m’ with a contraction mark, while ‘Vnam’ in O. 7. 43—a display manuscript with relatively few abbreviations—is spelled out in full. Hoccleve made the most natural of mistakes, familiar to all modern palaeogaphers, by incorrectly expanding a highly abbreviated word.

Hoccleve’s error lends support to the likelihood that the new holograph, which is a tidily written display copy with relatively few abbreviations, was produced after Add. 24062 was at least partially completed. I date Add. 24062 to the period 1422 × 1424, occasioned in all likelihood by the appointment in 1422 of William Alnwick as Keeper of the Privy Seal.¹⁴ Elna Jean Bentley has shown that the latest record in Add. 24062 dates from 28 June 1425 (Bentley #138, fol. 31r), though she accurately adds that this record constitutes a later addition in a different hand.¹⁵ In my discussion of the stints in Add. 24062, I identify this hand as that of Henry Benet, Hoccleve’s younger colleague in the Privy Seal Office, and, later owner of the Formulary, based on the ownership inscription in his hand on fol. 1v.¹⁶ This means that the last integral record, which also happens to be in Hoccleve’s hand, is dated 5 July 1424 (Bentley #175),¹⁷ one day after Hoccleve received the corrody in Southwick priory.¹⁸ But because the source material from which O. 7. 43 is drawn occurs much later in Add. 24062, the new manuscript—if it was indeed produced after the Formulary—appears to have been written in late 1424 or early 1425, given the amount of writing in the more than 100 folios separating the last datable record from the ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’ section that forms the basis for the opening section of the new holograph manuscript. To my mind, a completion date of late 1424 for Add. 24062 is therefore much more likely. Since Hoccleve was dead by early May 1426,¹⁹ with a terminus post quem of late 1424 or 1425, O. 7. 43 may not be the last known document written in his hand, but it could be the latest datable holograph manuscript of his,²⁰ making the personal notes on fol. 42v particularly significant.

For whom may this manuscript have been produced? The fact that Hoccleve’s lower-grade hand executes a chronology on the verso of the last folio of the formulary portion of the manuscript, coupled with the personal notes on fol. 43v, means that this manuscript remained in the poet’s possession. My ongoing research suggests that the module of Hoccleve’s handwriting increased over the course of his professional life, significantly so in his final years. The Privy Seal documents he produced in 1425, a year before his death, use a module and letter spacing twice as large as that of his fellow Privy Seal clerks. This size, though, matches that in O. 7. 43 and the three literary holographs. On the basis of these observations, and given the fact that he complains in The Regement of Princes about his eyesight and includes a recipe for restoring vision in the new manuscript, I would tentatively suggest that this holograph as well as the three known literary ones constitute attempts by Hoccleve to produce clean copies of his poetry and subject matter of personal importance at a time when his eyesight was rapidly deteriorating (Gower’s Trentham manuscript would be a suitable precedent).²¹ This would make the four known holograph manuscripts part of the same personal effort by the poet to preserve his legacy. The Regement did not need to be included by Hoccleve because it appears to have circulated widely during his lifetime. The medical remedy for problems with eyesight, copied by Hoccleve on fol. 42v (Fig. 1), would support such a late date, although, as H. C. Schultz has already pointed out, Hoccleve’s eyesight was causing him discomfort as early as 1411–12, when he wrote the Regement of Princes.²²

That Hoccleve was the scribe of this manuscript is also reflected in some of the very personal choices he has made in the contents, in particular, in Section I, ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’. Matthew Clifton Brown has noted that this particular section in Add. 24062 offers multiple connections with Hoccleve’s poetic identity and his petionary gestures.²³ Bentley #982 and #983 in this section, shared by O. 7. 43 and Add. 24062, belong to three documents in Add. 24062 in which Hoccleve refers to himself as ‘ego, T.H.’. One of these, #982, is a model will in which Hoccleve assumes the role of the testator, ‘eapropter ego, T.H.’, found on fol. 5r, ll. 12–13 (Fig. 3). Ethan Knapp has commented on the inclusion of Hoccleve’s initials in the Formulary, suggesting that these instances articulate the two-edged sword of voicing subjectivity through ‘an act of assertion and of reticence’,²⁴ while Nicholas Perkins, building on these remarks, draws attention to this particular item, 982, as it appears in Add. 24062, on fols. 189v–190r. To Perkins, ‘this moving act of self-revelation gathers force from being concealed in a formulaic excerpt within a whole volume of such formulae’.²⁵ Ironically, Perkins himself conceals this gem of an observation in a footnote in his book on Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes, but O. 7. 43 further strengthens the force of Hoccleve’s self-reflection since the selection of model documents gathered in this manuscript forms only a small subset of the templates collected in Add. 24062. And while the incomplete beginning of O. 7. 43 does not reveal how many extracts from letters were originally included in this manuscript, the new manuscript, even in its complete form, would have only been a fraction of the length and size of Hoccleve’s known Formulary. To this one can add that O. 7. 43 is a holograph containing only Hoccleve’s writing, whereas Add. 24062 contains other hands as well.²⁶ Finally, unlike Add. 24062, which is a working document largely executed in hastily written and highly cursive note-taking varieties of the Privy Seal Secretary script, O. 7. 43 is written in the highest known grade of Hoccleve’s Privy Seal Secretary hand, with ornamental initials and generous single column spacing.

The contents of TCC, MS O. 7. 43

The manuscript consists of four distinct sections, the first two of which are closely related to Hoccleve’s Formulary in BL, MS Add. 24062.

I. Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres, fols. 1r–20v

These are extracts and quotations from mostly diplomatic letters. This material largely overlaps with the much longer section called ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’ in Hoccleve’s Formulary, Add. 24062, where it occupies fols. 178r–186v. The text in O. 7. 43 on fol. 1r joins the entries in Add. 24062 at fol. 180v, but because this section in the new manuscript does not always correspond to the longer Formulary, it is not possible to determine exactly how much of this portion of O. 7. 43 has been lost. However, the wording and spelling of the entries in both manuscripts is identical. Sections I and II, ‘Exordies et Extraitz des Lettres’ and the papal letters form a unit. They are written in the same higher grade of Hoccleve’s Secretary hand and follow the same ordinatio.

II. Papal letters, fols. 20v–40r

This section contains longer extracts from thirteen letters sent by a number of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century popes to several English kings. Not all of these letters can be identified or securely dated, but the sequence of letters generally follows Hoccleve’s Formulary (Add. 24062), though several letters here are not found in the Formulary. This section is also written in the higher grade of Hoccleve’s Secretary hand.

III. Chronology, fols. 40v–41r

The third item in O. 7. 43 starts on the verso of the leaf carrying the last papal letter (fol. 40) and contains a chronology of events from 1093 to 1296, which shows no obvious connection to the previous matter. Jochen Burgtorf, the only modern commentator on this section, notes that this list reads ‘like the study notes of a medieval student cramming for an exam on “current events” (if there had been such a thing)’.²⁷ Although I could not locate a direct source for Hoccleve’s chronology, all the events listed here, except for those related to Bernard of Clairvaux and the Gilbertine references, appear as marginal comments in Henry Knighton’s Chronicle. However, in Knighton’s work these events do not carry dates but a version of the Latin phrase circa hoc dies (‘at this time’). It would appear that Hoccleve abstracted this chronology from a Gilbertine redaction of Knighton’s Chronicle, supplying the actual dates. I shall return to the Gilbertine connection below. The chronology is executed in a less formal grade of Hoccleve’s Privy Seal Secretary hand. As I discuss above, this grade of Hoccleve’s hand is found in the three known literary holographs written by him.

IV. Personal notes, fol. 42v (Fig. 1)

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the new holograph is fol. 42v, which contains notes by Hoccleve that can be grouped into three categories, each of which is clearly visually separated: two lines attributed to an Adam, the list of the twelve abuses from the popular seventh-century Hiberno-Latin treatise De duodecim abusiuis saeculi (‘On the Twelve Abuses of the World’), and, finally, a rhyming recipe against the loss of eyesight, taken from the widely circulating twelfth- or thirteenth-century medieval treatise Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum, where it forms part of item 75, ‘De luminibus’.²⁸ The three groups of entries are marked A–C in my transcription and translation.

Sections I and II are crucial for establishing the close relationship between this manuscript and Add. 24062. The following lists give the entries in both sections by their Bentley numbers and noting their correspondence to the larger set in Add. 24062.

Section I: 945; 947; 946; 948–951; 937; 952–963 [964 has been omitted]; 965, after which a new extract is added, ‘Sub paciencie pallio canda ferit’; 966–971; 973–974; 972; 975–996, after which follows a long new entry, starting ‘Repugnantibus tamen affectibus’, taken from a letter from Gregory IX in the letter collection of Thomas of Capua;²⁹ 997, followed by an extract from a letter from Frederick II on papal election follows (‘Quales semitas ostenditis errantibus, qui a directionis gressibus deviatis?’);³⁰ 998–1002; 1004; 1003–1009; 1015; 1010–1028; 1030–1038; 1029; 1039–1049 [1050 has been omitted]; 1051–1061; 1062–1075; 1062; 1076, after which eight new entries are added; 1077–1081.

Section II: For those papal letters that are shared with Add. 24062 I give the Bentley number. Where available, I also give Zutshi’s numbering of papal letters.³¹ Throughout, I provide the first three words of the incipit as a finding-aid for future research.

1. Fols. 20v–23r. This is a 1387 letter from Pope Urban VI to King Richard II, urging him to agree to the Appellants’ demands (Bentley #856, pp. 1005–8). This letter has not been catalogued. Incipit: Quantum pacis deo.

2. Fols. 23r–25v. Dated 6 July 1360, a letter from Innocent VI to Edward III (Bentley #857, pp. 1008–11). Based on the incipit, Vox exultacionis et, this letter is item 261 in Zutshi’s catalogue of original papal letters preserved in England.

3. Fols. 25v–27r. This letter from Benedict XII to Edward, dated 18 December 1340, is item 000800 in the database Ut per litteras Apostolicas … Les lettres des papes des XIIIe et XIVe siècles.³² A copy of this letter, which is not contained in Add. 24062, is in the Vatican Register (Reg. Vat. 135, n° CCCIII, fol. 112v. Litt. clausa). Incipit: Tuam serenitatem regiam.

4. Fols. 27r–27v. This unidentified letter, probably sent by Innocent VI to Edward III, is not contained in Add. 24062. Incipit: De reformacione etc.

5. Fols. 27v–29v. Cautiously dated by Bentley to 1353 (Bentley #858, pp. 1011–13), this letter from Innocent VI to Edward III is one of the pope’s many appeals for peace between England and France. Incipit: Et licet huiusmodi.

6. Fols. 29v–30v. This letter from Innocent VI to Edward III with further peace efforts, is dated by Bentley to 1356–60, after the Battle of Poitiers but before the Treaty of Brétigny (Bentley #860, pp. 1018–19). Incipit: Set et tu. At this place in Add. 24062 there is a letter from Clement VI, Bentley #859, which has been skipped in O. 7. 43.

7. Fols. 30v–32r. Dated 18 March 1345, this is a letter from Clement VI to Edward III. It is not included in Add. 24062. The letter bears the number #001582 in the Ut per litteras Apostolicas database (the copy in the Vatican Register is Reg. Vat. 138, n° DCCCCVIIII, fol. 236v.). Incipit: O fili dilectissime.

8. Fol. 32v–35r. This is an unidentified letter from Clement VI to Edward III, but the opening clause, ‘Serenitatis tue litteras’, appears as Zutshi’s incipit for a letter, dated 6 February 1388, from Urban VI to Richard II (Zutshi #387). The letter is not contained in Add. 24062. Incipit: Serenitatis tue litteras.

9. Fols. 35r–37r. This unidentified letter from Clement VI to Edward III is not found in Add. 24062. Incipit: Credimus fili carissime.

10. Fols. 37r–37v. Dated 23 October 1347, this letter from Clement VI to Edward III is Bentley #843. Bentley dates it to circa 1348 (pp. 978–82), but the incipit corresponds to Zutshi #219 and can be dated precisely. Incipit: Ducentes in considerationis.

11. Fol. 37v. This letter from Urban V to Edward III is not in Add. 24062, but it corresponds to Zutshi #300, dated 6 October 1366. The letter refers to the Knights Hospitaller and King Peter of Cyprus in an exhortation to defend them against ‘Saracens’. This letter circulated widely in Europe.³³ Incipit: Inter alia pietatis.

12. Fol. 37v–38r. This unidentified letter from Clement VI Edward III, directed against heretics, is not found in Add. 24062. Incipit: Dolemus interim secus.

13. Fols. 38r–40r. Bentley tentatively dates this letter Gregory XI to Edward III to 12 January 1371 (Bentley #862, pp. 1021–23). At this point in Add. 24062 the section titled ‘Exordies’ begins. Incipit: Rex omnium providus.

Sections III and IV will be the most intriguing for Hoccleve scholars because they contain entirely new and apparently personal material. I have therefore transcribed and translated these portions in full. I have numbered each entry in Hoccleve’s chronology to facilitate the matching of the transcription with the translation.

Section III, chronology

[fol. 40v]

• [1] Anno do mini 1093 Anselmus Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis³⁴

• [2] Anno do mini 1128 Initium ordinis templariorum

• [3] Anno do mini 1145. ordo premonstrensis supersit unicum

• [4] Anno do mini 1153. deposicio sancti Bernardi Abbatis Crareuallensis

• [5] Anno 1162. sanctus Thomas fit Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis

• [6] Anno 1165. sanctus Thomas exulat

• [7] Anno 1170. martirizatus est sanctus Thomas

• [8] Anno 1220. translatus est sanctus Thomas

• [9] Anno 1245. Innocentius propterea communi celebrauit Concilium in quod dampnauit Fredericum Imperatorem

• [10] Anno 1264. plurimum concussum est apud Lewes inter Regem Anglie et Simonem de Monte forti pridie Idum Maii

• [11] Anno sequenti pridie None Augusti percussum est plurimum apud Euesham et interfectus est Simon de Monte forti

• [12] Anno 1275 Infirmitatis generalis scilicet scabies ouium et anno sequenti obiit Magister Patricius ordinis de Sempryngham cui successit Magister Johannes

[fol. 41r]

• [13] Anno [blank space] conbustio domus de Mareseia ordinis de Sempynham

• [14] Anno sequenti et ab inicio mundi 6480 Leulinus princeps Wallie circumuentus est a fratre suo Dauid et at preditore et rebellauit contra Edwardum Regem Anglie et interfectus est

• [15] Anno 1288 in Crastino sancti Jacobi post solis occasum accensus est magnus rogus apud sanctum Botulphum

• [16] Anno 1251 ab inicio mundi 6450 [this line must be an aid; numbers check out because Llewellyn’s death would be thirty years later so anno sequenti et ab, 1281/82]

• [17] Anno 1291 concessa est decreta Regi Anglie Edwardo per vi annos

• [18] Anno 1296 ab origine mundi 6595³⁵ Rex Edwardus obsedit villam de Berewyk vbi occis sunt 15,000 hostes

Translation

[fol. 40v]

• [1] In the year of the Lord 1093:

Anselm [is made] Archbishop of Canterbury

• [2] In the year of the Lord 1128: the foundation³⁶ of the Order of the Templars

• [3] In the year of the Lord 1145: the Premonstratensian Order remained one

• [4] In the year of the Lord 1153: the burial of St Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux

• [5] In the year 1162: St Thomas is made Archbishop of Canterbury

• [6] In the year 1165: St Thomas is exiled

• [7] In the year 1170: St Thomas is martyred

• [8] In the year 1220: St Thomas is translated

• [9] In the year 1245: To this effect, Innocent³⁷ celebrated a General Council³⁸ in which he excommunicated Emperor Frederick.³⁹

• [10] In the year 1264: On the day⁴⁰ before the Ides of May, a large battle is fought at Lewes between the King of England⁴¹ and Simon de Montfort.

• [11] In the following year on the day⁴² before the Nones of August there is a large battle at Evesham and Simon de Montfort is killed.

• [12] In the year 1275: An epidemic, doubtless of sheep scab, and in the following year Master Patrick,⁴³ the prior of Sempringham died, whom Master John⁴⁴ succeeded.

[fol. 41r]

• [13] In the year [blank]:⁴⁵ The Priory of Mattersey of the Order of Sempringham⁴⁶ is destroyed by fire.

• [14] In the following year⁴⁷ (and 6480 from the beginning of the world), Llewelyn, Prince of Wales,⁴⁸ is surrounded⁴⁹ by his brother David⁵⁰ and, remaining a traitor, rebelled against Edward King of England⁵¹ and is killed.

• [15] In the year 1288 on the feast of St James,⁵² after sunset a large fire rose at St Botolph [market]⁵³

• [16] In the year 1251 (and 6350 from the beginning of the world)⁵⁴

• [17] In the year 1291: a decree⁵⁵ is granted to Edward King of England⁵⁶ for six years.

• [18] In the year 1296 (6595⁵⁷ from the beginning of the world), King Edward⁵⁸ laid siege⁵⁹ to the town of Berwick where 15,000 enemies were killed.

Implications for Hoccleve scholarship

Hoccleve’s chronology on fols. 40v–41r appears to follow an unidentified version of Henry Knighton’s Chronicle that may have contained references to the Gilbertines and Lincolnshire.⁶⁵ Where this chronology differs from extant manuscripts of Knighton’s Chronicle is the inclusion of dates. It is of course conceivable that Hoccleve simply copied out both the events and the dates from an exemplar of Knighton’s work, but the first item on fol. 41r, the destruction by fire of Mattersey priory, features a long blank space where the date ought to be: ‘Anno [blank] conbustio domus de Mareseia ordinis de Sempynham’. It is possible that the date in Hoccleve’s source was illegible or that it may have contained some but not all dates, though it is noteworthy that the known manuscripts of Knighton’s Chronicle do not give any dates for these events whereas Hoccleve’s chronology systematically provides all the dates. In fact, Hoccleve prioritizes the year and sometimes even adds the precise date. This may suggest that he gathered these dates from other sources, without having been able to find the year in which Mattersey priory burned down. There is no scope here to explore Hoccleve’s possible reading of Knighton’s Chronicle or chronicles more generally, but Jane Griffith’s finely calibrated study of Hoccleve’s glossing could perhaps be extended to this chronology.⁶⁶ The care and concern with which he treats glosses in his works may correspond to the punctiliousness with which he collects or copies the dates in the chronology, betraying an acute anxiety about the reception of his work, both literary and bureaucratic.

Even more intriguing are the two lines attributed to an ‘Adam’ at the top of fol. 42v. Given the speaker’s emphatic expression of obedience, a theological interpretation involving the biblical Adam is possible, though not necessarily likely. The form of these two lines yoked by ‘Adam’ does not readily suggest a genre. Perhaps syntactically too mirrored for a proverb, these lines evoke the language of a primer or an instructional manual. Because they are written in Latin and not in English, these lines could be read as a rhetorical or logical exercise, where ‘nolo’ is paired with a wilful position not to act, while ‘nescio’, articulating an information deficit, is taken as the condition of not being able to do something based on incomplete or unreliable knowledge. Hoccleve may be trying to allude to or reconstruct from memory a passage he had read or heard somewhere. If so, then ‘Adam’ may refer to a number of prominent writers. For instance, the Victorine Zima vetus, or Easter Sequence chant, sometimes attributed to Adam of St Victor and circulating widely, contains the lines, ‘Hec est dies quam fecit Dominus, / dies nostri doloris terminus / dies salutifera’, offering the lexical parallel of ‘Dominus’ and ‘terminus’ in final position.⁶⁷

While the conversational, even colloquial, tone of the first half-line line mimic the dramatic effect of rushed direct speech, with a virgula marking a caesura after the first word in each line (‘Nolo’ and ‘Nescio, respectively), the second half-lines appear to introduce contractual language through the phrases ‘termini domini’ and ‘termini deffectus’, where the latter denotes the conditions of breaking a contract under tort law and certain canon law situations. ‘Deffectus’ can be translated here either as ‘negligence’ or as ‘default’. Yet it is also possible that termini stands for ‘phrases’, ‘expresses’, thus yielding ‘termini domini’ and ‘termini deffectus’ as ‘words of the master’ and ‘words of weakness’, respectively.⁶⁸

Some readers may be tempted to identify the ‘Adam’ here with Adam Pinkhurst, whom Linne Mooney has linked to Scribe B in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 3. 2, and therefore with the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,⁶⁹ especially because there is consensus that Hoccleve’s hand appears in corrections to the Hengwrt manuscript (Peniarth MS 392 D), written by Scribe B.⁷⁰ Jane Roberts and Lawrence Warner have rejected the identification of Pinkhurst with Scribe B,⁷¹ and while I do not share Warner’s categorical position, I do not see sufficient positive evidence to connect the two hands.⁷² Even if Pinkhurst were Scribe B, no amount of arm-twisting could turn these two lines into a reference to Pinkhurst defaulting in his commitment to complete the Hengwrt manuscript, prompting Hoccleve to intervene. For all we know, Hoccleve’s interventions are corrections in a finished manuscript that was produced some fifteen to twenty years before TCC, MS O. 7. 43.

The name ‘Adam’ was current among London clerks and other educated men in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. There was no shortage of Adams in Westminster among the wider circle of Hoccleve’s acquaintances. If ‘Adam’ does not denote an authority, then perhaps two potential candidates are Adam Molens, who rose to become the secondary in the Privy Seal Office and clerk of the Council, and Adam May, deputy to the king’s chief butler, Thomas Chaucer, with whom Hoccleve appeared to have worked closely.⁷³

Just as intriguing is the inclusion of the list of the twelve abuses from one of the many manuscript specimens of the widely circulating Hiberno-Latin De duodecim abusiuis saeculi. There are several moralizing lyrics based on this Hiberno-Latin work, some of which were written in Middle English, including the short rhyme-royal poem sometimes called ‘Instructions to the Estates’, occasionally attributed to John Lydgate (IMEV 920 / NIMEV TP 469.3). While in principle O. 7. 43 may also put Hoccleve in contention for the poem’s authorship, Hoccleve’s acquaintance with this work may open up the possibility that he drew on it for some of his own poetry, in particular because this poem was often linked with the development of the ‘mirror for princes’ genre. De duodecim abusiuis saeculi may have not just indirectly but also directly influenced Hoccleve’s own (and relatively popular) contribution to this genre, The Regement of Princes. The Middle English term ‘abusioun’ appears twice in the poem (ll. 421 and 1086), while the Beggar’s criticism of lavish dress (‘A foul waast of clooth and an excessyf’, l. 450) in the Regement may not just invoke sumptuary legislation but also offer the De duodecim abusiuis saeculi as a direct source (abuse #8, ‘Pauper superbus’), from which so many moralizations of this aspect in mirrors of princes were derived. De duodecim abusiuis saeculi has the potential to offer new interpretative trajectories for Hoccleve’s Regement.

Hoccleve’s personal library?

The identification of TCC, MS O. 7. 43 as a holograph written by Hoccleve raises a number of questions, including the possibility that other manuscripts owned by him may have survived in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge. This is only a suggestion, though I shall briefly outline it here. A copy of the De duodecim abusiuis saeculi, a list of which Hoccleve writes out on fol. 42v, is held in Trinity College, having entered the collection together with O. 7. 43 as part of Roger Gale’s bequest in 1738. This is MS O. 1. 52, a twelfth-century manuscript from the Cistercian abbey of Byland in Yorkshire. The manuscript was owned by John Humphrey of Rothwell,⁷⁴ but its earlier provenance is not known. The list of the twelve abuses in O. 7. 43 follows spelling in O. 1. 52, fols 27v–28r, save for two small changes: the omission of ‘bonis’ after ‘operibus’ in the first line and ‘iniqus’ for ‘iniquus’ in the ninth line.

We know that Hoccleve owned at least two books at some point in his life. One of these is documented in a will. His superior at the Privy Seal Office, Guy de Rouclif, left Hoccleve in his will ‘vno libro vocato Bello Troie’ (a book called ‘The Trojan War’).⁷⁵ No further information is provided to help identify which of the many accounts of the Trojan War is meant here. The Gale bequest to Trinity College also contains a manuscript containing a French prose version of a narrative on the Trojan war, TCC, MS O. 4. 26, classified by Clem C. Williams as containing the text of Le Roman de Troie en prose as preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1612.⁷⁶ Again, the early provenance of O. 4. 26 remains unknown.

The second book owned by Hoccleve was a copy of the Anglo-Latin Gesta Romanorum, if his persona Thomas in The Series can be believed. While forty-five copies of the Anglo-Latin Gesta Romanorum have survived, the text overseen by Hoccleve in BL, MS Harley 219 and his translations in The Series reveals that he worked variants preserved in three copies of the Gesta: Cambridge University Library, MS Mm. 6. 21, and two other manuscripts, one of which contains the text as preserved in another Trinity College, Cambridge manuscript, O. 8. 13.⁷⁷ This particular manuscript also happens to be part of the Gale bequest to the college. Again, the early provenance of O. 8. 13 is not known.⁷⁸ In other words, it would appear that the Gale collection in Trinity College not only contains a new holograph manuscript but may perhaps also contain up to four other manuscripts that the poet may have owned or used, raising the probability that the Gale bequest preserves a portion of Hoccleve’s private library.

The gens sans argent of St Clement Danes

Although there can be no doubt that TCC, MS O. 7. 43 is a holograph written by Thomas Hoccleve, the manuscript contains one further piece of circumstantial evidence that confirms its association with the poet’s milieu. On close inspection, fol. 43 turns out to be a composite leaf combining the last folio in this manuscript with the first flyleaf; the two leaves appear to have become stuck together, so that fol. 43^v is actually the verso of the first back flyleaf, with the actual fol. 43^v and the recto of that flyleaf no longer viewable. However, when backlit, writing on the flyleaf recto can be seen shimmering through fol. 43^r (Fig. 7). At the top, and what would be outside of the ruling on fol. 43^v, a few words can be made out, though only ‘pise’ is legible. But in the upper central area of the flyleaf a line written in French in a mid-fifteenth-century Secretary hand is clearly visible: ‘Gens Sans argent de SAint Clement le Daine’ (‘People without money from St Clement Danes’). The text appears to refer to the Westminster parish of St Clement Danes, to which a number of Privy Seal clerks belonged. Hoccleve’s Privy Seal colleague, John Bailey, who left property to Hoccleve in his will, is also described as a parishioner of St Clement Danes.⁷⁹ Hoccleve’s financial difficulties have often been noted in scholarship; Bailey’s 1420 will further confirms the poet’s struggles with money.⁸⁰ Thus, the inscription on the recto of the first flyleaf (now stuck to the verso of fol. 43) may point to the clerks that constituted this parish as an impoverished community of practice, those as yet unbeneficed and those whose illegitimate birth or married status precluded them for preferment in the Church.⁸¹ For the entirety of his professional life, right up to his death in 1426, Hoccleve belonged to this community of the gens sans argent of St Clement Danes.

Toronto, Canada

I would like to thank James Willoughby, Phil Knox, Simon Horobin, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the librarians of the Wren Library. I am particularly grateful to Magdalen College, Oxford, for electing me to a visiting fellowship that made this discovery possible.

Footnotes