Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 061: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde

purl.stanford.edu/dh967mz5785

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 061: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde

Alternate Title:

Chaucer's Troilus

Language:

English, Middle (1100-1500)

Extent:

ff. 151 + 2

Dimensions:

315 Height (mm) and 220 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1400 - 1425]

Table of contents:

Troilus and Criseyde

Description:

The copy of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde in CCCC MS 61 was made c. 1415-25, long after the poet's death in 1400. The poem was written at some time before 1385. This copy was planned as a luxury edition to contain over ninety illustrations, but only the full-page frontispiece was painted, with blank spaces left at the positions intended for the other pictures. In that frontispiece Chaucer is shown reading his poem to the English court. The patron of this manuscript is unknown, but it is likely to have been the prominent male figure dressed in a gold-embroidered costume in the centre of the courtly group. The book belonged in 1570 to the author, Stephen Batman, a chaplain of Matthew Parker, and shortly after became incorporated in the archbishop's collection.