A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, II: The Canterbury Tales.
Edwards, A.S.G.
M. C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, II: The
Canterbury Tales (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997). x + 270 pp. ISBN 1-85928-057-9. 52.50 [pounds sterling].
This is the second and last volume of Mr Seymour's attempt to
describe Chaucer's manuscripts. It is devoted largely to the
fifty-six more or less complete copies of the Canterbury Tales. Each
description includes brief accounts of materials, binding, collation,
contents, decoration, scribe, and history, together with details of
manuscript rubrics.
It is not clear to what extent Seymour sees his work as an advance
on the earlier work of W. J. McCormick, The Manuscripts of the
Canterbury Tales (1933) and J. M. Manly and E. Rickert, The Text of the
Canterbury Tales (1940). In some respects it is clearly no more than a
replication of their researches. He states in his preface that `the
summary collations [? = recording of rubrics; there are no collations]
generally follow, with corrections, those of W. McCormick' (p.ix).
In fact, spot checking indicates that McCormick's errors are
generally reproduced, and some new ones introduced. The lack of any
facsimiles or consistent reference to those that are available is a
matter for particular regret.
Seymour does refer in his preface to the `numerous books and
articles on various bibliographical aspects of the Canterbury
Tales' that have appeared since the publication of Manly and
Rickert, but the dismissive tone of his comments on them is reflected in
the little attention paid to the work of others: his own publications
are the only ones cited with any frequency. This has some unfortunate
consequences for particular assertions. For example, his claim that
`later editions [of the Tales] by [among others] De Worde 1498' are
based on Caxton's second edition `either directly or by
derivation' (p. 6) overlooks the fact that part of de Worde's
edition was set from a manuscript (see T. J. Garbaty, Studies in
Bibliography, 31 (1977), 57-67). At times, even the most basic
information is incorrect: we are told that the Helmingham manuscript was
sold `in 1959' (P. 230). It was actually sold (at Sotheby's) 6
June 1961, lot 10. The Cardigan Chaucer was not stolen in 1934 (P. 43),
but c. 1915; it was returned to the Brudenell family and offered for
sale at Sotheby's 7 April 1925 (not `1935'). The list of
`Other recorded manuscripts' (pp. 256-8) fails to note one
mentioned earlier (p. 56). Nor does it note the `Worseley'
manuscript, seen in the early eighteenth century by Urry (see Library,
6th ser. 7 (1985), 54-8), nor the extensive collection of Chaucer
manuscripts owned by William Thynne which Francis Thynne reports passed
to Stephen Bateman.
To incompleteness can be added inconsistency. Seymour is not clear
on what he himself believes about a number of aspects of the
manuscripts. Thus he asserts that the Pardoner's Tale `always
follows the Physician's' (p. 8), even though in at least five
of the manuscripts he describes the Physician is followed by a different
Tale, in four of them by the Shipman (Alnwick, TCC R.3.15, Hunterian,
Rawl. poet 223) and in one (TCO 49) by the Franklin. We are told that
the Prioress's Tale `always appears after the Shipman's
Tale' but in Alnwick it appears before it. He speaks of `single
leaves (National Library of Wales 21972D and CUL Kk.1.3)' (p. lO);
but the first of these comprises a fragment of three leaves. The
sequence given for the Hengwrt manuscript (p. 3) is wholly incorrect
after the Summoner's Tale.
To such problems can be added the difficulties of the kind of
insight Seymour feels he has into the processes of the composition of
the Canterbury Tales: `When Chaucer died in October 1400 he had
abandoned the work' (p. 1), he asserts. He is able to discriminate
those tales written `say after 1391 (the date of the Treatise of the
Astrolabe)' (p. 27), a date not hitherto invoked as a compositional
watershed in Chaucer's career.
It would be possible to demonstrate the shortcomings of this volume
at considerably greater length. But I hope I have sufficiently indicated
some aspects of its quality. Its purchase cannot be enthusiastically
recommended. Any prospective buyer would be better advised to put the
money towards copies of McCormick and Manly and Rickert. They will stand
on firmer ground.
A.S.G. EDWARDS
Girton College, Cambridge
