Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

F.—Fairfax 16; Bodleian Library (Second class).

P.—Pepys 2006; Magd. Coll., Cambridge (First class).

T.—Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3. 19 (First class).

Th.—Thynne's edition, pr. in 1532 (Second class?).

Tn.—Tanner 346; Bodleian Library (Second class).

α.—Additional 28617; British Museum (First class); but only a fragment, viz. ll. 513-610, 808-1105, 1306-1801, 1852-2110, 2125-2135, 2151-2723.

β.—Cambridge Univ. Library, Ff. 1. 6 (Thisbe only).

γ.—Rawlinson C. 86; Bodleian Library (Dido only).

They may be thus described.

C. (Camb. Univ. Lib. Gg. 4. 27) is the famous Cambridge MS., containing the Canterbury Tales, denoted by the symbol 'Cm.' in the footnotes to vol. iv (i.e. throughout the Canterbury Tales); also by the symbol 'Gg.' in vol. i., i.e. in the Minor Poems; see p. 49 of the Introduction to vol. i. It also contains some other pieces by Chaucer, viz. the A. B. C., Envoy to Scogan, Truth, Troilus, and the Parlement of Foules. It is of early date, and altogether the oldest, best, and most important of the existing copies of the Legend. I shall call all those that resemble it MSS. of the first class.