Pars incarnatus, presencia, vis memorandi,
Ista manus seruat infallax voce sub vna.’
The second of the parchment blanks at the beginning has a note in the original hand of the MS. on the marriage of the devil and the birth of his nine daughters, who were assigned to various classes of human society, Simony to the prelates, Hypocrisy to the religious orders, and so on. At the end of the book there are two leaves with theological and other notes in the same hand, and two cut for purposes of binding from leaves of an older MS. of Latin hymns, &c. with music.
L₂. Lincoln Cathedral Library, A. 72, very obligingly placed at my disposal in the Bodleian by the Librarian, with authority from the Dean and Chapter. Contains the same as L, including the enigmatical lines above quoted. Paper, ff. 184, measuring about 8 x 6 in. neatly written in an early sixteenth-century hand, about 26 lines to the page. No coloured initials, but space left for them and on f. 21 for a picture corresponding to that on f. 21 of the Laud MS. Neither books nor chapters numbered. Marked in pencil as ‘one of Dean Honywood’s, No. 53.’
Certainly copied from L, giving a precisely similar form of text and agreeing almost always in the minutest details.
T. Trinity College, Dublin, D. 4, 6, kindly sent to the Bodleian for my use by the Librarian, with the authority of the Provost and Fellows. Contains Vox Clamantis without Table of Chapters, followed by the account of the author’s books, ‘Quia vnusquisque,’ &c. Parchment, ff. 144 (two blank) in seventeen quires, usually of eight leaves, but the first and sixteenth of ten and the last of twelve; written in an early fifteenth-century hand, 36-39 lines to the page, no passages erased or rewritten. Coloured initials.
This, in agreement with the Hatfield book (H₂), gives the original form of all the passages which were revised or rewritten. It is apparently a careless copy of a good text, with many mistakes, some of which are corrected. The scribe either did not understand what he was writing or did not attend to the meaning, and a good many lines and couplets have been carelessly dropped out, as i. 873, 1360, 1749, 1800, ii. Prol. 24 f., ii. 561 f., iii. 281, 394 f., 943 f., 1154, 1767-1770, 1830, iv. 516 f., 684, v. 142-145, 528-530, vi. 829 f., vii. 688 f., 1099 f.
The blank leaf at the beginning, which is partly cut away, has in an early hand the lines
‘In Kent alle car by gan, ibi pauci sunt sapientes,
In a Route thise Rebaudis ran sua trepida arma gerentes,’