Cylchgronau Cymru

BIOGRAPHICA ET BIBLIOGRAPHICA THE MERTHYR FRAGMENT 'Merthyr' to most people means Merthyr Tydfil. The 'Merthyr Fragment', three folia of an early fifteenth century manuscript of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale which first came to the attention of scholars when they were in the possession of the Reverend Lewis Christmas Simons, rector of Merthyr Mawr, Glamorgan, is not well named. The name will no doubt stick. One purpose of the present note however is to draw attention to a new identity which the fragment has recently acquired. In 1937 Mr Simons sent the fragment to the National Library of Wales where it remained until 1983 with the call- number 'Minor Deposit 352'. In 1983 it was withdrawn from the Library by Mr Simons' daughter, Mrs Margaret M. Skidmore. On 16 November 1983 it was auctioned by Bonhams in London and bought by the Library. The fragment is now NLW MS 21972D. The fragment came down to the twentieth century in a copy of Dr John Davies's Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Dictionarium Duplex (1632). The nature of the association is not explained in the first published account of the fragment1 but is made clear by Manly and Rickert2: the three leaves were no part of the binding of the dictionary but were simply tipped in at the back of the book. Evidently they came into the hands of someone who regarded them with sufficient interest to protect them within his copy of the Dictionarium Duplex. Paste marks still visible on the three leaves are witness to their tipping in. After Manly and Rickert had seen the fragment the three leaves were removed from the dictionary and repaired3. Until 1983 they were kept loose in the dictionary. The copy of the Dictionarium Duplex was withdrawn from the Library with the fragment but unfortunately did not accompany it to auction. The present whereabouts of the dictionary are unknown4. It is with regard to the provenance of the fragment that there is most to add to Manly and Rickert's account. But their description of the manuscript itself also calls for some correction and additional comment. The lines of text now visible, in whole or in part, a greater number than were seen by Manly and Rickert before repair, are: f 1, B 3974-4010, 4012-4050; f 2, 4211-4248, 4250-4288; f 3, 4374-4412, 4413-4452. The page height of the undamaged manuscript leaves, preserved in f 3, is 270mm; the height of the written space is 210mm. All pages have 40 lines. The lines, contrary to what Manly and Rickert say, are ruled, in drypoint; double vertical lines are ruled for the margin. At the beginning of the Tale, B 4011, at the head of f V the outer corner of the leaf is wanting. That there was here a four-line initial (or, at least, the space left for one) is shown by the rightwards displacement on the page of the surviving text of lines B 4012-4. Paragraph marks in red are on f lv beside B 4049, on f 2V beside B 4257 and