Early Manuscripts at Oxford University
A collection of digitized manuscripts, including those below which are either wholly or partly in Middle English. N.B. These are high-resolution images and very slow to load; see the information on file sizes and image sizes provided by the Oxford website.

Balliol College MS 354

Richard Hill of London, commonplace-book in English, Latin and French, including transcripts of late medieval poems and carols, London annals, family memoranda, etc., first third of the 16th century.

Bodleian Library MS Digby 133

The 'Digby Plays': the unique copies made in the early 16th century of three late medieval plays in English verse, The Conversion of St. Paul, (fols.95r-145r) Mary Magdalen, and (fols. 146r-157v, dated 1512) Candlemas Day and the Killing of the Children of Israel, with (fols. 158r-169v) the first half of the morality play Wisdom, late 15th cent. The plays, not uniformly written, are bound with other miscellaneous booklets of the 16th to early 17th centuries; including (fols. 51r-60v) some astronomical texts and horoscopes in the hand of Simon Forman (1552-1611).

Bodleian Library MS Arch. Selden B. 26

Miscellany of five separate manuscripts, all of English origin and bound together c. 1660, comprising: in Latin and Middle English, (fols. 3-33) 'The Selden Carol Book', polyphonic music including (fol. 17v) The Agincourt Song, 2nd quarter of the 15th cent.; in Latin, (fol. 34) one leaf of Gregory's Pastoral Care, 8th cent., and two 15th-cent. items, (fols. 35-94) Wycliffite tracts by John Tissington and others, and (fols. 95-102) a Calendar, with tables for 1459-76, etc.; and in English, (fols. 103-134) William Cartwright, The Royall Slave, a play performed at Oxford in 1636.

Corpus Christi College, MS 198

Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, London(?), early 15th cent.; decoration unfinished, retaining the scribe's instructions.

Corpus Christi College MS 201

Piers Plowman, 'B' text, late 14th cent.

Merton College MS 248

Sermons and other texts collected by John Sheppey OSB, Bishop of Rochester (d. 1360), mostly in Latin, including his own sermons in the form of fables, sermons by contemporary Oxford preachers incorporating items of Middle English verse, and excerpts, notes and tables concerning classical and later writers, 13th and 14th centuries. Given to Merton College by William Rede, d. 1385.

             Note: lines of Middle English verse at: fols. 66v, 74r, 78v, 120r, 132, 134v, 139v, 141v, 146v, 148v, 149r, 166-167.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Michigan MS 225

The Middle English prose Brut (abbreviated version to 1419, group B)

Digital Images from Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
Manuscript images, most from slides and film strips; these images download quickly and are available in three sizes. They include:

MS Don. c. 13

John Wyclif, Sermons on the Sunday Epistles and Gospels, etc., in English (northern dialect) and Latin. England; 14th century. (21 images)

MS. Lat. th. e. 30

Roger Dymmock, Liber contra duodecim haereses et errores Lollardorum, in Latin and English. England; c. 1400. (6 images)

MS. Lat. liturg. e. 17

Private prayers and Offices, Use of Sarum, in Latin, with instructions to the illuminator in English (fol. 19r); Northern England; early 15th century. (6 images)

MS. Lat. misc. e. 86

Treatises on Heraldry, in Latin and English England; 15th century, second half. (22 images)

MS. Eng. th. d. 36, fol. 11r, 17r

Henry Parker (attrib.), Dives et Pauper, in English, England, 15th century. (2 images).

MS. Lat. misc. c. 66

Commonplace book of Humphrey Newton (1466-1536), of Pownall, Cheshire, alphabets, and drawings. (23 images)

Glasgow University

Glasgow University Library Special Collections
Images (varying in quality) from some Middle English manuscripts in Special Collections can be reached by links from entries in the online catalogue. They include:

MS Hunter 5 fol. 5r

John Gower, Confessio Amantis. (1 image)

MS Hunter 83 fol. 4r

           John Warkworth, Chronicles of England. (1 image)

MS Hunter 197 fol. 73 detail, fol. 102v

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; scribe: Geoffrey Spirleng fl.1476. (2 images)

MS Hunter 239 fol. 22v

        The Pilgrimage of the Lif of the Manhode, etc. (1 image)

MS Hunter 270 fol. 223r

Henry Parker (attrib.), Dives et Pauper. (1 image)

MS Hunter 367 fol. 34r, 55v-56r

John Trevisa, Dialogue of the Lord and the Clerk. John Trevisa, Translation of Higden's Polychronicon. (2 images)

MS Hunter 409 (V.3.7), fol. 58v-59r

Chaucer The Romaunt of the Rose. (2 images)

MS Hunter 512 fol. 37r

Primer, Latin and English 1386. (1 image)

Treasures from Two Millennia: Fifty Treasures from Glasgow University Library

MS Hunter 409 (V.3.7), 57v-58r

Chaucer The Romaunt of the Rose England: c.1440-1450  (1 image)

Sp Coll Hunterian Bv.2.12, c4v

Chaucer Canterbury Tales Pynson, London: 1493. (1 image)

Huntington Library, San Marino, California

MS EL 26 C 9, fol. 72

("The Ellesmere Chaucer") Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," illuminated manuscript on vellum. England, c.1400-1405. (1 image)

New York, Columbia University

Plimpton MS 265, f. 4 , Plimpton MS 265, f. 4 (detail)

Gower, Confessio Amantis, England Date: first quarter, 15th century. (2 images)

The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive

The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive
The Piers Plowman Electronic Archive contains one or more images from each of the following Piers Plowman manuscripts:

Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 581

fol. 10r (1 image)

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Poetry 38

(1 image)

British Library, Additional 35287

fol. 18v (1 image)

Cambridge, Trinity College B.15.17

fols. 1r, 13r(2), 14v (4 images)

Cambridge University Library Gg.4.31

fols. 9v, 10r (2 images)

Cambridge University Library Ll.4.14

fols. 3v, 4r (2 images)

Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 201

fols. 9r, 22v (3 images)

The York Doomsday Project

British Library Additional MS 35290, fol. 249r

The York Register, York Plays. (1 image)