Chapter 4 The Manuscript

The history of the manuscript has to be reconstructed from its present state. According to a note on a flyleaf of the modern guard book that now contains the manuscript, the manuscript was rebound in February 1985. The stitching (using what appear to be the original needle holes), the collation, and the folio numbers are modern too. It is likely that the original manuscript never had a cover, for the outside folios are grubbier and show signs of wear. It was probably a single-quire manuscript of eighteen leaves giving thirty-six pages, for what is now numbered folio 17 was originally folio 18. All that now remains of the original folio 17 is the stub. The loss of this leaf is also evident from the disruption of the original arrangement of the page openings, which conforms to the usual medieval design:2 Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), pp. 14–15. every verso faces a recto from the same side of the parchment skin, that is flesh-side faces flesh-side (1v-2r, 3v-4r, 5v-6r, etc.) and hair-side faces hair-side (2v-3r, 4v-5r, 6v-7r). However, because of the removal of the seventeenth leaf, we now have hair-side facing flesh-side on the last page opening (16v-17r in the modern numbering).

The manuscript contains the following items:

All the folios have curved edges comparable to the one shown here. Parchment was normally cut in neat rectangular shapes, but more affordable parchment could be purchased either in the form of ‘offcuts’ (what was left of the skins after the rectangles had been cut)3 The practice of using offcuts in manuscripts is discussed and illustrated by Daniel Wakelin, Designing English: Early Literature on the Page (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2018), pp. 44–46 and Erik Kwakkel, ‘Discarded Parchment as Writing Support in English Manuscript Culture’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700 17 (2012), 238–61. or in the form of sheets that included the ‘offcut zone’.4 See Stephanie Lahey, ‘Offcut Zone Parchment in Manuscript Codices from Later Medieval England’, 2 vols (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Victoria, 2021), and Kwakkel, ‘Discarded Parchment’, p. 254. A pragmatic consideration behind the latter form is that, since manuscript leaves typically had generous margins, a page with a curved edge could still accommodate the normal writing space, but at a cheaper price. Our manuscript is an example of this type of cheap parchment book.5 Other examples are Oxford, Bodleian, Douce 6, digitised at <https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/ed3b2d6e-28ec-49c1-a369-f3087b52e909/>, and London, British Library, Additional, MS 16431, illustrated in Michelle Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (London: British Library, 1993), plate 45. Its abnormality is confirmed by the irregular dimensions of the pages: because of the convex curve at the lower edge the height varies from 202mm to 184mm, while the width is consistently 170mm. The writing space (ruled in drypoint) is 160mm x 110mm. The width of the pages, 170mm, is standard, but even the maximal height, 202mm, is well below what would be normal for that width. As a rule, the width of the page in later medieval manuscripts was about seventy per cent of the height,6 Erik Kwakkel and Rodney Thomson, ‘Codicology’, in The European Book in the Twelfth Century, ed. Erik Kwakkel and Rodney Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 9–24 (14). so one would expect the leaves to be about 40mm higher than they actually are.

The text of the Ordinances was the work of two scribes, with scribe 1 producing the first 10 folios and scribe 2 taking over from folio 11r onwards.7 For completeness we should mention that there are a few handwritten notes, in Dutch, in a much later hand. See the notes to our edition. Some omissions made by scribe 1 were supplied by a corrector, who was probably scribe 2. Scribe 2’s handwriting can be dated to 1501 on the basis of the year given in article 25 (folio 12v) by scribe 2. Articles 26 and 27, also written by scribe 2, were probably added slightly later. The provision in article 25 of a date and the names of the four masters is in itself an indication that this article had once been envisaged as the final item, and this supposition is supported by the rubrication. In the case of articles 1–25, a rubricator supplied Lombardic capitals in alternating red and blue ink, but the Lombardic capitals were not supplied for the last two articles, which were thus presumably written some time after the preceding text had already been copied and rubricated. Since they were additions to a manuscript that had several empty pages left, these later items were also written by the scribe without any concern for space: instead of being written on pages containing on average 29 lines (scribe 1, folios 1–10) or 23 lines (scribe 2, folios 11–12), articles 26 and 27 were written by scribe 2 across three pages with progressively more empty space: on folio 13r he wrote 12 lines; on folio 13v just 8 lines, and on folio 14r only four. The scribe here placed and spaced his writing to fill up the empty pages at the end of the quire.

The manuscript acquired a new purpose in 1511, when the Hatmakers agreed to join the Haberdashers. The terms of the agreement were then added to the manuscript, which may at this point have come into the possession of the Haberdashers who added some material to it at some later time in the sixteenth century. The agreement is also the work of two scribes: scribe 3 wrote the text of the agreement up to and including the fourth article; scribe 4 wrote articles 5 and 6 of the agreement. There is good reason to think that these two articles were added later: they are written in lighter ink and without consideration for the writing space observed by scribe 3. In terms of content, the additional articles concern themselves not with the duties of the brothers of the Hatmakers’ guild, but rather with the obligations of, and fees payable by, journeymen and servants in their employment. It is probably no coincidence that in the consistory court case pursued by the Haberdashers against some alien hatmakers in the years 1514 and 1515, this precise issue was the main bone of contention. According to the Haberdashers’ claims in that case, journeymen and apprentices were expected to contribute the same quarterly fee to the Haberdashers as the master hatmakers who employed them, and the latter were liable to pay up if their employees did not; according to the hatmakers’ testimony, conversely, masters were liable only for themselves, but not for their employees. Articles 5 and 6 of the agreement were probably additions made after the outcome of the court case. The verdict seems to have gone in the favour of the hatmakers, for the added clauses make the servants and not their employers liable for payment.

Just as the Hatmakers were taken over by the Haberdashers, so was the manuscript. This explains why the last item, written by yet another scribe, scribe 5, in what looks like a slightly later, mid-sixteenth-century hand, and beginning with an elaborate cadel-style initial Y, consists of an item that was of no relevance to the Hatmakers, namely the oath of office to be sworn by the wardens of the Haberdashers. While the Hatmakers thus lost exclusive ownership of their little book, this misfortune is also the reason why the manuscript survived after the fraternity that originally owned it had disappeared: it was preserved in the archives of the Haberdashers’ Company that still exists today, in the custody of the Guildhall Library in London.