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Scala perfectionis
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Scale of perfection : [manuscript]
Manuscripts
HM 112 consists of 2 parts, the first being ff. 1-12v (the chapter list and chapters 1 through most of 16), written in the beginning of the fifteenth century; the second part, ff. 13-78v, copied towards the middle of the century: the matching page dimensions suggest that the second was an intentional completion of the earlier, supposedly unfinished portion. HM 112 itself was the second part of a larger manuscript of which the first is now London, Brit. Lib. Add. 10052, the Speculum religiosorum by Walter, canon of Holy Trinity in London, while the third is now Brit. Lib. Add. 10053, containing, among other texts, Edmund Rich's Speculum ecclesie in English and Hilton's Eight Chapters. The quires in all 3 manuscripts are signed in roman numerals in the lower right corner of the last leaf verso: in Add. 10052, i-ix; in HM 112, x-xvii (but with the penultimate full quire, i.e. now quire 8, skipped; the last 3 leaves, all singletons, have no roman numeral); in Add. 10053, xviii (on the first leaf, a singleton, presumably the end of the last quire in HM 112), then xix-xxix followed by 4 more quires (the first 2 labelled a and b); it would thus appear that the roman numerals represent an effort to unite separate materials. Add. 10053, ff. 1-83 and, possibly with some variations, ff. 85-98, are by the same hand as the second part of HM 112. The name of John Pery is associated with both: in HM 112, on f. 78v, the explicit reads ". . . quod I. Pery" (perhaps in a different hand from the rest of the explicit); in Add. 10053, on f. 29 "quod I. Pery" and on f. 83 "Orate pro anima domini Iohannis Pery canonici ecclesie sancte trinitatis london. infra algate qui hunc librum fieri fecit cuius anime propicietur deus Amen." Span folios: ff. 1-78v. Other Decoration: 4-, 3- and 2-line initials done in both pts. by the same flourisher, in blue with red penwork; the opening initial, f. 4, 6-line, in parted red and blue infilled with void leaf designs and flourished in red; paragraph marks alternating red and blue; paragraph marks usually in red only (a few in blue). HM 112 consists of 2 parts, the first being ff. 1-12v (the chapter list and chapters 1 through most of 16), written in the beginning of the fifteenth century; the second part, ff. 13-78v, copied towards the middle of the century, probably as an intentional completion of the earlier, supposedly unfinished portion. Numerous corrections and insertions in more than one hand (one probably Pery's).
mssHM 112
![Scale of perfection : [manuscript]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN4KLJ58S%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)
Scale of perfection : [manuscript]
Manuscripts
ff. 1-84v but see reading order. [Walter Hilton] Scale of Perfection. Incipit: //þawȝ þe þink þiself reccheles & negligent. Explicit: and oftentymes þurȝ here gostly presence//. English. Walter Hilton, Scale of Perfection, beginning and ending defectively and with loss of text due to missing leaves; the volume is misbound and should be read as follows, the numbers in parentheses giving the page numbers in E. Underhill, ed., The Scale of Perfection by Walter Hilton (London 1923): f. 13r-v (75-77), f. 14r-v (84-87), f. 3r-v (136-38), f. 4r-v (164-67), f. 2r-v (167-69), f. 1r-v (170-71), ff. 16-20v (169-85), ff. 21-36v (189-245), ff. 43-84v (280-377), ff. 37-38v (377-82), f. 41r-v (382-84), ff. 7-8v (384-89), f. 42r-v (389-90), ff. 39-40v (390-96), ff. 11-12v (415-20), f. 15r-v (443-45), ff. 5-6v (451-55), ff. 9-10v (455-60). The text contains Books 1 and 2 in an apparently deliberate abridgment and thus the chapters do not always coincide with those in the Underhill edition; many of the expanded "Christo-centric" passages are present (that on the Holy Name not verifiable due to missing leaves). For list of manuscripts, see H. L. Gardner, "The Text of the Scale of Perfection," Medium Aevum 5 (1936) 11-30; S. S. Hussey, "The Text of the Scale of Perfection: Book II," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 65 (1967) 75-92; T. Takamiya, "Luttrell Wynne MS of Walter Hilton," Reports of the Keio Institute 7 (1975) 171-91. See also R. Hanna, "The Archaeology of a Manuscript: Huntington Library HM 266," Scriptorium 36 (1982) 99-102.
mssHM 266