NOTES ON MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS
THIS English book exists in two Manuscripts: No. 40 of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Bibliotheca Bigotiana, 388), and No. 2499 Sloane in the British Museum.
The Paris Manuscript is of the Sixteenth Century, the Sloane is in a Seventeenth Century handwriting; the English of the Fourteenth Century seems to be on the whole well preserved in both, especially perhaps in the later Manuscript, which must have been copied from one of mixed East Anglian and northern dialects. This manuscript has no title-page, and nothing is known as to its history. Delisle's catalogue of the Biblioth. Bigot. (1877) gives no particulars as to the acquisition of No. 388. The two versions may be compared in these sentences:—
Chap. ii., Paris MS.: "This revelation was made to a Symple creature unlettyrde leving in deadly flesh the yer of our Lord a thousande and thre hundered and lxxiii the xiii Daie of May."
Sloane: "These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature that cowde no letter the yeere of our Lord 1373 the xiij day of may."
Chap. li., Paris MS.: "The colour of his face was feyer brown whygt with full semely countenaunce. his eyen were blakke most feyer and semely shewyng full of lovely pytte and within hym an heyward long and brode all full of endlesse hevynlynes. And the lovely lokyng that he lokyd on his servant contynually. And namely in his fallyng ÷ me thought it myght melt oure hartys for love. and brek them on twoo for Joy."
