London Thornton Manuscript
Encyclopedia
The London Thornton Manuscript is a medieval
manuscript
compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English
scribe
and landowner Robert Thornton
. The manuscript was long considered a miscellany
, but is more properly called a collection of spiritual texts.
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
and landowner Robert Thornton
Robert Thornton (scribe)
Robert Thornton was a Yorkshire landowner, a member of the landed gentry. His efforts as an amateur scribe and manuscript compiler resulted in the preservation of many valuable works of Middle English literature, and have given him an important place in its history.-Biography:Thornton's name is...
. The manuscript was long considered a miscellany
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, but is more properly called a collection of spiritual texts.
Contents
- Wynnere and WastoureWynnere and WastoureWynnere and Wastoure is a fragmentary Middle English poem written in alliterative verse sometime around the middle of the 14th century.-Manuscript:The poem occurs in a single manuscript, British Library Additional MS. 31042...
(unique) - The Parlement of the Thre Ages (only complete copy)
- The Sege of Melayne (unique)
- The Four Leaves of the Truelove (one of two extant copies)
- Rowland and Otuel
- "Have Mercy of Me" (Psalm 51Psalm 51Psalm 51 , traditionally referred to as the Miserere, its Latin incipit, is one of the Penitential Psalms. It begins: Have mercy on me, O God....
)- alliterative rendering of Psalm 51. Since at least two leaves are missing, translation breaks off after l. 134; a complete version would have had more than 240 lines.
- The Virtues of the Mass