London Thornton Manuscript

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.^[1]

Contents

• Wynnere and Wastoure (unique)
• [[The Parlement of the Thre [sic] 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 51)
  • 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.^[2]
• The Virtues of the Mass

References

Notes

1. Keiser 177.
2. Fein 225.

Bibliography

• Fein, Susanna Greer (1989). "'Haue Mercy of Me' (Psalm 51): An Unedited Alliterative Poem from the London Thornton Manuscript". Modern Philology 86 (3): 223–41. doi:10.1086/391701.
• Thompson, John J. (1979). "Lincoln Cathedral Library MS. 91: Life and Milieu of the Scribe". Studies in Bibliography 32: 158–79.
• Keiser, George R.. (1983). "More Light on the Life and Milieu of Robert Thornton". Studies in Bibliography 36: 111–19.
• Thompson, John J. (1987). Robert Thornton and the London Thornton manuscript: British Library MS Additional 31042. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 978-0-85991-190-0.