• Item 33, Stimulus Consciencie Minor: Introduction

penitential impulse (as well as learned origins and the same 8-line abababab stanza form). Several other works in these later quires of Ashmole 61 also brood over mortality and the afterlife, most notably The Sinner’s Lament, The Adulterous Falmouth Squire,

• Items 12-13, An Evening Prayer and A Morning Prayer: Introduction

speech, eating, and drink­ing, the Morn­ing Prayer also suggests close connections to the courtesy material earlier in the first three quires, including Stans Puer ad Mensam and Dame Courtesy (items 7 and 8). Text These two poems appear together in

• The Lufaris Complaynt: Introduction

Sorrow" (IMEV 482) Anonymous, "The Lufaris Complaynt" (IMEV 564) Anonymous, "The Quare of Jealousy" (IMEV 3627.5) These poems fill three quires of the manuscript, 15 to 17, fols. 190-224, with The Kingis Quair taking up most of the first two.

• Item 4, How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter: Introduction

the preceding text, How the Wise Man Taught His Son, and to the other conduct literature of the first three quires. This includes The Ten Command­ments (item 6), and perhaps even the late addition of The Rules for Purchasing Land

• Item 3, How the Wise Man Taught His Son: Introduction

text that follows, How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, as well as the other items in the first three quires that concern proper manners (items 7 and 8) and fundamental Christian ethics (item 6). More broadly, the stanzas on

• Item 16, The Debate of the Carpenter’s Tools: Introduction

respectability, as well as its denun­ciation of drunkenness, the text closely relates to the behavioral treatises of the first three quires, including How the Wise Man Taught His Son, How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, and Dame Courtesy (items

• The Sinner's Lament: Introduction

between the prose Life of Alexander and the alliterative Morte Arthure. The first two quires and most of the third contain Alexander. The fourth through sixth quires contain Morte Arthure, beginning on the first recto (fol. 53a). The third quire

• Item 27, Ypotis: Introduction

targeted by How the Wise Man Taught His Son (item 3) and the other conduct liter­ature of the first three quires. Text The text is quite corrupt, with some errors attributable to Rate and some to previous scribal practice. Ashmole

• In a Valley of This Restless Mind: Introduction

some clue. In the fifteenth-century book trade, publishers would sometimes "have poems or groups of related poems copied in loose quires which would then be held in stock and bound up to the taste of specific customers." 4 Lydgate's works

• The N-Town Plays: Play 29, Herod; Trial before Annas and Cayphas

s.d. than come ther. So MS, Bl, Bev, PP. S: supplies xal after ther. 1 ff. Passion Play 2 (comprising quires S and T, and different paper than used for Passion Play 1) begins with fol. 164, which has signs

• The Wallace: Selections: Introduction

copied in 1489, forms the first. The Wallace is written on 124 vellum leaves, in single columns, distributed into 6 quires.] Early Printed Editions The Actis and Deidis of the Illuster and Vail3eand Campioun, Schir William Wallace, Knicht of Ellerslie.

• The Poems of Laurence Minot 1333-1352: Introduction

13 x 82 inches (the original parch-ment sheets fused onto newer vellum sheets) arranged in quires of twelve leaves each, the ends of the quires being indicated by catch-words. The manuscript is written in two columns to the page, 47-48

• The N-Town Plays: Play 8, Joachim and Anne

bottom of fol. 40v are catchwords that xal be savyour. 197–724 MS: written on different paper, same as paper for quires F–M. 201 imcomparabyl. So MS, Bl, S. MP: incomparabyl. 211 now this. MS: now is this. 212 MS: a

• Thomas Usk, The Testament of Love

the quires of the manuscript on the assumption that it is complete. Skeat's reconstruction in his edition (pp. is certainly wrong, for by actually counting the lines in Thynne's edition I find that Skeat assigned to the "first 10 quires"

• The Testament of Cresseid

chambre. 32 doif. Thynne: dull. 36 mend. Thynne: made. 40 quair. "Book" or perhaps "gathering," a book consisting of several quires, in which case the allusion might be specifically to Book V of Chaucer's Troilus. 42 worthie. Thynne: lusty. 48

• St. Jerome: Introduction

feet, one of whose paws he holds carefully in his right hand. The volume comprises twenty-nine unpaginated leaves, with three quires (numbered ABC) of eight folios each (signed on the first four leaves of each quire), and a fourth quire

• The N-Town Plays: Play 10, Marriage of Mary and Joseph

left mar­gin mark Ysakar's lines (in a later hand). Clearly an attempt to identify or emphasize Ysakar's speeches for interpolated quires E and F. Fol. 51r is in a different hand, and fols. 1v through 52v (quire E) are blank.

• Lydgate, Troy Book: Introduction

text. Written on vellum leaves measuring 26 x 15 inches, the manuscript is composed of 155 folios, gathered in eight-leaf quires. The script is an Anglicana formata, with the characteristic double-lobed a, e, and g. The letter d is looped.

• Croxton Play of the Sacrament: Introduction

page of the dramatic script, shows significant wear, especially when compared to the other leaves that make up the three quires containing the Croxton play. This wear is likely the result of that page’s having once been on the outside.