Scribe D facts for kids
The Trinity Gower D Scribe, often called Scribe D, was a very important professional scribe (a person who copied books by hand) in London, England. He worked from about 1390 to 1420. Even though we don't know his real name, he was so good at his job that people who study old books know him very well.
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Who Was Scribe D?
Scribe D was first discovered in the 1970s by two researchers, Ian Doyle and Malcolm Parkes. They noticed that the same unique handwriting appeared in many important books from the late 1300s and early 1400s.
His handwriting style was called "Anglicana formata at its best." This means it was a very neat, traditional, and clear way of writing, with a little bit of a faster, more modern style called secretary hand mixed in. We know he was busy copying books between the 1390s and 1420s.
Where Did Scribe D Come From?
Some experts think Scribe D might have originally come from the south-west part of England, like Worcestershire. They believe he was one of many smart, educated men who moved to London to find work, much like the famous story of Dick Whittington.
However, more recent ideas suggest he was actually from London. He might have learned some of the south-west English words because he copied so many books from that area, like those by the writer William Langland. Scribe D was especially good at copying books by John Gower. Because of this, he started using some of Gower's unusual words, even when he was copying books by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Scribe D's First Big Job
One of the first books Scribe D copied was an important version of William Langland's famous poem, Piers Plowman. This book, now in the University of London Library, shows that Scribe D was not just a copyist but also a skilled editor. He even added some unique parts to the poem! It's interesting that his first known job was for Piers Plowman, a poem written in the same south-west English style that Scribe D might have spoken.
Working with Other Scribes
Once Scribe D was settled in London, he probably worked with other professional scribes. We know he worked on the same book, the "Trinity Gower" manuscript, as the scribe who copied the famous Ellesmere Chaucer and Hengwrt Chaucer versions of The Canterbury Tales. It seems that Scribe D and his colleagues (or the bookseller they worked for) had good connections in London's literary world. They could get high-quality early copies of texts.
Another scribe who worked on the Trinity Gower manuscript was Thomas Hoccleve. He was a poet himself and admired Chaucer a lot, perhaps even being his friend. Some scholars believe that Scribe D and his team might have been carefully updating and recopying manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales in several steps, possibly even with Chaucer's own help, rather than just putting them together after Chaucer died in 1400.
The Mystery of His Name
For a while, some scholars thought Scribe D might have been a man named John Marchaunt, who was the Town Clerk of London from 1380 to 1417. However, in 2018, another expert, Lawrence Warner, argued that there wasn't enough proof for this idea. There aren't many examples of Marchaunt's own handwriting to compare with Scribe D's. Also, some notes in the margin of a Canterbury Tales manuscript by Scribe D, which mention 'Jhon Marcant', don't actually help identify him. These notes appear next to parts of the story about jealousy, not next to information about the scribe himself. So, Scribe D's real name remains a mystery!
Books Copied by Scribe D
Here are some of the important books that Scribe D is known to have copied:
- London University Library v. 88 (a version of Piers Plowman, possibly his earliest work).
- Cambridge, Trinity R.3.2 (parts of Confessio Amantis).
- British Library, Egerton 1991 (Confessio Amantis).
- Columbia University, Plimpton 265 (Confessio Amantis).
- Oxford, Bodley 294 (Confessio Amantis).
- Oxford, Bodley 902 (Confessio Amantis).
- Oxford, Christ Church 148 (Confessio Amantis).
- Princeton, Taylor 5 (Confessio Amantis).
- British Library, Add. 27944 (John Trevisa's translation of De proprietatibus rerum).
- British Library, Harley MS. 7334 (The Canterbury Tales).
- Oxford, Corpus Christi 198 (The Canterbury Tales).
