Physical description

Form:

Codex

Paper of a single stock throughout.

The watermark is very difficult to make out. It is a coat of arms enclosed in a circular belt which I have been unable to match with known watermark sources.

Octavo in eights: i7 ii8 iii6 iv-v8. Three stubs: before fol. 1, and two between fols 19 and 20 (i.e. at the end of Richardson's writing).

Neatly written with Richardson's alterations throughout. Well spaced, with large unruled left margins for the epistle (fols 2r-4r) and first meditation (fols 4v-6v). Left and top margins are ruled from fol 7r on (though widened for the second meditation, fols 16r-17v). Many of the titles are enclosed in either parallel lines, or in an upside down triangle, centred, with two small double lines at the base. On fol. 5r the scribe has forgotten the margin until about a third of the way down the page (when biblical references need to be noted). Marginal biblical references appear at the end of the epistle, and throughout the two meditations.

There are six hands in the manuscript, but only three (Hands A-C) involved in the production of the meditations and prayers. Elizabeth Richardson's hand (Hand A), a clear, non-cursive italic, appears on the title page (fol. 1r), at the end of the dedicatory epistle (fol. 4r), and on many other pages as a correcting hand, including probably the numbering and renumbering of the prayers (fols 4v-19v). Hand B, probably that of a professional scribe, has written the dedicatory epistle (fols 2r-4r). Hand C, the hand which has written out the prayers and meditations (fols 4v-19v), is more problematic to identify. It might conceivably be a messier version of Elizabeth Richardson's own hand. It might be the hand of one of her daughters, possibly the dedicatee Elizabeth Cornwallis, given the task to copy out the devotional writing. It is suggested on the title page that Cornwallis may have lost the first copy of Richardson's prayers (though see the Context and purpose article for another possibility). It could also be the hand of a scribe. Hand D is Elizabeth Cornwallis's hand which has signed her name on the front pastedown. Hand E is a contemporary hand which has written a note about Brome, Suffolk at the bottom of the title page. Hand F is John Walsh's hand from 1766 (fols 30r-31r).

Hand A [or Elizabeth Richardson] (fols 1r, 4r (signature and initials only), 4v-19v (editing only)): italic

Hand B (fols 2r-4r): italic.

Hand C (fols 4v-19v): italic.

Hand D [or Elizabeth Cornwallis] (front pastedown): italic.

Hand E (fol. 1r): italic.

Hand F [or John Walsh] (fols 30r-31r): italic.

Limp vellum with the remnants of two blue silk ties at foreedge on upper and lower covers, with three thongs visible near side on upper and lower coverswith no ornamentation. The vellum is discoloured in places. Very faintly on the upper cover ""ASHBURNHAM MS"" has been stamped, with ""3501"" written in dark black ink. Dimensions: 142 x 96 x 7mm .

35 fols, foliated and paginated in a contemporary hand. The foliation is complicated, switching from foliation to pagination. The first ten leaves are foliated 1-10 (though fol. 9v is labelled 10), there is no page eleven, but fol. 10v is labelled 12, fol. 11r is 13, and this pagination continues till p. 30 (really fol. 19v). This is followed by 10 blank leaves (fols 20-29), then fol. 30r is a cropped page with a promisory note from 1766, fols 30v and 31r contain a few words of that same note, and fols 31v-35v are blank, as is the final pastedown. The sequence of folio and page numbers as they appear in the manuscript is as follows: fols 1r-9r, p. 10 [really fol. 9v], fol. 10r, pp. 12-30 [really fols 10v-19v], ten blank unfoliated leaves [really fols 20r-29v], two leaves with eighteenth-century writing on them [really fols. 30r-31r: versos are blank], 4 blank unfoliated leaves [really fols. 32r-35v], then a blank pastedown.

Good condition.

Provenance

According to the postscript of the dedicatory epistle (fol. 4r, msItem 3) the work was composed in 1625 by Elizabeth Richardson. The title page (fol. 1r, msItem 2) indicates that Richardson presented the manuscript to her daughter Elizabeth Cornwallis in 1635. A note about Brome on the front pastedown (msItem 1) suggests that the manuscript remained for a time with Cornwallis's family in Brome, Suffolk.

By 15 July 1766 the manuscript seems to have been owned by a James Walsh who wrote a promisory note on fol. 30r (msItem 16). On the front pastedown ""Ashburnham 1861 not in Catalogue"" has been written indicating that the manuscript does not appear in the Catalogue of Manuscripts at Ashburnham Place published in 1861. But sometime after 1853 the manuscript was acquired (if not rediscovered) by the Ashburnham family, when it was written into the 1853 catalogue on an interleaved blank page. The most likely purchaser of the volume was the fourth earl, Bertram (1797-1878), an avid bibliophile, whose collection of printed books and manuscripts was dispersed by the fifth Earl, also called Bertram (1840-1913).

The Ashburnham collection is on deposit at the East Sussex Record Office.