The Index of Middle English Prose

The Hatton and e Musaeo manuscript collections are important donations given to the Bodleian Library during its formative years in the seventeenth century. The Hatton collection, assembled by Christopher, first Baron Hatton, was largely acquired by the Bodleian Library in 1671. Among its Middle English prose manuscripts are religious texts, including Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, commentaries by Richard Rolle on the psalms and ten commandments, chronicles such as the Brut and an assortment of manuscripts ranging from political prophecies and grammar treatises to compendia of medical recipes. The e Musaeo collection, so called because it was originally an eclectic group of manuscripts stored in the librarian's study, also contains a variety of significant Middle English texts. They range from the religious and devotional: a Wycliffite New Testament, Love's Mirror, and Heinrich Suso's treatise The Seven Points of True Love and Everlasting Wisdom); to the scientific and medicinal: Chaucer's Astrolabe, Henry Daniel's Liber Uricrisiarum; and to the historical, notably the Brut and Mandeville's Travels. Patrick J. Horner, FSC (a De LaSalle Christian Brother) is Professor of English at Manhattan College.