This volume contains indexes to a university library, a monastic library, two cathedral libraries, a diocesan library and three record offices. Outstanding among the manuscripts are two Wycliffite New Testaments and John Mirk's popular sermon collection 'The Festial'.

The John Rylands and Chetham's Libraries, Manchester, were both founded by charitable local magnates and in the course of time have become well known in many parts of the world. Housed in their striking original premises, they both contain major collections of manuscripts which in each case include important texts in Middle English prose. In particular, the Rylands collection, which is the larger, has fifteen copies of the Wycliffite Bible, six of the prose 'Brut', three of Nicholas Love's 'Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesu Christ

The Parisian manuscript collections checked for the compilation of this handlist are the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Bibliotheque Mazarine and the Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve. They contain a miscellaneous but interesting set of Middle English prose texts: there is the Middle English version of Guy de Chauliac's 'Cyrurgie'; a 'Brut'; four miscellanies of religious matter, including a 'Pore Caitif' and a 'Lay Folks' Catechism', as well as texts by Rolle and Hilton. There is also Julian of Norwich's Showings, and the polemical Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards.

Noteworthy among these texts are scientific treatises such as Chaucer's 'Astrolabe', works of religious devotion such as Richard Rolle's 'Form of Living' and political tracts including Sir John Fortescue's 'Governance of England'.

The Index of Middle English Prose when completed will be a monumental achievement' REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES

Among the finest manuscripts are a 'Roman de la Rose' with 125 miniatures, a 'Piers Plowman', the 'Ormsby Psalter' and the famous 'Douce Apocalypse'.

Cambridge University Library is one of Britain's major repositories of medieval manuscripts. Its two-letter collection (Dd-Oo) includes just over 1,000 medieval western manuscripts, and amongst these may be found examples of every type of Middle English prose composition. Religious works predominate: there are several copies of the Wycliffite Bible, various sermon cycles, and works by Love, Hilton and Rolle; there is also a vast number of unattributed religious works. Secular texts are represented by the works of Chaucer, Mandeville's Travels, and no fewer than eight copies of the Brut. The...

The majority of the medieval manuscripts in Corpus Christi which contain Middle English prose came to the College as part of the bequest of Matthew Parker (1504-75), archbishop of Canterbury, who in 1568 had been given authority by the Privy Council to collect -auncient recordes and monumentes written- for -perusyng of the same-. These manuscripts came from all over the south of England, having mainly originated in monastic libraries. Some were subsequently returned to their owners, but the majority appear to have remained with Parker and to have been considered his personal property, to...

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...

The project to publish a complete listing of all known manuscript items containing Middle English prose began in 1978, and the first volume appeared in 1984. The final listing will consist of some fifty volumes; with the publication of the twentieth volume in 2009, the corpus was sufficiently extensive to justify the first comprehensive index to the contents of the existing titles. This, the resulting volume, is a vital research tool for anyone working with Middle English prose texts. It is designed to give immediate access to the indices now found separately in the first twenty descriptive...