PRE-CAXTON MS. OF "MORTE D'ARTHUR"
EARLIEST TEXT IN EXISTENCE
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
WINCHESTER, Saturday.
Members of the Friends of the National Libraries were entertained this afternoon at Winchester College by their chairman Sir Frederic Kenyon. They were shown the old Fellows' Library in the Warden's Gallery, and then conducted to the new library which has just been constructed in the 14th-century brewery of the founder, William of Wykeham.
A special exhibition had been arranged there by Mr. W.F. Oakeshott, the boys' librarian, to display the most interesting manuscripts and printed books in the possession of the college.
While assembling the exhibition this week Mr. Oakeshott has made what appears to be a remarkable discovery, a 15th-century manuscript version of Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte d'Arthur," which seems to have been in existence before the printed text of Caxton (1485), hitherto considered our earliest source for the great English romance. Mr. Oakeshott has not yet had time to collate the manuscript with the Caxton text, but has discovered that it lacks Caxton's division into chapters and varies from his text to a considerable extent.14TH-CENTURY MAP
Among other manuscripts displayed were William of Wykeham's "Foundation Statutes" for Winchester and for New College, Oxford, and two volumes presented by him to Winchester College. A 13th-century account of the Life and Martyrdom of Sir Thomas à Becket, and Higden's "Polychronicon," with its 14th-century map of the world; a letter of Queen Elizabeth to the Fellows; a copy of Henry VIII.'s Tract against Luther (for which he gained from the Pope the title of Defender of the Faith"); a Shakespeare first folio, and a first folio of Ben Jonson, giving the name of Shakespeare as one of the actors in the first production of Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour," were also on view.Wyclif's "English Translation of the Bible" was to be seen in a 14th-century illuminated manuscript and there were 14th and 15th century English Gospels and Books of Hours, as well as copies of the first printed editions of the New Testament and of Hakluyt's Voyages. One modern illuminated manuscript was displayed, the War Memorial volume by Mr. Graily Hewitt a member of the society.
[The Daily Telegraph Monday, June 25, 1934, p. 7]