MANUSCRIPT, MAGNA CARTA
Magna Carta, Statutes and Charters to the end of the reign of Richard II, in Latin and law French, manuscript on vellum, 339 leaves (including 4 blanks at front and 2 at rear), wanting one leaf at opening of text (with first item of index) and probably 7 leaves of text (partially supplied in fifteenth century manuscript on 2 added leaves), signatures and catchwords (the latter often on calligraphic scrolls), neat cursive bookhand throughout in brown ink, 30-33 lines per page, paragraph marks in red and blue, 3 pages with illuminated bar borders, burnished gold and colours, one with historiated initial depicting a king, the other 2 with decorative initials, the borders rubbed with minor loss of pigment and gold, twentieth century brown morocco by Gray of Cambridge, earlier endpapers preserved, one with eighteenth century commentary on contents, another with old spine label preserved, 4to (215 x 135mm.), [England, last decade of the fourteenth century with later additions]
Footnotes
