Middle English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61, fol. 1v
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Manuscript date: ca. 1420
Chaucer wrote his “book of Troilus” about 1381–6; it survives in 16 manu-
scripts and the same number of fragments; Corpus Christi College, Cam-
bridge, MS 61 is one of the earliest manuscripts. Only two others and an
early Caxton print of the poem have illuminations, but the Corpus Christi
College manuscript’s full-page illumination is much more ambitious (see also
the images of the Canterbury Tales manuscripts, above). The intense blues,
pinks, reds, oranges, and greens, and the stippled gold make for a vibrant
prefatory page. The border, figures, and setting suggest French and Italian
influences on what was perhaps more than one English illuminator. The
manuscript’s decoration is otherwise incomplete, approximately ninety spaces
existing for other images, several of which would also have been full page.
Interpretations of the content of the two scenes (divided by rocks) are as
specific as stating that the foreground shows Chaucer reciting the poem to
an audience of identifiable nobles and the background as a particular scene
in Troilus and Criseyde. However, other explications point to the generic
and non-specific aspects of the oral performance in the foreground and
probably a fifteenth-century interpretation of the poem in the background.
Primary documents and further reading
McGregor, J. H. (1977) “The Iconography of Chaucer in Hoccleve’s De Regimine
Principum and in the Troilus Frontispiece.” Chaucer Review 11: 338–50.
Parkes, M. B. and E. Salter (Intro.) (1978) Troilus and Criseyde: A Facsimile of
Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 61. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Pearsall, D. (1977) “The Troilus Frontispiece and Chaucer’s Audience.” Yearbook of
English Studies 7: 68–74.
Salter, E. and D. Pearsall (1980) “Pictorial Illustration of Late Medieval Poetic
Texts: The Role of the Frontispiece or Prefatory Picture.” In F. G. Andersen et al.
(eds.) Medieval Iconography and Narrative: A Symposium. Odense: Odense Uni-
versity Press, 100–23.
Scott, K. L. (2000) “Limner-Power: A Book Artist in England, c. 1420.” In F.
Riddy (ed.) Prestige, Authority, and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and
Texts. Woodbridge, Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 55–75.
Windeatt, B. A. (ed.) (1984) Troilus and Criseyde: A New Edition of “The Book of
Troilus.” New York: Longman.

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