Jenny STRATFORD, London Reims ms. 570, a copy of La Somme le Roi, in French, written and decorated in England in the late fourteenth century, provides the basis for an investigation of the training and status of a scribe within a princely household. Questions are raised about the identity of such men, their links with their patron, the types of texts they copied and the ways in which the manuscripts were completed for presentation.

The ms. now in Reims was first described in print in 1904 in the catalogue of the Bibliothèque municipale by H. Loriquet ; the arms were incorrectly attributed to John, duke of Bedford (1389-1435), regent of France. The short notice in Manuscrits datés (not accompanied by a plate), correctly identified the arms as those of a duke of Gloucester, but ascribed them to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester (1390-1447), Bedford's younger brother. On the contrary, the heraldic evidence, the decoration and the script point to a late fourteenth-century date and to the ownership of Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of King Edward III. Thomas was created duke of Gloucester in 1385 and was murdered on the orders of his nephew, King Richard II in 1397.

In any consideration of English secular book-owners of the later Middle Ages, Thomas of Woodstock merits an important place. His household had access to many books, some perhaps inherited from his wife's Bohun ancestors. Inventories of the goods seized from his houses in London and Essex include more than 136 books. This is by far the largest number of books which can be identified in the possession of a secular English magnate before 1400. In spite of these extensive lists very few manuscripts (five or six), once belonging to Thomas of Woodstock and his wife, Eleanor Bohun, are known to be extant. Only two of these (apart from Reims), were written or adapted for the duke and duchess. In this context, Reims ms. 570 assumes a special importance.

John Upton, the scribe of this copy of La Somme le Roi, wrote a high-grade secretary hand, ultimately derived from French models, but with a distinctive English character. He is probably to be identified with the clerk who was Thomas of Woodstock's treasurer of household by 1392. This background would explain the accomplished hand combined with some clumsiness in the layout of the text and the fact that the manuscript was then sent out for decoration in the London workshops of illuminators who worked for the duke and duchess on other books. Other examples of texts written or compiled by clerks attached to princely households invite consideration of the growing minority of bookish English magnates and the route chosen by their officers to gratify their patrons.