Manuscript
The Blickling Homilies, simply named ‘B’ in the list compiled by Scragg, are officially called the Princeton University Library, W.H. Scheide Collection, The Blickling Homilies. They contain 19 quires or gatherings of vellum leaves. The 11th quire is missing and there are probably four more missing at the very beginning of the text. The first quire opens in the middle of a sentence (Scragg 299). Not much of the text in these homilies overlaps with other homilies, but the study of how and where they overlap is still very much in progress.
The homilies were named for Blickling Hall in Norfolk, England, formerly the seat of the Marquess of Lothian. The first known account of the manuscript reports that it was used as an oath book in the city of Lincoln. Then in 1724 the officials in Lincoln gave the manuscript to William Pownall, who in turn sold it to Richard Ellys of Nocton, Lincolnshire who was an ancestor of the Marquess of Lothian. The manuscript was then kept in the library of Blickling Hall. In 1932, the 11th Marquess sold the homilies (to relieve his debt) to Cortlandt Field Bishop, who in 1938, sold them to the Scheide family of Titusville, Pennsylvania who in turn donated them to the Princeton University Library, where they have remained ever since.
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