[Sca-cooks] NBC

[Johnna Holloway]

OK you are in luck because I managed to find my response on the Napier and Holkham materials from 2009.

You will note that I mention I own all three! So yes, you can buy for a price the Pynson, Holkham, and now of course see the Napier via Google Books.

I wrote and posted 20 August 2009—

As regards the menus, in the original Holkham manuscript
the dishes are recorded in a single column.

Napier or the publisher back in 1882 includes those as a double column.
She continues this through the other feasts.

The menu section in the manuscript stretches over 22 or 23 pages. The Napier edition does
it in half that space. I did not do a word by word comparison, but Napier seems to be
fairly accurate here. (NB: The items here are easy going compared to the later recipes.)

In the courses she ends a number with the words "Ung fubtilite".
This looks like viiy or viig in the manuscript to me. I am wondering if this isn't a number
or shorthand for something else. I'll have to look into this.

-----
Constance Hieatt has done several articles
that compare Napier, the original manuscript and the printed Pynson volume of 1500.
One of those articles is:

"Sources of, and Analogues to, the Noble Boke of Cokery" by Constance B. Hieatt
/Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and
Printing History. /Volume 3 (2000)
Edited by Martha Driver, Pace University.

Another titled "Richard Pynson's Noble Boke of Festes Ryalle and Cokery and its Relationship to Two Analogous Manuscripts"
appears in Volume 1, Number 1 of Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and
Printing History. 1997.

Those articles ought to be able to be interlibrary loaned, although you may have loan them in through an academic library.
I was able to buy volume 1, number 1 way back when and CBH sent me a gallery proof of the later article.

We also mention and include Napier of course in the Concordance of English Recipes.
I can actually do the comparisons in house now between Napier, Holkham and Pynson volumes
because I own copies of all three.
One is on CD, one is on microfilm, and one is the actual book and now that's online,  so  by running between
formats, it's all here.

And there will be more in the forthcoming two volume facsimile set of Pynson from 1500, if and when it's ever done.
I write and ask the editor every six months or so if they have a date yet for that. (I suspect the cost will be
$$$ or in the hundreds for the edition when it is released. Some of these limited edition fine press books
are running $500-$600 a volume, so I am sure the Pynson will be or might well be priced accordingly.)

Hope this helps,

Johnnae




> On Dec 23, 2018, at 12:42 PM, Alexander Clark <alexbclark8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> So if Napier's transcription is not entirely trustworthy--is that because
> it's full of "Hokum"?
> 
> Sorry, couldn't restrain myself.  Pun intended.
> 
> So is there any way to get to see a version that isn't Napier's, short of
> flipping my wings and flying to England to look at the originals (supposing
> that I would get permission to look at them, but who would refuse when I'm
> a winged man who can fly?)
> 
> And BTW is there any published version of BL MS Sloane 1201?
> 
> -- 
> Henry/Alex