John Lydgate, Fall of Princes

MS Fall of Princes - Folio 4v

The Fall of Princes manuscript, produced around 1480, is a work by John Lydgate (ca.1370-1449) on the fortunes of famous people, and how fate brought about their downfall. Lydgate based his text on a similar work by Boccaccio. The text is in Middle English, written in two columns mostly on paper, with some pages being parchment.

The entire manuscript has been photographed onto slide film; each page was photographed in its entirety, and in many case close-up images were made of special features. The full page images have all been digitized, though most of the close-ups have not. The slides, as well as very high resolution digital images (higher than can be shown here), are available in Special Collections.

The web sites linked to below are two of the projects that have so far been done; neither is complete. The intent is to provide a resource for further research and a framework for researchers, including students, to publish their work.

Lydgate Manuscript Facsimile

High resolution images of every page of the manuscript are available here, along with commentary on the manuscript and the text. The manuscript was originally photographed by Nichole Green and David Badke as part of a Medieval Studies course project, in the spring of 1999. Research on the manuscript is ongoing, and the web site is a framework for the publication of results.

Lydgate Manuscript Transcription

This is an experimental XML transcription project undertaken at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre. An episode from John Lydgate's Fall of Princes was transcribed and marked up by Undine Bruckner, with technical assistance from Martin Holmes.