We have to depend, of course, on the evidence of the MSS. themselves. It
was happily a common practice to write on the fly-leaf or first leaf
_Liber (Sancte Marie) de (tali loco)_. This is decisive. Then, again,
some libraries devised a system of press-marks, such as "N. lxviii.,"
let us say. You find this in conjunction with the inscription of
ownership; it is a Norwich book, you discover, that you have in hand,
and all books showing press-marks of that form are consequently Norwich
books too. Or you will find the name of a donor. "This book was the gift
of John Danyell, Prior." Search in Dugdale's _Monasticon_ will reveal,
perhaps, that John Danyell was Prior of St. Augustine's, Bristol, in
1459. A clue to locality will often be given in such a case by the
monk's surname, for it was their custom to call themselves by the name
of their native village. Thus, a monk named John Melford or William
Livermere will be a Suffolk man, and the abbey in which he was professed
is likely to be Bury. Coming to later times, it is apparent that at the
Dissolution groups of books from a single abbey came into the hands of a
single man. If I find Dakcombe on the fly-leaf of a MS., I am almost
entitled to assume that it is a Winchester book: John Stonor got his
books from Reading Abbey, John Young drew from Fountains, and so forth.
Lastly, and most rarely, you are justified in saying that the
handwriting and decoration of this or that book shows it to have been
written at St. Albans or at Canterbury. Hitherto the instances where
this is possible are few, but I do not doubt that multiplication of
observations will add to their number.
In questioning a MS. for any of these indications (except the last) you
must be on the look-out for signs of erasures, especially on the margins
of the first leaf and on the fly-leaves at either end. Here the owner's
name was usually written. Often it was accompanied by a curse on the
wrongful possessor, and at the Dissolution there were many wrongful
possessors, who, whether disliking the curse or anticipating trouble
from possible buyers, thought it well to erase name, and curse, and all.
They seldom did it so thoroughly that the surface of the vellum does not
betray where it was, and it can be revived by the dabbing (_not_
painting) upon it of ammonium bisulphide, which, unlike the
old-fashioned galls, does not stain the page. Dabbed on the surface with
a soft paint-brush, and dried off at once with clean blotting paper, it
makes the old record leap to light, sometimes with astonishing
clearness, sometimes slowly, so that the letters cannot be read till
next day. It is not always successful; it is of no use to apply it to
writing in red, and its smell is overpowering, but it is the elixir of
palæographers.
Yet, when all has been done, there is a sadly large percentage of MSS.
which preserve an obstinate silence. They have been rebound (that is
common), and have lost their fly-leaves in the process, or, worse than
that, they have lain tossing about without a binding and their first and
last quires have dropped away. In such cases we can only tell, from our
previous experience in ancient handwritings, the date and country of
their origin.