Sir James Ware, the Collecting of Middle English Manuscripts in Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

The history of the post-medieval collecting and study of Middle English manuscripts has yet to be written. It is clear that by the later sixteenth century such manuscripts had become objects of antiquarian and scholarly curiosity, reflected in the activities of a number of early collectors. But assessing the nature and extent of their activities can involve complex problems of identification. Early records of the existence of manuscripts in books lists, inventories, wills and sale catalogues are usually descriptively perfunctory and hence often hard to link confidently to those copies that survive. Such questions of identification are exemplified by Chaucer's works, particularly manuscripts of his Canterbury Tales, where the extensive records of provenance that survive still leave many unresolved problems. These problems of identification, both in particular connection with Chaucer's works and more generally in relation to the early collecting of Middle English, are represented in the records of Middle English manuscripts collected by James Ware.