Ellesmere Chaucer

More recently, the manuscript has been dated to c. 1405 or earlier, leading to speculation that it "was conceived as an immediate response to Chaucer's death by those eager to commemorate his memory through the appropriate preservation of his work.

"[1]: 60  It has even been suggested that, while the final sentence of the manuscript ("Here is ended the Book of the Tales of Canterbury, compiled by Geffrey Chaucer, of whos soule Iesu Crist have mercy.

[1]: 63 The Ellesmere manuscript is a highly polished example of scribal workmanship, with a great deal of elaborate illumination and, notably, a series of illustrations of the various narrators of the Tales (including a famous one of Chaucer himself, mounted on a horse).

It is seen as an important source for efforts to reconstruct Chaucer's original text and intentions, though John M. Manly and Edith Rickert in their Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940) noted that whoever edited the manuscript probably made substantial revisions, tried to regularise spelling, and put the individual Tales into a smoothly running order.

Up until this point the Ellesmere manuscript had been used as the 'base text' by several editions, such as that of W. W. Skeat, with variants checked against British Library, Harley MS 7334.

The scribe has been identified as Adam Pinkhurst, a man employed by Chaucer himself; however, the attribution is controversial, with many palaeographers remaining undecided for or against.