Hengwrt Chaucer

Following the terminology developed by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, the manuscript is conventionally referred to as Hg in most editions giving variant readings.

It then seems to have passed into the ownership of the Bannester family of Chester and Caernarfon, and through them was in the possession of an Andrew Brereton by 1625; by the middle of the 17th century it had been acquired by Vaughan.

[5] There is some illumination in blue, gold and pink, used on the border and on initial letters at the opening of individual tales and prologues, but the manuscript contains no illustrations.

[6] The scribe of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts has been identified by Linne Mooney, a palaeographer at the University of York, as Adam Pinkhurst, a documented member of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners.

[8] However, other scholars, including Jane Roberts, who drew Mooney's attention to Pinkhurst in the first place, have expressed skepticism about the identification on various palaeographical, literary, and historical grounds.