This version of the Dance of Death, which appears to have been derived from the earlier Selden version of the text, survives in six manuscripts: Bodleian Library MS Bodley 686 (SC 2527), Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 237, British Library MS Cotton Vespasian A.XXV, British Library Lansdowne MS 699, Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 129, and Leiden University Library MS Vossius Germ. Gall. Q.9.

Lansdowne MS 699 is the base text for our edition, collated with Florence Warren’s critical edition for the Early English Text Society. Warren also records the many variant readings from Cotton Vespasian, a late manuscript (c. 1600) that describes the poem as “writen in the cappell of Wortley of Wortley Hall” (fol. 172r) and thus may represent a transcription from an otherwise unattested set of paintings, similar to those created for the Pardon Churchyard at St. Paul’s.

Manuscripts:

• Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 686, fols. 209r–16r

• Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 237, fols. 147r–57r

• London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A. XXV, fols. 172r–77v (49 stanzas only)

• London, British Library, MS Lansdowne 699, fols. 41v–50v

• Lincoln, Lincoln Cathedral Library, MS 126, fols. 79v–86r

• Cambridge, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Eng. 752, fol. 44r (one stanza only, inserted in the text of Lydgate’s Troy Book)

• Leiden, Leiden University Library, MS Vossius Germ. Gall. Q.9, fol. 29v

Early Print Edition:

• Lydgate, John. Hore beate marie virginis ad vsum insignis ac preclare ecclesie Saru[m] cu[m] figuris passionis mysteriu[m] representa[n]tibus recenter additis. [Parisius: Per J. bignon pro R. fakes Lodoii [sic] librario, [1521?]] (20 stanzas only). [STC 15932]

Edition:

• Warren, Florence, and Beatrice White, eds. “The Daunce of Death.” In The Dance of Death, Edited from MSS. Ellesmere 26/A.13 and B.M. Lansdowne 699, Collated with the Other Extant MSS. EETS o.s. 181. London: Oxford University Press, 1931; Rpt. New York: Klaus Reprint Co., 1971. Pp. 1–77.