ABSTRACT
John Gower's manuscripts in Middle English fall into two categories. The first contains forty-nine full manuscripts and nine fragments of the Confessio Amantis. These surviving witnesses for the Confessio pose a particular set of textual problems that must be understood in terms of the poem's early genesis during the reign of Richard II, and its apparent popularity shortly after Richard's overthrow by Henry IV. George Campbell Macaulay, Gower's first great editor, established a set of three categories for manuscripts of the Confessio still commonly used today. The second category of Gower manuscripts in English includes a unique witness to one short poem, In Praise of Peace, which begins in London, British Library Additional MS 59495. The idea that BL Add. 59495 was intended as a presentation manuscript from Gower to Henry IV originated with an early owner, Sir Thomas Fairfax, who suggested these origins in a note inscribed on the manuscript's first folio.
