ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the discrepancy, its causes and some of the implications that can be drawn from the evidence. While Professor Rossell Hope Robbins has limited himself to counting MSS representing the complete work, others have generally counted any MS containing any part of the work. It has been customary to measure the popularity and circulation of medieval literary works by counting the surviving MSS. Most of the remaining nine MSS that contain “complete” texts of the whole of the Tales have about them a notable likeness of organization; seven possess the further similarity of containing, in addition to Chaucer’s poetry, only works by his most prolific admirer, John Lydgate. In every instance in which the complete Tales appears in a MS, the Tales dominates that MS. In the case of both MSS examined, one secular and one religious, the name and fame of Chaucer are either irrelevant or lost to the MS maker.
