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could give its owner the ability to spread his prestige across the laity as a learned man even if
political circumstances made such advice politically precarious. 414
The popularity of De Regimine and that of Trevisa’s other major translations makes it
hard to understand why Digby 233, as a translation of a popular work by a popular translator,
was of such low demand to result not only in a unique translation of Giles but an unfinished
example. 415 In fact, the several inconsistencies of rubrication, colophons, and spatial arrangement
along with a marginal scribal annotation “ut corrigitur” ‘it is to be corrected’ suggested to Ralph
Hanna the work’s lack of consecutive construction by Trevisa. 416 Further investigations, by D.C.
Fowler and Charles Briggs, have suggested not only a poor scribal construction but also the
possibility that this work was an unfinished exemplar and that, because it was unfinished, it was
not widely disseminated. 417 Through a physical analysis of Digby 233, scholarship concluded
that even Trevisa may have not seen the final product, as the textual rift between writer and
patrons (the Berkeley household), evident through Digby’s construction, suggests that neither
text nor manuscript were finished within his lifetime. 418
414 Ibid. 77 and Hanna “Sir Thomas” 915.
415 The manuscript itself has long been known to be a compilation of distinct translation efforts—one of De
Regimine by “Trevisa” and one of Vegetius’s De Res Militaris by “a worshipful toun” who explicitly
addressed the work to Berkeley in October 31, 1408 (Briggs “MS Digby 233” 250). The appearance of direct
involvement by Berkeley and Trevisa was provisionally supported by Digby’s artwork, which includes two lavish
frontispieces for the beginning of the first two books of De Regimine (f.1 and f.62), lavish borders, and a distinctive
swan badge (Ibid. 249 and Kathleen Scott, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, vol. 6 (London:
Harvey Miller Publishers, 19960 figs. 150-152), as well as by the recurrence of the corrector’s hand in other
Berkeley manuscripts (Briggs “MS Digby 233” 253). Kathleen Scott’s recently finished work on Gothic manuscripts
suggests not only that the artwork of the manuscript was not exclusively English (reflecting unusual French motifs
in the frontispiece gestures of the nobles), but that due to its enormous size, it was most likely ordered for “a prince
of the realm, either Henry IV or his son, Henry, Prince of Wales” (Vol.2 Cat.No. 35).
416 Hanna “Sir Thomas” 897 note 47.
417 Fowler The Life 192 and Briggs “MS Digby 233” 257.
418 A.S.G Edwards was the first to suggest this, citing the end of Digby 233 which puts the completion of the
translation in 1408, six years after Trevisa’s death (139). Although Fowler and Hanna have both argued on social
grounds that On the Governance had to be left unfinished (although begun) within Trevisa’s lifetime (Fower The
Life 191; Hanna “Sir Thomas” 899), the codicological work of Briggs and Scott has confirmed Edwards’s suspicion.
Briggs argues that the extensive scribal revisions on the translation, the effective lapse of three years after the death
of Trevisa, and Lord Berkeley’s lack of leisure to secure the dissemination of his favorite translator’s work, as he
had for his other two major translations, show that “had Berkeley a finished Trevisan autograph in his possession
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