The Vernon Manuscript (Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. a. 1) is a medieval English manuscript, written in the dialect spoken in the English West Midlands around 1400,[1] that is now in the Bodleian Library, to whom it was presented around 1677 by Colonel Edward Vernon.[1] It has been described as "the biggest and most important surviving late medieval English manuscript"[2] and "one of the Bodleian Library’s greatest treasures".[1]
The manuscript is lavishly illustrated and decorated,[2] and includes 370 poetry and prose texts on moral or religious subjects,[1] intended to be read by the pious.[2] It has over 700 pages and weighs 22 kilograms (49 lb).[3] The Bodleian Library estimates that the manuscript was compiled around the final decade of the fourteenth century.[1]
An online exhibition of the manuscript is curated by Professor Wendy Scase of the University of Birmingham.[1] A facsimile and transcription are available commercially.[1]