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Harley MS 4070
- Record Id:
- 040-002049907
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049907
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000246
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100059465179.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4070
- Title:
-
Psalter in Anglo-Norman
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a copy of the Book of Psalms in Anglo-Norman verse with the corresponding Latin verses at the beginning of each stanza.
Contents:
ff. 2r-123v: The Book of Psalms in verse, with a prologue, beginning ‘Ces [ver]s sunt de salu de[l] [ri]che rei ihesu nostre duz Avue’.
[ff. i recto, i verso, 1r, 1v, 123v, 124r, 124v are blank].
Decoration:
Large and small initials in green or red with penwork decoration in red or green, occasionally with zoomorphic figures (e.g., see ff. 36v, 37r, 40r, 40v). Rubrics in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049907", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4070: Psalter in Anglo-Norman" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049907 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4070 : Psalter in Anglo-Norman - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4063]/040-002049907
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100059465179.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1224
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th century - 1st quarter of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 200 x 130 mm (text space: 155 x 90 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: f. i + 124 ( + 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); ff, i, 1 and 124 are original parchment flyleaves; 1 parchment stub between f. 119 and f. 120; 1 modern paper (with bibliographical notes) has been pasted on f. [ii] recto; modern transparent silk gauze has been attached to ff. 2r-18v, 20r, 20v, 27r, 27v, 29r-30v, 32r, 32v, 43r, 44v, 45r-46v, 48r-55v and 120r-123v for conservation purposes; the quires have been mounted on paper guards; quire signatures in Roman numerals in the lower left margin of the last verso of gatherings.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house (re-bound in 1958); red half leather binding with Harley’s bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘METRICAL PSALTER. FRENCH’.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England or France.
Provenance:
A 13th-century English or French owner: an inscription on f. 2r: ‘Cest Sauter en Fraunceys est ...' (This psalter is in French)’ in a 13th-century script.
Unknown 13th- and 14th-century owners: quotations in Latin added by by 3 or 4 scribes on f. 124r, including: ‘Quae cum mortali bona fiunt /dant bona terre / Cor faciunt habile minuunt tormenta Gehenne’; ‘Vivere non possunt que nunquam viva fuerunt’; ‘sepe reviviscunt que mortificata fuerunt’; ‘Esse quasi modo geniti’.
? ‘Wymundus’, a clerk of the diocese in Lincoln, owned in 1380: a note with his name and date 1380 on f. 1r: ‘Wymundus permissione divina lincolniensis Episcopus’; another note on f. 1r in the same hand refers to Thomas de Brantingham (d. 1394), bishop of Exeter 1370-1394: ‘Thomas miseracione divina Exoniensis Episcopum dilectum nobis in Christo’; it is followed by an erased inscription that ends with the text ‘North ȝevele’, possibly Northill in Bedfordshire.
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), III (1808), p. 113.
Wilhelm Goedicke, Über den anglonormannischen Schweifreimpsalter (Halle: Kaemmerer, 1910).
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4, 2 vols (London: Miller, 1982-1988), II (1988): 1250-1285, p. 139.
Ruth J. Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), pp. 244-45 (no. 449).
Maria Careri, Christine Ruby and Ian Short, Livres et écritures en français et en occitan au XIIe siècle: Catalogue illustré (Rome: Viella, 2011), no. 39.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.