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Egerton MS 848
- Record Id:
- 032-001983913
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001983913
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000053.0x0003c5
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 848
- Title:
-
Collection of astronomical and astrological material, including a calendar, tables of lunar and solar eclipses, and treatises on the zodiac and planetary signs
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
f. 3r: A set of notes on the altitudes of the sun and moon, written in Middle English.
ff. 3v-15r: An astronomical calendar.
f. 15v: A set of tables for solar eclipses, between the years 1491 and 1506, and lunar eclipses, between the years 1490 and 1505.
f. 16r-v: A lunar calendar.
f. 17r:-v A set of diagrams used to determine dominical letters and leap years.
ff. 18r-20r: A treatise on the twelve signs of the zodiac, written in Middle English, beginning, 'If thou be syke in ony lyme when the mone...'
ff. 20r-20v: A treatise on physiognomical and behavioral traits conferred by the planetary signs, written in Middle English, beginning, 'Sol. Who so is borne whan he reugnethe...'
f. 21r: A Zodiac man, with explanatory notes written in Latin.
ff. 21v-22r: Astronomical diagrams, including a volvelle with three moveable parts.
The manuscript contains a number of later additions:
f. 1r: An inscription relating to the purchase of the manuscript from Thomas Rodd the Younger on 11 August 1840.
f. 1v: The inscribed name, 'Baptist Trott' in a 17th-century hand and a former pressmark, 'Bib. Hall 216'.
f. 2r: A memorandum by a certain 'John Fysher', dyer of London, concerning a debt, added in a 16th-century hand.
f. 22v: The inscribed name, 'ffrankfort', in a 17th- or 18th-century hand.
f. 2v is blank.
Decoration:
Diagrams and tables in red and brown, or in colours, including a Zodiac man (f. 21r), and a volvelle with three moveable parts (f. 22r).
'KL' initials in blue (ff. 3v-14v). Small initials in red or blue. Highlighting of letters in yellow.
Paraph marks in blue. Rubrics in purple, blue, or red. Cadels.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001983913", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 848: Collection of astronomical and astrological material, including a calendar, tables of lunar and solar eclipses, and treatises on the…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001983913
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001983913
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_848 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1485
- End Date:
- 1495
- Date Range:
- c 1490
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 135 x 120 mm (written space: 100 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 22 (+ 1 unfoliated parchment fragment after f. 13).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Pre-1600. Brown leather wallet, blind-stamped with fleur-de-lis and pelicans(?); the upper cover extending to form a flap.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England (probably London).
The manuscript was probably made in London c. 1490: the calendrical material (ff. 3v-15r) includes three 19-year lunar cycles, suggesting the manuscript was made during the first of these (i.e. between 1481 and 1501); diagrams for finding the dominical letter and leap years are both marked '1491' (f. 17r); tables of solar and lunar eclipses are from 1491 to 1506, and 1490 to 1505, respectively (f. 15v); the calendar has two highly-graded feasts of St Erkenwald (d. 693), Bishop of London.
Provenance:
John Smith of London, 16th century: an inscribed memorandum, 'I, John Fysh(?), Dyer of London doythe owe unto John Smith of London cloth worker the some of 2s xd …' (f. 2r).
Inscribed, 'Baptist Trott', in a 17th-century hand (f. 1v), and 'ffrankfort', in an 17th- or 18th-century hand (f. 22v).
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (b. 1820, d. 1889), antiquary and literary scholar: inscribed 'Bib. Hall 216' (f. 1v); catalogued for sale, 27 June 1840, lot 151, but withdrawn, along with the other manuscripts, all but one of which were sold en bloc to Thomas Rodd the Younger in July 1840 for £50 (see Freeman and Freeman, ‘Phillipps, James Orchard Halliwell- (1820-1889)’, ODNB).
Thomas Rodd the Younger (b. 1796, d. 1849), London bookseller: bought from him by the British Museum on 13 August 1840 for £2 2s., along with 32 other manuscripts formerly owned by Halliwell-Phillipps, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829).
- Publications:
-
List of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1836-1840 (London: British Museum, 1843), 1840, p. 19.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1929), no. 146.
D. A. Winstanley and R. W. Hunt, 'Halliwell Phillipps and Trinity College Library', The Library, 5th series, 2 (1947-48), 250-82 (p. 279).
Rossell Hope Robbins, 'Medical Manuscrips in Middle English', Speculum, 45 (1970), 393-415 (pp. 396, 397).
Irma Taavitsainen, 'The Identification of Middle English Lunary MSS', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 88 (1987), 18-26 (pp. 18 n. 1, 25).
Irma Taavitsainen, Middle English Lunaries: A Study of the Genre (Helsinki: Société néophilologique, 1988), pp. 16, 82, 83.
Laurel Braswell-Means, 'The Vulnerability of Volvelles in Manuscript Codices', Manuscripta, 35 (1991), 43-54 (pp. 44, 48 n. 3).
Laurel Means, '"Ffor as moche as yche man may not haue Þe astrolabe": Popular Middle English Variations on the Computus', Speculum, 67 (1992), 595-623 (p. 608).
Medieval Lunar Astrology: A Collection of Representative Middle English Texts, ed. by Laurel Means (Lampeter: E. Mellen, 1993), p. 44 n. 74.
Kari Anne Rand Schmidt, Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), p. 70.
Helen R. Jacobus, Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their Reception: Ancient Astronomy and Astrology in Early Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 429 n. 17.
Sarah Griffin, 'Synchronising the Hours: A Fifteenth-Century Wooden Volvelle from the Basilica of San Zeno, Verona', Journalof the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 81 (2018), 35-70 (p. 50 n. 41).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)