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Add MS 14252
- Record Id:
- 032-002036680
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002036680
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000046.0x0000b3
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100062419377.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 14252
- Title:
-
Ranulf de Glanvill, Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Anglie; ‘Prester John’, Epistola Manueli Comneno Imperatori Graecorum; Hildebert of Lavardin, De Tribus Mortuis a Christo Suscitatis; a prose description of England based on Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum; Laws related to the Commune of London; genealogies
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript is the second volume of a collection of legal treatises, of which Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS lat. 155 is the first volume. Add MS 14252 mainly contains law texts related to England and the ‘Commune of London’: a corporation of London citizens which had been recognised as a governing body by King John in 1191. The manuscript also includes a prose description of England in Anglo-Norman and a Latin copy of the so-called ‘Letter of Prester John’. The latter text presents a letter from a certain Christian priest-king named ‘John’ who writes to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (b. 1118, d. 1180) about the treasures and marvels of a kingdom that he would have established in the ‘East’.
ff. 1r-87r: Ranulf de Glanvill (d. 1190), Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Anglie (Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England), continued from the Manchester manuscript.
ff. 88v-89r: A list of rentals for land from the city of London.
ff. 90r-90v: A rental of tenements near the Thames, beginning ‘[H]oc est veredictum inquisitum ab et discretioribus provintie quid libertas aquae de tamisia a castello barnardi usque ad pontem de stanes’.
ff. 92r-97v: Iohannes presbyter ('Prester John'), Epistola Manueli Comneno imperatori Graecorum (Letter to Manuel I Komnenos, Emperor of the Greeks), known as ‘The Prester John Letter’ [Redaction B].
f. 97v: Hildebert of Lavardin (b. 1056, d. 1133), Archbishop of Tours, De Tribus Mortuis a Christo Sucsictatis (On the Three Dead Brought back to Life by Christ), ‘Mens mala . mors intus. malus actus. mors foris. usus. / Tumba. puella. puer. lazarus ista notant.’.
ff. 98r-101r: Laws relating to London in Anglo-Norman.
ff. 101r-104v: A description of England in prose (Anglo-Norman), based on the verse history of Henry of Huntingdon (b. 1084, d. 1155)'s Historia Anglorum (History of the English).
ff. 104v-108v: Laws pertaining to London’s citizen’s, merchants, the city charters, wardship and the Assize of Buildings; including a list of names of aldermen (‘Nomina iuratores ad assisam muri lapides’) and a list of the names of the sheriffs of London during the reign of Richard I (b. 1157, d. 1199) and John (b. 1166, d. 1216) (‘Nomina vicecomitum a primo anno Regis Ricardi usque ad Johannis regis’).
ff. 110r-111r: Oaths to be pledged by each of the 24 members of the Commune of London.
ff. 111r-112r: Laws of the Weavers and Fullers at Winchester, Marlborough, Oxford, and Beverley (Anglo-Norman), beginning ‘Co est la lai teliers et des fuluns a Wincestre’.
ff. 112v-113r: An account of the Commune of London pledging loyalty to Richard I during his imprisonment in Germany, beginning ‘Sacramentum commune tempore regis Ricardi quando detentus erat Alemaniam’.
ff. 113r-117r: Laws, especially pertaining to violent crime (murder, robbery, rape, etc.) in London, in Latin and Anglo-Norman.
ff. 117r-118r: The Articles of Eyre of 1208, beginning ‘Capitula domini regi per cursum errantium justiciarum’.
f. 118v: The law of the Assize of bread, decreed at the Guildhall, beginning ‘De constitutione et ponderatione panis’.
ff. 119r-124r: Laws on the rules and liberties for citizens of London, in Latin and Anglo-Norman, e.g. laws for merchants, cornmongers and bakers.
ff. 124r-125r: Laws for London made during the reign of King John, approved by him and made at his request, beginning ‘Quedam consideratio facta ad civitatem claudendam tempore regis johannis per eius petitionem et assensum’.
ff. 125r-125v: On the genealogy of the house of the Honour of Boulogne, beginning ‘De honore Bolonie in Anglia post conquestum normannorum certissima successio’.
ff. 126r-127r: A list recording the land taxes for the hundreds of the county of Middlesex, beginning ‘Hidagium comitatus totius middelsexe’.
f. 127v: A genealogy for the Anglo-Norman Hubert of Caen, identifying Gervase of Cornhill and William Blemund as his sons.
ff. 128v-129v: Decrees of the Commune of London at the Guildhall for regulating the city of London and protecting it against fire, following the Great Fire of 1212, beginning ‘Quedam consideratio facta per consilium proborum virorum sanctum ad sedandam et pacificandam civitatem et contra incendium cum dei adiutorio muniendam’.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 109v: A recipe for ‘Metheglyn’ (a type of mead) in Middle English, beginning ‘Take þe rote of fenkell Persell with þe rote of tansay’, added in a 15th-century script.
f. 130v: ‘Ite ad Regem turcorum’, added in a (?) 15th-century script.
[ff. i recto, i verso, i*recto-iv*verso, 1r, 1v, 87v, 88r, 89v, 91r, 91v, 109r, 128r, 129r-130v are blank].
Decoration:
4 medium initials in gold on blue grounds, some with filigree decoration in red (ff. 11r, 87r, 92r, 98r); Medium initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing or penwork decoration in the other colour. Decorated line-fillers in red or blue or in both colours. Rubrics in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002036680", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 14252: Ranulf de Glanvill, Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Anglie; ‘Prester John’, Epistola Manueli Comneno Imperatori…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002036680
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002036680
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100062419377.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1200
- End Date:
- 1224
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 210 x 160 mm (text space: 165/75 x 110 mm).
Foliation: ff. i + iv* + 130 ( + 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaf and 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the end); f. i is an early modern paper flyleaf; ff. i*-iv* are blank (but ruled) parchment leaves foliated as ff. ‘i*’-‘i****’; a modern paper pastedown on f. [iv]recto (bibliographical notes) and f. [132]verso (note of examination); all quires have been mounted on paper guards.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house, rebound in 1981: Brown half leather binding, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘RANULPHI DE GLANVILLA TRACTATUS’; gilt fore-edge.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: London, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
Guildhall, London, owned in the early 13th century: suggested by contents concerning the Commune of London (see Ker, Medieval Libraries (1964), p. 126).
Jeremiah Milles (b. 1714, d. 1784), antiquary and Dean of Exeter, owned since 1762: his armorial bookplate (f. i verso), his name and the year ‘1762’ inscribed on f. 1r; his sale, Sotheby's 15 April, 1843, lot 1183; purchased from him by the British Museum (see note on f. 1r) for £35.10.0.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1841-1845 (London: British Museum, 1850), pp. 48-49.
Thomas Hudson Turner, Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England from the Conquest to the End of the Thirteenth Century (Oxford: Parker, 1851), pp. 281-83 [edition from this manuscript].
Felix Liebermann, Über die Leges Anglorum saeculo XIII ineunte Londoniis collectae (Halle: Niemeyer, 1894), p. 101 (as ‘Ai’).
John Horace Round, The Commune of London and Other Studies (London: Constable, 1899), passim.
Arthur F. Leach, Beverley Town Documents, Publications of the Selden Society, 14 (1900), pp. 134-35 [edition from this manuscript].
Mary Bateson, ‘A London Municipal Collection of the Reign of King John’, English Historical Review, 17 (1902), 480-511, 707-30.
William Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce: During the Early and Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), pp. 587-89 [edition from this manuscript].
Helen M. Cam,'Studies in the Hundred Rolls: Some Aspects of Thirteenth-Century Administration', in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, 6, ed. by Paul Vinogradoff (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), pp. 19-20.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil Ripley Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 126.
Brian Woledge and Harry Clive, Répertoire des plus anciens textes en prose française depuis 842 jusqu’aux premières années du XIIIe siècle, Publications romanes et françaises, 79 (Geneva: Droz, 1964), p. 105 (no. 49).
Keith Sinclair, 'Anglo-Norman Studies: The Last Twenty Years (Concluded)', The Australian Journal of French Studies, 2.3 (1965), 225-66 (pp. 236-37).
David Howlett, 'Artful Anglo-Norman Prose: The Structure of De Plaiz de Corone', Romania, 117 (1999), pp. 273-78 [edition from this manuscript].
Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature, A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), p. 6 (nos 5, 13r).
Bettina Wagner, Die "Epistola presbiteri Johannis" lateinisch und deutsch: Überlieferung, Textgeschichte, Rezeption und Übertragungen im Mittelalter, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 115 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000), pp. 14-131.
John McEwan, 'William FitzOsbert and the Crisis of 1196 in London', Florilegium, 21 (2004), 18-42 (pp. 30, 32).
Claudio Lagomarsini, ‘The Prose Description of England: A Hitherto Unedited Anglo-Norman Text from BL, Additional MS 14252', Medium Aevum, 80:2 (2011), 325-35 [contains an edition of ff. 101-104].
Keagan Brewer, Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, Crusade Texts in Translation, 27 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), p. 303 (no. 60).
- 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.