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Add MS 10104
- Record Id:
- 032-002107887
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002107887
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000042.0x000148
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 10104
- Title:
-
Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Polychronicon, an encyclopedia of universal history and natural science, first compiled in the 1320s by Ranulph Higden (d. 12 March 1364), monk of the Benedictine abbey of St Werburgh, Chester. This is the later recension of the text; a total of 42 manuscripts of the later recensions were produced at some stage around the turn of the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries (see Freeman, 'Manuscript Dissemination' (2013), p. 68, n. 35).
ff. 1r-7r: Five ages of the world, a tabula or alphabetical index followed by a summary of the chronological spans of the first five ages of the world, before the birth of Christ;
f. 8r: A Mappa mundi or map of the world;
ff. 9r-154v: The Polychronicon with continuation to 1377 (continuation 'C' in Taylor, Universal chronicle (1966)), p. 114);
ff. 154v-155r: Notes and a copy of a letter to Lewis de St Melans, treasurer of Llandaff cathedral;
ff. 155r-176v: Adam Usk (b. c. 1352, d. 1430), a continuation of the Polychronicon from1377 to 1404, of which this is the only copy;
(A quire has been removed between ff. 176 and 177, with Usk's continuation from 1404 to 1421; it is now in the collection of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle);
f. 177r: A paste-down with notes on the succession to the English throne in the 11th century.
Decoration:
Full-page elliptical map of the world in brown, red and green (f. 8r). A large initial in rose and blue on a gold ground with full decorated border in rose and blue with gold; an added shield of arms in the lower margin with a naked man digging (?Adam) (f. 9r). 8 framed initials and partial borders with foliate decoration in rose, blue and gold (ff. 1r, 33r, 49r, 71v, 89r, 108v, 125r, 149r). Two diagrams of Noah's ark in red and brown (f. 35v). A diagram of Pythagorean musical theory in brown and red (f. 52v). Initials in blue with pen-flourishing in red in the index and at the beginning of chapters. Rubrics and marginal chronologies or dates in red, some underlined. Running titles with red and blue decoration. Paraphs in red or blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002107887", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 10104: Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002107887
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002107887
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1375
- End Date:
- 1424
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 14th century to first quarter of the fifteenth century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 365 x 250 mm (text space: 250/55 x 160/75 mm).
Layout: Written in a single column of 53 lines, with the dates or chronologies in the margins.
Foliation: ff. 177 (f. 177r is a former paste-down, now attached to a paper leaf +1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and 1 at the end).
Collation: i-xi8 (ff. 1-88), xii8-1 (ff. 89-95), xiii-xv 8 (ff. 96-119), xvi4 (ff. 120-124), xvii-xix8 (ff. 125-148), xx11 (ff.149-159), xxi-xxii8 (ff. 160-175); 1 stub following f. 132 and 2 stubs following f. 167. Catchwords and quire signatures.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with dark brown tooling in a chequered pattern.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
Adam Usk (b. c. 1352, d. 1430), Welsh cleric and chronicler, owned by him: his added shield of arms in the lower margin (f. 9r) and bequeathed by him to his relative, Edward ap Adam, as identified in Usk's will (see Thompson, Adae de Usk, (1904), pp. xxix-xxxi).
An inventory of clothing, including buttons and trimmings, in sixteenth or seventeenth century hand, on a paper paste-down to a flyleaf (f. 177v).
Between the 17th and early 19th century a quire was detached, between ff. 176 and 177, with the continuation from 1404 to 1421. It was re-discovered in 1885 in the library of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir castle (see Thompson, Adae de Usk, 1904).
Richard Heber, landowner and book collector (b.1773, d. 1833): his sale 20 February 1836, lot 833; bought by the British Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts,1836-1840 (London: British Museum, 1843), p. 12.
Chronicon Adae de Usk A.D. 1377-1421, edited with a translation and notes by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson (London: Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, 1904).
John Taylor, The Universal chronicle of Ranulf Higden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 114-17, 154.
David Woodward, 'Medieval Mappaemundi', in The History of Cartography, vol. 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. by J.B. Harley & David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 286-370 (pp. 312-313, 364-365).
The chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377-1421 ed. and trans. by Chris Given-Wilson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
James Freeman, 'The Manuscript Dissemination and Readership of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, c. 1330-c. 1500' (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2013), pp. 7, 68, 70, 130, 142, 150, 151, 174, 180, 210, 248-49.
Cornelia Leer and Keith D. Lilley, 'Universal Histories and their Geographies: Navigating the Maps and Texts of Higden's Polychronicon' in Universal chronicles in the High Middle Ages, ed. by Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2017), pp. 274-301 (p. 287).
Quan Gan, 'A Study of the four manuscripts of the Polychronicon in the British library, with special focus on British Library, Additional MS 10104' (University College London: unpublished MA research, 2018).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Related Material:
-
From the printed Catalogue of Additions,
'Ranulphi Higden, Polychronicon, sive libri Historiarum septem, ad annum 1377; - Anonymi Chronicon Ricardi II. et Henrici IV.; desinit abrupte, anno 1404. Præmittitur Epistola ad Lodowycum Melane, thesaurarium Landavensem. Codex membranaceus, see. XIV. Folio.'