Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Egerton MS 3883

Record Id:

032-002431893

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002431893

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000012271.0x000001

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Egerton MS 3883

Title:

Book of Hours with verses by John Lydgate and others

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-12v: Calendar, with 16th-century additions, including the feasts of St Thomas of Canterbury, which had previously been erased;

ff, 13r-19v: Odes of St Bridget with the rubric, 'Oratio devota ad Christum';

f. 19v: A note on the age of the Virgin Mary at the time of her death (63 years), added at the end of the 15th century;

ff. 20r-58r: Hours of the Virgin, with the rubric, 'Incipiunt horae beate marie virginis secundum usum anglie'; includes memoriae of saints, with St Stephen and St Thomas of Canterbury added in the 15th century and the latter then erased (f. 36v);

ff. 58r-v, 62r, Salve Regina and other prayers;

ff. 59r-61r: Prayers to the Virgin (written on a quire added in the 15th century);

ff. 63-121v: A collection of prayers, Psalms and hymns, including a litany (ff. 72v-80v);

The remaining texts, together with ff. 59r-61r above, were added in England in the 15th century:

ff. 123r-142v: Prayers to Christ and the Virgin;

ff. 143r-156v: Psalter of St Jerome;

ff. 156v-158: Memoriae of St John the Baptist and St Katherine.

The following four items are in Middle English:

ff. 159r-167r: "Here begynneth a shorte tretis in Englishe of the xv ioyes of oure lady blessid virgyn Mary, the whyche hadde here in erthe of her swete scon oure lord Ihesus"; begins "Blessid lady o princes of mercy" (Boffey, Middle English Verse (2005), no. 533.4);

ff. 167r-168v: Verse beginning 'O thow blessid lady virgyne Marie Cristes moder dere';

ff. 169r-173r: Verse beginning 'O lord God almygti and blessid mot thou be';

f. 173r: Verse reading 'Iesu for thi goodnes have mercy on my febelnes, And for that I have don amys, mercy and aske thou graunt me blisse';

ff. 173r-176v: Gracias tibi and Quicumque vult;

ff. 176v-177v: Memoriae of St George and St Christopher (imperfect at the end as at least one leaf is missing);

ff. 178-79, 'O almyghty god and hevenly father' (written on a bifolium added in the 16th century)

Decoration:

4 full-page devotional ink diagrams in black and red with titles and inscriptions in Middle English or Latin: 'The iiij Cardinal vertuws', 'The v ynward wyttys', 'The v Outerward Wyttys' and 'Septem opera misericordie spiritualia' (ff. 39v, 43v, 46v, 62v). 5 framed initials in gold with full decorated border (ff. 13r, 20r, 81r, 104r, 117r). Framed initials in gold on a rose blue and white ground, some with partial borders (ff. 27r, 40r, 44r, 47r, 50r, 53r, 55r, 63r). Small initials in in gold with penwork decoration in black or in blue with penwork decoration in red. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Egerton Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002431893", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 3883: Book of Hours with verses by John Lydgate and others" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002431893

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002431893

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

A parchment codex, 179 folios

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

15th century

Era:

Access:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 125 x 95 mm (written space: 75/80 x 55mm).

Layout: Single columns of 17 lines.

Foliation: ff. iv + 182 (ff. 180-182 are parchment flyleaves + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end); leaves after ff. 61, 121, 124, 145, 177 are missing.

Collation: i-ii⁶(ff. 1-12) iii-v⁸(ff. 13-36), vi⁷ (ff. 37-43), vii¹⁰ (ff. 44-53), viii^6-1 (ff. 54-58), ix⁴ (ff. 59-62, a bifolium followed by 2 singletons, added), x⁸(ff. 63-70), xi⁵ (ff. 71-75, last 3 leaves wanting, but without apparent loss to text, perhaps removed during an adaptation of Litany), xii⁵ (ff. 76-80, a bifolium followed by 3 singletons), xiii-xvii⁸(ff. 81-120), xviii⁴ (ff. 121-124), xix⁶(ff. 125-130), xx⁸(ff. 131-138), xxi⁷(ff. 139-145), xxii-xxv⁸(ff. 146-177), xxvi³(ff. 178-180, added). Catchwords on ff. 138v, 145v, 153v, 161v, 169v and 177v. f. 124 is misbound and should follow f. 130.

Script: Gothic.

Scribe: A scribe named Chetwyn made additions at the end of the 15th century (his signature follows a note on f.19v ‘Chetwyn. A[men].’).

Binding: Post-1600. Morroco binding over wooden boards, stained orange-brown.

Custodial History:

Origin: Southern Netherlands (ff. 1r-58v, 62r-121v).

Provenance:

In the second half of the 15th century the manuscript was adapted for use by a female patron, and a number of Middle English devotional texts were added (ff. 36v, 59r-61r, 123r-177v), among them a version of John Lydgate's Shorte tretis of the 15 joyes of Oure Lady. At the end of the 15th century the four diagrams with inscriptions (ff. 39v, 43v, 46v and 62v) and a note on the age of the Virgin Mary were added, with the colophon 'quod Chetwyn. Amen' (f. 19v). During this period the word 'pape' and the feasts of St Thomas of Canterbury were erased from the litany and names of saints were written over erasures (ff. 72v-80v). The feasts of St Thomas were re-entered in a hand of the 16th century.

Joseph Mendham, Anglican clergyman and bibliophile (b. 1769, d. 1856); part of a collection assembled by him containing mostly fifteenth and sixteenth century books relating to the dawn of the Reformation, particularly in England.

Mrs Sophia Mendham, passed to her by descent as part of the Mendham Collection and presented to the Law Society by her agent, Mr Hastings Collette of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London in 1869 (see Minutes of the meeting of the Council of the Law Society on Friday 4th June 1869).

The Law Society, MS 2 (see Ker, British Libraries (1969), p. 116), Law Society bookplate on upper paste-down; loaned to Canterbury Cathedral Library.

Canterbury Cathedral Library, on loan by the Law Society from 1984, with the shelfmark, Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Law Society, Mendham Collection, 6: modern pencil notes on upper endleaf, including 'Mendham MS 6 [printed catalogue 1994]'.

Bought by the British Library in the Mendham Collection sale, Sotheby's, London, 5 June 2013, lot 36.

Publications:

The Minor Poems of Lydgate, ed. by Henry Noble McCracken, Early English Text Society, Early Series 107, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), I, pp. 260-67.

N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969-1992), I, London (1969) , pp. 116-18.

Catalogue of the Law Society's Mendham Collection, ed. by Sheila Hingley and David Shaw (London: The Law Society, 1994), p. cxliv.

Boffey, Julia, & A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), no. 533.4 [listed as Canterbury Cathedral Library: Law Society Mendham Collection MS 6].

Sotheby's sale catalogue, 5 June 2013, online at http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/the-mendham-collection-l13409/lot.36.html [accessed 20.01.14].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Lydgate, John, poet, monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds and Prior of Hatfield Regis Priory, c 1370-1449/50?,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000108778237
Mendham, Joseph, Anglican clergyman, 1769-1856