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...
Harley MS 866
- Record Id:
- 040-001616001
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-001616001
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001515.0x000162
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 866
- Title:
- Collection of texts on rhetoric, mathematics and other sciences, including Alain de Lille, De planctu naturae
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-7v: A treatise on rhetoric, imperfect; beginning, 'Rhetorica docet ornate loqui...' and ending with a title 'De divisione monacordi'.
ff. 8r-17r: Ranulf Higden, Ars componendi sermones, with a title, 'De arte predicandi sed Ranulphum castrensis'.
ff. 17r-33r: Alain de Lille, De planctu naturae, an allegorical poem reflecting 12th-century knowledge of natural sciences.
ff. 33r-48r: A treatise on rhetoric, beginning, 'Hiis visis ad colores primo accedendum...'; entitled in the colophon, 'tractatus de arte dictandi' (f. 48r).
f. 48v: A treatise on chiromancy, imperfect; beginning, 'Benedictus Deus omnipotens qui machinam mundanam...'. The same text is preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 607.
f. 49r: A fragment of a letter in Latin, dated 1523.
f. 49v is blank.
Decoration:
2 large initials in blue with reserved designs and red pen-flourishing (ff. 17r, 42v). 1 puzzle initial in red and blue with red pen-flourishing (f. 1r). Blue initials with red pen-flourishing. Paraphs in red or blue. 3 marginal drawings, 2 of a hand pointing a stick or a verge, one of which is accompanied by the inscription, 'digit viga', and another of a knife with the inscription, 'cultellus' (f. 2r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
Harley Science Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-001616001", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 866: Collection of texts on rhetoric, mathematics and other sciences, including Alain de Lille, De planctu naturae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001616068", "parent" : "040-001616001", "text" : "Harley MS 866, ff 1r-7v: Treatise on rhetoric, incipit 'Rhetorica docet ornate loqui...'" },{ "id" : "041-001616069", "parent" : "040-001616001", "text" : "Harley MS 866, ff 8r-17r: Ranulf Higden, Ars componendi sermones." },{ "id" : "041-001616070", "parent" : "040-001616001", "text" : "Harley MS 866, ff 17r-33r: Alanus ab Insula (Alain de Lille), De planctu naturae." },{ "id" : "041-001616071", "parent" : "040-001616001", "text" : "Harley MS 866, ff 33r-48r: A treatise on rhetoric, incipit: 'Hiis visis ad colores primo accedendum...'" },{ "id" : "041-001616072", "parent" : "040-001616001", "text" : "Harley MS 866, f 48v: A treatise on chiromancy [imperfect], incipit: 'Benedictus Deus omnipotens qui machinam mundanam...'" }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-001616001 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 866 : Collection of texts on rhetoric, mathematics and other sciences, including Alain de Lille, De planctu naturae - Contains:
- Harley MS 866, ff 1r-7v : Treatise on rhetoric, incipit 'Rhetorica docet ornate loqui...'
Harley MS 866, ff 8r-17r : Ranulf Higden, Ars componendi sermones.
Harley MS 866, ff 17r-33r : Alanus ab Insula (Alain de Lille), De planctu naturae.
Harley MS 866, ff 33r-48r : A treatise on rhetoric, incipit: 'Hiis visis ad colores primo accedendum...'
Harley MS 866, f 48v : A treatise on chiromancy [imperfect], incipit: 'Benedictus Deus omnipotens qui machinam mundanam...'
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 866 - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0866]/040-001616001
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_866 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1385
- End Date:
- 1415
- Date Range:
- c 1390-c 1410
- Era:
- CE
- 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:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 280 x 175 mm (text space: 250 x 130 mm).
Foliation: ff. 49 + 35* (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated blank parchment leaf after f. 48 + 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the end); f. 39* is a parchment stub, inscribed on the verso.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Mottled brown leather binding.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Includes a fragment of a letter containing the date 1523 (f. 49r).
Matthew Parker (b. 1504, d. 1575), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559, collector of manuscripts, which he bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: foliated in red chalk in his manner (ff. 1r-17r).
Robert Talbot (b. c. 1505, d. 1558), antiquary and scholar of Winchester college, fellow of New College, Oxford, friend of John Leland, prebendary and canon of Norwich from 1547 to 1558: his ownership inscription (f. 1r).
Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1635, d. 1699), bishop of Worcester and theologian (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 316).
Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1661, d. 1708), physician and Church of England clergyman, son of the former; in 1707 acquired by Robert Harley (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p 316).
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, née Cavendish 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.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), no. 866.
C. H. Talbot, ‘A List of Cistercian Manuscripts in Great Britain’, Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 8 (1952), 402-18 (p. 404).
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 268, 316, 323-24.
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 155.
The Ars componendi sermones of Ranulph Higden, O.S.B., ed. by Margaret Jennings (Leiden: Brill, 1987), pp. xliii-xliv.
Andrew Galloway, 'The Rhetoric of Riddling in Late-Medieval England: The "Oxford" Riddles, the Secretum philosophorum and the Riddles in Piers Plowman', Speculum: Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 70 (1995), pp. 68-105 (p. 70).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)