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Harley MS 55

Record Id:

040-001882330

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001882330

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000195.0x000156

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 55

Title:

Anglo-Saxon miscellany including medical remedies and Anglo-Saxon laws by Edgar and Cnut

Scope & Content:

The volume is made up of fragments from two different manuscripts. The first fragment (ff. 1r-4v; unit A) probably formed the end of the original manuscript, and includes:

Bald, Leechbook, book 2, chapter 59 (ff. 1r-3r);

Laws of King Edgar (r. 959-975) (ff. 3v-4v);

Oswald, archbishop of York (972-992), Statement relating to alienated lands (f. 4v).

The second fragment (ff. 5r-13v; unit B) contains the laws of King Cnut (r. 1016-1035).

Decoration:

ff. 1r-4v: Large chapter initial (2 line; f. 1r) in ink, paragraph initials (one-line; ff. 1r-3v) in ink set between vertical bounding lines.

ff. 5r-13v: Large initials (2-3 lines; ff. 5r, 7v, 13r) in red, paragraph initials touched in red, rubric (f. 5r) in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001882330", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 55: Anglo-Saxon miscellany including medical remedies and Anglo-Saxon laws by Edgar and Cnut" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001882332", "parent" : "040-001882330", "text" : "Harley MS 55, ff 1r-3r: Bald's Leechbook (20 remedies), imperfect, incipit: 'Wið þære heal Fdeadan adle and hwanon seo cume seo adl cymð on þa…" },{ "id" : "041-001882335", "parent" : "040-001882330", "text" : "Harley MS 55, ff 3v-4v: Laws of King Edgar (r. 959-975), with the Latin title 'Lege Eadgari' added in the upper margin." },{ "id" : "041-001882336", "parent" : "040-001882330", "text" : "Harley MS 55, f 4v: Oswald, archbishop of York (972-992), a statement relating to alienated lands in Otley, Ripon and Sherburn-in-Elmet and of lands…" },{ "id" : "041-001882337", "parent" : "040-001882330", "text" : "Harley MS 55, ff 5r-13v: Laws of King Cnut (r. 1016-1035). Decoration: Large initials (2-3 lines; ff. 5, 7v, 13) in red, paragraph initials touched in…" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001882330

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 55 : Anglo-Saxon miscellany including medical remedies and Anglo-Saxon laws by Edgar and Cnut

Contains:

Harley MS 55, ff 1r-3r : Bald's Leechbook (20 remedies), imperfect, incipit: 'Wið þære heal Fdeadan adle and hwanon seo cume seo adl cymð…
Harley MS 55, ff 3v-4v : Laws of King Edgar (r. 959-975), with the Latin title 'Lege Eadgari' added in the upper margin.
Harley MS 55, f 4v : Oswald, archbishop of York (972-992), a statement relating to alienated lands in Otley, Ripon and Sherburn-in-Elmet and of…
Harley MS 55, ff 5r-13v : Laws of King Cnut (r. 1016-1035). Decoration: Large initials (2-3 lines; ff. 5, 7v, 13) in red, paragraph initials touched…

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 55

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0054]/040-001882330

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_55 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Old

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1000

End Date:

1040

Date Range:

Early 11th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment. An old repair on a parchment flaw on ff. 4, 5. Brown marks (f. 13) left by the leather spine bands of the original binding.

Dimensions: Composite manuscript comprising two codicological units of different origin, ff. 1r-4v: 291 x 192 mm (text space: 245 x 150 mm); ff. 5r-13v: 270 x 189 mm (text space: 205 x 152 mm).

Foliation: ff. xxi + 13 (all unfoliated flyleaves are paper). Old foliation in pen '2-11' (ff. 4-13); modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-13'.

Collation: ff. 1r-4v: one gathering of four leaves; ff. 5r-13v: one gathering of ten leaves with tenth missing or cancelled.

Layout: ff. 1r-4v: ruled in hard point (double vertical bounding lines) for single columns of 25 lines; ff. 5r-13v: pricked and ruled in hard point (single vertical bounding lines) for double columns of 35 lines.

Script: Anglo-Saxon minuscule; ff. 1r-4v: written in black ink by three hands, the first (ff. 1r-3r) round and regular, the second (ff. 3v-4v) and third (f. 4v) small and pointed; ff. 5r-13v: written in brown ink in a pointed and spacious Anglo-Saxon minuscule.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (ff. 1r-4v possibly made at York).

Provenance:

The Benedictine priory of St Mary, Worcester: the manuscript (ff. 1r-4v) was at Worcester at the beginning of the 13th century as testified by three glosses (ff. 3v, 4r): see Ker 1964.

John Selden (b. 1584, d. 1654), lawyer and historical and linguistic scholar: see Ker 1957; Watson 1979.

William Lambarde (b. 1536, d. 1601), antiquary and lawyer: ff. 5r-13 used by him for his Archaionomia (1568).

Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972): presented to him by John Selden in 1648/49 as indicated by D'Ewes letter of thanks, now Harley 377, ff. 156v-157r; number M71 in his catalogue (see Watson 1966). While in D'Ewes's possession, the volume was studied as Codex Seldeni by Franciscus Junius (see Harley MS 307, ff. 38v, 56r, and Harley MS 6841), and copied by D'Ewes himself in Harley MS 596, ff. 60v-73r (see Ker 1957).

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson 1966).

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. Harley shelfmarks '34.A.16 / 5'5' ' in dark brown ink and pencil and '16/II F' in pencil (f. i recto).

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 55.

C. E. Wright, Bald's Leechbook, facsimile ed. of Royal 12 D. XVII, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 5 (Copenhagen, 1955), p. 24.

N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), nos. 225-226.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 207.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. M71, p. 10, p. 58 n. 286.

A Wulfstan manuscript, containing institutes, laws and homilies. British Museum Cotton Nero A.1, ed. by Henry R. Loyn, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 17 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1971), p. xvii. Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 629 [with additional bibliography].

A. L. Meaney, 'Variant Versions of Old English Medical Remedies and the Compilation of Bald's 'Leechbook', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), 235-68 (pp. 239, 240).

N. R. Ker, 'The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan in His Books', in Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage, N. R. Ker, ed. by Andrew G. Watson (London: Hambledon Press, 1985), 9-26 (p. 21).

W. Collier, 'The Tremulous Worcester Hand and Gregory's Pastoral Care', Anglo-Saxon England, 17 (1988), pp. 195-208 (p. 195 n. 1).

Richard Gameson, ‘Book Production and Decoration at Worcester in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, in St Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence, ed. by Nicholas Brooks and Catherine Cubitt, Studies in the Early History of Britain, The Makers of England, 2 (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), pp. 194-243 (pp. 197, 239). [for ff. 1-4].

Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 412 (ff. 1-4).

Stephen Morrison, 'Continuité et innovation littéraire en Angleterre au XIIe siècle: la prédication de la militia Christi', Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 44 (2001), 139-57 (p. 144).

K. D. Hartzell, Catalogue of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1200 containing Music (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006), no. 152.

L. E. Voigts and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd edn (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006), no. 227.00;

Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (New York: Routledge, 2006), fig. 6.1 [identified as Harley 5].

L. Bezzo, 'Parallel Remedies: Old English Paralisin þæt is lyftadl', in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence, Papers presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6-8 April 2006, ed. P. Lendinara, L. Lazzari and M. A. D'Aronco, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d'Études Médiévales, Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 39 (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 435-45 (pp. 438, 441-42).

Charters of Northern Houses, ed. by D.A. Woodman, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 16 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)