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 941

Record Id:

040-001952727

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001952727

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000493.0x00020f

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 941

Title:

A collection of treatises relating to history, astrology, magic, astronomy, geography and rhetoric, comprising John Lydgate's Dietary and other verses and medical recipes

Scope & Content:

Contents:

f. 1*v: An added abbreviated list of contents.

ff. 1r-3v: De origine gigantum, an abbreviated version of the Anglo-Norman French Des Grantz Geanz, written in Latin. The short narrative tells the Story of Albina and her sisters often used as a preface to the Brut Chronicle. The leaves may have been taken from a different manuscript (for the text see Carley and Crick, 'Constructing Albion's Past' (1995), pp. 45, 49).

ff. 4r-5v: A short explanation of the decalogue followed by a text in Latin on the seven mortal sins, beginning: 'Idolatria, sortilegia, incantaciones' (see Bloomfeld et al, ed. Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices 1100-1500 (1979), nos. 2480, 5434).

ff. 6r-21r: Honorius of Autun, Imago mundi.

ff. 21v-23v: 'On the Times', verses in Latin and Middle English (see Boffey and Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (2005), nos. 1400/3, 3113/3).

ff. 24r-25r: John Lydgate, Dietary, in Middle English; beginning, 'For helth of þe body cover frome cold þe hed / Ete no raw mete take gode hede þerito', and ending, 'to indifferent rycheft and dietari / Explicit concilium corporis et anime / Explicit dietarys particularis' (see MacCracken, ed. John Lydate, Minor Poems (1934), II, pp. 703-707; Boffey and Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (2005), no. 824/19; Voigts and Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings (2006), no. 1869.00).

ff. 25v-26v: A treatise composed at Oxford relating to the calendar (see Voigts and Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings (2006), no. 7055.00).

f. 26v: Six medical recipes, with the title underlined in red, 'For passey or þe failyng yvyl', beginning, 'Ys gode to drynk ys own / water ix daes et in quantity (see Voigts and Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings (2006), no. 3147.00).

ff. 27r-29v: A collection of astronomical and astrological diagrams of the planetary spheres (f. 27r), positions of the sun and earth (f. 27r-v), the universe with Hell in the centre (f. 28r), the signs of the zodiac and the longitude of the sun (f. 29r), and a computistical volvelle to calculate the date of Easter (f. 29v).

ff. 30r-49v: Johannes de Sacro Bosco, De sphere.

f. 50r-v: A note on the solar year, beginning, 'Nota quod annus solaris'.

ff. 51r-58r: Heinrich von Langenstein, Expositio terminorum astronomiae.

ff. 58r-61r: Short treatises on magic, including Dorotheus Sidonius, Capitulum de occultatione anuli (f. 58r), Messahala, De occultis (ff. 58v-59v), and Tractatus Dorothei in occultis (ff. 59v-61r)

ff. 61v-71v: Texts relating to geography, with the rubric, 'De magnitudine terre in orbe suo', beginning, 'Terre ergo magnitudo'.

ff. 72r-79v: Pietro Candido Decembrio, Cosmographia seu Liber de Historia peregrina, Book 1 (see Kretschmer, 'Die Kosmographie des Petrus Candidus Decembrius' (1893), pp. 267-305.

ff. 80r-90r: David Pencaer or Penkaer, Tractatus de coloribus rhetoricae.

ff. 91r-97v: Treatise relating to rhetoric, beginning, 'Et si dictantos'.

ff. 97v-100r: Satirical verses against the clergy, beginning, 'Viri beatissimi sacerdotes Dei / Precones altissimi Lucerne Diei' (ff. 97v-99r), with accompanying notes (ff. 99v-100r).

ff. 100v-103v: A text entitled 'Modus acquirendi sapientiam', beginning, 'Volentibus parvenire ad sapientiam', with an added note (f. 103r-v), beginning, 'Opto illud in contingere'.

ff. 104r-120v: 'De sufficientia partium epistole', beginning, 'Secundum quodam sufficit parte epistole'.

Decoration:

Large and small initials at beginning of texts or sections and paragraph marks throughout in red. Large (ff. 27r-28r, 29r, 50v) and small (ff. 62v-63r) diagrams and a volvelle (f. 29v) in brown ink and red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001952727", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 941: A collection of treatises relating to history, astrology, magic, astronomy, geography and rhetoric, comprising John Lydgate's Dietary…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001952739", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 1r-3v: De origine gigantum" },{ "id" : "041-001952740", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 4r-5v: Short explanation of the decalogue followed by a text on the seven mortal sins." },{ "id" : "041-001952743", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 6r-21r: Honorius Augustodunensis, Imago mundi" },{ "id" : "041-001952745", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 21v-23v: 'On the Times', verses in Latin and Middle English" },{ "id" : "041-001952746", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 24r-25r: John Lydgate, Dietary" },{ "id" : "041-001952747", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 25v-26v: A treatise composed at Oxford relating to the calendar" },{ "id" : "041-001952748", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, f 26v: Medical recipes" },{ "id" : "041-001952749", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 27r-29r: Astronomical and astrological diagrams" },{ "id" : "041-001952750", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 30r-49v: Johannes de Sacro Bosco, De sphera" },{ "id" : "041-001952751", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 50r-50v: A note on the solar year" },{ "id" : "041-001952752", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 51r-58r: Heinrich von Langenstein, Expositio terminorum astronomiae" },{ "id" : "041-001952753", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 58r-61r: Treatises on magic" },{ "id" : "041-001952754", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 61v-71v: Texts relating to geography" },{ "id" : "041-001952755", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 72r-79v: Petrus Candidus Decembrius, Cosmographia seu Liber de Historia peregrina, Book 1" },{ "id" : "041-001952756", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 80r-90r: David Pencaer or Penkaer, Tractatus de coloribus rhetoricae" },{ "id" : "041-001952757", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 91r-97v: Treatise relating to rhetoric" },{ "id" : "041-001952758", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 97v-100r: Satirical verse against the clergy" },{ "id" : "041-001952759", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 100v-103v: Modus acquirendi sapientiam" },{ "id" : "041-001952761", "parent" : "040-001952727", "text" : "Harley MS 941, ff 104r-120v: De sufficientia partium epistole" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001952727

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 941 : A collection of treatises relating to history, astrology, magic, astronomy, geography and rhetoric, comprising John Lydgate's…

Contains:

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 941

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0941]/040-001952727

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_941 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1450

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

2nd half of the 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: Paper and parchment (ff. 10-11, 17-18, 23-24, 28-30, 33, 35, 37-38, 40, 42, 45-51, 60-61, 70-72, 79-80, 87-88, 91, 96-97, 102-104, 111-112).

Dimensions: 143 x 100mm (text space: 100/105 x 70/75 mm) size altered by individual mounting of leaves on guards.

Foliation: ff. 1* + 120 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end); f. 1* is a parchment flyleaf; modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-120' (ff. 28v are 90v are blank).

Collation: Mounted on guards. Most of the original gatherings had parchment bifolia on the outside and in the centre; the probable original composition was as follows: i^4-1 (fourth cancelled), ii¹⁴ (with catchword), iii^12-1+1 (eleventh on paper cancelled and substituted by a parchment leaf), iv¹⁶ (with catchword), v⁴, vi²², vii¹⁶ (with catchword), viii^4-1 (fourth cancelled), ix¹², x¹⁸.

Layout: Ruling uneven, but mostly in pen (only vertical and horizontal bounding lines) for single columns of 28-32 lines, first line above the first ruled line.

Script: Gothic cursive script (secretary retaining some Anglicana features). Colophon (f. 21r): 'Nomen scriptoris Johannes plenus amoris'. the name of Johannes Edwards inscribed on ff. 49v and 101v in two different hands.

Binding: Post-1600. Purple leather with the Harleian arms and motto gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Oxford.

Scribe:

John Edward of Chirk, son of John Edward, his name (ff. 49r, 101v) and colophon (f. 21r).

Provenance:

Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1635, d. 1699), bishop of Worcester and theologian: manuscript 237 in his library inventory (Harley MS 7644) (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 316).

Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1661, d. 1708), physician and Church of England clergyman, son of the former; sold in 1707 to 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. 941.

Harry L. D. Ward and John A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), 1 (1883), p. 201.

Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: The Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (p. xiii).

V. Zaccaria, 'Sulle opere di Pier Candido Decembrio', Rinascimento, 7 (1956), 13–74 (pp. 18-20).

Lynn Thorndike, 'Notes on Some Less Familiar British Astronomical and Astrological Manuscripts', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 22 (1959), 157-71 (pp. 158-59).

Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xix, xxviii.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 143, 316, 388.

Laurel Braswell-Means, 'The Vulnerability of Volvelles in Manuscript Codices', Manuscripta, 35 (1991), 43-54 (p. 44, fig. 1).

James Carley and Julia Crick, ‘Constructing Albion's Past: an Annotated Edition of De Origine Gigantum' in Arthurian Literature, 13, ed. by James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (1995), 41-114 (pp. 45, 49).

Lister M. Matheson, The Prose 'Brut': The Development of a Middle English Chronicle, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 180 (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998), pp. xxi, 38, 47.

Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Sources c.800-c.1800, 3 vols (Aberystwyth: The National Library of Wales and University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2022), I, p. 673.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Decembrio, Pier Candido, scholar, author and translator, 1399-1477
Honorius of Autun, c 1080-c 1155,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000117981982,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/100201145
Johannes de Sacro-Bosco, scholar and astronomer, c 1195-c 1256
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
Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester, 1635-1699
Stillingfleet, Edward, physician and Church of England clergyman, 1661-1708

Places:

England