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Harley MS 1706

Record Id:

040-001988626

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001988626

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000247.0x00037d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1706

Title:

Miscellany in verse and prose

Scope & Content:

The manuscript is a renowned collection of verse and prose devotional literature in Middle English including works by John Lydgate, Richard Rolle and Henry Suso. It is divided in two parts (ff. 3r-95v and 96r-216v). The flyleaves that precede and append the litterary texts include a number of medical recipes (ff. 1v-2v and 215r-216r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001988626", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1706: Miscellany in verse and prose" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001988627", "parent" : "040-001988626", "text" : "Harley MS 1706, ff 1v-2v: Medical recipes" },{ "id" : "041-001988628", "parent" : "040-001988626", "text" : "Harley MS 1706, ff 3r-95v: Miscellany of devotional literature in verse and prose" },{ "id" : "041-001988631", "parent" : "040-001988626", "text" : "Harley MS 1706, ff 96r-214v: Miscellany of devotional literature in verse and prose" },{ "id" : "041-001988632", "parent" : "040-001988626", "text" : "Harley MS 1706, f 215r: Suffrage to Saint Ethelburga" },{ "id" : "041-001988633", "parent" : "040-001988626", "text" : "Harley MS 1706, ff 215r-216r: Medical recipes" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001988626

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1706 : Miscellany in verse and prose

Contains:

Harley MS 1706, ff 1v-2v : Medical recipes
Harley MS 1706, ff 3r-95v : Miscellany of devotional literature in verse and prose
Harley MS 1706, ff 96r-214v : Miscellany of devotional literature in verse and prose
Harley MS 1706, f 215r : Suffrage to Saint Ethelburga
Harley MS 1706, ff 215r-216r : Medical recipes

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 1706

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1708]/040-001988626

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

216 folios.

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_1706 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1474

End Date:

1524

Date Range:

1474-1524

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex.

Dimensions: 265 × 193 mm.

Foliation: ff. viii + 216 (ff. 1–2 and 216 are original parchment flyleaves; all unfoliated flyleaves are paper). Old foliation in pen '1–8' (ff. 1–8) and '1–207' (ff. 9–215); modern foliation in pencil ff. '1–216' (ff. 93v, 215-216 originally blank; f. 95v blank).

Colation: The manuscript is formed of two codicological units of different origin (ff. 1-95, 96-216). Twenty-seven gatherings mounted on guards: the first codicological unit (ff. 1-95) comprises two singletons mounted on guards (ff. 1-2) and gatherings i-xi⁸, xii^6-1 (fifth cancelled), with horizontal catchwords and trace of quire signatures in the lower right corner of f. 54r; the second codicological unit (ff. 96-216) comprises gatherings xiii¹², one singleton mounted on guard, xiv-xix⁸, xx^8-1 (eighth excised), xxi-xxvi⁸, xxvii^6-1 (fifth cancelled), with traces of quire signatures in red and brown ink (passim).

Layout: Ruled in pen for double columns of 37-48 lines (first unit) or 25-31 lines (second unit); single columns on ff. 96r-105v, 205r-214v.

Script: Gothic and Gothic cursive. Written in brown and black ink by at least four scribes.

Binding: British Museum.

Custodial History:

Origin: England, S.

Provenance:

Elizabeth Beaumont (d. 1537), daughter of Sir Richard Scrope of Bolton, who married (1486) William Beaumont (d. 1507), 2nd Viscount Beaumont, and afterwards married (circa 1508) John de Vere (1442-1512/3), 13th Earl of Oxford and Great Chamberlain, owned by her from before 1508: her ownership notes as 'Elysabeth beamount' on ff. 1r ('Thys ies my boke / Elysabeth Beamount') and f. 216r, as 'Elysabeth Oxynford' or 'Elysobeth Oxford' on ff. 3r, 93v, 95r and 214v, and as 'Elsabet ver' on f. 4r; added name in capitals of one of her maids, Elisabeth Rorewod (f. 37r) (see Doyle 1958).

Edmond Jernyngham, Elizabeth's nephew: inscribed with his name (f. 3r).

Michael Lobley (fl. 1531–63), one of the original members of the Stationers’ Company: seen in his printing shop by John Bale (Doyle, ‘A text attributed to Rusbroec’, p. 156).

Margareth Otwell: her ownership note 'Mystrerys margeret otwell' 16th century (ff. 191v and 211v).

Added names of 'John Wylkyns (ff. 1v, 4r, 5r), 'Welyam Corwell' (f. 2r), 'Mari Nevil' (ff. 4r, 18r), and 'Tomys Yeacens' (f. 216r), 16th-17th century.

Henry Worsley (b. 1675, d. 1747), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-21) and governor of Barbados (1721-31); listed as MS 5 in E. Bernard 1697, no. 6853, with detailed list of contents. Identified as Worsley's MS '20.26 fol. v' borrowed by Thomas Tanner before 1705 (see Sharpe 2005); donated by him to Robert Harley together with other manuscripts from Worsley's collection (now Harley 1585-1747, 1811, 1812) before December 1712 (see Diary).

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:

E. Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in unum collecti (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, pp. 211-212, no. 6853.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), no. 1705.

A. I. Doyle, 'Books connected with the Vere Family and Barking Abbey', Essex Archaeological Society's Transactions, 25 (1958), 222-43 (pp. 224-28 (ff. 3-95v), 230-31 (ff. 96-214v)).

A. I. Doyle, ‘A text attributed to Rusbroec circulating in England’, Dr L. Reypens-Album (Antwerp: Ruusbroec-Genootschap, 1964), 153–71.

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

N. Marzac, Richard Rolle de Hampole (1300-1349). Vie et œuvres suivies du Tractatus super Apoca]ypsim, texte critique avec traduction et commentaire (Paris: Vrin, 1968), p. 182, no. 143

C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 68, 205, 250, 263, 289, 361, 364, 400.

Kathleen Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 6, ed. J. J. G. Alexander, 2 vols (London, 1996), II, p. 337.

R. Sharpe, 'Thomas Tanner (1674-1735), the 1697 Catalogue, and Bibliotheca Britannica', The Library, 7th series, 6 (2005), 381-421 (p. 400 n. 48).

A New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. by Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards (London: British Library, 2005), p. 303.

Ralph Hanna, The English Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2010), pp. 97-99.

L. Mooney, D. Mosser, E. Solopova and D. Radcliff, 'The Digital Index of Middle English Verse' [the entry for the present manuscript is at: http://www.dimev.net/Records.php?MSS=BLHar1706].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)