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Harley MS 12
- Record Id:
- 040-002045840
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002045840
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0000a5
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100058108095.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 12
- Title:
- John the Deacon of Rome, Vita Gregorii Magni; Pseudo-Gregory, Versus sancti Gregorii papae; Vita S. Katherinae
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript consists of two parts. The first part (ff. 1r-140v) was written in the 2nd half of the 11th century. The second part (ff. 141r-143v) was written in the 1st half of the 12th century.
Contents:
f. 1*recto: 'Joh[ann]es Levita'; added in the (?) 16th century.
ff. 1r-140v: John the Deacon of Rome, Vita Gregorii Magni (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 3641–2).
f. 140v: Pseudo-Gregory, Versus sancti Gregorii papae, beginning: 'Versus sancti Gregorii papae. Quos fecit sabbato ante ramis palamarum. Virgo parens. hac luce deumque virumque creavit [...] Et mortem iussit mortuus ipse mori.’
ff. 141r-143v: Vita S. Katherinae, divided into in twelve lessons for Matins, with responsories and Anglo-Norman neumes. ‘Maxentius Imperator anno regni sui tricesimo quinto residens’.
Decoration:
New books open with three-line initials (first six), while chapters open with two-line initials, both alternating between green and red; occasionally with simple penwork, e.g. ff. 34v–35r, 81v–82v. Red elements use a silver underlay.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002045840", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 12: John the Deacon of Rome, Vita Gregorii Magni; Pseudo-Gregory, Versus sancti Gregorii papae; Vita S. Katherinae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002045840 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 12 : John the Deacon of Rome, Vita Gregorii Magni; Pseudo-Gregory, Versus sancti Gregorii papae; Vita S. Katherinae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0011]/040-002045840
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058108095.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1050
- End Date:
- 1149
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 11th century-1st half of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 300 x 200 mm (text space: 225/235 x 150 mm) [Part 1, ff. 1r-140v]; 300 x 200 mm (235 x 160 mm, with ff. 141v-143v written in 2 columns) [Part 2, ff. 141r-143v].
Collation: i (f. i), i–xvii8 (ff. 1–136), xviii8–1 (ff. 137–143, 8th cancelled), i (f. 144).
Foliation: 1* + 143 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown (bibliographical notes) on f. [ii]recto.
Script: English Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum in-house; marbled endpapers. A fore-edge inscription in brown ink may feature a pressmark: (?) 'III [...] EE'. A trace of a metal fastening, perhaps for a book chain, on f. 1r.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Durham or Winchester (Part 1); England (Part 2).
Provenance:
Durham or Winchester, probably produced part 1 (ff. 1r-140v) of the manuscript: according to Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 208 (A.289); and Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (2014), nos 411.6 and 411.7; this part includes a hand identified in several books of a likely Durham origin (see Robinson, Catalogue (2003), no. 127).
Thomas Dackomb (d. c. 1572), rector of St Mary Colebrook, owned part 1 (ff. 1r-140v) and perhaps part 2 (ff. 141r-143v) as well: his ownership inscription on f. 1r: ‘Liber d[omi]ni Thomae dakomb’ Rector de colbrok a[nno] d[omi]ni 1543’; followed by a note about his payment for the manuscript: 'Empt[us] p[re]c[ium] xxij d' (see Watson, ‘Thomas Dackomb’ (1963), pp. 208-213; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 122).
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: inscribed on f. 1r: '2'; and on f. 141r: 'Vita S[ancte] Catherinae edita: sed vetustissimu[m] hoc exemplar'; recorded in his catalogues as A.289 and B.63 (Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), pp. 137 and 292); and listed by Edward Bernard (Bernard, Catalogi librorum (1697), II, p. 386, no. 9923 (63)) as having belonged to him in 1697: 'Vita Gregorii Magni per Jo. Levitam' (see also Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 131).
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.
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 Cavendish, née 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.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, p. 386, no. 9923 (63)
Lucia Castaldi, Iohannes Hymmonides diaconus Romanus. Vita Gregorii I papae (BHL 3641–3642): La tradizione manoscritta, Archivum Gregorianum, 1 (Firenze: SISMEL, 2004).
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), p. 2.
Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series, 15 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), nos 411.6 (ff. 1-140), no. 411.7 (ff. 141-143).
K. D. Hartzell, Catalogue of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1200 Containing Music (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006), no. 151.
Pamela R. Robinson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 888–1600 in London Libraries, 2 vols (London: British Library, 2003), no. 127.
Nicholas Vincent, 'The Great Lost Library of England's Medieval Kings', in 1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts, ed. by Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick (London: The British Library, 2013), pp. 73-112 (p. 105).
Christine Walsh, The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 106, 166.
Andrew G. Watson, ‘A Sixteenth-Century Collector: Thomas Dackomb, 1496–c. 1572’, The Library, 5th series, 18.3 (1963), 204-17(pp. 208, 213, fig. 1).
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 137 [A.289] and 292 [B.63].
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. 122, 131.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)