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Harley MS 24
- Record Id:
- 040-002045852
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002045852
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0000b7
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161515192.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 24
- Title:
- Prose Brut
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r–218v: Prose Brut (Chronicle of England; extended version to 1419, in the reign of Henry V (r. 1413–22)). For an edition of the work see The Brut or the Chronicles of England, 2 vols, ed. Friedrich W.D. Brie, Early English Text Society, 131 and 136 (Oxford: 1906–8); contains text edited from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B 171.
The manuscript contains several later additions:
f. 1*recto: A list of blazons of the arms of kings and emperors, added in the 15th century.
ff. 219v–220v: ‘Humfery Tyndall wiccar of Wellinger his profice’, i.e. a prophecy of Humfrey Tyndall, vicar of Wellinger written in red ink, added in the 16th century.
Decoration:
1 large initial in colours and gold combined with a full foliate border with acanthus leaves and foliate feathering (f. 1r). Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing including foliate motifs. Coloured initials in blue. Capitals marked in red. Some ascenders decorated with penwork in brown and red ink (e.g., ff. 36, 37). Paraphs in red or blue. Added manicula in brown and red or brown and blue ink (ff. 169r-170r, 173r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002045852", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 24: Prose Brut" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002045852 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 24 : Prose Brut - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0023]/040-002045852
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161515192.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
English, Middle - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1425
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 2nd quarter of the 15th century-3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 295 × 210 mm (text space: 190 × 130 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 220 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 2 unfoliated stubs between f. 12 and f. 13; and 1 between f. 148 and f. 149; f. 155 and f. 156; and f. 218 and f. 219; each quire has been mounted onto a paper guard.
Collation: Mainly in quires of 8.
Script: Gothic.
Binding British Museum in-house; rebound on 10 November 1966. The D'Ewes binding of 1645 (brown leather with the arms of Sir Simonds D'Ewes gold-stamped at the centre) has been pasted on the insides of the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
An unknown (?) 16th-century English owner: added a full-page drawing of their arms, featuring a quadruped animal at its centre [now erased], to f. 1*verso.
'John Kest', owned in the 16th century: added a memorandum to f. 82r: 'Memorandum þat y John Kest hat reseved of my broder viiii d - Item payd to Jamys Trwbody Wyllyam [? Famet] Robert Coriton' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
'Edward Coryton[s]', owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 86v (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
'Johannes Laurens', owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed (2x) on f. 107r (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
? Humfrey Tyndall (b. 1520), vicar of Wellingore, Lincolnshire: a prophecy attributed to him on f . 220r (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 333).
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 131-37): recorded in his catalogues as A.164, H.185, D.7, and B.34.
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, inscribed 'Oxford B.H.' (f. 1).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.
- Publications:
-
Karl Böddeker, 'Die Geschichte des Königs Arthur', Archiv, 52 (1874), 10-29.
The Brut or the Chronicles of England, 2 vols, ed. by Friedrich W. D. Brie, Early English Text Society, nos. 131, 136 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1906, 1908) [edition of the text].
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), pp. 3-4.
Readers and Writers of the Prose Brut, ed. by William Marx and Raluca Radulescu, Trivium, 36 (Lampeter: Trivium Publications, University of Wales, 2006), p. 97.
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), no. 99, pp. xxiv, 72, 177, 179-80, passim.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. A164.
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. 131.
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. xviii-xix.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)