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Harley MS 27

Record Id:

040-002045855

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002045855

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0000ba

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 27

Title:

‘Croftis’ Register

Scope & Content:

ff. 1v–2r: 16th-century notes, including a list of English kings to Henry VIII and pittancer’s ‘contribuciones’.

ff. 2v–3v: Pittancer’s ‘contribuciones’ (1471/2-1496/7); 16th-century additions.

ff. 4r–4v: Documents concerning the celebration of ‘duplici sonitus’ at Bury for benefactors.

ff. 5r–159r: Main register, with charters and a few rentals of the pittancer’s manors, arranged under manors in alphabetical order; ‘Bury’ is subdivided by streets. Includes Clopton rental, 1338–9 (ff. 101v–7v); a section of ‘Contribuciones’, one dated 1412 (ff. 109v–11Ov); after ‘Mulsham’ follow ‘Ordinacio per pitanc’‘, 1372 (f. 121); ’Officium pitanc’‘, 1331 (ff. 121v–122r); ’Oo’, f. 122v; ‘Pitanciarius’ (f. 123).

ff. 159r–177v: Later additions in different hands, including a Woolpit charter, 1466–7 (ff. 159r–159v); pittancer’s rental, renewed 1498–9 (ff. 160r–163r); record of an undated taxation of the abbot and convent (ff. 164r–174v); various charters, 1464–5, 1456–7 (ff. 175r–157v).

Contents revised from Thomson (1980: 157), who notes that the latest original document included in the volume as 1427–28, and that the manuscript was presumably first compiled after this date; an added document can be found from 1432. The title of ‘Croftis Register’ is from D’Ewes.

A revision of an earlier register (f. 65r).

Decoration:

Red and blue paraphs in the running head and opening new sections; black initials with penwork.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002045855", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 27: ‘Croftis’ Register" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002045855

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 27 : ‘Croftis’ Register

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0026]/040-002045855

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1430

End Date:

1470

Date Range:

Mid 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Dimensions: 280 × 190 mm (written area 200 × 125 mm).

Foliation: ff. l*+177 (+ 2 medieval parchment flyleaves at the beginning and 10 at the end, + 1 paper endleaf at the begininning and end). Medieval foliation 1 (modern 1)–69 (64).

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600, Harleian, with clasps.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Benedictine abbey of St Edmund, King and Martyr, Bury St Edmunds: indicated by localized nature of contents.

Provenance:

John Heche, 16th century: inscribed (f. i).

(?)Wylliams, 16th century: inscribed (f. i).

Thomas Eden (d. 1645), civil lawyer (see Phillipps 1839).

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972): the manuscript is recorded in his catalogue (Watson 1966, no. A166).

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. His title page (f. 1* recto).

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:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Robert Nares and others, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–1812), i, 4.

T. P[hillipps], Index to Cartularies Now or Formerly Existing Since the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Middlehill, 1839).

M.R. James, On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury (Cambridge: Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1895) https://archive.org/details/abbeyofsedmundat00jame, p. 95.

M.R. James, ‘Bury St. Edmunds Manuscripts’, The English Historical Review, 41.162 (1926), 251–60 https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XLI.CLXII.251, p. 259.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D’Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. A166.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 131, 185, 364.

Rodney M. Thomson, The Archives of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Records Society, 21 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1980), no. 1308.

G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison, and David M. Smith, 2nd edn (London: British Library, 2010), no. 116.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Related Material:

OCR-generated record (may contain errors) from A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London, Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), I (1808):

Codex Membranaceus in fol. min. cui Titulum infequentem prafigi curavit D. Simondfius D'Ewes, Registrum Croftis, olim ad Abbathiam Buriae S. Edmandi in agro Suffolciensi pertinens in usum Pitancierum exaratus.