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Harley MS 43
- Record Id:
- 040-002045871
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002045871
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0000d0
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 43
- Title:
-
Benedict Burgh, Cato Major; Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, translated into English by John Walton; William Cornysh, A Treatise between Enformacione and Musyke; A Balade of Trouthe (imperfect)
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 4r-86v: Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae: translated by John Walton; with the Latin text in the margins added at a later stage; possibly by Thomas Chaundler up to f. 29v.
The manuscript contains several later additions:
ff. 3r-3v: Benedict Burgh, Cato Major (imperfect); written in the 15th century.
f. 87r: An English tract or sermon on the words of Acts 16:14, beginning: ‘Quod homo proponit / Sens autem disponit - lydia apud philippos’; written in the 16th century.
f. 87v: A sentence: ‘Humblie complaininge and moste pitifullie complayninge unto youre most excelent maiestie youre Highnes plasant’; written in the 16th century.
ff. 88r-91r: William Cornysh [Cornyshe], A Treatise between Enformacione and Musyke; written in the 16th century.
ff. 92r-92v: A Balade of Trouthe (imperfect); written in the 16th century.
f. 92v: Proverbs 10:8: ‘A wise man will receave warning but a foole will sooner be smitten in the face with evelle’; and ‘Beware also disemlinge men for thay will sone betraye there fayth fall frendes with flateringe wordes’; written in the 16th century.
Decoration:
1 large puzzle initial in red and blue with red pen-flourishing (f. 4r). 4 large initials in blue with red pen-flourishing at the beginning of each book (ff. 17r, 33r, 59r, 74v). Small coloured initials in red or blue throughout. 4 calligraphically decorated initials in black ink for 16th-century additions (ff. 2r, 87v and 91v [2x]).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002045871", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 43: Benedict Burgh, Cato Major; Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, translated into English by John Walton; William Cornysh, A Treatise…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002045871 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 43 : Benedict Burgh, Cato Major; Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, translated into English by John Walton; William Cornysh, A… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0042]/040-002045871
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment and paper.
Dimensions: 280 x 200 mm (text space: 205 x 155 mm).
Foliation: ff. 92 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 parchment leaf at the beginning + 2 paper flyleaves at the end); the lower half of f. 15; upper margin of f. 64; and upper margin of f. 88 have been torn off (causing loss of text) and have been repaired with blank parchment or paper; each paper leaf has a strip of white paper attached to its outer margin; each parchment leaf a strip of white parchment; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes); 1 on f. [93]recto (note of foliation); and 1 on f. [93]verso (note of repair).
Script: Gothic; 16th-century script.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
Thomas Chaundler (b. c. 1417, d. 1490), university principal and humanist scholar, chancellor of Wells and Oxford (from 1461), owned and partly wrote the manuscript: his ownership inscription on f. 1v: 'Liber Thomes Chaundler'; and f. 4r: 'Thomas Chaundeler universitatis oxoniensis et ecclesiae wellensis Cancellacius'. The Latin text is in Chaundler's hand until f. 29v (according to Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 273); some of the headings and marginalia certainly in his hand (according to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library, Oxford): inscribed 'Explicit primus liber. Quod Chawndelere' (f. 17r).
John Bunge, owned in the 15th or 16th century: his ownership inscription on f. [iii]recto: ‘John Bunges Booke’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 87).
Various 16th-century (?) owners, inscribed their names on f. 2r: 'Elizabeth' [2x], 'Richard Gournard', 'Richard Wender', 'Charles' [4x]; f. 47r: ‘Lambert – London’ f. 91v; ‘John Hay’ and ‘John Windover’ (f. 91v).
Robert and William Richbell, owned in the late 16th century: their names inscribed on f. 2v: ‘Robert Ri[...]’; f. 87r: 'This is Roberte Richbelles'; f. 92v: ‘This is Robert [added: Richard father’]; f. 91r: 'Enformacion will teach a doctor his game - By me William Richbell'; also inscribed f. 24r: '1588 yn the yeare of our Lord Jesus Christ the soone of god' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 285).
John Johnson of London, owned in the late 16th century or early 17th century: his name inscribed on f. 76v: 'By me John Johnson of London' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 205).
An unknown English owner in the early 17th century: added the date ‘1634’ to f. 53v.
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: number 'E.25' in his catalogues (see 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:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), p. 12 (no. 43).
Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century: Catalogue of an Exhibition Held in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1970), no. 34 (c) [exhibition catalogue, with additional bibliography].
Montague Rhodes James, The Chaundler Manuscripts (London: Roxburghe Club, 1916), p. 57.
Ian Johnson, ‘Placing Walton’s Boethius’, in Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed. by Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen and Lodi Nauta, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 58 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 217-42 [on the text].
Ian Johnson, ‘Walton’s Sapient Orpheus’, in The Medieval Boethius:Studies in the Vernacular Translations of De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. by A. J. Minnis (Cambridge: Brewer, 1987), pp.139-64 [on the text].
Chaucer’s Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius, ed. by A. J. Minnis, Chaucer Studies, 18 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1993), pp. 26-27, 85, 186 [on the text].
Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae Translated by John Walton, ed. by Mark Science, Early English Text Society, no. 170 (London: Boydell and Brewer, 1927) [edition of the text].
Daniel Wakelin, Humanism, Reading, and English Literature 1430-1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 12-14, 16.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), p. 273 (no. E25).
Roberto Weiss, Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 133-38.
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. 87, 103, 131, 205, 285, 376.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, c 480-524/525,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000122834442,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/100218964
Burgh, Benedict, clerk and translator, d in or before 1483,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000077333971
William Cornysh [Cornysshe], d 1523,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000360684777 - Places:
- England