Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Harley MS 116
- Record Id:
- 040-002045944
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002045944
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x000131
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161513295.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 116
- Title:
-
An English miscellany including Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes; The Short Charter of Christ; Benedict Burgh, Parvus Cato and Cato Major; anonymous Middle English poems and poems by John Lydgate; Gottfried von Franken, Godfridus Super Palladium (Middle English translation); Nicholas Bollard, The Book of Planting and Grafting
- Scope & Content:
-
This collection of Middle English and Latin poems and treatises is datable to after 1461 as the anonymous Chronicle presents Edward IV as king of England. A later hand (early 16th century) added a table of contents (f. 1* verso) and a few medical recipes (ff. 167v-168r, 169r). The cataloguing of the medical items in this manuscript was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Contents:
ff. 1r-97v: Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes, beginning: ‘Mvsyng opon þe restles bysynes’ [see NIMEV 2229/23; DIMEV 3581-22].
f. 97v: The Short Charter of Christ, beginning: ‘Wetys ye now all þat ben here’ [see NIMEV 4184/6; DIMEV 6769-14].
ff. 98r-99r: Benedict Burgh, Parvus Cato, beginning: ‘Whan I aduertise in my remembraunce / And se how feel folke erroun greuously’ [see NIMEV 3955/6; DIMEV 6321-9].
ff. 99r-124r: Benedict Burgh, Cato Major, beginning: ‘For thy that god gaf inwardli the witte / Of man and yeueth hym vndirstondyng’ [see NIMEV 854/13; DIMEV 1418-17].
ff. 124r-125r: Seven Wise Counsels, beginning: ‘By sapience tempere thy corage / Of hasty Ire dawnte thy passions’ [see NIMEV 576/4; DIMEV 939-4].
f. 125r: John Lydgate (?), Four things that make a man fall from Reason, beginning: ‘Worship women wyne and vnweldy age’ [see NIMEV 4230/4; DIMEV 6798-4].
f. 125r: On borrowing, beginning: ‘He that fast spendyth must nede borowe / But whan he schal paye aȝen then ys al the sorowe’ [see NIMEV 1149/1; DIMEV 1854-1].
ff. 125v-126v: An instruction for making a sanctuary against thieves and robbers for the year 1461, beginning: 'The makyng of the sanctuarye to chastis theves extorcurers / with all other mysdoers'.
ff. 127r-128r: John Lydgate, Deus in Nomine Tuo saluum me Fac, beginning: ‘God in thy name make me safe and sounde / And in thi vertu me deme & Iustifie’ [see DIMEV 1563-4].
ff. 128r-128v: A Mirror for Young Ladies at their Toilet ['Cest le myrroure pur lez josenes Dames a regardir / and maytyne pur lour testes bealment adressere'] beginning: ‘Maist thou now be glade with all thi fresshe aray / One me to loke that wyll dystene thi face’ [see NIMEV 2136/1; DIMEV 3454-1].
ff. 129r-140v: Dance of Macabre, beginning: ‘O ye folkes that bene harde harted as a stone / Which to this world yeue all your aduertans’ [see NIMEV 2591/5; DIMEV 4107-5].
ff. 140v-141v: A Latin poem on the foundation of a Carthusian house [possibly Sheen Priory], beginning: ‘Salve frater mi. Salue tibi. Quis locus iste’, breaking off at 'hoc sciam novit Et quoquis visio quandam'.
ff. 142r-146v: Anonymous Chronicle from Rollo to Edward IV, beginning: 'This brief tretys compiled for to bringe people oute of / doute' [ed. by Radulesca, ‘Yorkist Propaganda’ (2003), pp. 412-24]. Another copy is extant in Harley MS 326, ff. 1r-7r.
ff. 146v-152r: John Lydgate, The Chorle and the Birde, beginning: ‘PRoblemys of olde liknese and figuresWhich proued been fructuous of sentence’ [see NIMEV 2784/7; DIMEV 4420-7].
ff. 152v-153v: The bitterness of Death [elegy for the tomb of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, d. 1456], beginning: ‘O deth hough better ys the mynde of the / That mover arte of moornynge & of moone’ [see NIMEV 2411/2; DIMEV 3871-2].
ff. 154r-162r: Gottfried von Franken, Godfridus Super Palladium, Middle English translation (Palladius on Husbondrie) by Nicholas Bollard, imperfect [the text lacks chapters 38-53].; beginning beginning: ‘To grafte trees whoos appuls shall have no cores’ [see eVK 2, nos. 2715.00, 6920.00; NIMEV 654/3; DIMEV 1071-3]. Other copies in Add. MS 5467 (ff. 1r-16r); Cotton MS Julius D VIII (ff. 48-55v, imperfect); Harley MS 1785 (ff. 20r-46r); Sloane MSS 7 (ff. 88r-92r); 122 (ff. 72r-83v); and 686 (ff. 19r-39v; preceded by an abridged version on ff. 15r-18v). For copies of the Latin version see Add. MS 23002 (ff. 32r-45v), Cotton MS Julius D VIII (ff. 61v-73v); and Egerton MS 2622 (ff. 99r-112v).
ff. 162r-165v. Nicholas Bollard, The Book of Planting and Grafting, beginning: ‘This tretice is departid in iij partes. The firste parte is of gendering the trees’ [see eVK 2, nos. 2516.00, 7488.00]. Other copies in Add MS 5467 (ff. 16r-21r); Cotton MS Julius D VIII (ff. 56r-59r, imperfect); Harley MS 1785 (ff. 46r-54r); Sloane MSS 7 (ff. 92r-93r); 122 (ff. 84r-88r); 1785 (ff. 46r-54r). For copies of a Latin version see Add MS 23002 (ff. 46r-49v); Cotton MS Julius D VIII (ff. 74r-77r); and Egerton MS 2622 (ff. 113r-117r).
ff. 166r-166v: John Lydgate, Dietary, beginning: ‘Iff it be so that leches do the fayle / Vse good diete by the consaile of me’; imperfect [see NIMEV 824/56; DIMEV 2369-1].
The manuscript contains several later additions:
f. 1*recto: A reference to Owain Glyndŵr: ‘Owine glyndur prince of wales’ [previously untranscribed]; added in the 16th century.
f. 1*verso: A table of contents, entitled: ‘Contenta huius libri’; added in the (?) 16th century.
f. 1*verso: A ‘Memorandum þat I have payd thomasse gefe yn hyse barne þe same day þat he and his wife mad hit clene þat wasse evyn up onne þe tewysdaye nex before relyke sondaye for a closse unto seynt petur þe apostyll day nex folowyng al hys d[w]te saffe only – viijd before honde’; added in the (?) 16th century.
ff. 167v-168r: Medicinal recipes: ‘A Medycyn for the Tothache’; ‘To staynche bledyng at the nose’; ‘ffor hym that cannot slepe’; ‘ffor hym that cannot pysse’; ‘ffor the ffleme’; ‘for þe gret sikenes’; ‘ffor þe mygryine’; ‘ffor to the ache’ (erased) [eVK 2, no. 5844.00]; added in the late 15th or early 16th century
f. 168r: A list of payments of ‘Wottun Rent’ [? Wotton, Surrey]; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.
f. 169r: Recipes ‘for a cold in þe stomak’; and ‘for þe rede fflyx’; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.
f. 170r: A Latin memorandum concerning the Feast of the Visitation and Corpus Christi; added in the (?) 16th century.
f. 170r: A ‘Memorandum þat Thomas bygwyll must have of me ij schyrts a dowbelett redy made and a jaket a peur of hese or xiiijd ij peur schoy[?] and a gowne cloth and vijs in mony’; added in the 16th century.
f. 170v: Latin epitaphs of Pope Pius II [previously unidentified], Guy of Warwick, John Lydgate, and Elizabeth of Hungary (‘unus mulier’) [previously unidentified]: ‘hic jacet elisabet si bene fecit habet’; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: A warning against lending money, beginning: ‘I had my - goods - and my - ffrend’ [see Boffey and Edwards, A New Index (2005), no. 1297/3; DIMEV 2165-8]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: Rhyming proverbs, beginning: ‘Kype and save and þou schalt have’ [see Boffey and Edwards, A New Index (2005), no. 3088/3; DIMEV 4811-3]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: Verses on the Incommodities of Lending, beginning: ‘I made of my ffrend my ffoo’ [see NIMEV 1400/2; DIMEV 2333-2]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: Gnomic verses, beginning: ‘He that hath a good ffrend hath a good morowe’ [see NIMEV TM 537/1; DIMEV 1860-1]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: ‘War before’, beginning: ‘A man may a while nature be gile by doctrine and lore’ [see NIMEV TM 25/1; DIMEV 108-1]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 170v: On the Wise Man, beginning: ‘He is wyse that can be ware er he be wo’ [see NIMEV TM 1139/1; DIMEV 1834-1]; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 171r: A list of (?) payments; added in the 16th century.
Decoration:
Large (3-4 lines) blue initials with pen-work decoration in red extending into the margin (ff. 1, 36, 38v, 44, 53v, 59, 61v, 64v, 69v, 71v, 73v, 79v, 84v, 86v, 89v, 97r, 127r, 129r, 129v). Text initials (3 lines) in red (f. 97v) or blue (f. 146v). Large black initials with calligraphic (knot-work) decoration (ff. 117v-124r). Initials of stanzas (1 line) in alternate blue and red (ff. 127r-128r). Verse initials touched in red (ff. 1r-131r, 134v-153v, 166r). Cadels touched in red on the top lines of pages or at the beginning of texts, some with anthropomorphic faces (ff. 99r, 106v, 117v, 124r). Headings in red (ff. 97v, 129-140v, 152v); or with a large blue initial (ff. 1r, 36r, 38v, 44r, 53v, 59r, 61v, 64v, 69v, 71v, 73v, 79v, 84v, 86v, 89v, 97r). Explicits, text verses and marginal glosses in Latin underlined in red, throughout. A crude drawing of a man added in brown ink to the lower margin of f. 117r.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002045944", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 116: An English miscellany including Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes; The Short Charter of Christ; Benedict Burgh, Parvus Cato and…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002045944 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 116 : An English miscellany including Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes; The Short Charter of Christ; Benedict Burgh, Parvus Cato… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0115]/040-002045944
- 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_100161513295.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 280 x 185 mm (text space: 180/5 x 110/25 mm [ff. 1r-153v]; 180 x 140 mm [ff. 154r-166v]).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 2* + 171 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); ff. 1* and 2* are parchment leaves.
Collation: i2, ii-iv8, v8-1 (lacking first leaf), vi-xii8, xiii10, xiv-xvi8, xvii4+1 (fifth leaf added), xviii8, xix8-1 (lacking eight leaf), xx8, xxi4, xxii8, xxiii8-2 (lacking sixth and eight leaves), xxiv4, often with irregular composition (gatherings starting indifferently with flesh-side or hair-side out; flesh-side facing hair-side within single gatherings: see gatherings iii, iv); leaf signatures in red in lower right corner of first four rectos and horizontal catchwords in lower right corners of last versos with the only exceptions of the last three gatherings (ff. 154-171), occasionally with additional leaf signatures ‘1-4’ in black in lower right corner of rectos.
Script: Gothic cursive (written by seven English hands: ff. 1-125v, 142-152, by two English cursive hands; ff. 125v-126v, 127r-140v, 140v-141v, 152v-153v and possibly 166-166v, by four English Secretary hands; ff. 154-165v, by a more cursive English Secretary hand).
Binding: British Museum in-house; re-bound on 23 November 1961.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
John Kymbell ‘of Indwell’, owned in 1505: his ownership inscription on f. 2*recto: ‘Iste Liber Constat John Kymbell’; and f. 170v: ‘Constat Jhon Kymbell of Indwell’; on f. 1*verso is a receipt of money owed to him dated to 9 August 1505 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 213).
Willelmus Bygar, owned on 29 September 1522: his ownership inscription on f. 2*recto, witnessed by Robertus Holte: ‘Iste liber constat Willelmo Bygar teste Roberto Holte Scriptum fuit a die sancta [sic] Michaelis archangeli pro future Anno Regni Regis Henrici Octavi quartodecimo (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 91).
Corell, ‘Surgon’, owned in the 16th century: his ownership inscription on f. 1*recto: ‘Surgon Corell ow thys boke’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 111).
? ‘Jhon’ and ‘Jhames’, owned in the 16th century: their names inscribed on f. 171v.
‘Robertus’, owned in the 16th or 17th century: his name inscribed on f. 170r.
Sir Simonds D'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 131); recorded in his catalogues as E.154 and B 180 (See Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (1697), II.1, p. 388 [no. 10040]; Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), [E154], [B180]).
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.
- Publications:
-
M. Ambrosoli, ‘L'‘Opus Agriculturae’ di Palladio: volgarizzamenti e identificazione dell'ambiente naturale fra tre e cinquecento’, Quaderni storici, 18:52(1) (1983), 227-254.
Edward Bernard, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in Unum Collecti, Cum Indice Alphabetico, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II.1, p. 388 (no. 10040).
W. L. Braekman, 'Bollard's Middle English Book of Planting and Grafting and its Background', Studia Neophilologica, 57 (1985), 19-39.
Carleton Brown, A Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, 2 vols (Oxford, 1916-1920), I (1916): pp. 303-304 [list of contents]; II (1920), pp. 67 [no. 370]; 89 [no. 533]; 132 [no. 855]; 189 [no. 1264]; 205 [no. 1379]; 219 [no. 1479]; 236 [no. 1598]; 251 [no. 1713]; 377 [no. 2533]; 399 [no. 2693].
Carleton Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 241, 243-45.
Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), nos 68, 576, 654, 854, 951, 1147.4, 1149, 1297, 2136, 1400, 1418, 2229, 2411, 2591, 2784, 3088, 3955, 4184, 4230.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, p. 35.
J. A. Burrow, Thomas Hoccleve, Authors of the Middle Ages: English Writers of the Late Middle Ages, 4 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994), p. 51.
D. G. Cylkowski, ‘A Middle English Treatise on Horticulture’, in Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England, ed. by L. M. Matheson (East Lansing, Michigan: Colleagues Press, 1994), p. 305.
DIMEV = 'London, British Library Harley 116', The Digital Index of Middle English Verse , accessed 3 September 2019.
Gerhard Eis, Gottfrieds Pelzbuch: Studien zur Reichweite und Dauer der Wirkung des mittelhochdeutschen Fachschrifttums, Südosteuropäische Arbeiten, 38 (Brünn: Roher, 1944).
Frederick J. Furnivall, Hoccleve's Works III: The Regement of Princes A.D. 1411-12, from the Harleian Ms. 4866, and Fourteen of Hoccleve's Minor Poems from the Egerton Ms. 615, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 72 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1897).
Geoffreys of Franconia's Book of Trees and Wine, ed. by W. L. Braekman, Scripta, Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 24 (Brussels: Omirel UFSAL, 1989), p. 16.
R. F. Green, 'Notes on Some Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes', British Library Journal, 4 (1978), 37-41 (pp. 39-40).
D. C. Greetham, 'Challenges of Theory and Practice in the Editing of Hoccleve's Regement of Princes', in Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature, ed. by D. Pearsall (Cambridge: Brewer, 1987), pp. 60-86 (p. 67).
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, A Selection from the Minor Poems of Lydgate, Percy Society's Publications, 2 (London: Richards, 1840), pp. 179-19.
Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes, ed. by C. R. Blyth (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications for TEAMS, 1999).
Edward Donald Kennedy, XII: Chronicles and Other Historical Writing, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, ed. by Albert E. Hartung, 8 (New Haven: Archon Books, 1989), p. 2927.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trübner for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (pp. xi, xiii, xv, xx).
Henry Noble MacCracken, The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, 2 vols, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 107; Original Series, 192 (London: Kegan, Paul, Trübner, 1911; Oxford University Press, 1934), I (1911 for 1910): The Lydgate Canon, pp. xiii-xv, 10-12, 468-85, 705-707.
M. S. Marzec, 'The Latin Marginalia of the Regiment of Princes as an Aid to Stemmatic Analysis', Text: An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies, 3 (1987), pp. 269-84.
M. S. Marzec, 'Thomas Hoccleve's De Regimine Principum, Sections 12 and 13: A Critical Edition' (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northern Illinois University, 1980).
NMIEV = Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), see entries for this MS.
Nicholas Perkins, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes: Counsel and Constraint (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2001), pp. 148 n. 59, 161 n. 46, 162 n. 50, 163 n. 53, 178 n. 109.
R. Radulescu, 'Yorkist Propaganda and The Chronicle from Rollo to Edward IV', Studies in Philology, 100:4 (2003), 401-424 (pp. 402-404, 412-424).
Readers and Writers of the Prose Brut, ed. by William Marx and Raluca Radulescu, Trivium, 36 (Lampeter, Wales: Trivium Publications, University of Wales, 2006), pp. 200-201.
Peter Revell, Fifteenth Century English Prayers and Meditations, A Descriptive List of Manuscripts in the British Library (New York: Garland, 1975) p. 70.
R. H. Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford, 1952), p. 81.
M. C. Seymour, 'The Manuscripts of Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes', Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 4: 7, session 1970-1 (1974), pp. 255-97 (pp. 263-66).
Richard Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), pp. 383-384 [On Nicolas Bollard].
Dorothea Waley Singer, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland, dating from before the XVI Century, 3 vols (Brussels: Lambertin, 1928-30), p. 652 (no. 998, viii).
Mary Caroline Spalding, The Middle English Charters of Christ, Bryn Mawr College Monographs, 15 (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: Bryn Mawr College, 1914), pp. xxiv, lxiii-lxvi, 9.
L. E. Voigts and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd edn (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006) [= eVK 2], nos 2516.00, 2600.00, 2715.00, 3302.00, 5844.00, 6920.00, 7488.00.
Florence Warren, The Dance of Death, Edited from Mss. Ellesmere 26-A. 13 and B.M. Landsdowne 699 (London: Milford, 1939), pp. xxv-xxvi.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), [E154], [B180].
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. 91, 111, 131, 213, 373.
Richard Paul Wülcker, Altenglisches Lesebuch: zum Gebrauche bei Vorlesungen und zum Selbstunterricht, 2 vols (Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer, 1879), II: pp. 47-53 [for an edition of stanzas 743-77].
Catalogued for the Harley Medical Manuscripts Project , accessed 29 May 2008.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)