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Harley MS 221

Record Id:

040-002046049

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046049

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0001d6

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 221

Title:

?Geoffrey the Grammarian, Promptorium parvulorum

Scope & Content:

The manuscript contains a copy of the Promptorium parvulorum, a 15th-century English-Latin dictionary.

Several other manuscript copies survive: British Library, Add MS 22556 (imperfect), Harley MS 2274 (fragment) and Add MS 37789 (with the Medulla grammaticae); Cambridge, Emmanuel College, 321.7.71 (two leaves, used as pastedowns in a printed book); Cambridge, King's College, MS 8 (used by Albert Way for his edition); Winchester Cathedral, MS 15 (used by A.L. Mayhew for his edition).

According to the 'preambulum', the Promptorium was compiled by a Dominican friar of King's Lynn, Norfolk, in 1440. The compiler described himself as a recluse, and perhaps resided in the anchorage attached to the Dominican house.

The Promptorium has subsequently been attributed to 'Geoffrey the Grammarian', based on an annotation in a copy of Richard Pynson's printed edition of 1499 in Cambridge University Library. John Bale attributed the Medulla grammaticae to the same name (see: Bale, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie (Basle: Johannes Herbst ('apud Ioannem Oporinum'), 1557), p. 631). The two texts are often confused.

The main sources of the Promptorium, mentioned by the author in his prologue, are as follows:

- John of Genoa ('Balbus', 'the Stammerer'), Catholicon;

- Hugutio of Pisa, Liber derivationem and Rosarium;

- William Brito (no work is listed by the compiler, but probably the Expositiones vocabulorum Bibliae);

- --- of Merevale ('Mirivalensis'), Campus florum (recorded by Bale as if it were the Campus florum of Thomas Waleys);

- John of Garland, Dictionarius, Commentarius, De mysteriis ecclesiae and Distigium;

- Liber merarii;

- Robert Kilwardby (no work is listed by the compiler, but perhaps De ortu scientiarum);

- Alexander Nequam (no work is listed by the compiler, but perhaps De nominibus utensilium).

Various others, not listed in the prologue, are cited within the entries themselves; see Mayhew, The 'Promptorium Parvulorum' (1908), pp. xxiv-xxvi.

The entries are arranged in rough alphabetical order, but with 'nomina' (nouns, but also adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections) listed first within a section, followed by 'verba' (verbs).

For a detailed explanation of the organisation of the Promptorium parvulorum, see: Stein, English Dictionary (1985), pp. 94-101.

The contents are as follows:

f. 1*r-1*v: ownership inscriptions.

f. 2*r: slip of paper stitched into the book between ff. 1* and 3*, bearing a list of the names of books in English followed by their equivalent names in Latin. (The verso is blank)

f. 3*v: note in pencil, 'Promptorium parvulorum' (19th-cent.). (The recto is blank).

ff. 1r-1v: 'preambulum' to the Promptorium parvulorum.

ff. 1v-9r: 'A'.

ff. 9v-25v: 'B'.

ff. 25v-44r: 'C' (note: on f. 43r, a note in pencil, 19th-cent.: 'The verbs in Co_ Clo_ are wanting. Cf. Edit. 1499').

ff. 44r-53r: 'D'.

ff. 53r-57r: 'E'.

ff. 57r-70r: 'F'.

ff. 70r-80r: 'G'.

ff. 80r-89r: 'H'.

ff. 89r-93r: 'I'.

ff. 93r-96r: 'K'.

ff. 96v-105r: 'L'.

ff. 105r-115r: 'M'.

ff. 115r-118r: 'N'.

ff. 118r-123v: 'O'.

ff. 123v-137r: 'P'.

ff. 137v-138v: 'Q'.

ff. 138v-147r: 'R'.

ff. 147r-177r: 'S'.

ff. 177r-188v: 'T'.

ff. 188v-191v: 'U/V'.

ff. 191v-203v: 'W'.

f. 204r: 'Þ'

ff. 204v-205v: 'Ȝ'.

f. 206r: a list of recipes, including 'Holsome herbes for the potte in tempore pestilenciali', 'A souerann medicynne for the swetyng sekenesse secundum Magistrum Walterum Hyllum', and 'A souerann medycynn for the french pocks'.

Decoration:

Gaps left at the beginnings of sections for three-line initials.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046049", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 221: ?Geoffrey the Grammarian, Promptorium parvulorum" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046049

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 221 : ?Geoffrey the Grammarian, Promptorium parvulorum

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0220]/040-002046049

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:

1440

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 235 x 165/170 mm (text space: 160 x 110 mm).

Foliation: ff. 206 + 1*, 2*, 3* + ii (blank unfoliated medieval parchment endleaves at the front before f. 1*). Plus six unfoliated modern paper endleaves, three at the front and three at the back.

Collation: i-xvii¹² (ff. 1-204), xviii² (ff. 205-206).

Script: Gothic (Textura).

Binding: British Museum in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin:

'The compiler of the original text was a Dominican friar resident at Lynn. This MS, however, is probably not East Anglian.' (See: LALME, (1986) I, p. 110).

Hugh Barker: inscribed with his name (f. 1*r). Perhaps Hugh Barker (b. 1565, d. 1632), civil lawyer.

Sir Simonds D'Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650), first baronet, diarist and antiquary: inscribed 'This book belongs to Sir Symonds Dews' Library, and is to be restored' (f. 2*v). The manuscript is recorded in list 'A' as [906] in Watson's catalogue of D'Ewes library, based primarily on Add MS 22918. In a further list 'H', from Harley MS 7660, which comprises extracts relating to books from D'Ewes's accounts, this manuscript is probably that numbered [177] and described as having been purchased on 12 November 1645 from 'Mr Washington' (untraced), 'an old vocabulary in English and Latine' for 10s.

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 bequeated 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 on of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Publications:

Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum: Lexicon Anglo-Latinum Princeps, auctore Galfrido Grammatico Dicto e predicatoribus Lenne episcopi, Northfolcensi..., ed. by Albert Way, Works of the Camden Society, 25, 54, 89, 3 vols (London: Camden Society, 1843-65) [on the text].

The 'Promptorium parvulorum': The First English-Latin Dictionary, edited from the manuscript in the Chapter Library at Winchester, with introduction, notes, and glossaries, ed. by A.L. Mayhew, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 102 (London: Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1908) [on the text].

DeWitt T. Starnes, Renaissance Dictionaries: English-Latin and Latin-English (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1954), pp. 3-19, 25, 28-29, 31, 39, 42, 47, 51, 132, 136, 138, 154, 165, 222, 234, 328, 341-44, 365n., 367n., 379n., 380n.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 207 [A907], 263 [H177], 299 [B168].

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley, 1715-1726, ed. by C.E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. xviii).

C.E 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. 64, 131, 375.

Gabriele Stein, The English Dictionary Before Cawdrey, Lexicographia, 9 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1985), pp. 91-106.

A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English, ed. by Angus McIntosh and others, 4 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986), I: General Introduction, Index of Sources, Dot Maps, p. 110.

Linda Voigts and Frank Stubbings, 'Promptorium parvulorum: Manuscript Fragments at Emmanuel College and their Relation to Pynson's Editio Princeps', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 9 (1989), 358-71 (p. 363).

Reiko Takeda, 'Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS O.5.4: A Fifteenth-Century Pedagogical Dictionary?', in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research: Papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, at the University of Leicester, 2002, ed. by Julie Coleman and Anne McDermott, Lexicographia, Series Maior, 123 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2004), pp. 11-18 (pp. 11, 17).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Bentinck, Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Portland, née Harley, collector of art and natural history specimens and patron of arts and sciences, 11 Feb 1715-17 Jul 1785,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000115857160,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/2356861
D’Ewes, Simonds, 1st Baronet, diarist and antiquary, 1602-1650,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083393524,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/12656415
Geoffrey the Grammarian, lexicographer, grammarian and monk, fl 1440
Harley, Henrietta Cavendish, Countess of Oxford and Mortimer, née Holles, patron of architecture, 4 Feb 1694-9 Dec 1755,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000030125833,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/6045563