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 225
- Record Id:
- 040-002046053
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046053
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x0001da
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056035227.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 225
- Title:
- Geoffrey of Monmouth, De Gestis Britonum; Epistre de Sibille
- Scope & Content:
-
ff. 3r–78r: Geoffrey of Monmouth, De Gestis Britonum (Historia Regum Britanniae), including 15th-century annotations.
ff. 78v–79v: Epistre de Sibille (Epistle to Sibille), with the heading: ‘Ceste lepistre de Sibille Ffraunce’, prophecy in Old French added in the mid-14th century, beginning: 'La lupart evassaillant la Roiaume de Ffraunce serra tiel et si fier'.
Decoration:
One large initial in blue, with light brown, red and green (f. 3r).
Large initials in light brown, red, green or blue, occasionally with reserved line or minor penwork decoration in the same or an alternate colour. Rubric (f. 41r) and line fillers in red.
Quire marks and quire signatures (consecutive letters).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046053", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 225: Geoffrey of Monmouth, De Gestis Britonum; Epistre de Sibille" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046053 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 225 : Geoffrey of Monmouth, De Gestis Britonum; Epistre de Sibille - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0224]/040-002046053
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056035227.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th 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:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 240 × 135 mm (text space: 190 × 95 mm).
Foliation: ff. 84 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); ff. 1-2; 80-84 are medieval parchment pastedowns and flyleaves; traces of metal fittings on ff. 1-2 and 80-84.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Guido de Waynflete (fl. 14th century), Augustinian friar: inscribed, 14th century 'Liber Fratris Guydonis de Waynflete ordinis sancti Augustini' (f. 79v, erased).
Added, drafts of charters and notes from the 14th century, reused as flyleaves (ff. 2r–v, 81r–84v).
Added, early 14th century: text in French, entitled 'Ceste lepistre de Sibille' (ff. 78v-79v).
Added, 15th century, title partly erased 'Liber cron[icorum] Angliae' (f. 1v).
Added, 15th century, pen trials in Middle English and Latin (f. 1v).
Added, 15th century, numerous annotations throughout the Historia regum Brittaniae, written by a same scribe, who also added headings (e. g., ff. 3r, 9r,14v).
Added, 15th century: 'Robert Clopton' and three other names with the years when each was mayor of London (on a piece of parchment fragment that is now pasted on f. 1r) (Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966)).
Sir Simonds D'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani 1972): inscribed number '39' (f. 3r) and the title (f. 1v) (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966)).
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,The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (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.
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:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 225.
Harry Leigh Douglas Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I (1883), p. 222.
Andrew G. Watson, 'Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Simonds D'Ewes: an exchange of manuscripts', The British Museum Quarterly, 25 (1962), 19-24 (p. 21).
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. A904, B170.
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. 131, 136, 349.
Julia C. Crick, The 'Historia regum Britannie' of Geoffrey of Monmouth. A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1989), no. 100.
Lesley Ann Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England (York: York Medieval Press, 2000), p. 263.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.