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Harley MS 330

Record Id:

040-002046158

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046158

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x00029b

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 330

Title:

Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection

Scope & Content:

ff. 1*,132: Fragments from a 13th-century copy of Justinian's Digest.

ff. 1r–51r: Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, book 1.

ff. 52v–126v: Thomas Fishlake, Latin translation of Walter Hilton, Scala perfectionis, book 2.

ff. 126v–129v: Richard Rolle of Hampole, commentary on the Song of Songs, part 4.

Decoration:

Initials with pen-flourished decoration in blue and red. Small initials in blue or red. Rubrics in red. Paraphs in blue and red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046158", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 330: Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046158

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 330 : Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0329]/040-002046158

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:

1400

End Date:

1449

Date Range:

1st half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 235 × 160 mm (written area 160 × 105 mm, in two columns).

Foliation: ff. 1* + 132 (ff. 1* and 132 are original pastedowns, ff. 130 and 131 are original blank flyleaves; + one unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and 2 at the end, 4 original blank leaves after f. 129 and one after f. 130).

Collation: Gatherings mostly of 8, with quire signature in the lower right corner of the rectos in the first half of the gatherings.

Script: Gothic. Written by two scribes.

Binding: British Museum, rebound 1951.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

William Wargrave, monk of Reading abbey: his name 'Willelmus Wargrave' (f. 1*; see Watson 1966).

The Benedictine abbey of St Mary, Reading: given by William Wargrave in 1495 and inscribed 'Hic est liber monasterij Beate marie Radingie. ex dono Willelmi Wargrave dicti monasterij monachi. Anno domini. millesimo. ccccº. lxxxº. xvº. Pretium libri. vi. s. et viij. d.' (ff. 52, 131; see Watson 1966).

(?) Thomas Vachell of Coley Park, supervisor of the Reading abbey estates from 1540: his gift to William Robinson (see Watson 1966).

William Robinson, 16th century: inscribed 'Willelmus Robynson est possessor e dono magistri Thome Vachell armigeri 1542' (ff. 1, 131; see Watson 1966).

Edward Tynes (d. c. 1640), from whose widow Simonds d'Ewes acquired Oriental manuscripts for £ 40 in 1641: his inscription 'Anno Domini 1628 Disce mori mundi vivere disce Deo. Per me Edward Tynes 7 Aprilis' (f. 129v).

Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: possibly acquired from Edward Tynes in 1641 (see Watson 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 Add. 70478 (formerly Loan 29/254 packet 2); Watson 1966; Wright and Wright 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:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in unum collecti, cum indice alphabetico, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, p. 388, no. 10045.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 330.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 156.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 133 no. A271, 300 no. B185.

Cyril 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, 283, 288, 333, 335, 348, 378.

Alan Coates, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), pp. 117, 129-30, 168 no. 124.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Fishlake, Thomas, Carmelite writer, Late 14th century
Hilton, Walter, c 1343-1396,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000118213408
Rolle, Richard, c 1310-1349,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121177882,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/2465074