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Harley MS 372

Record Id:

040-002046200

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046200

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x000315

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100161515423.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 372

Title:

John Lydgate, The Life of St Edmund and St Fremund; Advice to an old gentleman who wished for a young wife; John Lydgate, The Kings of England; John Lydgate, Complaint þat Crist maketh of his Passioun; Geoffrey Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite; Sir Richard Roos, La Belle Dame sans Mercy; John Lydgate, Prayer on the Five Joys of the Virgin Mary; Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes; anonymous prayers and poems

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-44v: John Lydgate, The Life of St Edmund and St Fremund.

ff. 45r-51r: Advice to an old gentleman who wished for a young wife, ‘A philisophre a good clerk seculer’.

ff. 51r-53v: John Lydgate, The Kings of England (revised edition).

ff. 54r-55r: John Lydgate, Complaint þat Crist maketh of his Passioun (‘An exhortacion of the crucifix’).

ff. 55r-55v: A prayer to the Virgin Mary, beginning ‘Ioy blissid lady with pure virgynal floure’.

f. 56r: A prayer to St Sebastian, beginning ‘Blessid Sebastian goddes martir and knyght' (crossed out).

f. 56r: Latin prayers to St Sebastian (‘Oracio ad Sebastianum’), crossed out.

ff. 57r-60v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite.

ff. 61r-69v: Sir Richard Roos, La Belle Dame sans Mercy (translated from the French text by Alain Chartier).

ff. 70r-70v: John Lydgate, Prayer on the Five Joys of the Virgin Mary (‘O sterre of Jacob / glorye of Israell’).

ff. 71r-112r: Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes.

f. 113r: A poem against excess in apparel, ‘Ye prowd galonttes hertlesse / With your hygh cappis witlesse’.

f. 113r: A Latin tract about the qualities necessary for a priest, beginning 'Gregorius papa posuit a parte in sua praedicacione'.

The manuscript contains a number of additions:

f. 70v: A Latin instruction to perform seven Psalms (several of which are also part of the Seven Penitential Psalms), for (?) protecting the senses and faculties, headed ‘Domine ne in furorre etc. usque ad kyrie eleyson’, added in the (?)15th century.

f. 56v: A list of contents for ff. 1-3, added in the 16th or 17th century.

ff. 114r-114v: A treatise entitled ‘The Ballad of Little John Nobody Who under that Name, Libells the Reformation under R. Edward 6th’, added in the 16th or 17th century.

f. 71*r: A note: ‘The Author of this Treatise was Thomas Hoccleve Scholler to Geffrey Chaucer’, added in the 17th century.

Decoration:

Blue initials

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046200", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 372: John Lydgate, The Life of St Edmund and St Fremund; Advice to an old gentleman who wished for a young wife; John Lydgate, The Kings of…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046200

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 372 : John Lydgate, The Life of St Edmund and St Fremund; Advice to an old gentleman who wished for a young wife; John Lydgate, The Kings…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0371]/040-002046200

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_100161515423.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1450

End Date:

1474

Date Range:

3rd quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 295 x 215.

Foliation: ff. 114 + f. 71* (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); f. 71* is a strip of 17th-century paper pasted on f. 71; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [iii]recto (printed bibliographical note); and 1 on f. [116]recto (note of repair)

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

William Crashaw (b. 1572, d. 1625/1626), Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist: owned ff. 71-112; acquired from his library by Sir Simonds D’Ewes (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 119).

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 A.946 (ff. 1-70) and A.212 (ff. 71-112).

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:

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), nos 86/1, 530/5, 537/1, 882/1, 1086/4, 1804/1, 2081/4, 2229/24, 2445/7, 2556/4, 3440/7, 3670/5, 4255/1.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), p. 217.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 378.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)