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Harley MS 521
- Record Id:
- 040-002046350
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046350
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x00001b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 521
- Title:
-
An English heraldic manuscript
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 3r-50v: The arms of English nobility and gentry (6 per page).
ff. 51v-55r: A fragment of a heraldic manuscript with arms of Cheshire families (12 per page).
ff. 56r-59r: Arms, displaying the types of crosses in heraldry (4 per page); with some marginal additions in brown ink.
ff. 59v-61v: Arms, displaying the types of lions in heraldry (4 per page).
ff. 62r-74v: The arms of English and foreign saints, kings, princes, dukes, lords, and earls (4 per page).
ff. 75r-77r: A genealogy of the Braytoft family with their arms (f. 76v).
f. 77v: The arms of (?) ‘Bactus'.
The manuscript contains several additions:
ff. 1r-1v: A leaf, containing Psalm 37:4-13, from a 15th-century prayer book or Psalter, perhaps produced in England.
ff. 2r: Bede, De schematibus et tropis; probably from St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury; written in the 10th or 11th century.
ff. 78r-78v: A leaf, containing quotations from Psalm 5 and 6 with antiphons and Psalm 7:2-8, from a 15th-century prayer book or Psalter (f. 1 was taken from the same manuscript), perhaps produced in England.
Decoration:
Coats of arms in colours throughout the manuscript; 1 coat of arms, tricked, in brown ink (f. 77v). ff. 1r-1v, 78r-78v, 1 large gold initial (f. 78r) in a blue and red frame with penwork decoration in gold and green; and small blue or gold initials in red or blue frames with minor penwork decoration; line-fillers in blue and gold. ff. 2r features two initials in green with rubricated words.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046350", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 521: An English heraldic manuscript" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046350 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 521 : An English heraldic manuscript - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0521]/040-002046350
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1445
- End Date:
- 1455
- Date Range:
- c 1450
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper; parchment (ff. 1, 2, and 78).
Dimensions: 200 x 155 mm.
Foliation: ff. 78 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); ff. 1, 2, and 78 are parchment leaves taken from medieval manuscripts that have been mounted onto paper guards; all paper leaves have a paper strip added to their outer margins.
Script: 16th-century script; Gothic (ff. 1r-1v, 78r-78v); Caroline minuscule (ff. 2r-2v)
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
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); perhaps identifiable with number A.351 in his catalogues, but the manuscript bears no evidence that it was owned by D’Ewes.
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:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), p. 334.
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. 381.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Bede the Venerable, Saint, c 673-735,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000120962352,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/61539765 - Places:
- England