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Harley MS 535

Record Id:

040-002046364

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046364

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000029

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 535

Title:

Memoriale Credencium

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 4r-142r: Memoriale Credencium, beginning: 'Man and woman þat wilneþ to fle synne and lede clene lyif: takeþ heede to þis litle tretys þat is iwrite in english tong for lewed men þat conneþ nouȝt understande latyn ne frensch. And hit is ydrawe out of holy write bi techyng of holy doctours þat haveþ ibe bifore þis tyme'.

The manuscript contains a few later additions:

15th century marginal annotations throughout the manuscript.

ff. 1r-2v: Statutes [in Middle English] of Roger Niger [St Roger of Beeleigh] (d. 1241), Bishop of London, for the archdeaconry of London, with a Latin title: 'Statuta feliciter recordacionis domini Rogeri Nigri Episcopi Londoniensis de concensu domini Petri Archidiaconi Londoniensis edita et directa universis rectoribus, vicariis, capellanis, parochialibus in archidiaconatu London con[titutis] Anno domini Millesimo CC primo'; added in a 15th century hand.

f. 3r: A short Latin text, beginning: 'Constitutio de Ecclesiis et cancellis reficiendis et cooperiendis'; added in a 15th-century hand.

f. 142v: Fulgentius of Ruspe (d. 532), Sermon for the Feast of St Stephen [excerpt], beginning: 'in ore caritatis sonet justicia et errantem corrigate in corde pacienciam serve ut pro errante orationem puro affector dilectionis effundat'; added in a 15th-century hand.

Decoration:

Large (5-line) puzzle initials in red and blue with penwork decoration in both colours and pen-flourishing in red (ff. 4r, 117r, 121r). Small (2-line) blue initials with red penwork decoration and pen-flourishing. Paraph marks alternately in red or blue. Occasional underlining in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046364", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 535: Memoriale Credencium" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046364

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 535 : Memoriale Credencium

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0535]/040-002046364

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: 215 x 150 mm (text space: 150 x 95 mm [outlined in leadpoint and indicated by prick marks]).

Foliation: ff. 142 (+ 6 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 91 and f. 92 [no loss of text, other end of f. 100, an added singleton]; parchment tabs on ff. 76, 77, 78, 93, 98, 117, 121, 129.

Collation: Mostly regular quaternions; indicated by horizontal catchwords; each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum in-house: red half leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the outsides of the outer and lower covers. Rebound in 1968, with remains of the previous binding (blind-stamped and -tooled dark brown sprinkled leather) pasted on the inside upper cover.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

'Johannis', 17th century: his name inscribed in the margin of f. 49v.

? Sir Simonds D’Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: suggested by Watson, but it is not identified in his catalogues and there is no evidence for his ownership in the manuscript for his ownership (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 131).

? 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; according to a receipt in Add MS 70478 (Portland Papers) [formerly Loan 29/254 packet 2] (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1966), pp. 60, 91 n. 308; Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), p. xviii n. 3).

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, p. 343.

Christopher R. Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 142 n. 1.

Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, 2 vols, ed. by Frederick M. Powicke and Christopher R. Cheney (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), II, p. 326.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. xviii n. 3.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966) [does not include this manuscript].

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. 131.

Memoriale credencium: A Late Middle English Manual of Theology for Lay People Edited from Bodley MS Tanner 201, ed. by J. H. L. Kengen (Nijmegen: Radboud University Nijmegen [formerly Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen], 1980), pp. 5-6.

Margaret Connolly, 'Mapping Manuscripts and Readers of Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God', in Design and Distribution of Late Medieval Manuscripts in England, ed. by Margaret Connolly and Linne R. Mooney (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press in association with Boydell, 2008), pp. 261-78 (pp. 265 n. 19, 277).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Fulgentius of Ruspe, Bishop of Ruspe, d 532,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121458748
Niger, Roger [Roger le Noir, Roger de Bileye], Bishop of London, d 1241,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000061446402

Places:

England