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Harley MS 629
- Record Id:
- 040-002046458
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046458
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000087
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161517240.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 629
- Title:
- John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 2r-4r: A table of contents with an introduction, beginning: 'This booke was compilid by Iohn lidgate monke of Bury at the excitacion and steryng of oure worshipful Prince kyng herry the fifthe. in the honour glorie and worshippe of the birthe of the most glorious maide wife and moder of oure lord ihesu criste chapitrid and markyd after this table'. Each of the chapters is numbered in the margin in red, with blue paraphs, and each of the chapter descriptions corresponds to a marginal rubric in the text.
ff. 4v-97r: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, beginning: 'O thou[g]tful herte plunges in distresse / with slombre of slouthe this longe wynters ny[g]t'; ending: 'To thi servantis shelde and socour bee / To kepe and save from al adversite. Amen'. See Boffey and Edwards, A New Index (2005), no. 2547; for an edition of the text, see A Critical Edition (1961).
f. 97r: Gnomic verses in red ink by the same scribe: 'Pees maketh plente / Plente maketh pride / Pride maketh plee, / Plee maketh poverte / Povert maketh pees / And therfore / Grace growith after governance'. See Boffey and Edwards, A New Index (2005), no. 2742.
Decoration:
A full-page miniature of the Nativity of the Virgin (f. 1v; not the Nativity of Jesus, despite the description in A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts 1808). The miniature may be attributable to the Master of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library MS Eng. 1 (see Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490 (1996), p. 262). Large pink initial on a gold background with a full border of acanthus clusters in green, blue and pink (f. 2r). Similar to the border decoration in London, The National Archives, E 164/10 (c. 1445/6, probably from London), plate XVIII in Scott, Dated and Datable English Manuscript Borders (2002), pp. 18, 64-65. Partial borders with large initials on gold backgrounds (ff 4v, 5v). Large blue initials with red pen-flourishing at the beginning of each chapter. Small blue paraphs with red pen-flourishing and red paraphs with brown pen-flourishing. Chapter titles, marginal rubrics and underlining in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046458", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 629: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046458 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 629 : John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0629]/040-002046458
- 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_100161517240.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1425
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 290 x 205 mm (text space: 180 x 120 mm).
Foliation: ff. 98 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Collation: Mostly in quires of 8.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (? London).
Jamys Gryffyth, of Monmouth, early 16th century: inscribed his name on f. 98v: 'Complaynyth shewith unto your good lordship your pore Orator Jamys gryffyth of the towne off monmothe yn the marches off walys that wher apone on Charles haskyng' (f. 98v); and a partial ownership inscription on f. 98v (2x): 'Iste lyber pertynet ad me'; and 'Iste lyber partynet [sic] ad me'.
An unknown English owner in the 2nd quarter of the 16th century: inscribed a memorandum on f. 97v: 'In the yere of our lorde god Mle vC xxxj [1531] the iiij daye of december was master Rysse behedded at the towre hyll in london and one wylliam hewsse beyng hys servand was drawne throwe london to tyborne And there hanged for tresson'; and the same memorandum on f. [iii]recto [legible with UV light] (see also Wellesley, 'A Tudor Inscription', (2016), pp. 376-77).
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); listed in his catalogues as A.293 and B.59.
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 Harley, 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 Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 15.
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), nos. 2574, 2742.
Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York: Columbia, 1943), nos. 2574, 2742.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), I (1808), p. 392 (no. 629).
George R. Keiser, 'Serving the Needs of Readers: Textual Division in Some Late-Medieval English Texts', New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Honour of A. I. Doyle, ed. by Richard Beadle and A. J. Piper (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), pp. 207-226 (p. 217).
A Critical Edition of John Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady, ed. Joseph A. Lauritis, Ralph A. Klinefelter, and Vernon F. Gallagher, Duquesne Studies Philological Series, 2 (Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 1961), pp. 30-31.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (p. xvii).
Kathleen Scott, 'Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts', English Manuscript Studies:1100-1700, 1 (1989), 19-63 (p. 25, pl. 1).
Kathleen L. Scott, Dated and Datable English Manuscript Borders c. 1395-1499 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 2002), pp. 18, 64-65.
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Design, Decoration and Illustration', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 56 n. 22, p. 57 ns 30, 33).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), I, p. 76 n. 14, II, pp. 262, 275.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), p. 138 (no. A293).
Mary Wellesley, 'A Tudor Inscription in London, British Library Harley MS 629', Notes and Queries, 63:3 (2016), pp. 376-77.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1966), I, 1715-1723, p. xviii.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 131-37, 173.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)