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Harley MS 630
- Record Id:
- 040-002046459
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046459
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000088
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 630
- Title:
- Gilte Legend
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-365r: Gilte Legend; according to the medieval foliation and content list, the manuscript lacks the first 5 folios, which include the life of St Andrew and part of the life of St Nicholas; ending with the explicit: 'Here endeth the Boke of the life of Seintes called in latyn legenda aurea compiled and drawen into englisshe bi worthi clerkes and doctours of Divinite suengly aftre þe tenur of þe latin'.
ff. 365v-366v: chapter list (Middle English).
ff. 366v-367v: coordinated content list (Latin).
The manuscript contains various additions:
Numerous scribal corrections and annotations throughout, including an added leaf of text on f. 163 (see Tracy, 'British Library MS Harley 630' (2000), p. 37).
f. 1*recto: Three Latin inscriptions, including a poem on the Holy Kinship, beginning: 'Anna solet dici tres concepisse Marias / Quas genuere viri Joachim, Cleophas, Salomeque'; 'Congeries lapidum variis constructa rapinis / aut ruet, aut raptor alter habebit Amen'; and 'Omnia sunt hominum pendentia filio'; added in the 15th century.
ff. 131v, 133v: A practice indenture: 'Thys bill mad the xviij daye of auguste and of [...] wiche is'; added in the mid 16th century.
f. 179r: A practice indenture (written upside down and crossed out): 'Thys bill made the xviiij dey of Auguste In the yere of our lorde god 1555 - Marye by the grace off god kynge Amen'.
f. 233v: A poem: 'Bis septem triginta tribus bis octo maria / Virga mater vidua vixit morbe pia'; in the hand of Edward Goldisburgh.
Decoration:
Numerous full and partial borders in blue ink and gold. Numerous puzzle initials in blue and gold with red pen-flourishing. Paraph marks alternating in red and blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046459", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 630: Gilte Legend" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046459 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 630 : Gilte Legend - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0630]/040-002046459
- 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:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 280 x 200 mm (text space: 215 x 160 mm).
Foliation: ff. i* + 367 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); f. 1* is a mall piece of parchment (90 x 120 mm) mounted onto a paper guard; Medieval foliation in Roman numerals in the right, upper margins.
Collation: Indicated by catchwords and leaf signatures.
Script: Gothic cursive; f. 163 was written by Stephen Dodesham, a Carthusian monk of Sheen Priory (see Doyle, 'Stephen Dodesham' (1997), pp. 98-100, 104).
Binding: British Museum in-house. Black half leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the outside covers; marble endleaves.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
South England (? St Albans).
Provenance
? The Benedictine abbey of St Albans, Hertfortshire: see discussion in Tracy, 'British Library MS Harley 630' (2000), pp. 36-58.
Edward Goldisburgh, 15th century: his ownership inscription on f. 234r: 'Edwardo Goldisburgh constat liber' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 167).
'Robert', 16th century: his (effaced) ownership inscription on f. 162r: 'Thys boke ys Roberte'.
? 'Berin[ge]ard', 16th century: this possible name (faded) inscribed in the lower margin of f. 188r.
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: listed in his catalogues as A.211 and B.96 (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 122; 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 Additional 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), II (1808), p. 392 [no. 630].
Carl Horstmann, Altenglishe Legenden (Heilbronn: Henninger, 1881), p. cxxx.
Auvo Kurvinen, ‘MS. Porkington 10. Description with extracts’, Extrait du Bulletin de la Société néo-philologique de Helsinki (Finlande). Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 54 (1953), 33-67 (p. 52).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. xviii, n. 3.
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. 384.
Ian Doyle, 'Stephen Dodesham of Witham and Sheen', in Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes, and Readers, ed. by P. R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (London: Scholar Press, 1997), 94-115 (pp. 98-100, 104).
Larissa Tracy, 'British Library MS Harley 630: Saint Alban's and Lydgate', Journal of the Early Book Society, 3 (2000), 36-58.
Gilte Legende, ed. by Richard Hamer and Vida Russell, 3 vols, Eary English Text Society, Original Series, 327, 328, and 339 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006-2012).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- Southern England
St Albans, England