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Harley MS 636

Record Id:

040-002046465

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046465

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x00008e

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 636

Title:

John of Canterbury, Polistorie del Eglise de Christ de Canterbury

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains the only surviving complete copy of the Polistorie del Eglise de Christ de Canterbury, written by John, a Benedictine monk at Christ Church, Canterbury, at the request of his 'cher amy Johan' (dear friend John) in 1314. The work is an Anglo-Norman chronicle (with rubrics in Latin), detailing the history of Britain from the arrival of the legendary Brutus to the funeral of Robert of Winchelsee, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1313.

Contents:

ff. 1r-234r: John of Canterbury, Polistorie del Eglise de Christ de Canterbury.

ff. 2* recto, 3* verso, and 234v are blank.

f. 3* recto: a title page to the work added by Sir Simonds D'Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650).

Decoration:

Large initial in blue with red pen-flourishing including ivy leaves and a dragon (f. 1r). Numerous smaller initials in blue or red with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Human faces in brown ink (see especially ff. 3r, 11v, 29r, 30r, 39v, 89r, 113r, 133r, 144v, etc.). Catchword 'la eglise' decorated with a flower in brown ink (f. 226v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046465", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 636: John of Canterbury, Polistorie del Eglise de Christ de Canterbury" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046465

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 636 : John of Canterbury, Polistorie del Eglise de Christ de Canterbury

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0636]/040-002046465

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Anglo-Norman
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1350

End Date:

1399

Date Range:

2nd half of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 290 x 210 mm (written space: 230 x 170 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: ff. 1*-3* + 234 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 4 paper flyleaves at the end); ff. 1*-3* are parchment leaves.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with the arms of Sir Simonds d'Ewes in the centre of each cover.

Custodial History:

Origin: Southeastern England (probably Canterbury).

Provenance:

The Benedictine cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury: inscribed, 'Brut en ffranceys: liber eccl[es]ie [christ]i Cantuarie', in two 15th-century hands (f. 1*v), no. 281 in William Ingram's 1508 list of books from Christ Church, Canterbury (Christ Church Library, ms. 27; secundo folio given).

Inscribed 'W. P.', 16th or 17th century (f. 1r).

Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton: his armorial binding; inscribed 'Volumen sive Tom[us] 62' (f. 2* verso; and added title-page in red and brown ink (f. 3* recto); listed in his catalogue as A.161 (see Add MS 22918, f. 12r; Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 115; 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 (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), p. 115).

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.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), no. 636.

Montague R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: 1903), p. 510.

M. Dominica Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters: The Influence of the Orders upon Anglo-Norman Literature, Edinburgh University Publications Language and Literature, 2 (Edinburgh: University Press, 1950), p. 114.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 36.

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. A161.

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.

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. 94-95, 131, 264.

Diana Tyson, 'Les Manuscrits du Brut en prose francaise (MSS 50, 53, 98, 133, 469)', in Les manuscrits francais de la bibliotheque Parker: Actes du Colloque 24-27 mars 1993, ed. by Nigel Wilkins (Cambridge: Parker Library Publications, 1993), pp. 101-20 (p. 102)

Diana B.Tyson, 'Handlist of Manuscripts Containing the French Prose Brut Chronicle', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 48 (1994), 333-44 (p. 340).

Ruth J. Dean and Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 53, p. 36.

John Spence, Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp. 18, 30, 117-18, 123, 129-30.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

D’Ewes, Simonds, 1st Baronet, diarist and antiquary, 1602-1650,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083393524,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/12656415
John of Canterbury, Benedictine monk and chronicler, fl 14th century

Places:

Canterbury, England