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Harley MS 773

Record Id:

040-002046602

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046602

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000117

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 773

Title:

Formulary

Scope & Content:

A composite manuscript of 15th century legal and administrative documents copied to serve as models for a scribe.

Contents:

f. iir is a scrap of paper pasted onto an unfoliated modern endleaf, bearing the note: '12 Nou: 1661 / at the shop agst Mr Littlebury'.

ff. iiir-v is a scrap of parchment, taken from a sixteenth-century account book, and mounted on an unfoliated modern endleaf.

ff. 1r-14v: obligations, bonds, testaments, and letters of attorney, beginning and ending imperfectly, mostly relating to Oxfordshire.

ff. 15r-v, the same, for Lincolnshire.

ff. 16r-38r: quitclaims, releases, farms, obligations, acquittances, and a Middle English marriage contract (ff. 37r-38r), mostly relating to London and Yorkshire.

ff. 39r-46r: a Middle English guide to holding manor courts (ff. 39r-40v), followed by extracts from manor court rolls, and Middle English oaths of manorial officials (ff. 46r-v).

ff. 47r-49r: inquisitions.

ff. 50r-51r: guide for jurors testifying before quarter sessions.

ff. 51v-58r: extracts from Lincolnshire quarter session rolls.

ff. 59r-63v: royal, comital, and knightly warrants.

ff. 64r-65r: pleas of land in manor courts.

f. 65v: extracts from quarter sessions.

ff. 66r-73v: indictments.

ff. 74v-76v: quarter sessions.

ff. 77r-78v: parliamentary statute, February 1445.

ff. 38v, 49v, 58v, 60v, 69v, 74r are blank.

Decoration:

2 large calligraphic initials in brown ink (ff. 39r, 50r). 3 smaller calligraphic initials in brown ink (ff. 43v, 47r, 59r). 1 large capital in red (16r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046602", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 773: Formulary" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046602

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 773 : Formulary

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0773]/040-002046602

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1460

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

Late 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment and paper.

Dimensions: 290 x 215 mm (text space: 210 x 155 mm).

Foliation: ff. iii + 78 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end, one unfoliated modern paper leaf between ff. 49 and 50 and 58 and 59, and two unfoliated modern paper leaves as sewing guards between ff. 69 and 70, and four unfoliated modern paper endleaves at the end).

Collation: Quires i-vi are parchment. Quire vii is paper, except for the first leaf, which was originally part of a parchment bifolium wrapper. The watermark on the paper bifolium at ff. 69a-69b most closely resembles Briquet no. 7210, dated to 1585 (see C.M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire Historique des Marques du Papier dès leur Apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, 4 vols (London: Quaritch, 1907)). The watermarks on the rest of quire vii are not clearly visible.

i8-2 (ff. 1-6; 1st and 8th leaves missing before f. 1 and after f. 6), ii8 (ff. 7-14), iii22 (ff. 15-36; a single bifolium (ff. 15 and 36) enclosing a quire of eight leaves (ff. 16-23) and a quire of twelve leaves (ff. 24-35)), iv2 (ff. 37-38), v12-1 (ff. 39-49; 12th leaf excised after f. 49), vi12-3 (ff. 50-58; 10th, 11th and 12th leaves excised after f. 58), vii24-3 (ff. 59-78; 12th and 13th leaves missing, replaced by a paper bifolium, now ff. 69a-69b; 24th leaf excised after f. 78).

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house. Rebound in 1967.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1635, d. 1699), bishop of Worcester and theologian (see Wright 1972).

Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1661, d. 1708), physician and Church of England clergyman, son of the former; in 1707 acquired by Robert Harley (see Wright 1972).

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), no. 773.

Proceedings Before the Justices of the Peace in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Edward III to Richard III, ed. by Bertha Haven Putnam, with a commentary by Theodore F.T. Plucknett (London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne and Co., 1938), p. xcviii.

H.G. Richardson, 'An Oxford Teacher of the Fifteenth Century', in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 23 (1939), 3-24 (p. 22).

H.G. Richardson, 'Business Training in Medieval Oxford', in American Historical Review, 46 (1941), 259-80 (p. 278).

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. 316.

English Historical Documents, ed. by David C. Douglas, 2nd edn, 10 vols (London: Routledge, 1996), IV: 1327-1485, ed. by A.N. Myers, pp. 548-553 (item 355) [extract and translation].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Bentinck, Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Portland, née Harley, collector of art and natural history specimens and patron of arts and sciences, 11 Feb 1715-17 Jul 1785,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000115857160,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/2356861
Harley, Edward, second earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, 2 Jun 1689-16 Jun 1741,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000108078249,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/160524259
Harley, Henrietta Cavendish, Countess of Oxford and Mortimer, née Holles, patron of architecture, 4 Feb 1694-9 Dec 1755,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000030125833,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/6045563
Harley, Robert, first Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, 5 Dec 1661-21 May 1724,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083423906