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Harley MS 913
- Record Id:
- 040-002046742
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046742
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x0001a3
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161517925.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 913
- Title:
-
The Kildare Lyrics
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1v-2r: A theological tract.
f. 3r-6v: The Land of Cokaygne ('Fur in see bi west Spaygne / Is a lond ihote Cokaygne').
f. 6v: Bissop lorles, kyng redeles (Abuses of the age).
ff. 7r-8v: Hail seint Michel wiþ þe lange sper (Satire on the people of Kildare).
ff. 9r-10r: Swet ihesu hend and fre (A homily by Friar Michael Kildare).
ff. 10r-12r: A poem in Latin, beginning: 'Quondam fuit factus festus'.
ff. 12r-13r: Hore sompnolentium adversus capitulum, beginning: 'Fratres nolumus vos ignorare'.
ff. 13v-14v: Missa de potatoribus, beginning: 'Introibo ad altare Bachi'.
f. 14v: A quotation attribured to Bede, beginning: 'Sacerdos qui est sive mortali peccato et in bono'.
f. 15r: A tract on morality.
f. 15v: Proverbs in Latin and French, beginning: 'Folie set que en force sa fie'.
f. 15v: Ad extrahendum salem de potagio (Directions for desalinating drinking water).
ff. 16r-20r: Þe grace of godde and holi churche (The grace of God and Holy Church, ‘A Sarmun’).
ff. 20r-21v: Þe grace of ihesu fulle of miȝte, XV signa ante iudicium (The grace of Jesu full of might).
ff. 22r-22v, 48r-48v: Þe king of heuen mid us be (The King of heaven mid us be, Homily on the Seven Deadly Sins).
ff. 23r-23v: An account of the exorcism of a demon by a group of friars.
ff. 24v-27v: Several texts concerning the Portiuncula Indulgence: Theobaldus de Ponte, Bishop of Assisi (b. 1296, d. 1329), Open Letter giving an account of the circumstances of the Portiuncula Indulgence, beginning: 'Frater Theobaldus dei gratia episcopus' (ff. 24v-26v), Michael Bernardi, Testimony to the Portiuncula Indulgence, beginning: 'In nomine individue Trinitatis et beate Marie, ego Michael Bernardi olim de Spellonnis nunc habitator Assisi' (ff. 26v-27v) and Francesco della Rossa Bartholi (d. 1372), Tractatus de Indulgentia Sanctae Marie de Portiuncula, cap. 37 (ff. 25r-25v, 23r-23v, breaks off incomplete).
f. 28r: Loke to þi loured man þar hanget he a rode.
f. 28v: Man bi hold what ic for þe þolid up þe rode tre.
ff. 28v-29r: A theological tract, beginning: 'Preparandum est cor hominis tanquam dominus'.
ff. 29v-31v: þe grace of god ful of miȝt þat is king and euer was (The grace of God full of might).
ff. 31v-32r: Nou ihesu for þi derworþ blode.
ff. 32r-32v: Lollai lollai litil child whi wepistou so sore.
ff. 32v-33v: The Devil's letter, beginning: 'Princeps regionis Gehenalis ecclesiarum prelatis'.
ff. 33v-39r: Reply to the Prince of Hell by Pope 'Dositheus', beginning: 'Magnus mundi Monarcha christicolarum Calipha, Beelsebub demoniorum principi'.
f. 39r: A poem on the Crucifixion, beginning: 'Ave capud Christi gradum diuisi spinis coronatum'.
f. 40r: An extract from Dares Phrygius, De Excidio Trojae Historia, chapter 44, beginning: 'Pugnatum est annis .x. mensibus. vii'.
ff. 40r-40v: Lists of Trojan and Greek princes; lists of casualties.
ff. 41r-43r: A list of Franciscan custodians and houses, beginning with Ireland and ending with a note about the Franciscans in Ireland.
f. 43r: An expositions on 2Corinthians 11:24.
f. 43r: A calculation of the number of years between Adam and Christ.
f. 43v: An extract from St Bonaventure, Vita Sancti Francisci, cap. 8: 'Cum autem beatus Fransciscus turbatus esset'.
ff. 43v-44r: Notes from Orosius, Historia adversus paganos, II, cap. 6.
ff. 44v-47v, 52r-52v: Whose þenchiþ vp þis carful lif (Whoso thinketh up this careful life, A song on the Times (temp Edward II) with a fable of the Lion, Wolf, Fox, and Ass).
ff. 49r-49v: Lists of biblical figures representing each of the Seven Deadly Sins and each of the Seven Cardinal Virtues.
f. 49v: Several riddles: 'Nota de muliere que peperit puerum, qui fuit filius pater et frater eius'.
ff. 50r-51v: Sith Gabriel gan grete.
ff. 52v-53v: Recipes for pigments 'ad usum scribendi'.
f. 53v: Political prophecies, beginning: 'Bruti posteritas albanis associata'.
ff. 54v, 62r: Eld maketh me geld.
ff. 54v-62r: Elde makiþ me geld / and growen al grai.
ff. 57r: Metra de monachis carnalibus.
f. 57v: John Pecham (b. c. 1225, d. c. 1292), Meditation on the Body of Christ.
f. 57v: A hymn: 'O Iesu dulcissime'.
ff. 58r: Loue hauiþ me broȝt in liþer þoȝt (Love haveth me brought in lither thought).
ff. 58v: Hit nis bot trewþ Iwend an afte.
ff. 59r-59v: A song on the Venality of Judges, beginning: 'Beati qui esuriunt et scitiunt'.
ff. 60r-60v: The Adulterous Monk, beginning: 'In antiquis temporibus'.
f. 60v: On the Hospitality of Monks, beginning: 'Aue capitale, signum manuale'.
ff. 62r-63v: Whan erþ haþ erþ iwonne wiþ wow (When earth hath earth I-won with woe).
f. 63v: A lullaby, imperfect at the end, beginning: 'Lolla, Lolla paruule cur fles tam amare'.
ff. 64r-64v: The Walling of New Ross, beginning: 'Talent me prent de rimaunceir / sil vous plet de escoteir'.
Decoration:
Large initials in red with purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Smaller plain initials in red, some in blue. Paraphs in red. Capitals marked in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046742", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 913: The Kildare Lyrics" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046742 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 913 : The Kildare Lyrics - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0913]/040-002046742
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100161517925.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
French, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1330
- End Date:
- 1370
- Date Range:
- Mid 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 140 x 95 mm (written space: 120 x 75 mm).
Foliation: ff. 64 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: S. E. Ireland (probably Waterford).
Provenance:
? A Franciscan convent in Waterford: see Cartlidge, 'Festivity, order, and community' (2003); Benskin, The style and authorship of the Kildare Poems' (1989), p. 57; and Roberts, Guide to Scripts (2005), p. 169.
George Wyse, mayor of Waterford in 1561: 'Iste liber pertinet ad me Georgii Wyse (f. 2v).
Possible note relating to ownership (f. 29r).
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:
-
Anglo-Irish Poems of the Middle Ages: The Kildare Poems, Corpus of Electronic Texts [accessed 8 September 2008] [with further bibliography].
François Avril, La technique de l’enluminure d’apres les texts medievaux: Essai de bibliographie, Reunion du Comite de l’Icom pour les laboratories de musees et du sous-comite de l’Icom pour le traitement de peintures, Bruxelles 1967 (Paris: Bibliotheque nationale Cabinet des manuscrits, n. d.), p. 19.
Martha Bayless, Parody in the Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 170 n. 51.
Michael Benskin, 'The hands of the Kildare Poems manuscript', Irish University Review, 10 (1990), 163-92.
Michael Benskin, 'The style and authorship of the Kildare Poems, (1) Pers of Bermingham', in In Other Words. Transcultural Studies in Philology, Translation and Lexicography, presented to H. H. Meier on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday, ed. by J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Richard Todd (Dordrecht: Foris, 1989), pp. 57-75.
Neil Cartlidge, 'Festivity, order, and community in fourteenth-century Ireland: the composition and contexts of BL MS Harley 913', Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), 33-52.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 913.
Thomas Crofton Croker, The Popular Songs of Ireland (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), pp. 277-304.
Thomas Jay Garbáty, Studies in the Franciscan 'The Land of Cokaygne' in the Kildare MS., Franziskanische Studien Heft 1-2, (1963), pp. 139-63.
Deborah Hatfield-Moore, Paying the Minstrel: A Cultural Study of B.L. MS Harley 913, Ph.D. Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2001 [with further bibliography].
Wilhelm Heuser, 'Die Kildare Gedichte: die ältesten mittelenglischen Denkmäler in anglo-irischer Überlieferung', Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik 14, (1904) [an edition of Harley 913].
Angela M. and Peter Lucas, 'Reconstructing a disarranged manuscript: the case of MS Harley 913, a medieval Hiberno-English miscellany', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits, 44 (1990), 286-99.
Hans Marcus, Die Schreibung ou in frühmittelenglischen Handscriften (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1917), pp. 30, 88-97.
A. McIntosh and M. L. Samuels, 'Prolegomena to a study of medieval Anglo-Irish', Medium Aevum, 37 (1968), 1-11.
Jane Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 169.
Rossel Hope Robbins, 'The authors of the Middle English religious lyrics', Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 39 (1940), 230-38.
Rossel Hope Robbins, 'The earliest English carols and the Franciscans', Modern Language Notes, 53 (1935), 239-45.
Rossel Hope Robbins, ‘Middle English carols as processional hymns’, Studies in Philology, 56 (1959), 559-82 (p. 576, n. 72).
Hans Walther, 'Zur lateinische Parodie des Mittelalters', Zeitschrift für Deutches Altertum und Deutsche Literatur, 84 (1952-53), 265-73 (pp. 269-73).
Wessex Parallel Texts Project <[accessed"http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/trans/cockaygn/cockaygn.htm>[accessed 8 September 2008].
Poems from BL MS Harley 913, ed. Thorlac Turville-Petre, Early English Text Society OS 345 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)