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Harley MS 984
- Record Id:
- 040-002046813
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046813
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x0001ea
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 984
- Title:
-
The Gospel of Matthew (Middle English)
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-71v: The Gospel of Matthew in Middle English, imperfect at the beginning and end due to the loss of folios; ff. 7r-7v, 56r-56v and 64r-64v have been supplied in the 17th century to substitute lost text and appear to have been copied from the Coverdale Bible.
The manuscript contains a few later additions:
ff. 1*recto and 73r: A 16th-century (?) letter, crossed out and damaged.
f. 72r: Erthe upon Erthe (Middle English verse); ending with the couplet ‘Though seyle sey ys sone foryetten / yett pray for hym þat þis haþ wretyn’, added in the 15th century.
f. 72r: A list of payments, added in the 15th century.
Decoration:
Red initials.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046813", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 984: The Gospel of Matthew (Middle English)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046813 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 984 : The Gospel of Matthew (Middle English) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0984]/040-002046813
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
English, Middle - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 170 x 120 mm.
Foliation: ff. 1* + 73 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 56 and f. 57; ff. 1* and 73 originally were flyleaves; all quires have been mounted onto paper guards.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house: re-bound on 31 August 1964.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
‘Thomas Lowerc’, owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 1r.
Richard Jones (d. 1722), bookseller in Little Britain: his name inscribed on f. 1v by a subsequent owner (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 207 does not identify him as an owner of this manuscript).
Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1635, 1699), Bishop of Worcester: possibly added the inscription on f. 1v: '4 of Octob. 1662 bought of Mr Jones in litle britten'; purchased by Edward Harley from his son, Edward Stillingfleet (d. 1708), in 1707 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 316).
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:
-
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), no. 704/11.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), p. 499.
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. 388.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)