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Harley MS 1008

Record Id:

040-002046837

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002046837

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000202

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1008

Title:

A miscellany of theological, moral, devotional, hagiographic, prophetic and mantic texts

Scope & Content:

This manuscript is a composite miscellany of seven parts (ff. 1-8; 9-[26a]; 27-44; 45-56; 57-80; 81; 82-130) containing theological, moral, devotional, hagiographic, prophetic and mantic texts. The different parts probably were all produced in England and France in the second half of the 15th century.

Contents:

ff. 1r-7r: Mass and lections for the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

ff. 9r-26v: Miracles of St Barbara.

ff. 27r-40r: Jean de Roquetaillade [Johannes de Rupescissa], Vademecum in tribulatione, with an expansion of the eschatological years by a century (1456).

f. 40r: Hic tria lustra (here referred to as ‘alia prophecia’).

f. 40r: H. patre sublatu post R. puere rege relicte (here referred to as ‘alia prophecia’).

ff. 40v-41v: Copy of the letter of the Sultan of Babylon to Pope Calixtus III.

ff. 41v-43r: Copy of the letter of Pope Calixtus III to the Sultan of Babylon, dated 28 September 1456.

f. 44r: A mantic dream alphabet.

ff. 45r-56v: Proverbs compiled from biblical excerpts, with a title page ‘Proverbia salomonis’ .

ff. 57r-67r: Distichs of Cato, translated into French by Jean Lefevre [Jehan Le Fevre] (fl. 2nd half of the 15th century).

ff. 67v-80v: Eclogue of Theodulus, translated into French.

ff. 79r-80r: Latin prayers to St Katherine of Alexandria, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

ff. 80r-80v: Les sept requêtes à nostre seigneur, with an introduction, and followed by the sonnet ‘Sainte vraye croix aoree’.

f. 81r: Lilium regnans (‘prophecia Merlini’), followed by a political poem entitled ‘[dominus] Suffolk’: ‘Gens erit australis Rector Regni generalis / Et reget iniuste postea periet quoque iuste’; these lines probably have been excerpted from a poem on the murder of the Duke of Suffolk in 1450, surviving in Cotton Rolls ii. 23.

ff. 82r-121v: Pseudo-Aristotle, Secretum Secretorum.

ff. 121v-124r: Semina Sapiencie; collecta ex diversis Philosophorum Sentencijs.

ff. 124r-130v: Pseudo-Augustine, De duodecim abusivis saeculi.

The manuscript contains a later addition:

f. 44v: A note dated to 16 June 1535 concerning John Stokesley (‘miser Johannes stokysleus’), Bishop of London (r. 1530-1539), and the establishment of the Anglican church.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002046837", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1008: A miscellany of theological, moral, devotional, hagiographic, prophetic and mantic texts" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002046837

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1008 : A miscellany of theological, moral, devotional, hagiographic, prophetic and mantic texts

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1008]/040-002046837

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1450

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

2nd half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 215 x 150 mm.

Foliation: ff. 1* + 130 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); f. 1* is a paper leaf with a modern paper pastedown (bibliographical notes); 1 unfoliated paper leaf between f. 26 and f. 27 (f. [27a]); all quires have been mounted onto paper guards.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house: re-bound on 18 July 1968.

Custodial History:

Origin: England and France.

Provenance:

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), p. 507.

Harry Leigh Douglas Ward and John Alexander Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I (1910), p. 318.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England
France