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Harley MS 1023

Record Id:
040-002046852
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
040-002046852
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000211
LARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100165164509.0x000001
SLARK:
Format:
ISAD(G)
Reference (shelfmark):
Harley MS 1023
Title:

Gospel-book

Scope & Content:

This is a 12th-century illuminated Gospel-book with glosses in Irish and Latin, and added texts in Latin. Its close similarities in text, script and decoration with the Gospels of Mael Brigte (Harley MS 1802) and the Book of Armagh (Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS 52) both made in Armagh, suggests that this manuscript is also an Armagh production. The volume is imperfect, missing the greater part of the Gospel of St Matthew as well as single leaves after ff. 33, 45 and probably 88.

ff. 1r-8v: Gospel of St Matthew, imperfect (beginning with Matthew 23:25).

f. 9r-v: Prologue to the Gospel of St Mark.

ff. 9v-10r: added Latin prayer, in a 12th-century Irish hand.

ff. 11r-33r: Gospel of St Mark.

f. 33r-v: Prologue to the Gospel of St Luke.

ff. 34r-63v: Gospel of St Luke.

f. 63v: added Latin text consisting of biblical questions and answers, in a 12th-century Irish hand.

ff. 63v-64r: added Latin text listing Pharaohs of Egypt, in a 12th-century Irish hand.

f. 64r-v: Prologue to the Gospel of St John.

ff. 65r-88v: Gospel of St John.

f. 88v: added Latin text describing the books of the Bible, in a 12th-century Irish hand.

f. 88v: added short Latin text concerning the Seven Sleepers ('Ciriacus, Diomedes, ?Hlidius, Euagenius, Probatus, Sabbates, Stephanus'), in a 12th-century Irish hand.

Decoration: 1 full-page miniature in outline drawing of the lion symbol of St Mark (f. 10v). 1 three-quarter-page miniature in outline drawing of the eagle symbol of St John (f. 64v). 3 large interlace and zoomorphic initials with coloured infill at the incipits of the Gospels of Sts Mark (f. 11r), Luke (f. 34r), and John (f. 65r). Enlarged text initials throughout the manuscript.

Collection Area:
Western Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Harley Collection
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "040-002046852", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1023: Gospel-book" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-002045828
040-002046852
Is part of:
Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

 

Harley MS 1023 : Gospel-book
Hierarchy:
032-002045828[1023]/040-002046852
Container:
View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
Record Type (Level):
File
Extent:

A parchment codex

Digitised Content:
http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165164509.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
Thumbnail:
Languages:
Irish
Latin
Scripts:
Latin
Start Date:
1100
End Date:
1149
Date Range:
1st half of the 12th century
Era:
CE
Access:

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User Conditions:
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 205 x 145 mm (written space: 145 x 88 mm).

Foliation: ff. 88 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).

Collation: i10 (ff. 1-10), ii12 (ff. 11-22), iii12-1 (ff. 23-33;12th leaf missing after f. 33), iv12 (ff. 34-45), v12-1 (ff. 46-56; 1st leaf missing before f. 46), vi20 (ff. 57-76), vii?12-1 (ff. 77-88; ?12th leaf missing after f. 88).

Script: Irish minuscule.

Binding: Post-1600. Covered with dark blue leather with gold tooling.

Custodial History:

Origin: Northern Ireland, Armagh

Provenance:

15th century running titles to the Gospels of Sts Matthew and Mark and chapter numeration throughout.

Edward Stillingfleet (b. 1635, d. 1699), bishop of Worcester and theologian: the manuscript is no. 154 in his library catalogue drawn up in 1685, where it is described as ‘IV Evangelia Ling. Latina (character Saxonicae)’ (Harley MS 7644). In 1707, his son James Stillingfleet sold the manuscript portion of the library to Robert Harley for £175 (Wright, Fontes Harleiani, p. xix). The manuscript appears as no. 154 in a list of Stillingfleet’s manuscripts with valuations drawn up by Harley’s librarian Humphrey Wanley, where it is described as ‘Charactere Hybernico. Capite mutilus. (4to.) 1 pott.’, and valued at £2 (Harley MS 7055).

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, no. 1023.

J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 82.

E. S. Buchanan, The Four Gospels from the Latin Text of the Irish Codex Harleianus numbered Harl. 1023 in the British Museum Library (London: Heath Cranton & Ouseley, 1914).

Standish Hayes O'Grady and Robin Flower, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1926-1953), II, Robin Flower (1926), pp. 432-33.

H. H. Glunz, History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), no. 22.

Françoise Henry and G. I. Marsh-Micheli, 'A Century of Irish Illumination (1070-1170)', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 62 (1962), 101-64 (102, 111, esp. 146-48, pls XXIVb, XXV).

Françoise Henry, Irish Art in the Romanesque Period-1020-1170 A.D. (London: Methuen, 1970), pp. 47, 53, 63-4, pls 6, 7.

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. xix.

J. J. G. Alexander, Insular Manuscripts: 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 1 (London: Harvey Miller, 1978), no. 75.

Martin McNamara, 'The Echternach Gospels and Mac Durnan Gospels: some common readings and their significance', Peritia, 6-7 (1987-1988), 217-22.

C. R. Dodwell, The Pictorial Arts of the West 800-1200 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 92-93, 414, pl. 73.

Meyer Schapiro, The Language of Form: Lectures on Insular Manuscript Art, with an introduction by Jane E. Rosenthal (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 2005), pp. 9-10, fig. 4.

Martin McNamara, The Bible and the Apocrypha in the Early Irish Church (A.D. 600-1200), Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia, Research on the Inheritance of the Early and Medieval Christianity, 66 (Turnhout, Brepols, 2015), pp. 282, 311, 530.

Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)