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Harley MS 1210

Record Id:

040-002047039

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047039

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x0002cc

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1210

Title:

Law statutes for England

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains law texts from England in Latin and French that were probably written in the late 15th century. Other law texts were added in the final decade of the 15th century and early 16th century. In the same period, a Middle English poem, instructions, recipes and notes were added to the manuscript.

Contents:

ff. 1r-2v: Formulae nonnulorum Instrumentorum, a Justiciarijs ad Pacem usitatorum.

f. 2v: Capitula Retornae Brevium, nonnulla.

ff. 3r-5v: Formulae Brevium quorundam regalium.

ff. 6r-7v: Adnotationes e Retorna Brevium Descriptae.

f. 8v: Modus faciendi Exemplificationem.

ff. 9r-20v: Descriptio, sive Definitio Tenurarum, pariter atque plurimorum Verborum technicorum, in Angliae legibus usitatorum.

ff. 21r-138r: Tractatus de Natura Brevium.

f. 138v: Locus Statuti quod dicitur Westmonasterium.

ff. 139v-140r: Recognitio capta in Camera London. in festo Apostolorum Philippi et Jacobi [dated to 1526/7].

ff. 140v-141v: L'Estatute de Anno XI Henrici VII Capitulo XX [dated to 1495/6]; ending 'Finis Lecture de Greys Inne'.

ff. 142r-143r: Extract de Lete et Court Baron per Spilman.

ff. 144r-146r, 153v: Common Law notes.

ff. 146v-151r: Lector vacacionis tempore Quadragesime, anno regni Regis Henrici octavi, xvj^to.

ff. 151v-153r: Lectura super Statutum de Merton.

ff. 153v-154r: An untitled lecture.

The manuscript contains several later additions that are not related to the main contents:

f. 141v: A memorandum concerning payments, ‘Item payd to John Sprig[n] ale and John bakar for [?] egyng on the fyrst Sonday of lent vjs’, added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

f. 154r: A note, 'Hymnum venatoris / So ho So ho / therebey / Gone', added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

f. 154v: A medicine against the plague, entitled ‘A specyall good Medysen for the pestylens approbat in diverse universites and usyd by our soveren lord kyng henry the viijth’, added in the late 15th century.

ff. 155r-156r: Instructions for horn blowing by hunters, entitled ‘Here folowyth the Order of blowyng of all maner of mesures and the properte of them’, added in the late 15th century.

f. 156v: A didactic verse in Middle English: ‘A pope in his solempnyte / An emperour in his maieste / A kyng in hys Realte / A duke in his estate’, added in the late 15th century.

ff. 156v-157r: Notes on the names of male and female goats, hares, and deer at different stages of their lives, added in the late 15th century.

f. 157r: A medicine against cough, entitled ‘ffor the cowhe or the murre’, added in the early 16th century.

f. 157v: A memorandum concerning Elizabeth Wotton (d. 1472), prioress of the Cistercian nunnery of Whiston [Whistones] Priory, Worcester, added in the late 15th century.

f. 157v: Two memoranda concerning ‘Thomas Lovet, armiger’, probably the same as the namesake (d. 1491) who was buried in the church of Cistercian abbey at Biddlesden, Buckinghamshire, added in the late 15th century.

f. 157v: A Latin recipe against stinking feet, beginning ‘Pedes frequenter propter sudorem retentum inclusum non evaporatum emittunt fetorem’, added in the late 15th century.

ff. 158r-158v: Decretales Gregorii IX (fragment), written in the early 13th century.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047039", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1210: Law statutes for England" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047039

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1210 : Law statutes for England

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1210]/040-002047039

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:

1475

End Date:

1524

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 15th century-1st quarter of the 16th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper and parchment.

Dimensions: 200 x 140 mm.

Foliation: ff. 9* + 139* + 158 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); + 2 unfoliated paper leaves between f. 139 and f. 139*; 1 unfoliated parchment leaf between f. 141 and f. 142; 2 unfoliated paper stubs between f. 155 and f. 156; f. 158 [a parchment leaf from a 13th-century manuscript] originally served as a flyleaf.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

‘Johannes’, owned in the 15th century: his ownership inscription (now erased) on f. 157v: ‘Liber Joh[ann]is [...]’; his name (now erased) possibly also in the lower margin of f. 153r.

An unknown English owner in 1532: added a memorandum dated to 1532 (‘vj^to die Julij anno regni regis Henrici viij^o xxiiij^to’) to f. 158v.

? ‘Blyssett’, owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 158r: ‘Stone stedfast in love quod Blyssett’.

? ‘Bury’, owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 158r: ‘Stonde stedfast in love quod bury’; the same saying is repeated a third time and signed with only the initial of the writer’s name (‘quod C’).

? John Iremonger, owned c. 1600: his name inscribed on f. 9*verso (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 203).

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), pp. 598-99.

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. 393.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)