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Harley MS 1304
- Record Id:
- 040-002047133
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002047133
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x00032a
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161513643.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1304
- Title:
- John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady; ‘Questiones by twene the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerke’; The ABC of Aristotle, and other proverbs
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-99r: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady (Boffey and Edwards, New Index (2005), no. 2574).
ff. 100r-102v: ‘Questiones by twene the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerke’.
ff. 103r-103v: The ABC of Aristotle, and other proverbs (Boffey and Edwards, New Index (2005), no. 4155).
Decoration:
Spaces for initials left at the top of pages have been left empty or feature initial letters decorated with cadels in black ink. Red paraph marks at the initial letter of every stanza. Chapter titles and Latin rubrication in red ink, either in the margins or space between stanzas. An added drawing of a pole axe with a letter ‘T’ inside it on f. 1*v.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002047133", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1304: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady; ‘Questiones by twene the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerke’; The ABC of Aristotle, and other…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002047133 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1304 : John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady; ‘Questiones by twene the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerke’; The ABC of Aristotle, and… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1304]/040-002047133
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161513643.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper; parchment (f. 1*).
Dimensions: 200 x 285 mm (text space: 100 x 175 mm).
Foliation: ff. 104 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 2 at the end); ff. 1* is a parchment leaf; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown (bibliograpical notes) on f. [i]recto.
Collation: i 12 (ff. 1-11; 1st leaf cancelled), ii 20 (ff. 12-31), iii 12 -vii 12 (ff. 32-91), viii 14 (ff. 92-103; 14th leaf cancelled).
Script: Gothic cursive (Secretary)
Binding: Post-1600. Blind-stamped and –tooled brown leather with a gold-tooled red leather spine.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
John Hall, grocer of London: his ownership inscription on f.1*v: ‘Liber Johannis hall groceri in Lond[onensi]’.
An unknown 15th- or 16th-century merchant: his merchant’s mark on f. 104r.
‘Rogar’, owned in the 16th century: inscribed his name on f. 1v; perhaps also added a payment on f. 1*v: ‘Libe[r] gen[e]sis – xl s v d’.
‘W: Flet’ [? William Flete or ? Fletewood]: inscribed his name ‘W- Flet’ on f. 1r.
Peter Le Neve (b.1661, d.1729), herald and antiquary, Rouge Croix Pursuivant 1690: his ownership inscription on f. 1*r: ‘Liber Petri Le Neve Rouge croix prosecutoris Armorum 1695’. According to a note on f. 103v, Le Neve also removed the final leaf of the last quire and copied some text of the ABC of Aristotle: ‘memorandum this was on the other leafe but I took it out and writt it here Peter Le Neve 1695’. Perhaps also added a Latin reference to a Lydgate manuscript at the Bodleian Library on f. 1*r.
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: British Library, 2005), nos 2574, 4155.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, pp. 654-55.
A Critical Edition of John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady, ed. by Joseph A. Lauritis, Vernon F. Gallagher, and Ralph A. Klinefelter (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 1961), pp. 31-32 (‘H 4’).
Carl Horstmann, ‘Questiones by-twene the Maister of Oxenford and his Clerke’, Englische Studien, 8 (1855), 284-87.
Hans Sauer, ‘A Didactic Dialogue in Old and Middle English Versions: The Prose Solomon and Saturn and the Master of Oxford's Catechism’, in Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Paper Presented at the International Conference, Udinge, 6-8 April 2006, ed. by P. Lendinara, L. Lazzari, and M. A. D’Aronco, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge, 39 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 363-98 (p. 73).
Thomas Woodcock, ‘Le Neve, Peter (1661–1729)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [accessed 1 May 2020].
Thomas Wright and James Orchard Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae: Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language, 2 vols (London: Smith, 1845), pp. 230-32.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 219-21.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)