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Harley MS 1568
- Record Id:
- 040-002047398
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002047398
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00004b
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161513731.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1568
- Title:
- The Prose Brut Chronicle
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-182r: The Prose Brut Chronicle (Common version to 1419).
Decoration:
Historiated initial of King Diocletian and his daughters combined with a full bar border in colours and gold with floral decoration (f. 1r). Numerous historiated initials or small miniatures in colours and gold depicting kings in various postures, with foliate feathering extending into the margins (ff. 3r, 8v (x2), 9r (x2), 9v (x3), 11v, 12 (x2), 12v, 13r, 13v, 15r, 15v (x4), 16r (x3), 48v [Augustine baptising king Aethelberht], etc.). Gold initials on green and/or dark red grounds, some with foliate feathering. Capitals marked in red; names underlined in red. Paraphs in red, blue or gold.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002047398", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1568: The Prose Brut Chronicle" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002047398 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1568 : The Prose Brut Chronicle - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1569]/040-002047398
- 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_100161513731.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1425
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 2nd quarter of the 15th century-3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 290 x 200 mm (text space: 210 x 130 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 183 (+ 9 unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning + 9 at the end); ff. [i]-[iv], [148]-[151] are modern paper leaves; ff. [v]-[viii], ff. [144]-[147] are parchment leaves; f. [ix] is an 18th-century paper leaf.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
Unknown 15th-century owners: added a 15th-century monogram 'NT' (f. 48v) and Latin maxims (f. 183v).
Mrs. Whitelock, ? related to Bulstrode Whitelocke (b. 1605, d. 1675), lawyer and politician: her name inscribed on f. [ix]recto: 'Bought of Mrs. Whitlock'; sold to Harley (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 353).
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:
-
'BL Harley MS. 1568', Imagining History: Project Wiki , [accessed 09 May 2008].
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 1568.
Lister M. Matheson, The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 180 (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998), pp. xxiv, 70, 117, 121, no. 59.
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. 353.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)