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Harley MS 1680

Record Id:

040-002047511

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047511

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0000bc

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1680

Title:

French historical collection

Scope & Content:

Composite manuscript mostly of French historical tracts relating to the late seventeenth century.

Contents:

ff. 1-8: collection of over 200 medical recipes in Middle English, French, and Latin, 14th century. The English recipes probably translated from French or Anglo-Norman. Prologue inc. 'Here biginniþ gode medicinis þt gode leches habbeþ / founden and drawen out of grete bokis galiene / asclepius and ipocras for hm weren þe beste leches / in þe worlde', rubric 'Whoso haueþ ache oþer torment in his heued', inc. 'Make lye of verueine oþer of bitoyne ouþer of villes ouþer of Wermot / and wasche his heued', expl. 'slepe and hele hym wel'. Recipes for gout, genitals, aqua vita (ff. 4-5), charms and eyes are included.

ff. 9r-16r: Henry Keepe, An Historical Account of the Abbey Church of Westminster, Latin.

ff. 17r-19v: French text on whether Christians should accept Jews.

ff. 20r-21v: annals of France and Flanders from 857 to 1487, French.

ff. 22*r-22**v: Christophle Baltasard, Traitté des Usurpations des Roys d’Espagne, sur la Couronne de France, depuis le Regne de Charles Huictiesme (1645), printed edition, pp. 17-20.

ff. 23r-24r: continued annals of France and Flanders from 1302 to 1385, French.

ff. 25r-33r: questions and answers of an aspirant to the office of Treasurer of France, French.

ff. 34r-49v: Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, De acuto et arguto (On Shrewdness and Arguing), Latin.

ff. 50v-73r: Extract from the Mercure Galant, 1678, on the peace negotiations with the anti-French coalition at Nijmegen in 1678, French.

ff. 74r-90*v: Lecture on patience given to the Académie Française in 1687 by a Mr Cressett, French.

ff. 91r-102v: a philosophical text entitled Charité d’un Reformé.

ff. 103r-104r: Remonstrances made to the king by the Masters of Requests against the undertakings of Parliament concerning the Evocations, 1656.

ff. 105r-118v: remarks on the response to the letter of Monsieur Fagel, 27 February 1688.

ff. 16v, 24v, 34v, 48r, 50r, 74v, 90v, 90*r, 104v are blank.

Decoration:

Red decoration to initials (ff. 1r-8v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047511", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1680: French historical collection" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047511

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1680 : French historical collection

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1682]/040-002047511

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 item

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
French
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1300

End Date:

1699

Date Range:

14th century to the late 17th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment (ff. 1-8) and paper.

Dimensions: 240 x 170 mm (text space: 180 x 120 mm).

Foliation: ff. 118 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end, and 4 blank leaves between ff. 16 and 17, 8 between ff. 33 and 34, and 2 between ff. 73 and 74).

Script: Gothic cursive (ff. 1r-8v) and round hand.

Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (ff. 1r-8v) 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), II (1808), no. 1680.

R. H. Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum, 45, no. 3 (1970), p. 403 nn. 27-28.

D. C. Lindberg, A Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Optical Manuscripts (Toronto, 1975), p. 109, no. 199.

L. E. Voigts and P. D. Kurtz, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CD-ROM, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2006 = eVK2), nos. 2217.00, 3475.00.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)