Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Harley MS 1688
- Record Id:
- 040-002047519
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002047519
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0000c4
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1688
- Title:
-
A Psalter
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 2r-7v: Calendar; with various additions, including 'dedicatio ecclesie Nowicensis'; births, marriages, and obits from the Dereham [Derham] family of Crimplesham, Norfolk; and 'obitus hugonis prior hospicii', i.e. Hugh Acton, Master, 1437–1464.
ff. 8r-139r: Psalter.
ff. 139v-151v: Canticles and hymns, including Confitebor tibi (Isaiah), Ego dixi (Ezekiel), Exultavit cor meum (Anne), Cantemus domino gloriose (Moses), Domine audivi (Habakkuk), Audite celi (Moses), Te Deum, Benedicite (Three Holy Children), Benedictus (Zechariah), Magnificat (Virgin Mary), Nunc dimittis (Simeon), Quicumque Vult (Athanasian Creed).
ff. 151v-154v: Litany of saints.
ff. 155r-159v: Office of the Dead; imperfect at the end.
The manuscript contains later additions:
f. 1*recto: Astronomical notes in Latin and English, recording the number of days in the year and number of hours in the day, and a method for finding the Conjunction of the Moon; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 1*recto: A Latin poem: 'Dies clara pauli denota bona tempora anni / Si fuerit venti desingnat [sic] prelia genti / Si nix vel pluvia desinat [sic] tempora cara / Si fuerit nebula pereunt animalia multa'; added in the 15th or 16th century.
ff. 1*verso-3*verso: Fragments of a 14th-century legal document in Latin.
f. 1r: 'Her is a Rule to know everi monyth what tyme the Sonne shal arise'; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.
f. 1v: Notes on feast days in Latin; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 1v: Latin quotations attributed to Augustine, Innocent, Seneca, and Gregory; added in the 15th or 16th century.
f. 1r: Memoranda of the Dereham family; added in the early 16th century.
ff. 108r-109r: Office of St Katherine of Alexandria; with neumes on four-line red staves; added in the 14th century.
Decoration:
Large initial with partial border in colours and gold, at the beginning of Psalm 1 (f. 8r) and at the beginning of Psalm 109 (f. 110r); the latter features a hexagram with Christ inside it. Large puzzle intial in red and blue with red and blue penwork decoration extending to form a partial margin and including dragons, leaves, and faces, at the beginning of Psalms 26, 38, 52, 68, 80, 97 (ff. 26r, 39v, 52v, 65r, 80r, 93v). Large initials in blue with red penwork decoration and pen-flourishing or in red with blue penwork decoration and pen-flourishing, including in the form of leaves or faces. Small initials in red or blue. Small initials in brown with penwork decoration. Paraphs in blue or red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002047519", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1688: A Psalter" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002047519 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1688 : A Psalter - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1690]/040-002047519
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1399
- Date Range:
- 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 225 x 150 mm (text space: 180 x 115 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1*-3* + 159 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated parchment leaf at the beginning and 4 at the end); f. [iv] is a former parchment pastedown; ff. 1*-3* are fragments of another manuscript; f. 1 is a parchment leaf that originally served as a flyleaf; 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 3* and 2 after f. 109.
Script: Gothic
Binding: British Museum in-house: red half leather binding; rebound on 15 November 1965.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Eastern England (Norwich?).
Provenance:
The hospital of St Giles, Norwich: the calendar includes the dedication of the parish church of Norwich and the obit of Hugh Actor of the hospital (d. 1464).
The Dereham [Derham] family of Crimplesham ('Crumpilsham'), Noforlk: added 15th-century notes in Latin and English of births, marriages, and deaths of members of the family in the calendar, e.g., 'The birth of Baudewyn son of T. Derham, and Jane his wif, the yer of our lorde God I mill cccc lxxij, and ye xiij yer of ye Reign of king Edward iiij' (March); 'Thomas, the son of Thomas of Crimplesham, the son of Thomas of Dereham, & Jane his wif, wer weddid' (February); n the calendar, e.g., 'The birth of Baudewyn son of T. Derham, and Jane his wif, the yer of our lorde God I mill cccc lxxij, and ye xiij yer of ye Reign of king Edward iiij' (March); 'Thomas, the son of Thomas of Crimplesham, the son of Thomas of Dereham, & Jane his wif, wer weddid' (February); and a sketch of four heraldic arms (f. 4v) similar to those over the aisle arcades in their chapel; on f. 1r is an entry for Thomas Dereham (d. 1444), son of Thomas Dereham and Alice (d. 1438), maidservant to Anne of Bohemia and Isobel of France, who married Elizabeth (d. 1468), daughter of Baldin de Vere of Great Addington, Northants, and Denver, Norfolk (d. 1424) and Eleanor (d. 1445). This Thomas was connected with William Paston (d. 1444) (see Richmond, The Paston Family (2000), p. 83 n. 106; Richmond, 'Reflections' (2005), pp. 206-08).
Henry Worsley (b. 1675, d. 1747), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-21) and governor of Barbados (1721-31); donated by him to Robert Harley together with other manuscripts from Worsley's collection (now Harley 1585-1747, 1811, 1812) before December 1712 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 361).
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), p. 173 (no. 1688).
Christopher Wordsworth and Henry Littlehales, The Old Service-Books of the English Church, 2nd edn (London: Methuen, 1910), p. 58.
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. 361.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, Supplement to the Second Edition, ed. by Andrew G. Watson, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 15 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1987), p. 51.
Colin Richmond, 'Margins and Marginality: English Devotion in the Later Middle Ages', in England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Nicholas Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, IV (Stamford: Watkins, 1994), pp. 242-252 (p. 245) [where the manuscripts is erroneously referred to as Sloan MS 2633].
Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Endings (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 83 n. 106.
Colin Richmond, 'East Anglian Politics and Society in the Fifteenth Century: Reflections, 1956-2003', in Medieval East Anglia, ed. by Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodridge: Boydell, 2005), pp. 183-208 (pp. 206-208 [Appendix II]).
'Psalterium — Norwich, Norfolk. Hospital of St Giles, Bishopgate', in MLGB3 [accessed 19 May 2021].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- Eastern England
Norwich, England