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 1717
- Record Id:
- 040-002047548
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002047548
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0000e1
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057740026.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1717
- Title:
- Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the Chronique des ducs de Normandie (Chronicles of the Dukes of Normany), which is believed to have been composed by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (fl. 1160-70) while he was in the service of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Chronique begins with Creation and ends with the death of Henry I.
Contents:
ff. 1r-250r: Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie.
f. 250v: Added Prophecy of the Eagle, or of Merlin Silvester, 13th century, in Latin.
f. 251v. 'Parti de mal e a bien aturne': Song of six verses, with music to the first, written in a French hand. The notes are quasi-square on a stave of four red lines, with the C signature.
Decoration:
9 large historiated initials in colours and gold occasionally with dragons. Large decorated initials in colours and gold with interlace and animal heads, dragons, foliate decoration, fighting animals, etc. (ff. 1r (including dragon), 23r, 61r, 154v, 156v, 160r, 166v, 174v (with a fabric curtain), 218r, 236r). Initials in colours and gold. Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. A miniature in colours and gold painted on a separate piece of parchment was lost (f. 13; no pigment bleeding through onto the verso, but traces around the edges remain). Many paraphs, ascenders and descenders decorated with brown pen-flourishing (e.g. ff. 85v, 86, 129v).
The subject of the miniatures are:
f. 13v: Baptism.
f. 59r: Monk swinging a censer over the coffin of Gille, the first wife of Rollo, first duke of Normandy.
f. 61v: Men swearing allegiance to William of Normandy.
f. 86r: Richard the Fearless becoming duke of Normandy.
f. 112r: Richard the Fearless riding towards a group of monks.
f. 163r: Richard II.
f. 172r: Richard II and his sister Maheut.
f. 181v: Richard III.
f. 182v: Robert II le Diable, father of William the Conqueror.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002047548", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1717: Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002047548 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1717 : Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1719]/040-002047548
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100057740026.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1200
- End Date:
- 1249
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 13th 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 codex.
Dimensions: 300 x 205mm (text space: 235 x 135mm), in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 252 (+ 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf + 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. BM/BL in-house; gold-tooled light brown leather over wooden boards with gilt fore-edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, N. W. (Normandy?) or England.
Provenance:
Added Prophecy of the Eagle, or of Merlin Silvester, 13th century, in Latin (f. 250v).
Inscribed, 15th century, price 'xxvi s. viii d.' (on a piece of parchment pasted onto f. [ii]).
?The collegiate church of St. John of Beverley, Yorkshire, 15th century: inscribed 's[an]c[t]i Beverlaci' (f. 252).
Added Prophecy of Merlin, 15th century, in English (ff. 249v-250).
Added inscriptions in 15th-16th-century hands (ff. 251v-252).
Thomas Lorde, 16th century: inscribed with his name (f. 252).
Erased inscription, post-medieval (f. 244).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 Diary 1966).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.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 1717.
Harry Leigh Douglas Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I (1883), p. 312.
Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906-1965), I, p. 422.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xix-xx.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 72-73, 227, 361.
Maria Careri, Christine Ruby and Ian Short, Livres et écritures en français et en occitan au XIIe siècle: Catalogue illustré (Rome: Viella, 2011), pp. XXV, 206.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)