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Harley MS 1728

Record Id:

040-002047559

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047559

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0000ec

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1728

Title:

Polychronicon with a continuation to the reign of Richard II (c. 1398), vol. 1

Scope & Content:

The manuscript is the first of two related volumes, Harley MS 1729 being the second. The text is primarily a copy of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon. An apparatus of slightly later date has been added to the beginning, in a different hand (items 1-3).

Contents:

1. (f. 1v): List of the kings from William the Conqueror onwards. Heading: 'Sequuntur nomina Regum Anglie a conquestu . & in quibus libris et capitulis de eis tractatur in presenti historia'. Richard II (at the bottom of the first column) is the last of these to be treated in the manuscript, but the kings continue to be listed in order, without book and chapter reference. The last to be listed is Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486-1502): 'Arthurus princeps illustrissimus primogenitus henrici septimi'. Subsequent kings have been added in later hands, until 'Elizabeth henrici 8i filia'.

2. (ff. 2r-6v): Alphabetical index to the Polychronicon. Names, places and topics are listed, along with book and chapter references where they are addressed.

3. (f. 7r): A brief note on England's first monarchs: 'Alvredus sive Alfredus primus Monarcha tocius regni occidentalum saxonum . Rex offa primus Monarcha tocius britannie . tamen Alvredus prothomonarcha Anglie dicitur . quam monarchiam viginti octo annis & dimidio cum labore tenuit'.

4. (ff. 9r-101v): Polychronicon by Ranulf Higden (d. 1364) with a continuation to the reign of Richard II (c. 1398), vol. 1. This text is continued in volume 2, Harley MS 1729. An edition of the chronicle can be found in Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. by Churchill Babington and J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series, 9 vols (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1865-1886). Incipit: 'In historico contextu cronographorum diligencia nobis delegato'. The text breaks off near the end of Book 3, to be continued in the next volume. Explicit: 'qua conceptus est usque ad feriam 6am [sextam] qua natus est 270 dies qui r[e]ddunt 9 menses'. A catchword at the bottom of the page refers to the first words of Harley MS 1729, f. 1r. There are a large number of Latin notes in the margin, both by the text's scribe and by subsequent readers or owners. Those by the scribe are primarily source citations. The chapter numbers that are referred to by the index on ff. 2r-6v are not part of the manuscript's original planned apparatus, but have been added in a later hand.

5. (f. 24v): The addition has been made to the manuscript of a leaf 255 x 175 mm (text space: 205 x 135 mm). It has been lain on top of f. 25r, with the two outer edges sewn together to hold it in place. Written in the same hand that has produced some of the marginal notes on this page and elsewhere is an extended note on the region of Brabancia. Incipit: 'Brabancia ad eurum flandrie situatur'. Explicit: 'ad latrotinia & depredaciones proni . vilibus & scissis vestibus induti'.

6. (f. 102r): A medieval flyleaf, cut down from a Bible in Gothic script. The text is the Vulgate translation, Matt. 26:6-63.

Decoration:

Drawings of Noah's Ark in red ink (f. 47r). 4 initials in colours and gold with foliate decoration including acanthus and kidney-shaped leaves extending into the margins at the beginning of the prologue and of each book (ff. 9r, 11r, 43r, 67v). Numerous smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047559", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1728: Polychronicon with a continuation to the reign of Richard II (c. 1398), vol. 1" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047559

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1728 : Polychronicon with a continuation to the reign of Richard II (c. 1398), vol. 1

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1730]/040-002047559

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1449

Date Range:

1st half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 300 x 210 mm (text space: 215 x 125 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: 102ff. (ff. [i] and [103] are unfoliated modern paper flyleaves; f. [102], misnumbered as a second f. 101, is a medieval parchment flyleaf cut down from a Vulgate bible).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding. Binding of brown mottled calf with gold fillets.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Alphabetical index with coloured initials in blue added in the late 15th or early 16th century (presumably 1486-1502 because of the mention of Arthur, Prince of Wales), with later 16th-century additions up to the date of 1558 (ff. 1v-7r).

Late 15th-century added text concerning Brabant written on a separate smaller folio (f. 24r) sewn onto f. 23r.

Added post-medieval pagination.

Nicholas Shaxton (c. 1485-1556), fellow of Gonville Hall, Cambridge (1510-1534), bishop of Salisbury (1535-1539), owned these 2 volumes until c. 1535-1539: inscription (f. 1r) mentioning the gift of this manuscript by him while bishop of Salisbury to Matthew Wotton ('in minoribus constitutus Cantabridgie').

Matthew Wotton (d. 1551), scholar and fellow of King's Hall, Cambridge (1523-1540), perhaps the treasurer of Salisbury in 1551: inscription (f. 1r) by Godfridus Coben, dated 1551 recording the gift by Wotton of this manuscript in 1551.

Godfridus Coben: owned these 2 volumes from 1551: inscription (f. 1r).

Henry Worsley (1675-1747), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-1721) and governor of Barbados (1721-1731): 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 1972).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (1661-1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (1689-1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish Harley, née Holles (1694-1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (1715-1785), 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, 1808-1812), II (1808), p. 191, no. 1728.

John Taylor, 'The Development of the Polychronicon Continuation', The English Historical Review, 76, no. 298 (1961), 20-36, (p. 23).

John Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 154.

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.

C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 106, 303, 361, 362-63.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Related Material:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), II (1808), p. 191, no. 1728:

'Codex membranaceus in fol, min. quo continentur,

1. Adnotatio de Distinctione Policronicae, in Septem Libros. 1. b.

2. Nomina Regum Angliae a Conquestu; et in quibus Libris & Capitulis de eis tractatur in presenti Historia; et quam diu regnarunt, et quo tempore. ibid.

3. Tabula materiarum praecipuarum, cum in praesenti tum in insequenti codice contentarum, Alphabetico Ordine disposita.

4. Historia Policronicon inscripta, quam nuper Partem Priorem Polycraticorum rogeri Monachi Cestrensis, esse deprehendi; scil. ab initio primi Libri, usq; ad finem fere Libri tertij.'

See also the description of the companion volume, Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, II, p. 191, no. 1729:

'Codex membranaceus in fol. min. superioris scilicet Pars altera; in quo habentur;

Pars reliqua Policraticorum rogeri Cestrensis; cum amplissima continuatione usque ad annum 1398. ubi plura de Joanne Wycliffe & ejus Sequacibus liceat invenire. Desideratur autem, aliquo infortunio, folium ultimum.'