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Harley MS 1801

Record Id:

040-002047632

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047632

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x000135

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1801

Title:

Bonaventure, Breviloquium pauperis seu Compendium sacrae Scripturae;Hugh of Saint-Victor, Soliloquium de arra animae; Bernard of Clairvaux, De diligendo deo; and other theological texts

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 4v-8v: De Inventione Sanguinis Christ in Ecclesia Fiscanensi per Ricardum I Ducem Normanniae; including an account of how a hidden portion of the Holy Blood at the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Fécamp was rediscovered in 1171, translated to a new shrine, and a sample of it taken by Clement the precentor of Norwich.

f. 8v: 'Nota de Passione Christi e primo libro Richardi de Sancto Trinitate'.

ff. 9r-63v: Bonaventure, Breviloquium pauperis seu Compendium sacrae Scripturae.

ff. 63v-73r: Bonaventure, Lignum vitae.

ff. 73r-88v: Homiliae quatuor super 'Missus est', beginning: 'Missus est angelus Gabriel a deo in ciuitate Galilee'.

ff. 88v-92r: Pseudo-Bernard, Planctus beatae Mariae Virginis, here entitled: 'Meditacio beati Bernardi de passione beate virginis in passione filii sui pendentis in cruce'.

ff. 92r-99r: Pseudo-Basil, Admonitio ad filium spiritualem ('Doctrina de Basilii').

ff. 99v-106v: Hugh of Saint-Victor, Soliloquium de arra animae.

ff. 106v-109r: 'Tractatus de penis inferni'.

ff. 109r-114r: Pseudo-Augustine, De duodecim abusivis saeculi.

ff. 114r-125r: Pseudo-Bernard, Meditationes ('Meditationes sive dicta beati Bernardi'), beginnning: 'Multi multa sciunt'.

ff. 125r-127r: Bernard of Clairvaux, De diligendo deo ('Exortacio sancti Bernardi de diligendo deo').

f. 127r: 'Dicta bona senece ad Lucilium.

The manuscript contains various additions:

ff. 2*recto-4*verso: List of contents; added in the 16th or 17th century.

ff. 1r-1v: Excerpts from Seneca, beginning: 'Seneca ad Lucilium'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 2r: Pressmark inscription: 'S. lij. Symonis de Elmham'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 2r: Theological excerpts from Sidonius Apollinaris and others; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 2r: A reference to a work by Hugh of Saint-Victor; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 2r: 'Seneca ad Lucilium'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

ff. 2v-3r: Augustine, De Charitate, et de caeco illuminato ('Augustinus De commendatione caritatis'); Sermon 349; added in the late 13th or early 14th century

ff. 3v-4r: Dicta elegantiora philosophorum multorum, beginning with an excerpt from Caecilius Balbus, De nugis philosophorum: 'Age sic alienum'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

ff. 127v-129r: An Anglo-Norman verse allegory of the Four Daughters of God (see Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), no. 685); added in the 2nd half of the 13th century.

ff. 129v-131r: Pseudo-Anselm, Meditacio ('Meditacio beati Anselmi'), beginning: 'Torret me vita mea namque diligenter discussa apparet mihi aut peccatum aut sterilitas'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

ff. 131r-135r: 'Summa beatissimi Augustini de vita Christiana', beginning: 'Christum unctum interpretari sapientium et fidelium nullus ignorat'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 135r: 'Hic liber est scriptus qui scripist sit benedictus / qui culpat manum scriptoris basiat anum - (?) L. K.'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 135v: A Latin theological text; added in the 16th century.

f. 136r: A theological excerpt: '[...] scribere Gregorius: poena oculos aperit, quos culpa claudit'; added in the late 13th or early 14th century.

f. 137v: Wisdoms in Latin, including Ovid: 'Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes'; added in the 16th century.

ff. 138r-138v: English sentences, including: 'no more sene then the nose of ons face is somme of ther knavery quod R'; and another beginning: 'If uppon a knave it were written'; signed 'Ed: Lo:'; added in the 16th century.

f. 139r: List of contents; added in the (?) 14th century.

f. 139r: Wisdoms in Latin, including one signed 'Ed: Lo:'; added in the 16th century.

Decoration:

5 puzzle initials in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours (ff. 9r, 14r, 74r, 88v, 92r). Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Some marginal notes enclosed in red and brown decorated frames (e.g., ff. 15r, 44r, 84r). Some descenders decorated with brown and red pen-flourishing (e.g., ff. 18v, 38v, 64v). Some capitals marked with red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047632", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1801: Bonaventure, Breviloquium pauperis seu Compendium sacrae Scripturae;Hugh of Saint-Victor, Soliloquium de arra animae; Bernard of…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047632

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1801 : Bonaventure, Breviloquium pauperis seu Compendium sacrae Scripturae;Hugh of Saint-Victor, Soliloquium de arra animae; Bernard…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1803]/040-002047632

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Anglo-Norman
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1250

End Date:

1299

Date Range:

2nd half of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 160 x 110 mm (text space: 110 x 80 mm, in 2 columns).

Foliation: ff. 1*-4* + 139 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 2 unfoliated parchment leaves after f. 135; f. 139 is a former pastedown; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [iii]recto (bibliographical notes).

Collation: Indicated by quire marks (Roman numerals on the verso of the last folio of the quire) and horizontal catchwords.

Script: Gothic, written below the top line.

Binding: British Museum in-house; red half leather with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; rebound on 3 November 1967; fore-edges inscribed with the word 'Spirituall'.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (? Norwich).

Provenance:

The cathedral priory of the Holy Trinity, Norwich, possibly acquired between 1272 and c. 1325: its 13th-century pressmark 'D. lij Symonis de Elmham' on f. 2r, a previously unidentified manuscript from this monastic library and therefore not recorded in Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, Supplement, ed. Ker and Watson; its provenance can be verified from a 13th-century copy of Jean Beleth's Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, now Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 5.28, that bears an identical Norwich pressmark: 'D. lj Simonis de Elmham monachi' (see Ker, 'Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory' (1949), p. 13); according to Ker, books from the same donor were assigned the same letter and a continuous series of numbers, meaning that Harley MS 1801 directly followed Ff. 5.28 in the cathedral library's collection. The donor is unidentified, but possibly was Simon of Elmham (d. 1257), Prior of Norwich Cathedral from 1235 and Bishop-elect of Norwich in 1236. If he was the donor, then Harley MS 1801 must have been at the cathedral library well before 1272.

? Newton family, 16th or 17th century: added arms in brown ink with the heading 'the Newton armes' on f. 1*recto (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 251).

Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), librarian of Robert and Edward Harley, earls of Oxford: inscribed 'Humfredus Wanley Jan 1713' (f. 1*recto). The manuscript must have been incorporated in the Harley library in the following years (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 344).

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: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, http://www.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), pp. 228-29 [no. 1801].

Francisque Michel, Libri Psalmorum versio antiqua gallica e Cod. MS. in Bibl. Bodleiana asservato (Oxford: E Typographeo Academico, 1860), ff. 364-68.

Arthur Långfors, 'Notice des Manuscrits 535 et 10047', Notices et Extraits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 42 (1933), 172–182.

N. R. Ker, 'Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1:1 (1949), 1-28 (p. 13) [without this manuscript].

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. 251, 344.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, Supplement to the Second Edition, ed. by Neil Ripley Ker and Andrew G. Watson, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 15 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1987) [without this manuscript].

Ruth J. Dean and Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 685.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Annaeus Seneca, Lucius, also known as Seneca the Younger, 4 BC-65,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121030100,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/90637919
Augustine of Hippo, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121376443,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/66806872
Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot of Clairvaux, ?1090-1153,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000120962264,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/59875293
Bonaventure, Saint, born Giovanni di Fidanza; scholastic theologian, 1221-1274,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/000000045724994X
Hugh of Saint-Victor, c 1096-1141,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121201563,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/9865788
Ovidius Naso, Publius, Roman poet, 43 BC-17,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121427757

Places:

England
Norwich, England