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Harley MS 2270

Record Id:

040-002048101

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048101

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00030a

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2270

Title:

Gesta Romanorum; Medulla grammaticae; Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae

Scope & Content:

The manuscript is a compilation of historical and grammatical texts, as follows:

ff. 1r-85v: Gesta Romanorum.

ff. 86r-194v: Medulla grammaticae.

ff. 195r-236v: Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae.

The three texts were each copied around the same period in the late 15th century. There is no evidence to indicate that they were bound together during the medieval period, however they may have been a single volume before 1687, the year of Samuel Knott's death, since the Medulla and Repertorium contain notes by his hand (ff. 194v, 236v). Humphrey Wanley's inscription on the parchment endleaf at the front of the volume suggests that the three texts were a single volume when they entered the Harley collection.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048101", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2270: Gesta Romanorum; Medulla grammaticae; Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-002767166", "parent" : "040-002048101", "text" : "Harley MS 2270, ff 1r-85v: Gesta Romanorum cum applicationibus moralizatis" },{ "id" : "041-002767167", "parent" : "040-002048101", "text" : "Harley MS 2270, ff 86r-194v: Medulla grammaticae" },{ "id" : "041-002767168", "parent" : "040-002048101", "text" : "Harley MS 2270, ff 195r-236v: Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048101

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2270 : Gesta Romanorum; Medulla grammaticae; Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae

Contains:

Harley MS 2270, ff 1r-85v : Gesta Romanorum cum applicationibus moralizatis
Harley MS 2270, ff 86r-194v : Medulla grammaticae
Harley MS 2270, ff 195r-236v : Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 2270

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2272]/040-002048101

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1460

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

Late 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper. Six parchment sewing guards, removed during rebinding in December 1966, are pasted onto the verso of the first endleaf at the end of the volume.

Dimensions:

- ff. 1r-85v: 290 x 205/10 mm (text space: 230/40 x 150/70 mm).

- ff. 86r-194v: 290 x 205/15 mm (text space: 225/40 x 160/65 mm).

- ff. 195r-236v: 290 x 210 mm (text space: 245 x 170 mm).

Foliation: ff. 236. Plus three additional unfoliated leaves as follows: a medieval parchment leaf at the beginning of the volume, formerly the front pastedown, bearing Wanley's inscription of the acquisition date and faint notes; a medieval paper leaf between ff. 6 and 7; and the first blank, modern, paper endleaf at the end of the volume, onto the verso of which six parchment strips, formely sewing guards, have been pasted. Plus four blank, modern, unfoliated paper endleaves at the beginning of the volume, and four at the end.

Collation: The collation of the manuscript in its original form cannot be completely recovered, since a number of leaves throughout the volume have been mounted individually on guards. Where the collation is dependent upon catchwords indicating the end of a quire, rather than the physical arrangement of the leaves, the number of leaves will be written as a word (e.g. ii^twelve). The remaining quires have also been mounted on guards.

Catchwords are present on ff. 14v, 26v, 38v, 60v, 67v, 101v, 117v, 133v, 149v, 165v, 181v, 206v, 218v, 230v.

Quire signatures are present on ff. 39-44, 51-55, 61-66, 68-75, 86-93, 102-109, 118-125, 136-141 (none on ff. 134-135), 150-157, 166-173, 182-189, 195-200, 207-212, 219-224, 231-234.

(ff. 1-14, leaves mounted either singly or joined with counterparts), i^twelve (ff. 15-26), ii^twelve (ff. 27-38), iii¹² (ff. 39-50), iv¹⁰(ff. 51-60), v^12-5 (ff. 61-67; 8th-12th leaves cancelled after f. 67), vi^sixteen+two (ff. 68-85; f. 85 is a half-leaf, the lower part excised); vii-xii¹⁶ (ff. 86-181), xiii^16-3 (ff. 182-194; 14th-16th leaves cancelled after f. 194); xiv-xvi¹² (ff. 195-230), xvii^8-2 (ff. 231-236; 7th and 8th leaves cancelled after f. 236).

Script: Gothic cursive (Anglicana; Anglicana formata, ff. 4v-6v).

Binding: British Museum in-house. Pasted to the inside covers of the manuscript, front and rear, are the remnants of the outer covers from the previous binding: brown morocco with blind tooled fleurs-de-lys around the edge, with a gold-stamped border.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (not in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English, ed. by McIntosh and others, 4 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986).

Provenance:

Inscribed with a colophon, late 15th century (f. 236v): 'Qui legat emendat scriptorem non reprehendat. Quod I.H.'.

Roger Crocket (16th century): inscribed 'Donum Magistri Rogeri Crocket 1576 Morgayne W. et R.W. Scholaribus Anno domini 1579' (f. 85v) (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 119). Three hands appear to have completed the inscription: the first, presumably Crocket's, wrote 'Donum Magistri Rogeri Crocket'; the second, presumably 'Morgan''s, wrote '1576 Morgayne W. et R.W.'; a third wrote the rest.

'Morgayne W.' and 'R.W.': inscription recording the gift of the manuscript to them by Roger Crocket (f. 85v) (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 339).

John Gowre (or Gower): inscribed with a Latin motto ('Occasum nemo, licet ortum novimus omnes') and his name (f. 85v). The name is misread by Wright as 'Goare' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 166).

Samuel Knott (d. 1687), rector of Combe Raleigh, Devon (1661-1668), antiquary and collector of manuscripts (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 211).

Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d. 1709), Church of England clergyman and collector of manuscripts (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 87-89).

Inscribed by Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), Old English scholar and librarian: '17 Maii 1715' (f. 1r), the date of the acquisition of this manuscript (and some 100 or so others) from Burscough (see The Diary of Humfrey Wanley, 1715-1726, 2 vols (1966), I, p. 11 n. 6).

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), pp. 635-36.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Burscough, Robert, Church of England clergyman, 1650/51-1709
Knott, Samuel, Rector of Combe Raleigh Devon, 1661-1668, d 1687
Wanley, Humfrey, Old English scholar and librarian, 1672-1726,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083872680