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Harley MS 2277
- Record Id:
- 040-002048108
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048108
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x000311
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161514516.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2277
- Title:
- South English Legendary
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-232v: South English Legendary (Legends of the saints in verse, listed according to their feast days), imperfect at the beginning.
Decoration:
Large plain initials in red or blue. Paraphs in red or blue. Capitals marked in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048108", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2277: South English Legendary" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048108 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2277 : South English Legendary - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2279]/040-002048108
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161514516.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1295
- End Date:
- 1305
- Date Range:
- c 1300
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 240 x 150 mm (195 x 110 mm).
Foliation: ff. 232 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: South-West England.
Provenance:
John Sanford of Comersley, Somerset: his name (‘John Sanford’) inscribed in the late 16th century (ff. 21r, 41r, 43r, 46r, 49r etc.), and an inscription on f. 22r: ‘Dieu saulve nostre royne Elizabeth 1577 per moy Johan Sanford’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 296). The children of Sanford inscribed their names throughout the manuscript; also featuring drawings of the Sanford coat of arms.
Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d. 1709), Church of England clergyman: Harley purchased the manuscript from him through his widow in 1715 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 87-88).
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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘17 Maij 1715' (f. 1r).
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:
-
Bernhard Bischoff, ‘Übersicht über die nicht diplomatischen Geheimschriften des Mittelalters’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforshung, 62 (1954), 1-27 (p. 16).
Beverley Boyd, 'A new approach to the "South English Legendary', Philological Quarterly, 47 (1968), 494-98.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2277.
Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898), I, pp. 457-58.
The South English Legendary, Early English Text Society, 3 vols, 235, 236 and 244, ed. by Charlotte D'Evelyn and Anna Jean Mill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), I, [an edition of the text]; II, pp. 456-58; III, pp. 3-4.
Anna di Majo, Carlo Federici, Marco Palma, 'La Pergamena dei codici alto medievali italiani: indagine sulle specie animali utilizzate', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des Études relatives aux manuscrits, 39 (1985), 3-12 (p. 4 n. 8).
Frederick James Furnivall, Early English Poems and Lives of Saints (Berlin: Asher, 1862), pp. 34, 40, 42, 57.
Carl Horstmann, Early South English Legendary, Early English Text Society, Old Series 87 (London: Trübner, 1887), pp. xiii-xxiv.
Eichi Kobayashi, The Verb Forms of the South English Legendary, Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 15 (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp. 5-86.
Thomas R. Liszka, ‘The South English Legendaries’, in The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of North-Western Europe, ed. by Thomas R. Liszka and Lorna E. M. Walker (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001), pp. 243-80.
Mary Beth Long, ‘Corpuses and manuscripts, authors and audiences', in A Companion to Middle English Hagiography, ed. by Sarah Salih (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2006), pp. 47-69.
Mary S. Serjeantson, 'The dialects of the West Midlands in Middle English', Review of English Studies, 3 (1927), 54-67, 186-203, 319-31 (pp. 55, 322).
Ruth Wilson Tryon, 'Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English verse', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 38 (1923), 313-20 (pp. 309-13).
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II, pp. 551, 735.
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, p. 11 n. 6.
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. 88, 296.
Arne Zettersten, ‘On some Middle English Acquisitions to the Bodleian Library’, Neuphilologishe Mitteilungen, 72 (1971), 454-56.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)