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Harley MS 2278
- Record Id:
- 040-002048109
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048109
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x000312
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2278
- Title:
-
John Lydgate, Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund
- Scope & Content:
-
The presentation copy of John Lydgate's Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund. Commissioned by Abbot William Curetys for presentation to King Henry VI upon or shortly after his visit to the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds between Christmas 1433 and Easter 1434.
2 full-page miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 1v, 3v), perhaps added later. 118 large framed rectangular miniatures in colours and gold. 1 large historiated initial in colours and gold, forming a 3-sided border (f. 10v). Large initials in colours on gold grounds, with foliate decoration extending into the margins (ff. 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 6r, 118v, 119v). Large initials in gold on red and blue patterned grounds, with foliate sprays in colours and/or gold extending into the margins. Large initial in green, pink, and white (f. 69v). Cadels with penwork decoration in brown and/or black. Paraphs in pink. Small initials and display script in red or blue (f. 119v). Text in red.
The miniatures are as follows:
f. 1v, St Edmund's banner, depicting, against a red ground, The Fall, with Adam and Eve, Tree of Knowledge, serpent; an agnus dei surmounts the tree.
f. 3v, St Edmund's banner, depicting, against a blue ground, 3 gold crowns (arms of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds).
f. 4v, Henry VI as boy, kneeling at the tomb of St Edmund, with attendants and monks.
f. 6r, Presentation of a book to Henry VI, surrounded by attendants and monks. This may also represent the induction of Henry VI into the confraternity.
f. 9r, John Lydgate prays at the shrine of St Edmund; a man seated behind with an open book and pointer.
f. 10r, King Alkmond and Queen Siware seated under canopy with court attendants.
f. 11v, King Alkmond greets Siware; retinues.
f. 12r, A widow sees the sun on Alkmond's chest; Alkmond kneels before the popey.
f. 13r, Return of Alkmond to Saxony, where he is greeted by Siware and others.
f. 13v, The birth of Edmund, with ladies in waiting and midwives.
f. 16v, Offa, king of East Anglia, cousin to Alkmond, on board ship with retinue.
f. 17r, Offa arrives in Saxony.
f. 18v, Offa meeting the young Edmund.
f. 19r, Offa gives his ring and pledges his kingdom to Edmund.
f. 20r, Offa departs.
f. 20v, Offa kneels at the Holy Sepulchre.
f. 21r, Offa on his death bed.
f. 22r, Offa's funeral service.
f. 22v,Offa's burial service.
f. 23r, Messengers tell Alkmond of Offa's death; Offa's ring is given to Edmund.
f. 24r, Alkmond's lords in council.
f. 25r, Alkmond chooses 40 knights and tutors to accompany Edmund.
f. 25v, Alkmond chooses clerks to accompany Edmund to his new kingdom.
f. 26r, Edmund leaves Alkmond and Siware.
f. 27r, Edmund's ship departs; courtiers on shore.
f. 27v, Edmund arrives in East England.
f. 28r, Edmund prays, as 5 springs miraculously appear.
f. 28v, The construction of Hunstanton supervised by Edmund.
f. 29r, Edmund with book, holds court.
f. 29v, Bishop Kunbertus shows Offa's ring.
f. 30r, Edmund with retinue, journeys to Bury, in Suffolk.
f. 31r, The coronation of Edmund.
f. 32r, Edmund and his court, with legal and religious advisors.
f. 34r, Edmund enthroned, with estates of the realm depicted on his robe.
f. 36r, Edmund refuses bribes and adulation.
f. 37r, Edmund hunts.
f. 39r, Lothbrok, king of Danes, with sons Hinguar and Hubba, worship idols.
f. 41v, Lothbrok boards a boat with hawk and hound to hunt; the boat is driven out to sea.
f. 42r, Lothbrok cast ashore in Norfolk; Lothbrok is received by Edmund.
f. 43v, Lothbrok hunts with falcon and lures; Lothbrok hunts with hound and stag.
f. 44r, Lothbrok murdered by Bern; his body hidden in bushes, hound beside.
f. 44v, Lothbrok's hound returns to court; a nobleman follows the hound.
f. 45v, The hound leads knights to the body; discovery of the body.
f. 46r, Bern cast adrift without a sail or mast.
f. 47r, Bern lands in Denmark; received by court.
f. 47v, Hinguar and Hubba set out to avenge their father's murder.
f. 48r, Hinguar and Hubba slay all Christians in the North and despoil the countryside.
f. 48v, People submit to Hinguar, beside burning city.
f. 50r, Battle scene: Edmund defeats Hinguar.
f. 52r, Hinguar sends messenger to Edmund.
f. 52v, Edmund receives message.
f. 54r, Edmund consults with bishop.
f. 55v, Edmund debates with bishop, having placed his sword before an altar.
f. 56v, Edmund replies to Hinguar's messenger.
f. 58r, Hinguar's messenger kneels before him again.
f. 58v, Edmund professes his Christian faith to Hinguar.
f. 60v, Edmund beaten at Hinguar's command.
f. 61r, Martyrdom of Edmund.
f. 62r, Edmund removed from the tree; Edmund, pierced with arrows, praying.
f. 63r, Edmund beheaded.
f. 63v, Edmund's head hidden in a thicket.
f. 64r, Wolf guards Edmund's head.
f. 65r, Christians with dogs seek the body of King Edmund.
f. 66r, Edmund's body discovered.
f. 67r, Edmund's head held aloft, with the wolf beside; the head and body of Edmund reunited.
f. 68v, Burial service of Edmund; workmen finishing tomb, the wolf beside.
f. 72r, The birth of Fremund.
f. 72v, Miracle of rainbow at Fremund's birth.
f. 74r, Burchard, Fremund's secretary and biographer, writes in furnished chamber.
f. 75r, Aldare and his wife in their cottage.
f. 76r, Baptism of their son, Thoua; the infant at 3 days fortells Fremund's birth (depicted as a woman with an infant).
f. 77r, Birth of Fremund; christening of Fremund.
f. 77r, Fremund's coronation.
f. 79v, Fremund leaves for desert island with twi companions.
f. 80r, Fremund travels; he arrives at the island.
f. 81r, Fremund and companion at his hermitage; Fremund with a spade (living by fruits of his labour).
f. 82v, Messengers sent to find Fremund.
f. 83r, The messengers arrive.
f. 84v, Fremund prays for a sign.
f. 85r, Vision scene: an angel appears, as Fremund sleeps before an altar.
f. 85v, Fremund returns to Murcia by ship.
f. 86r (above), Hinguar sends a herald to Fremund.
f. 86r (below), The herald kneels before Fremund.
f. 86v, Fremund and 24 soldiers defeat Danes, with angelic aid.
f. 87v, Fremund kneels, giving thanks for his victory.
f. 88r, Duke Oswy cuts off Fremund's head.
f. 88v, Oswy spattered by saint's blood, repents before beheaded body.
f. 89r, Fremund's head speaks to Oswy.
f. 90r, Fremund takes up his severed head, aided by angels; Fremund touches the ground with his sword, and a well appears.
f. 90v, Fremund, having washed his wounds, turns to the East and dies.
f. 91r, Fremund's body carried for burial; placed in a sepulchre in a church between two pillars.
f. 91v, Three virgins, who are dumb, infirm, and deaf, in rolled head-bands.
f. 92r, The virgins travel to Fremund's tomb.
f. 92v, Virgins remove head and body from tomb.
f. 93v (above), Virgins lead the body by the Cherwell.
f. 93v (below), Virgins return to find willow branch grown into a tree.
f. 94r, Angel speaks to virgins from miraculous willow tree.
f. 95r, The pilgrim Edelbert prays at the Holy Sepulchre, with an angel-vision instructing him to travel to the Cherwell.
f. 96r, Edelbert's arms pulled out of joint by an angel.
f. 96v, Edelbert reports these matters to the pope; black vernicle above altar.
f. 97r, Edelbert as pilgrim finds 5 priests, a sow and piglets near Fremund's grave.
f. 97v (above), Fremund's body translated to Dunstable.
f. 97v (below), Pilgrims and others at the shrine at Dunstable.
f. 98v, Sweyn, king of the Danes, enters England; landscape.
f. 100v, Pilgrims and others pray at Edmund's shrine.
f. 102v, Edmund as apparition appears to sleeping Ailwyn; Ailwyn takes Edmund's message to Sweyn.
f. 103v, Edmund, as a knight, spears Sweyn; angel beside.
f. 105v, Sweyn on his deathbed.
f. 106r, A woman dragged from sanctuary in Edmund's shrine
f. 107v, Sherrif Leoffstan, at the bar, dies suddenly, possessed by a fiend (damaged); bailiff (?) with verge; woman prays.
f. 108r, Five knights steal horses from Edmund's courtyard.
f. 108v, The knights in penitence before Edmund's shrine.
f. 109r, Flemish thief removes jewel from Edmund's shrine.
f. 110v, Osgoth a Dane scorns the shrine; falls to ground in sickness; monk prays and Osgoth kneels in thanks for his recovery.
f. 112v, A priest's house burns; Ailwyn's entry with the shrine at Cripplegate.
f. 113v, The removal of Edmund's tomb.
f. 114v, Edmund's body removed to London by cart.
f. 115r, Edmund's body at temporary resting place.
f. 115v, The installation of Abbot Baldwin; the Abbey of Bury St Edmund's under construction.
f. 117r, The entombment of Edmund at Bury St Edmund's.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048109", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2278: John Lydgate, Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048109 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2278 : John Lydgate, Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2280]/040-002048109
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_2278 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1434
- End Date:
- 1439
- Date Range:
- 1434-1439
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 250 x 170 mm (text space: 140 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 119 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated parchment leaves at the beginning and 1 parchment leaf and 1 paper flyleaf at the end).
Binding: Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling; gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England, produced at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds.
Possibly made under the supervision of John Lydgate (b. c.1370, d. 1449/50?), poet and prior of Hatfield Regis.
Provenance:
Commissioned by William Curteys, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of St Edmund, Bury St Edmunds, as a gift for King Henry VI: the royal arms in an initial (f. 6r); depictions of the king (ff. 4v, 6r); later royal pressmark 'No 467' (f. 1r).
John Touchet, 8th Baron of Audley (d.1559): inscription of Thomas Audelay 'Audelay baron' (f. 119v).
Early 18th-century inscription 'Mrs L D' (f. [ii]).
Sold on 16 August 1720 by Edward Colston to Robert Harley for £31.10s.
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 with the date of acquisition by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley '16 die Augusti A. D. 1720.' (f. [iii]); inscribed 'Oxford B H' (f. 2r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish 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:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2278.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 15.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (pp. xviii, xxii).
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 36.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 91.
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 92 n. 3.
C. E. Wright, English Vernacular Hands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1960), no.18.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 22.
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. 56, 110, 122, 186.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 74.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 56.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 646.
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund: a Newly-Located Manuscript in Arundel Castle', Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 13 (1982), 335-66 (pp. 337, 340, 341, 351 n. 51, 352, etc., figs 7, 8).
J. J. G. Alexander, 'Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 141-62 (p. 151, pl. 11).
A. I. Doyle, 'English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III to Henry VII', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 163-82 (p. 174).
Nicholas J. Rogers, ‘Fitzwilliam Museum MS 3-1979: A Bury St Edmunds Book of Hours and the Origins of the Bury Style’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by David Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 229-43 (pp. 231, 235-36, pl. 4).
Two East Anglian Picture Books : A Facsimile of the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary and Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 1504, ed. by Nicolas Barker (London: The Roxburghe Club, 1988), p. 11.
Kathleen L. Scott, ‘Design, Decoration and Illustration’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 56 n. 22).
A. I. Doyle, 'Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England (c. 1375-1530)', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 1-21 (p. 7).
D. B. Mahoney, 'Courtly Presentation and Authorial Self-fashioning: Frontispiece Miniatures in Late Medieval French and English Manuscripts', Medievalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide, 21 (1996), 97-142 (pp. 125-26).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 78, pls 310-13.
Nicholas Rogers, 'The Bury Artists of Harley 2278 and the Origins of Topographical Awareness in English Art', in Bury St Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology and Economy, ed. by A. Gransden, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 20 (Leeds, 1998), pp. 217-27.
Boccaccio visualizzato: Narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. by Vittore Branca, Biblioteca di Storia dell'arte, 30, 3 vols (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1999), III: Opere d'arte d'origine francese, fiamminga, inglese, spagnola, tedesca, pp. 277, 279.
Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, ed. by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London: V & A Publications, 2003), no. 318, pp. 95, 181, pl. 122 [exhibition catalogue].
James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives, preface by David Starkey (London: British Library, 2004), pl. 33.
The Life of St Edmund, King & Martyr: John Lydgate’s Illustrated Verse Life Presented to Henry VI : a Facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2278, introduction by A. S. G. Edwards (London: British Library, 2004) [facsimile].
Greg Buzwell, Saints in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 45-46.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pls 80, 83.
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, ed. by S. McKendrick, J. Lowden and K. Doyle (London: British Library, 2011), no. 30.
Sonja Drimmer, 'Picturing the King or Picturing the Saint: Two Miniature Programmes for Lydgate's Lives of SS Edmund and Fremund', in Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe 1350-1550: Packaging, Presentation and Consumption, ed. by E. Cayley and S. Powell (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, forthcoming 2012).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- John Lydgate (probably from Lidgate or Lydgate, 10 miles from Bury), a monk of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, translated this work on the life of king Edmund and his cousin Fremund from Latin into English verse to be presented to the 12 year old King Henry VI, to commemorate his stay at Bury from Christmas 1433 to Easter 1434. It is likely that this manuscript was made at Bury under Lydgate's supervision for presentation to the king, and completed at some point thereafter, probably before 1439, when Lydgate began to receive a royal pension, and Abbot Wheathampstead of St Albans commissioned a similar work.A. S. G. Edwards, in the preface to the 2004 facsimile, commented that 'Harley 2278 is probably the most important illustrated manuscript of Middle English verse to be produced in the fifteenth century.'Edmund was an East Anglian king, killed by Danish invaders in 870 at the age of 29. The poem also includes the life of Fremund, the son of Edmund's sister Bothild.There are 12 known surviving manuscripts of the complete text (see Edwards 2004 p. 5).