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Harley MS 2322
- Record Id:
- 040-002048153
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048153
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00033e
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2322
- Title:
- The Pore Caitif
- Scope & Content:
-
The Pore Caitif, a Middle English manual of religious instruction, containing the following tracts:
f. 1*v: Added list of contents, with the proverb 'Principium gratum finem facit esse beatum'.
f. 2*r: Added inscriptions (see Provenance).
f. 3*v: Added drawing of Christ, with the proverb 'Principium gratum finem facit esse beatum'.
ff. 1r-4r: Prologue to the Pater Noster, beginning 'Crist Ihesu saiþ in þe Gospel'.
ff. 4r-18r: 'Þe Pater Noster'.
ff. 18r-23r: 'Þe Ave Marie'.
ff. 23r-37v: 'Þe Creede'.
ff. 37v-39r: Prologue to the Ten Commandments, beginning 'A man axide of Crist'.
ff. 39r-85r: An explication of the Ten Commandments, beginning 'The firste heeste of God is þis'.
ff. 85r-87r: 'Of þe Ten Hestis'.
ff. 87r-88r: 'Answeris to hem þat sein þat we schulde not speake of Holy Writ'.
ff. 88v-92r: 'Þe Counseil of Crist'.
ff. 92r-95v: 'Of vertues Pacience'.
ff. 95v-96v: 'Of temptacioun'.
ff. 96v-104r: 'Chartre of heavene'.
ff. 104r-115r: 'Hors, eiþer armure of heavene'.
ff. 115r-119r: 'Þe name of Jhesu'.
ff. 119r-124v: 'Þe love of Jhesu'.
ff. 124v-127v: 'Of verry mekenesse'.
ff. 127v-129v: 'Þe effect of wille'.
ff. 129v-132v: 'Actijf liif and contemplatijf lijf'.
ff. 132v-136v: 'The mirrour of chaastitee', beginning 'I write þis tretis in fyve schort chapitris to hem þat wolen lyve chast'.
ff. 137r-152r: 'Of virgynytee', beginning 'Crist king of mayden flour seþ in his gospel'; ending with a colophon 'Here endiþ þis blessid tretis þat is counseylour of wrecchis' (f. 152r).
f. 153v: Added inscription, erased (see Provenance).
f. 154r: Added inscriptions (See Provenance).
Decoration:
4 initials in gold on red and blue grounds (ff. 4r, 18r, 23r, 39r).
Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Rubrics in red.
Added sketch in brown ink of Christ emerging from the tomb with the cross behind him (f. 3*r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048153", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2322: The Pore Caitif" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048153 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2322 : The Pore Caitif - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2324]/040-002048153
- 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:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1449
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 150 x 105 mm (text space: 95 x 65 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1*-3* + 154 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginnning + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum, rebound in 1966.
Quire signatures. Catchwords in red frames.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Thomas Roberts, 16th century: his name is added on numerous pages throughout the volume, including 'Constat Thome Robertz' (f. 2*r), 'Robertz' (ff. 1r, 4r, 18r, 23r, 37v, 39r, 88v, 115r), 'Iste liber constat Thome Robertz', 'Thome Roberts pertinent', 'Iste liber dico constat puero generoso / si quis queratur Thomas Roberts nominatur' (f. 154r). He may also have added the list of contents (f. 1*v), and the drawing of Christ (f. 3*v), both accompanied by the proverb 'Principium gratum finem facit esse beatum'.
An erased inscription, perhaps a loan pledge, possibly beginning with the name 'Johannis' (f. 153v).
Ambrose Bonwicke, the elder (b. 1652, d. 1722), nonjuring Church of England clergyman and schoolmaster, headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School from 1686 to 1691: one of seven manuscripts that passed from him to William Bowyer, the younger (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 76; Diary of Humfrey Wanley, ed. Wright and Wright (1966), II, pp. 375-76).
William Bowyer, the younger (b. 1699, d. 1777), printer, educated under Ambrose Bonwicke at Headley, Surrey: purchased from him by Humphrey Wanley on behalf of Harley (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 79; Diary of Humfrey Wanley, ed. Wright and Wright (1966), II, pp. 375-76).
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 ‘11 Septembris 1725’ (f. 2*r).
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 available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://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), no. 2322.
Mary Theresa Brady, 'The Pore Caitif : Edited from MS. Harley 2336 with Introduction and Notes' (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Fordham University, 1954), p. xix.
Mary Theresa Brady, '"The Pore Caitif": An Introductory Study', Traditio, 10 (1954), 529-548 (530, 533-36)
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, pp. 375-76 n. 7.
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. 76, 79.
Anne Hudson, Lollards and Their Books (London: The Hambledon Press, 1985), p. 183.
Nicole R. Rice, 'Reformist Devotional Reading: The Pore Caitif in British Library, Harley MS 2322', in The Medieval Mystic Tradition in England, ed. by E. A. Jones (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013), pp. 177-94.
Margaret Connolly, Sixteenth-Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books: Continuities of Reading in the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 79-100.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)