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Harley MS 2335
- Record Id:
- 040-002048166
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048166
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00034b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2335
- Title:
-
The Pore Caitif
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-105v: The Pore Caitif (a popular 14th-century compilation of 14 treatises intended for the religious instruction of the laity).
The manuscript contains a few later additions:
f. 1*recto: A list of payments: 'Receved of Robert [?] Harman - iis 4d / Due to me from Frances - 3s 8d / Due to frances - 1s - 7d'; added in the (?) 16th century.
f. 1*recto: A title inscription: 'A poor Caityf [...] a Treatise apon the Creed .x. commandements Ps[alms] prayer etcaetera'; added in the 17th century.
f. 107v: 'In the nam of god the ffather and the sson and the holly gos[t]'; added in the (?) 16th century.
Decoration:
Initial in colours and gold with a partial bar border (f. 1r). Numerous blue initials with red pen-flourishing including foliate motifs. Paraphs in blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048166", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2335: The Pore Caitif" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048166 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2335 : The Pore Caitif - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2336]/040-002048166
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
English, Middle - 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:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 150 x 105 mm (text space: 105 x 70 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 107 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated parchment leaf between f. 1* and f. 1 (f. [1a*]); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on the inside upper cover (note of examination).
Collation: Indicated by catchwords and leaf signatures.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Red half leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the outsides of the upper and lower covers. Rebound on 26 June 1967.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
An unknown 15th-century owner: their effaced ownership inscription on f. [1a*]verso: 'Constat [...] cccc [...]'.
? Thomas Frame of of Wickmere, Norfolk, (?) 16th century: inscribed on f. 106r: 'bothe the father and [m]other and M[emorandu]m that I Tomas frame off wykmer fame sold to wyllem [...] of the [...] xxiii d' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972))
? Mark Frank (bapt. 1612, d. 1664), college head and theologian, Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1662-1664: inscribed by John Covel on f. 1*r: 'Bought this out of Dr [?] Franckus his library. It is well worth 15 s.' (see Wright, Fontes Harleini (1972), p. 157).
John Covel (b. 1638, d. 1722), chaplain of the Levant Company at Constantinople 1670-1676: purchased from Mark Frank (see inscription transcribed above), and added prayer dated 1665 'From Lightning and Tempest; From Plague, Pestilence and Famine; From Battell and [...], and From Suddain Death, Good Lord deliver me and all good Christian Peope. J: Colvyle. M.A. Fellow of Chr. Coll. Still let us rather fall into thy mercifull hands, O God, then into the hands of unreasonable men' (f. 1*r). No number written in the manuscript but corresponds to no. 36 in the Latin section of his catalogue (Add MS 22911, ff. 180-183); sold, together with Covel's other manuscripts, to Edward Harley for £300 on 27 Feb. 1715/6 (Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), II, p. 211 n. 1; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 114).
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), p. 657 (no. 2335).
Mary Teresa Brady, 'The Pore Caitif : Edited from MS. Harley 2336 with Introduction and Notes' (unpublished doctoral thesis, New York, Fordham University, 1954).
Mary Teresa Brady, ‘The "Pore Caitif": An Introductory Study', Traditio, 10 (1954), 529-48 (p. 531).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi; II: 1723-1726, p. 211 n. 1.
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. 113-17, 157.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- England