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Harley MS 2336
- Record Id:
- 040-002048167
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048167
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00034c
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2336
- Title:
- The Pore Caitif
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-137v: The Pore Caitif.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 1*recto: A letter in Englsh dated to 1536: 'Bettar it ys for all howsold ffor to hold ffor the [nigt]ly yn brestyn in ffetars off gold cosyn Rosa [...] yn my best [...] I hartely Recom[m]en [sic] me wonto [sic] you [...[ my be kyngyng god be[...] yn [...] and vertu to yore sed the bl[es]sed mary myld ffor the [...] chyld thy tym was and thys and tym shull be styll yn the [y]er off uwr lord god 1536 that thestar was agen [...]' .
f. 1*verso: An inscription: 'di[xit] ep[iscopu]s cicest[rensis] de [? r/p] q[uod] f[rate]r mi[n]or [com]pilat hu[n]c li[brum] i[n] suo defe[n]sorio'; added in the 15th century.
f. 1*verso: A copy of the inscription above by Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), Keeper of the Harleian Library: 'Dixit Episcopus Cicestrensis quod Frater Minor compilavit hunc librum in suo Defensorio'; added in the 17th century; may refer to Reginald Pecock (b. c.1392, d. in or after 1459), bishop of Chichester in 1450' (see discussion in Moss, 'The Urban Context for Westminster School MS 3' (2002) [online resource]).
f. 1*verso: A note on Henry Wharton (b. 1664, d. 1695), Church of England clergyman and historian, by Humfrey Wanley: 'Henricus [?]aulem Whartoneis eundem [?]divertis verbis Joanni Wiclefe adjudicat'.
Decoration:
Puzzle initial in red and blue with pen-flourishing in purple and red. Numerous initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Paraphs in blue.
Added in the 16th-century: Marginal decoration in pink ink with caterpillars and butterflies (f. 1r), putti in foliage (f. 54v), a human head (f. 79r), foliage (ff. 82r, 93r, 102v, 116r, 118v, 137r), a bird on a branch (f. 114r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048167", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2336: The Pore Caitif" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048167 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2336 : The Pore Caitif - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2337]/040-002048167
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
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:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 145 x 100 mm (text space: 105 x 65 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 137 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); a parchment tab on f. 6r; parchment fragments added to damaged pages with loss of text pasted onto ff. 118r-118v, 124r-124v (with the repaired texts written in red ink).
Collation: Mainly in quires of 8. Leaf signatures. Catchwords written horizontally.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Red half leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the outsides of the upper covers; rebound on 26 June 1967.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
South-Eastern England (London).
Provenance
? John Gamalin, 15th century, his common-profit book made from the proceeds of his estate: inscribed on ff. 137r-137v: 'This book was maad of the goodis of John gamalin for a comy[n] p[ro]fite . þat þ[at] p[er]soone þ[at] haþ þis book co[m]mittid to hi[m] of þe p[er]soone þ[at] haþ pow[er] to co[m]mitte it [...] And so be it delyverid and co[m]mitid fro p[er]soone to p[er]soone man or wo[m]man as lo[n]ge as the book endureþ'.
Phillip Sherr, 16th or 17th century: added inscription immediately after the John Gamalin inscription on f. 137v: 'and the said Phillip Sherr doth for himselfe h[..] ?hei' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)) ..
‘Robart’, ? 17th century: his name inscribed on f. 136v.
Richard Jones (d. 1722), bookseller: bought from him for the Harley Collection, inscribed by Humfrey Wanley, Library-Keeper of the Harleian Library, on f. 1r: Mr. 'Rich. Jones sold it' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 207).
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 by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley (f. 1r; see inscription transcribed above).
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. 2336).
Francis Lee Utley, 'The Layman's Complaint and the Friar's Answer', The Harvard Theological Review, 38 (1945), 141-47 (p. 141, erroneously referring to Harley MS 2236).
Mary Teresa Brady, 'The Pore Caitif : Edited from MS. Harley 2336 with Introduction and Notes' (unpublished doctoral thesis, New York, Fordham University, 1954), esp. pp. xx-xxi.
Mary Teresa Brady, 'The "Pore Caitif": An Introductory Study', Traditio, 10 (1954), 529-48.
Mary Teresa Brady, 'The Apostles and the Creed in Manuscripts of The Pore Caitif', Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 32 (1957), 323-25 (p. 323).
Diana Denissen, Middle English Devotional Compilations: Composing Imaginative Variations in Late Medieval England (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2019), p. 23.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 207.
Amanda Moss, 'The Urban Context for Westminster School MS 3: London Merchants and Fifteenth-Century Tastes in Devotional Reading', in The Book in the Town, Ninth York Manuscripts Conference, King's Manor, York, 19th-21st July 2002 [accessed 03 March 2008] (para. 7, 8 and 11 of 12).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Wanley, Humfrey, Old English scholar and librarian, 1672-1726,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083872680 - Places:
- London, England
Southeastern England