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Harley MS 2356
- Record Id:
- 040-002048187
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048187
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x000360
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2356
- Title:
-
Psalter-Hours
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-6v: the calendar, including Dominican feasts such as St Peter Martyr, St Hugh of Lincoln and the translation of St Dominic, as well as added obits and memoranda (see Provenance);
ff. 9r-173r: the Psalter;
ff. 173r-186v: the Canticles;
ff. 186v-189r: the Athanasian Creed;
ff. 189r-196r: the Litany, including numerous English saints (e.g. Sts Edmund, Alban, Oswald, Edward the Martyr, Alphege, Thomas Becket, Kenelm, Dunstan, Swithun, Cuthbert, Botulph, Edward the Confessor and Guthlac), followed by collects;
f. 196r-v: added rules relating to ecclesiastical compunction in Middle English, 14th century;
ff. 197r-208r: the Hours of the Trinity, including a suffrage to St Apollonia after prime (ff. 202r-v), and a prayer against thunder after sext (ff. 204v-205r);
ff. 209r-216v: Office of the Dead (including a prayer for the soul of a priest; incipit, ‘Presta quesumus omnipotens deus ut anima famuli tui sacerdotis’, f. 209v);
f. 216v-217v: various added texts including verses on the Virgin Mary (incipit, ‘Gaude Maria virgo purissima’), a prayer for the anniversary of a deceased person's burial (incipit, ‘Deus indulgentiarum Domine da anime famuli tui cuius aniversarium deposicionis diem commemoramus’), a prayer for deceased benefactors (incipit, ‘Miserere quesumus domine animabus omnium benefactorum nostrorum defunctorum’), readings from the Office of the Dead and a memorandum concerning the Vigil of St John the Baptist.
The manuscript also includes parchment flyleaves reused from a missal (England, early 12th century?) (ff. 1*-4*, 218-220).
Decoration:
1 full-page miniature in colours and gold in a barbed quatrefoil frame: the dream of Pope Innocent III, in which St Francis and St Dominic hold up the Lateran (f. 8v).
1 full-page pen drawing in black ink in a barbed quatrefoil frame (unfinished): Maria Misericordia (the Virgin of Mercy), showing the Virgin Mary sheltering a group of friars under her cloak, while a group of men and women kneel before her in prayer, and Christ emerges from a cloud holding three arrows (f. 7r).
9 large initials in colours and gold with foliate or geometric motifs, some with coats of arms, and/or bar borders or bas-de-page scenes of hybrids and animals (ff. 9r, 33r, 49v, 64v, 79v, 98v, 116r, 136r and 197r).
14 smaller initials in colours and gold (ff. 64r, 118v, 152r, 198r, 198v, 199r, 199v, 201v, 202v, 203v, 205r, 206r, 207r and 209r).
Large initials in red with blue pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Smaller initials in red with blue penwork decoration or in blue with red penwork decoration. Line fillers in red and blue. Rubrics in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048187", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2356: Psalter-Hours" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048187 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2356 : Psalter-Hours - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2357]/040-002048187
- 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:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1349
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 175 x 110 mm (text space: 115 x 70 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1*-4* + 220 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end); ff. 1*-4* and 218-220 are medieval parchment flyleaves.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Made for a member of the Wake family?: the coat of arms or two bars gules and in chief three roundels gules features in two decorated initials (ff. 9r, 33r).
A 14th-century owner, perhaps a Dominican friar: added inscriptions in the calendar for the obits of Marmaduke de Lumley, knight (b. 1314, d. 1365) (f. 5r), and the wife of Roger de Scoter (d. 1301) (f. 1r), as well as a memorandum that R. de Scoter vows to fast on the eve of the feast of St Petronilla for the rest of his life (f. 3r); added rules relating to ecclesiastical compunction in English (f. 196r-v); added verses on the Virgin Mary, a prayer for the anniversary of a deceased person's burial, a prayer for deceased benefactors, readings from the Office of the Dead and a memorandum concerning the Vigil of St John the Baptist (f. 216v-217v).
Sir Henry Spelman (b. 1563/4, d. 1641), historian and antiquary: inscribed 'Henrici Spelman' (ff. 9r, 197r).
Richard Jones (d. 1722), bookseller: bought from him for the Harley Collection 15 August 1715 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani 1972).
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 ‘15 Augusti 1715’ (f. 4*v).
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: 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. 2356.
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. 8.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 84.
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. 14, n. 9.
John V. Fleming, 'The Summoner's Prologue: An Iconographic Adjustment', The Chaucer Review 2:2 (1967), 95-107 (p. 98, n. 9).
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. 207, 310.
Deirdre Jackson, 'Humfrey Wanley and the Harley Collection', Electronic British Library Journal (2011), p. 16, https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/pdf/ebljarticle22011.pdf [accessed 29/10/2020].
Tommaso Castaldi, 'L’iconografia della Madonna della Misericordia e della Madonna delle frecce nell’arte bolognese e della Romagna nel Tre e Quattrocento', Eikón Imago 7 (2015), 31-56 (p. 43, fig. 9).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Spelman, Henry, historian and antiquary, 1563/4-1641