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Harley MS 2382

Record Id:

040-002048213

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048213

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00037a

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100161514934.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2382

Title:

Middle English verse collection including Lydgate's Life of Our Lady and Chaucer's Prioress' Tale and Second Nun's Tale

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-74v: John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2574)

ff.75r-86r: The Assumption of Our Lady(New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2165)

ff. 86v-87r: Prayer to the Virgin from the Speculum Christiani (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2119)

ff. 88r-96v: John Lydgate’s Testament (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2464). Further parts of this text appear on ff. 108r-108v and 128v-129v

ff. 97r-100r: Geoffrey Chaucer, Prioress’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 4019)

ff. 100v-108r: Geoffrey Chaucer, Second Nun’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 4019)

ff. 108r-108v: John Lydgate, Testament (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2464)

ff. 109r-111r: Life of Saint Erasmus (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 173)

ff. 111v-118r: Long Charter of Christ (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 4154)

ff. 118v-127r: Childe of Bristowe (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 1157)

ff. 127v-128r: An animal prophecy of Merlin (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2613.5)

ff. 128v-129v: John Lydgate’s Testament (New Index of Middle English Verse, no. 2464).

Decoration:

Sparsely decorated. The initial letters of each new stanza are touched in red. Some enlarged red initials. Occasional attempts at flourishing work in brown ink (as on f. 7r, for the opening of Book II of Lydgate's Life). Running titles and some marginal rubrication underlined in red ink.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048213", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2382: Middle English verse collection including Lydgate's Life of Our Lady and Chaucer's Prioress' Tale and Second Nun's Tale" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-003291850", "parent" : "040-002048213", "text" : "Harley MS 2382, ff 1-124: Life of Our Lady" },{ "id" : "041-003291851", "parent" : "040-002048213", "text" : "Harley MS 2382, ff 124-6: The Assumption of Our Lady" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048213

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2382 : Middle English verse collection including Lydgate's Life of Our Lady and Chaucer's Prioress' Tale and Second Nun's…

Contains:

Harley MS 2382, ff 1-124 : Life of Our Lady
Harley MS 2382, ff 124-6 : The Assumption of Our Lady

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 2382

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2383]/040-002048213

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161514934.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1475

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 150 mm x 220 mm.

Foliation: ff. 129 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [i]recto (bibliographical notes); 1 loose unfoliated paper with a British Museum note about a missing leaf after f. 51 (now Sloane MS 297, f. 88); the upper part of f. 1 is torn away.

Collation: The manuscript is missing an opening quire (60 stanzas of the Life of Our Lady are missing), i^?10-?4(ff. 1-6), ii^10-1 (ff. 7-15), iii¹²(ff. 16-27), iv¹²(ff. 28-39), v¹²(ff. 40-51), vi^12-1 (ff. 52-63, missing 1st leaf is now Sloane MS 297, f. 88), vii¹²(ff. 64-74), viii¹²(ff. 75-86), ix¹⁰ (ff. 87-96), x¹²(ff. 97-108), xi¹²(ff. 109-120), xii⁴(ff. 121-124),xiii^?6-?1( ff. 125-29).

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

? John Welham: his name inscribed on f. 80v, added in the 15th century.

? 'ffnytham' or 'ffincham': inscription on f. 40r, added in the 15th century (see Manly and Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales, I, p. 248).

'Wylliam hert': his name inscribed on f. 128r, added in the 15th century.

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:

Anthony Bale, The Jew in the Medieval Book: English Anti-Semitisms, 1350-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 96-97.

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), nos 173/4, 1157/1, 2119/38, 2165/4, 2464/9, 2574/19, 2613.5/1, 4019/73, 4154/6.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II, p. 675.

Mary Godfrey, ‘The Fifteenth-Century Prioress’s Tale and the Problem of Anti-Semitism’, Rewriting Chaucer: Culture Authority and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602, ed. by Thomas Prendergast and Barbara Kline (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. 93-115.

John Lydgate, A Critical Edition of John Lydgate's Life of Our Lady, ed. by Joseph A. Lauritis, Vernon F. Gallagher and Ralph A. Klinefelter (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 1961).

The Text of the Canterbury Tales Studied on the Basis of all Known Manuscripts, ed. by John Manly and Edith Rickert, 8 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), I, p. 245-48.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xviii-xix.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)