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Harley MS 2387

Record Id:

040-002048218

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048218

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x00037f

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2387

Title:

Walter Hilton, Scala perfectionis

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-129v: Walter Hilton, Scala perfectionis (Ladder of Perfection); imperfect, the first two parts only. With the opening rubric: ‘Here bygynyth þe boke þat is I clepyde scale perfeccionis and it haþ twey partes’; beginning: ‘Gostly broþer in Ihesu crist I preye þe þat in þe callynge whiche oure lorde haþ callid þe to his servyse þou holde þe payed and stonde stedfastly þerinne’.

Decoration:

Large initials in blue or red inside gold frames with partial borders featuring gold bars and acanthus leaves in blue and purple (ff. 1r, 54r), the second one with an animal head. Large (3-line) initials in blue with red penwork decoration and pen-flourishing, often in the form of leaves. Rubrics in red. Paraphs alternating between red and blue. Underlining in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048218", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2387: Walter Hilton, Scala perfectionis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048218

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2387 : Walter Hilton, Scala perfectionis

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2388]/040-002048218

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:

1424

Date Range:

1st quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 210 x 145 mm (text space: 155 x 90 mm).

Foliation: ff. 130 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 3 unfoliated parchment stubs before f. 128.

Collation: Each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum in-house; brown half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold-stamped on the outside covers; rebound on 31 August 1964.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Margery Pensax, recluse at St Botolph without Bishopsgate, London, between c. 1399-c 1415: owned the manuscript according to an inscription [see below] on f. 130v (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 273; Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety (2002), p. 59).

The Bridgettine abbey of Sts Saviour, Mary the Virgin, and Bridget, Syon, founded by King Henry V in 1415 and dissolved in 1539: bequeathed to Syon Abbey by Margery Pensax, according to an inscription on f. 130v: ‘Istum librum legavit domina Margeria Pensax dudum inclusa apud Bysshoppisgate monasterio sancti Salvatoris de Syon iuxta Shene’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 323).

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. 678.

The Scale of Perfection by Walter Hilton, Canon of Thurgarton: Newly Edited from MS Sources, ed. by Evelyn Underhill (London: Watkins, 1923), p. xlvii.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 185.

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. 273, 323.

Christopher de Hamel, Syon Abbey: The Library of the Bridgettine Nuns and Their Peregrinations after the Reformation (Otley: Smith Settle for The Roxburghe Club, 1991), p. 120 (no. 52).

Valerie M. Lagorio, and Michael G. Sargent (with Ritamary Bradley), 'XXIII: English Mystical Writings', in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, 9, ed. by Albert E. Hartung (New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993).

David Bell, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries, Cistercians Studies, 158 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1995), p. 190 (no. 26).

Mary C. Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 49, 53-54, 57-59.

Michael G. Sargent, ‘Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection: The London Manuscript Group Reconsidered’, Medium Ævum, 52:2 (1983), 189-216 [as ‘H5’].

Darrel W. Bargen, The English Manuscripts of Walter Hilton’s Scala perfectionis: An Assessment of Reception (Unpublished doctroral dissertation, University of Alberta, 2017), pp. 194-200.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Hilton, Walter, c 1343-1396,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000118213408

Places:

England