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Harley MS 2421
- Record Id:
- 040-002048252
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048252
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0003a1
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100196360557.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2421
- Title:
-
Geoffrey Chaucer, Boece
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a copy of Boece, a Middle English prose translation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae (On the Consolation), written by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400).
Contents:
ff. 1r-153v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Boece, a translation of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae, written in Middle English verse with Latin rubrics, the text beginning, 'Allas I wepyng am constreyned…'
The manuscript contains a number of later additions:
ff. 1*r-2*v: Added titles for the manuscript in modern hands.
f. 154r: An added inscription in a 15th-century hand or possibly two hands, 'heb ddyw heb ddiii Naw samcht', with a later signature in the upper margin, in a similar hand perhaps from the beginning of the 16th century, 'Tho'.
Decoration:
Large puzzle initial in blue and red with pen-flourishing in the same colours including foliate motifs (f. 1r).
Large puzzle initial in blue and red (f. 22r). Smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing (ff. 25r, 27r, 39v, 48v, 85v, 125r).
Coloured initials in red or blue. Capitals marked in red. Some ascenders extending into the margin.
Rubrics, written in a Gothic book hand in brown ink.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048252", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2421: Geoffrey Chaucer, Boece" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048252 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2421 : Geoffrey Chaucer, Boece - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2422]/040-002048252
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100196360557.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1424
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 185 x 130 mm (text space: 125 x 70 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1*-2* + 154 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 1 unfoliated parchment and 5 paper flyleaves at the end); ff. 1* and 2* forms a parchment bifolium; f 1* is a former pastedown.
Collation: Mainly in gatherings of 8.
Horizontal catchwords. Leaf and quire signatures.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Library in-house. Red half-leather binding with the Harleian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers. The remains of the former binding (gold-tooled on brown leather spine) pasted on the inside upper cover. Rebound in 1973.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
An added inscription in a 15th-century hand or possibly two hands, 'heb ddyw heb ddiii Naw samcht', with a later signature in the upper margin, in a similar hand perhaps from the beginning of the 16th century, 'Tho' (f. 154r).
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.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2421.
Tim William Machan, Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994), p. 220 n. 4.
Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts. Volume I, Works before The Canterbury Tales (Aldershot and Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1995), p. 52.
Tim William Machan, 'The Consolation Tradition and the Text of Chaucer's Boece', The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 91 (1997), 31-50 (p. 32).
Kari Anne Rand, Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2006), p. 4.
Roger Ellis, The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, Volume 1: to 1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 35.
Simone Celine Marshall, The Anonymous Text: The 500-year History of The Assembly of Ladies (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011), p. 66 n. 50.
A. S. G. Edwards, 'A Reference to a Manuscript of Chaucer's Boece', Notes and Queries, 68 (2021), 25.
'London, British Library MS Harley 2411', in Late Medieval English Scribes: https://www.medievalscribes.com [accessed 10 October 2023].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)