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Harley MS 2637
- Record Id:
- 040-002048468
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048468
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00030f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056035277.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2637
- Title:
- Cassiodorus, Oratio (Institutiones 1, 32); Cassiodorus, Institutiones, book 2; added chants; Helisachar, Epistola ad Nibridium archiepiscopum Narbonensem; a list of verbs; Smaragdus, Liber in Partibus Donati
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
This Lotharingian manuscript consists of four parts written in the 2nd or 3rd half of the 9th century, except the chants and Helisachar's Epistle (ff. 53r-55r), which have been written in the 2nd half of the 10th century.
ff. 1r-2v: Cassiodorus, Oratio, excerpted from the Institutiones book 1 (De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum), chapter 33.
ff. 2v-5r: Cassiodorus, Institutiones, book 2 (De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum), preface (ff. 2v-5r), beginning: 'Superior liber, Domino prestante', followed by capitula (f. 5r).
ff. 5v-52r: Cassiodorus, Institutiones, book 2 (De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum); De Grammatica, imperfect (ff. 5v-7v); De Rhetorica (ff. 7v-14v); De Dialectica (ff. 14v-31v); De Arithmetica (ff. 31v-38v); De Musica (ff. 38v-44r); De geometria (ff. 44r-46r); De astronomia (ff. 46r-49r) ending with the conclusion of book 2 (ff. 49r-52r): 'incipient esse breves quos prius aestimavimus longiores. Cassiodori Senatoris Liber Institutionum Humanarum Rerum. Explicit'.
f. 53r: Excerpts from an Antiphonal, a chant with musical notations, beginning: 'Pretiosa Alleluia' written by a late 10th-century hand, followed by two-lines hymn with musical notations written by a different but contemporary hand, beginning: 'O quam felices'.
ff. 53v-55r: Helisachar, Epistola ad Nibridium Archiepiscopum Narbonensem (Epistle to Nebridius, archbishop of Narbonne), describes the revision of the Office antiphonal made by Helisachar, chancellor (from 808-817) of King Louis the Pious (reigned 814-840), written by a late 10th-century hand.
ff. 55v-69r: A list of verbs.
ff. 70r-76v: Smaragdus, Liber in Partibus Donati.
Decoration:
Diagrams relating to the seven liberal arts decorated with Donatus's bust (f. 12r), a winged personification of Grammar (f. 25v), a monk (f. 39v), animals, such as birds, a lamb, lions, a bull, a goat, a stag, dogs, a female wolf, and fish, or stylised flowers, columns, vases, plants or a rudder wheel, in colours and personifying disciplines and their different parts (ff. 8r, 8v, 10r-11r, 12r, 15v, 17r-18r, 19r-21v, 22v, 25v-26r, 28r, 30v, 32v, 33v-34r, 36v-37r, 39v-40v, 41v, 45v, 47r). Initials and rubrics in silver, showing the red ground preparation, or red, often oxidised.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048468", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2637: Cassiodorus, Oratio (Institutiones 1, 32); Cassiodorus, Institutiones, book 2; added chants; Helisachar, Epistola ad Nibridium…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048468 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2637 : Cassiodorus, Oratio (Institutiones 1, 32); Cassiodorus, Institutiones, book 2; added chants; Helisachar, Epistola ad… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2638]/040-002048468
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056035277.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0800
- End Date:
- 0999
- Date Range:
- 9th century-10th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 220 x 135 mm (text space: 150 x 115 mm).
Foliation: ff. 76 (+ 4 unfoliated early modern paper and parchment flyleaves at the beginning + at the end).
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gilt-tooled red morocco attributable to Thomas Elliott; marbled endleaves.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Western Germany or Eastern France.
Provenance:
Added late 9th century or early 10th century, interlinear glosses (ff. 1r-52r).
The Hospital of St Nicholas, Cues, on the Moselle: inscribed, 'Liber hospitalis sancti Nicolai prope cusam' (f. 1r).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: probably acquired from him by Edward Harley in 1717/18 (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.
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:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2637.
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. 3.
Wilhelm Köhler, 'Die Karolingishen Miniaturen', in Zweiter Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 52-77 (p. 56).
Paul Lehmann, Mitteilungen aus Handschriften, 2, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Abteilung, 2 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,1930), pp. 3-55 (pp. 18-22).
Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, ed. by Roger A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937), p. xx.
Berthold L. Ullman, 'Manuscripts of Nicholas of Cues,' Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1938), 194-97 (p. 196); reprinted in Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Storia e letteratura, 51 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1955), pp. 357-63 (p. 362).
A. Krchnak, 'Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 3 (1963), 16-100 (pp. 44-48, figs 3-4 [ff. 26, 53]).
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. 121, 253-54, 413.
G. L. Bursill-Hall, A Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts, Grammatica Speculativa: Sprachtheorie und Logik des Mittelalters, 4 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1981), p. 117 no. 129.
Hermann J. Hallauer, 'Habent sua fata libelli: Von der Mosel zur Themse: Handschriften des St. Nikolaus-Hospitals in der Bibliotheca Harleiana', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellshaft, 17 (1986), 21-56 (p. 42).
Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands der Schweiz, ed. by Bernard Bischoff, Supplement 1, 3 vols (Munich: Beck, 1989-1990), I (1989): Aachen-Kochel, p. 159.
Rosamond Mc Kitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 208.
Michael Gorman, 'The Diagrams in the Oldest Manuscripts of Cassiodorus' Institutiones', Revue bénédictine, 110 (2000) 27-41.
Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 29.
Giulia Orofino, 'Da Montecassino a Nonantola: La tradizione illustrativa delle Institutiones di Cassiodoro', in Il monachesimo italiano dall’età longobarda all’età ottoniana (secc. VIII-X): Atti del VII Convegno di studi storici sull'Italia benedettina, Nonantola, 10-13 September 2003, ed. by Giovammi Spinelli (Cesena: Badia di Santa Maria del Monte, 2006), pp. 553-607.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.