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Harley MS 2659
- Record Id:
- 040-002048490
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048490
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000325
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056035309.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2659
- Title:
-
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistolae morales ad Lucilium; Pseudo-Seneca, Proverbia, Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam; Epitaphium Senecae
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the Epistolae Morales ad Lucilium (The Moral Letters to Lucilius) by the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (b. 4 BC, d. 65). It also contains several works attributed to Seneca, including the Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam (Seneca’s Letters to St Paul and St Paul’s Letters to Seneca), De Remediis Fortuitorum (On Remedies Against Happenstances) and two alphabetical collections of proverbs made up of a mixture of extracts from a pseudo-Senecan work known as De moribus (On Morals) and the Sententiae (Sentences) by the Roman writer Publilius Syrus (d. 43 BC).
Contents:
ff. 3r-7v: Pseudo-Seneca, Proverbia, beginning: ‘Avida est periculi virtus et quo tenditur’.
ff. 7v-10r: Pseudo-Seneca, De Remediis Fortuitorum, beginning: ‘Lucius Anneus Seneca Gallioni salutem. Licet’.
ff. 11r-12v: Pseudo-Seneca, Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam, preceded by Jerome’s prologue, beginning: ‘Credo tibi Paule nuntiatum quod heri’.
ff. 12v: Epitaphium Senecae (The Epitaph of Seneca), beginning: ‘Cura labor meritum sumpti’.
ff. 12v-159v: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, beginning: ‘Ita fac me Lucili vendica te tibi’.
[ff. 10v, 160r, 161v are blank].
Decoration:
Numerous large decorated initials in red, blue, and green, some with reserved white lines. Numerous small initials in red, green, yellow, or blue, some with simple penwork decoration. Paraphs in red or brown.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048490", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2659: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistolae morales ad Lucilium; Pseudo-Seneca, Proverbia, Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad Senecam;…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048490 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2659 : Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistolae morales ad Lucilium; Pseudo-Seneca, Proverbia, Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et Pauli ad… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2660]/040-002048490
- 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_100056035309.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1150
- End Date:
- 1174
- Date Range:
- 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 330 x 230 mm (text space: 245 x 160 mm, in two columns).
Foliation: ff. 161 ( + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end)
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1964.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
? Ernulf, unidentified 12th-century owner: his name ‘Ernulfi’ in a 12th-century inscription on a parchment strip pasted onto f. 1r. He may have given the book to the Benedictine abbey of St Peter, Gloucester (see Ker, Medieval Libraries (1964), p. 91).
The Benedictine Abbey of St Peter, Gloucester, founded in 678/679: its table of contents in a 12th-century hand (f. 2v), occurring also in other manuscripts (see Ker, Medieval Libraries (1964), p. 91).
Several medieval owners: their marginal annotations throughout.
An unknown English 13th-century owner: his square musical notes on staff in an English 13th-century hand (ff. 160v -161r).
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 with the date of acquisition by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley 'Augusti 1722' (f. 1r).
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/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), p. 705 (no. 2659).
Cyril E. Wright, 'Portrait of a Bibliophile VIII: Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, 1689-1741', The Book Collector, 11 (1962), 158-74 (p. 165 (n. 16)).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. 92, 265.
Leighton Durham Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 74, 76, 78, 105 (n. 15), 108, 109, 111, 120, 123, 142.
Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by Leighton D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. xxxvii n., 375 (n. 23).
Birger Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 3 vols (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982-1989), II (1985), p. 414 (no. C.100).
Registrum anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum, ed. by Richard H. & Mary A. Rouse, and Roger A.B. Mynors, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 2 (London: British Library, 1991), pp. 220-21.
Rodney Thomson, ‘Where Were the Latin Classics in Twelfth-Century England?’, in English Manuscript Studies, 7 (London: British Library, 1995), pp. 25-40 (pp. 32, 39 (n. 45)).
The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English literature, ed. by Rita Copeland. 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012-), I, 800-1558 (2016), p. 109.
- 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.