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Harley MS 2670

Record Id:

040-002048501

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048501

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000370

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2670

Title:

Terence, Comoediae

Scope & Content:

This manuscript of the Comoediae (Comedies) of Publius Terentius Afer (Terence, d. c. 159 BC) has tall and narrow dimensions. Books of such dimensions are known as ‘holster books’ since they would be easy to suspend from a belt or holster (Kwakkel and Newton, Medicine at Monte Cassino (2019), pp. 216-18). Since Terence's plays were commonly used for teaching throughout Late Antiquity and the medieval period, this suggests that this manuscript was made for use in a classroom setting.

Contents:

ff. 1v-48v: Terence, Comoediae, with 12th-century marginal and interlinear annotations and corrections throughout (some in plummet), and in two cases longer notes were added on tipped in parchment strips (ff. 10v, 26v). Neumes accompany the line spoken by Chaerea in Eunuchus (The Eunuch), act II.iii, lines 292-297 (f. 12r).

ff. 49r-v: Added anonymous glosses to the Comoediae, beginning ‘Tria requiriuntur in huius libro principio intentio’. On f. 49r, this text is written only in the upper, outer, and lower margins despite the ruled text space being left blank.

ff. 1r, 10r, 26r are blank.

Decoration:

2 foliate initials, one with a zoomorphic element (f. 1v) in brown or black outlines on a red ground (ff. 1v, 9v); spaces for 2 further initials were left blank (ff. 18v, 27r), one with an outline in plummet (f. 18v).

Simple initials in red or in dark brown. Highlighting of letters and some paragraph marks in red. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048501", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2670: Terence, Comoediae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048501

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2670 : Terence, Comoediae

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2671]/040-002048501

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1075

End Date:

1124

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 11th century-1st quarter of the 12th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 300 x 160 mm (written area 240 x 95 mm).

Foliation: ff. 49 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the end + 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the end); ff. 10, 26 are small parchment strips, most likely tipped in; 1 small rectangular parchment scrap between ff. 17 and 18, perhaps added as a bookmark.

Script: Caroline minuscule.

Binding: Post-1600. Harley binding of gilt-tooled red leather.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Germany or Southern Netherlands.

Provenance:

Collegium Buslidianum (Collegium Trilingue), founded in 1518, Leuven (Louvain), Belgium: 16th-century ownership inscription, 'Liber collegii Buslidiani' (f. 1r).

John Chamberlayne (b. 1666, d. 1723), son of Edward Chamberlayne (b. 1616, d. 1703): the sale of his library conducted by Daniel Browne, bookseller at the Black Swan and Bible Without-Temple-Bar, on 11 March 1723/4 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 101).

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 by their librarian, HumfreyWanley, ‘11 die Martii, A.D. 1723/4’ (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:

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), p. 706, no. 2670.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 281 n. 6.

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. 85, 101, 227.

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), pp. 617-18, C. 45.

Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk, 'Entre Verdun et Lobbes, un catalogue de bibliothèque scolaire inédit: À propos du manuscrit Verdun BM 77', Scriptorium, 46 (1992), pp. 157-203 (p. 182 n. 102).

Erik Kwakkel and Francis Newton, Medicine at Monte Cassino: Constantine the African and the oldest manuscript of his Pantegni, Speculum sanitatis, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), p. 218.

Beatrice Radden Keefe, The Illustrated Afterlife of Terence’s Comedies (800–1200), Library of the Written Word, 97 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), p. 9, n. 35.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Browne, Daniel, bookseller of London, fl. 1720-1724
Chamberlayne, John, translator and literary editor, 1666-1723
Leuven (Louvain), Collegium Buslidianum (Collegium Trilingue), founded in 1518
Terentius Afer, Publius, 195 BC-159 BC

Places:

Belgium, Europe
Germany

Related Material:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, II (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808), p. 706: ‘Pub. Terentii Afri Comoediae 6. sine versum distinctione scriptae. Codex membranaceus, in usum Collegii Buslidiani. x.'