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Harley MS 2674
- Record Id:
- 040-002048505
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048505
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000374
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056035537.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2674
- Title:
-
Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript consists of books 1-18 of Priscian (fl. 500)'s Institutiones grammaticae (Institutes of Grammar), including Tironian shorthand notes and numerous marginal and interlinear glosses written by several hands spanning from the late 9th century to the early 12th century. One of these glosses is in Old English (f. 8r).
The first two quires (ff. 1v-16r) were written by a later hand datable to the 10th century, and probably replaced an earlier or lacking portion of the manuscript.
Contents:
ff. 1v-143r: Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae, books 1-16, beginning: 'Cum omnis eloquentiae doctrinam' preceded by verses, beginning 'Me legat antiquas qui vult proferre loquelas' (f. 1v).
ff. 143r-144r: Priscian, additions to the Institutiones, rubric: 'Prisciani Grammatici partes orationis de nomine libri VII, de verbo libri II, de participio liber I, de pronomine liber II, de Praepositione liber I, de adverbio et interiectione liber I, de coniunctione liber I', text, beginning: 'Primitiva sunt pronomina'.
ff.144r-187r: Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae, books 17-18, beginning: 'Quoniam in ante expositis libris de partibus orationis'.
ff. 187r-188v: Anonymous, De verbo (On Words), beginning: 'Verbum est pars orationis', including Tironian notes and numerous Greek forms translated in Latin.
f. 187v: Ambrosiaster (fl. 370), Ad Corinthios prima (On the First of Corinthians) 7:10-12, beginning, 'His autem qui in matrimonio'.
Decoration:
Titles and initials in display capitals in red (or oxidized red) (ff. 22v, 29r, 61v-63v, 75v, 82r, 117r, 143r, 167v, 168v, 187v). Titles and initials in brown in display capitals in ink. Added pen drawings of a knight in armour on horseback (f. 1r) and of Christ with out-stretched arms (f. 188v), both added in the 12th century.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048505", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2674: Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048505 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2674 : Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2675]/040-002048505
- 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_100056035537.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Greek, Ancient
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0850
- End Date:
- 0999
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 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: 295 x 220 mm (text space: 230 x 155/160 mm).
Foliation: ff. 188 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Caroline minuscule. Written by several hands: two main hands are distinguable, respectively datable to the 3rd quarter of the 9th century (ff. 17-188v), and the 10th century (ff. 1-16v).
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding; rebound in 1966. Covers of the previous 'Harleian' binding of gilt-tooled brown leather pasted inside modern boards.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Reims, Northeastern France and Essen, Western Germany.
Provenance:
The imperial abbey of Essen, a monastery of secular canonesses, founded in about 845: two quires were produced (1st half of the 10th century) at the Abbey to replace a missing part (ff. 1-16), according to Rosellini, Prisciani Caesariensis Ars Liber XVIII (2015); perhaps added the late 12th-century pen drawings (e. g., ff. 1r, 188v); and chants with musical notations (ff. 1r, 187v) [the same hand copied the introductory verse from f. 1v (f. 1r)]; perhaps added the early 13th-century note referring to the contents of a different manuscript or to classical authors in general, 'Priscianus maior, Virgilius, Lucanus, Ovidius De fastis etc' (f. 1r); perhaps added the 14th-century extract of book 2 of Bernard of Clairvaux (b. 1090, d. 1153)'s De consideratione (On Consideration), 'Bernardus/ otiositas mater nugarum et noverca virtutum' (f. 1r); perhaps added the 14th-century inscription 'Liber Prisciani Arte Grammatice' (f. 1r).
Nicholas of Cusa [Nicholaus von Kues, or Nicholas Cusanus] (b. 1401, d. 1464), theologian, Bishop of Brixen in Tyrol in 1450 and cardinal in 1449, founder of the hospital of St Nicholas at Cues on the Mosel: probably given by him with his entire library to the hospital by his last will dated 6 August 1464.
The Hospital of St Nicholas, Cues on the Mosel, founded in 1458: its 15th-century ownership inscription: ''Liber hospital[is] s[anc]t[i] Nicolai p[ro]pe cusa[m]' (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 sold to Edward Harley between August 1717 and early 1718, together with other manuscripts formerly in the Hospital library (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, née Cavendish 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 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, 1808-1812), II (1808), no. 2674.
[E. Maunde Thompson and G. F. Warner], Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1881-1884), Part II, Latin, p. 77.
Remigio Sabbadini, ‘Niccolò da Cusa e i conciliari di Basilea alla scoperta dei codici’, Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 20 (1911), 3-40 (pp. 39-40, n. 2).
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 (p. 22).
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).
Herbert Thoma, ‘Altdeutsches aus Londer Hss’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 73 (1951), 197-271 (pp. 254-55).
Rudolf Haubst, 'Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 3 (1963), 16-100 (pp. 54-57).
Margaret Gibson, ‘Priscian, "Institutiones grammaticae": A Handlist of Manuscripts’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des Études relative aux manuscrits, 26 (1972), 105-24 (p. 114).
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, 254, 414.
Marina Passalacqua, I codici di Prisciano, Sussidi eruditi, 29 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1978), p. 143.
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 (pp. 29, 42).
Sigrid Krämer and Michael Bernhard, Handscriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, ed. by Bernard Bischoff, Supplement 1, 3 vols (Munich: Beck, 1989-1990), I: Aachen-Kochel, p. 159.
David Ganz, 'On the History of Tironian Notes', in Tironische Noten, ed. by Peter Ganz, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter Studien, 1 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), pp. 35-51 (p. 50).
David Ganz, 'Carolingian Manuscripts with Substantial Glosses in Tironian Notes', in Mittelalterliche volkssprachige Glossen: internationale Fachkonferenz des Zentrums für Mittelalterstudien der Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg 2. bis 4. August 1999, ed. by Rolf Bergmann, Elvira Glaser and Claudine Moulin-Fankhänel, Germanistische Bibliothek, 13 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2001), pp. 101-07 (p. 105).
Rolf Bergmann and Stefanie Stricker, Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften, 6 vols (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2005), II, pp. 878-79 no. 412 [with further bibliography].
Luca Martorelli, Greco Antico Nell' Occidente Carolingio: Frammenti di testi attici nell' Ars di Prisciano (Zurich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2014), pp. 429-32.
Michaela Rosellini, Prisciani Caesariensis Ars, Liber XVIII, Pars altera, 1: Introduzione, testo e indici (Hildesheim: Weidmannsche, 2015), pp. lxxxix-xcii.
- 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.