Harley MS 2787

Contents:

ff. 1r-232v: Missal, Use of Sarum, with musical notation; damaged and beginning and ending imperfectly; beginning with a calendar (ff. 1r-6v) with numerous English saints, including, in red: Wulstani, Edwardi, Cuthberte, Ricardi, Georgii, Dunstani, Aldelmi, translation of Edmund, Barnab, translation of Richard, Albani, Edithe, Mauricii, Dedicacio ecclesie omni sanctorum de maldone (24 September; added?), translation of Edward, Wlfranni, Leonardi, Machuti, Edmundi, Hugonis, Edmundi, Cecilie, Clementis, Lucie. The calendar has been altered in many places: some entries have been erased and written over, others have been excised. A passage about the translation of Thomas Becket on f. 176v has been crossed out. The feast of the Visitation (ff. 154-155r) is written in a different contemporary hand (with only coloured initials) and was most likely added later in the 15th century after the feast gained popularity and was officially introduced.

The manuscript contains a few additions:

f. [ii]recto: A modern note about missing leaves and references to the Sarum use in this manuscript; added at the British Museum.

ff. 67r, 87v, 88v, 95r, 125r, 151v, 162v, 226v, 127r-127v: marginal headers and instructions in Middle English, added in the 15th century: 'The blissing or coniuring of flowers'; 'hallowyng of ffyer'; 'hallowing of the pascall'; 'The hallowyng of the funt'; 'A masse of the holy Ghost'; 'the hallowing of the churche'; 'the hallowing of Candells'; 'the order of marriyng'; 'secunde marig[e] not blessid' (2x);

f. 197r: Marginal Latin note with lections and songs for the feast of St Winifred ('In f[est]o s[an]c[t]e Wenefrede v[ir]g[inis]'); added in the 14th or 15th century.

Decoration:

Large initials in colours and gold (all excised) combined with a full foliate bar border including interlace and flower buds (ff. 7r, 9v, 28v, 109r, 122r, 125r, 151v, 156r, 162r, 183v, 196r) or a partial border (ff. 103r, 130v, 188v, 199v). The border has also in certain cases been partially excised. Large initials in colours and gold with foliate tendrils extending along the text (ff. 103v, 167v, 215r, 226v). Initials in gold on a blue and pink ground with foliate feathering. Initials and paraphs in gold with purple penwork decoration or in blue with red penwork. Line-fillers in colours and gold. Some initials decorated with penwork decoration including faces, etc. (e.g., ff. 68v, 91r, 152v). Catchwords decorated in a similar manner (with a face (ff. 22v, 46v), enclosed in a dog (f. 38v), in a hybrid creature (ff. 70v, 86v, 131v, 202v, 226v), in a dragon (ff. 78v, 146v, 210v (with red ink)), in a fish (f. 139v), with foliate decoration (e.g., f. 179v). Half-erased creature in brown ink in the lower margin (f. 63r).