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Harley MS 2851

Record Id:

040-002048682

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048682

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000079

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2851

Title:

Collection of religious texts and goliardic poems, including Alan of Beverley, Tractatus metricus de Susanna, and Miracles of the Virgin

Scope & Content:

Contents:

f. 1r: Latin verses, beginning: 'Si bibit expedit ust sedem hauriat'.

ff. 1r-1v: Geomantic verses.

f. 1v: Poem, beginning: 'balnea cornici qui prodest vel meretrici'.

f. 1v: Poem on the Cross.

ff. 2r-9v: Alan of Beverley, 'Tractatus metricus de Susanna per fratrem Alanum monachum de Melsa de Beverlaco'.

ff. 10r-12r: Three religious poems in elegiacs: 'De tribus domibus hominis', 'De tribus ordinibus salvandorum', and 'De quatuor Evangelistis et eorum formis'.

ff. 12r-12v: Solomon and Marcolf.

ff. 12v-18v: Four goliardic poems.

ff. 19r-21r: Life of St Alexius.

ff. 21r-24v: Legend of the Seven Sleepers.

ff. 24v-27r: Life of St Christina.

ff. 27r-29v: Life of St Christopher.

ff. 29v-34r: Life of St Theodora.

ff. 34r-34v: Legend of Longinus.

ff. 34v-35v: Life of St Peter (partly in rhyme).

ff. 35v-41r: Legend of Veronica (cure of Tiberius).

ff. 41r-41v: Legend of St Luke.

ff. 41v-42r: Personal description of Christ.

ff. 42r-43r: Legend of Pilate.

ff. 43r-45r: Legend of Judas.

ff. 45r-49v: Oil of Mercy, and Tree of the Cross.

ff. 49v-58r: An abbreviated version of St Patrick’s Purgatory.

ff. 58r-60r: Vision of St Paul.

ff. 60r-62v: Life and Death of Antichrist.

ff. 62r-62v: Fifteen Signs of the Day of Judgment.

ff. 62v-71r: Joseph and Hasseneth (daughter of Potiphar).

ff. 71r-89r: Miracles of the Virgin.

ff. 89v-122r, 131r-142r, 172r-187v: Religious tales and fables, including a discourse of William, a physician of Gloucester, to one of his pupils, about the study of figures in the nude (ff. 186r-186v).

ff. 123v-130v, 148r: Goliardic poems and other poems, beginning with: 'Disputatio inter corpus et animam alicuius reprobate et dampnati'; attributed to Walter Map; and including poems entitled: 'quidam alius loquitur de inevitabilitate mortis'; 'Signo quibus egrus noscitur esse moriturus'; 'Versus de cleric et moniali'; and 'De Privilegiis diei Veneris'.

f. 142v: Prayer to St Cedd.

ff. 143r-145r: Mirabilia Angliae (here entitled: 'De mirabilibus liber Brittanie').

ff. 145r-147v: A physiognomic treatise, entitled: 'De arte cognoscendi qualitates hominum'.

f. 148r: A poem, entitled: 'Versus phisicales'.

ff. 148r-148v: A poem, entitled: 'De precio et dominio nummi'.

ff. 148v-150v: A poem, entitled: 'Passio iusticiariorum Anglie'.

ff. 151r-153r: Missa gulonis (Mass of the Drunkards).

f. 153r: De herba Basilisca seu Gentiana.

f. 153r: Parabola.

ff. 153r-154r: Septem claves sapientie.

ff. 154v-156v: Bernard of Cluny, De contemptu mundi.

ff. 157r-162r: Treatise on confession, beginning: 'Quoniam certa confessions animarum pericula sunt'.

ff. 162v-171r: Prayers to St Peter, the Apostles, martyrs (identified as Sts Stephen, Lauwrence, Vincent, Thomas Becket, Edmund, George, Eustace, confessors (identified as Sts Augustine, Gregory, Nicholas, Marin, Dunstan, Edmund, Ambrose, Edward, Benedict, Giles, Leonard, Botolph; with additions, including Alban and Oswald), virgins (identified as Sts Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, Osyth, Agatha, Agnes, Cecilia, Lucy, Margaret, Juliana, Christina, Apollonia; with additions including: Werburgh and Æthelthryth (Etheldreda), Christ, angels and archangels, and the Virgin Mary.

f. 171v: A tract with the heading: 'philosophus', including material from Petrus Alfonsi's Disciplina clericalis.

The manuscript contains a later addition:

f. 31v: Six prayers in Middle English verse invoking the Holy Name of Christ, beginning: 'O ihesu for þi holy nameand þi bittir passion save me fro synne and shame'; ending with an indulgence: 'As ofte as þou saist v. pater noster and v. ave and þis praier þou shalt have goddis blessyng and iij Ml ccccc and xxti days of pardoun . if þou be owt of dedely synn[e]s'; written in the 1st half of the 15th century.

Decoration:

Large initial in gold with background filled with blue (f. 89v). Initials in red, gold or blue with pen-flourished decoration in red or blue. Initials mostly in red, but occasionally in blue. Rubrics in red. Paraphs in red or blue. Initials highlighted in red. Spaces for decorated initials left blank. Added marginal drawings in red of birds (ff. 14v, 119v, 131r), flowers (ff. 15r, 19r), a fish (f. 56r), a butterfly (f. 71r), grotesque figures (ff. 84v, 101v, 143r, 153v), animal heads (f. 116)r, a dog (f. 157r). A 15th-century Crucifixion pen drawing on an added leaf (f. 31r) with a marginal pen drawing of a (?) rosary [a string with five rectangular objects coloured in white, black, and red] (f. 31v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048682", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2851: Collection of religious texts and goliardic poems, including Alan of Beverley, Tractatus metricus de Susanna, and Miracles of the…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048682

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2851 : Collection of religious texts and goliardic poems, including Alan of Beverley, Tractatus metricus de Susanna, and Miracles of…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2852]/040-002048682

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1250

End Date:

1299

Date Range:

2nd half of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 105 x 75 mm [ff. 1r-30v and 32r-187v]; 100 x 80 mm [ff. 31r-31v] (text space: 75/80 x 50/55 mm [ff. 1r-30v and 32r-187v]; 70 x 50 mm [ff. 31r-31v]).

Foliation: ff. i + 187 ( + 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); f. i is an early modern paper flyleaf; 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 12 and f. 13; f. 106 and f. 107; and f. 147 and f. 148.

Foliation: ff. i + 187 ( + 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); f. i is an early modern paper flyleaf.

Collation: Indicated by catchwords; each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic, written below top ruled line; and Gothic cursive (Secretary with Anglicana features) on ff. 31r-31v only [later text].

Binding: British Library in-house; red leather with the Harleian arms gold-stamped on the outside covers; rebound in 1984.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Richard Jones (d. 1722), bookseller: bought from him for the Harley Collection (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, p. 14 n. 10; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 207).

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, Humfrey Wanley, '15 die August, A.D. 1715 (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.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), pp. 715-16 [no. 2851].

A Selection of Latin Stories from Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries; A Contribution to the History of Fiction During the Middle Ages, ed. by Thomas Wright, Percy Society, Early English Poetry, 8 (London: Percy Society, 1842), pp. 24, 26, 27, etc (several texts transcribed).

Herman Brandes, Visio S. Pauli: ein Beitrag zur Visionslitteratur mit einem deutschen und zwei lateinischen Texten (Halle: Niemeyer, 1885) [as 'C'].

Harry L. D. Ward and John A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II: Harry L. D. Ward (1893), pp. 401-02, 669-71, 748; III: John A. Herbert (1910), pp. 503-09.

C. H. Talbot, ‘A List of Cistercian Manuscripts in Great Britain’, Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 8 (1952), 402-18 (p. 406).

Christopher J. Holdsworth, 'John of Ford and English Cistercian Writing 1167-1214', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, 11 (1961), 117-36 (p. 130 n. 5).

Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 14 n. 10.

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. 207, 417.

Richard Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), p. 33.

Julia Boffey and Anthony S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), no. 1703/8.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Alan of Melsa, Cistercian monk of Yorkshire, 13th century,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/7775717
Alfonsi, Peter, Spanish physician, writer, astronomer, and polemicist, d after 1116,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000458278718,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/70576609

Places:

England