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Harley MS 2856
- Record Id:
- 040-002048687
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048687
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00007e
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2856
- Title:
-
Psalter and added Breviary
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
A Psalter, with later additions, including a Breviary (ff. 127r-236v).
f. 1v: Added prayers, including to St Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester ('De sancto Adelwaldo'), 15th century.
f. 1[a] is a blank leaf.
ff. 2r-7v: Calendar, including English saints such as Wulfstan, Cuthbert (x2, once in red), Edward (in red), Dunstan, Etheldreda, Kenelm, Oswald, Edmund (in red), Thomas Becket (x2, both effaced), and later additions of St Witburge on 1 April and Wilfrid on 11 October.
ff. 8r-120v: Psalms, Canticles, the Athanasian Creed, the litany, imperfect.
ff. 121-[121e] have been left blank, with ruling and later pen-trials on f. 121.
ff. 122r-124v: A portion of the Office of the Dead with musical notation on three-line and four-line red staves.
f. 124[a] is a blank leaf.
ff. 125r-126v: Added text 'In 'communio apostolorum', 15th century.
ff. 126[a]-[i] are blank leaves, some ruled.
ff. 127-236v: Breviary, added in the 3rd quarter of the 13th century.
f. 171 is a blank leaf, with later pen-trials on f. 171r.
f. 178 is a blank leaf.
ff. 236[a]-[y] are blank leaves, with damage and perhaps effaced inscriptions (ff. 236[q]-[r].
f. 237 is an added prayer in Latin and a former paste-down.
Numerous later annotations throughout. Added pen-trials, post-medieval (ff. 121r, 171r, 236a).
Decoration:
Historiated initial in colours and gold of king David playing the harp at the beginning of Psalm 1 (f. 8r). Large initials in gold and colours at the seven other major divisions (ff. 22r, 32v, 42r, 51v, 63r, 74r, 86r). Coloured initials in red or blue. In the Breviary, a large puzzle initial in red and blue with no flourishing (f. 127r), with other initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048687", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2856: Psalter and added Breviary" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048687 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2856 : Psalter and added Breviary - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2857]/040-002048687
- 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:
- 1225
- End Date:
- 1274
- Date Range:
- 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 100 x 70 (60 x 40) mm; from f. 127: 100 x 70 (70 x 60) mm.
Foliation: ff. 237 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after ff. 1, 124, 171, 178 + 5 unfoliated blank parchment leaves after f. 121 and 9 after f. 126 + 25 unfoliated parchment leaves after f. 236 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic, written below top line.
Binding: British Museum in-house, rebound in 1966. The remains of Harleian binding (gold-tooled red leather) pasted on the inside covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Added texts including a prayer to St Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester ('De sancto Adelwaldo'), 15th century (f. 1v).
Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d.1709), prebendary of Exeter in 1701, archdeacon of Barnstaple in 1703, rector of Cheriton Bishop in 1705: sold by his widow on 17 May 1715 to Robert Harley, along with other manuscripts (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 87-88).
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 '17 Maij 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.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2856.
Christopher Wordsworth and Henry Littlehales, The Old Service-Books of the English Church, 2nd edn (London: Methuen & Co., 1910), p. 112.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 11 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. 87-88.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)