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Harley MS 2874

Record Id:

040-002048705

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048705

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000090

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2874

Title:

Coniuratio malignorum spirituum

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a previously unidentified copy of the Coniuratio malignorum spirituum, a book with instructions for exorcising demoniacs of which 30 editions were published in Rome and Italy between c. 1480 and c 1500. This appears to be the only extant English manuscript copy of the text.

The manuscript was previously wrongly identified as an imperfect Breviary from the 14th century in the Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts (1808), II, p. 717. Contributing to this confusion may be the use of cipher in the opening rubric: 'Cpnkxratkp malkgnprum spkrkxxm In corporibus homini existencium prout in sancto Petro'. The encoded words can be deciphered as: 'Coniuratio malignorum spirituum'. The same cipher is also used in reference to invoking demons throughout the manuscript: 'Mfmfntp lxckffr' ['Memento lucifer'] and 'Cpnkxrp tf dibbplf' ['Coniuro te diabole'].

Contents:

ff. 1v-24v: Coniuratio malignorum spirituum.

ff. 24v-26r: Prayer to Christ for protection, beginning: 'Domine Jhesu Christe qui inter latrones pro salute humani generis in crucis patibulo suspendi voluisti concede michi N. Creature tue ut nec latrones Nec alij potestatem habeant michi corporaliter nocendi'.

ff. 26r-27r: Prayer to St Cyricus for protection, beginning: 'Sanctus Ciricius [sic] domino deo cor[pus] et castus ab infancia sua sicut rigide virtute dei omnes raptores et animalia mala a clausis matris sue in exobtulit'.

The manuscript also contains:

ff. 1r, 28v: A previously unidentified fragment of a royal pardon from Henry VI for William Babington (d. 1453), Abbot of Bury St Edmunds (r. 1446-1453); possibly the grant that pardoned Babington and the monastery all their debts owed at the exchequer on 23 December 1451 (see Antonia Gransden, 'Babington [Babyngton], William', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online [accessed 29 January 2021]). The charter fragment is not a later addition to the manuscript, but was used for writing the Coniuratio malignorum spirituum, which starts on the reverse of f. 1. This suggests that the manuscript may have been written at the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds.

f. 27v: An erased text in brown ink (not legible with UV light) that, based on what remains, was written in English in the later 15th or early 16th century.

Decoration:

Small initials in red. Rubrics in red. Paraphs and crosses in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048705", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2874: Coniuratio malignorum spirituum" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048705

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2874 : Coniuratio malignorum spirituum

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2875]/040-002048705

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:

1475

End Date:

1505

Date Range:

c 1480-c 1500

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 140 x 100 mm (text space: 100 x 75 mm).

Foliation: ff. 28 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); the lower margins of f. 21 and f. 22 have been cut out; 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 22 and f. 23.

Collation: Indicated by catchwords.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Post-1600 Harleian binding.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (? Bury St Edmunds).

Provenance:

Robert Burscough (b. 1651, d. 1709), archdeacon of Barnstaple: acquired from him for the Harley library (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, p. 11 n. 6; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 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 forms 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), p. 717.

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), p. 88.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Bury St Edmunds, England
England