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Harley MS 2885
- Record Id:
- 040-002048716
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048716
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00009b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2885
- Title:
-
Breviary, Use of York
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-5v: Lists of Sundays of the liturgical year, headed: 'Ordo officiorum dominicalium'.
f. 5v: 'Benedictiones communes' to be said at matins throughout the liturgical year, beginning: 'Benedicitone perpetua benedicat nos pater eternus'.
ff. 5v-6r: Benedictions for the the matins of the feasts of St Katherine and St Nicholas; beginning: 'Creator omnium rerum benedicat nos hic et in evum'.
ff. 7r-12v: Calendar, Use of York, including in red William of York (8 June) and his translation (6 Jan.), Wilfrid of York (12 Oct.). These saints also appear in the litany.
ff. 13r: Breviary, with a Litany of Saints (76v-77r).
Decoration:
7 initials in colours and gold combined with partial borders (ff. 13r, 21r, 27r, 32v, 38r, 45r, 58v). Initials in colours and gold (ff. 61r, 67r, 76v). Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Coloured initials in red or blue. All borders except f. 27 are attributed to the artist at work on the borders of Egerton 615 (similar to New York Public Library, Spencer MS 19, which was made in Eastern England or Lincolnshire c. 1430) (see Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490 (1996), II, p. 218).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048716", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2885: Breviary, Use of York" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048716 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2885 : Breviary, Use of York - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2886]/040-002048716
- 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:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 120 x 85 mm (90 x 60 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 80 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 4 paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated blank (but ruled) parchment leaf after f. 79; 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 13 and f. 14, and f. 51 and f. 52; lacking numerous folios; f. 58 has been partly torn; f. 80 was largely torn (causing loss of additional inscriptions on f. 80v), but has been repaired with blank parchment.
Collation: Indicated by horizontal catchwords and quire marks; each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Remains of the previous binding (gold- and blind-tooled dark brown sprinkled leather) pasted on the inside covers; rebound in 1969.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Northern England (Yorkshire).
Provenance:
'Laurence Chap[...] [? Chapman]', 16th century: his name inscribed at the top of f. 1r (erased, but partially legible with UV light), and perhaps also his inscriptions on f. 80v, largely torn away, but reading '[...] may [...] ende [...] [scri]ptoris [...] [sc]ripta [...] feci, da michi - [?] Lau Ch' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 346-47).
John Ellerton, 'parson' (?= John Ellerton, Queen's College Cambridge 1577): inscribed with his name on f. 1v (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 144).
John Warburton (b. 1682, d. 1759), of Bury, county Lancashire, antiquary and herald, Somerset Herald in 1720: sold to Edward Harley on 16 July 1720 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 61 n. 6; 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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘16 Julij 1720’ (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), p. 717 (no. 2885).
Christopher Wordsworth and Henry Littlehales, The Old Service-Books of the English Church, 2nd edn (London: Methuen, 1910), p. 115.
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. 61 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. 144, 346-47.
John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 246.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, p. 218.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- Yorkshire, England