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Harley MS 2890

Record Id:

040-002048721

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048721

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000a0

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2890

Title:

Psalter, with litany and additional prayers and canticles

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 2r-7v: Calendar of Saints, including Erhard of Regensburg (10 January); 'Eulalie virginis' (4 February) and 'Eulalii episcopi' (23 February); Waldpurge (27 February and 1 May); Ludger, Bishop of Münster (26 March); Gotthard of Hildesheim (5 May); Winibald (7 July, highlighted); Xixti (6 August and 20 September); Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (28 September); Afra (7 August); Willibrord (7 November).

ff. 8r-8v contains the beginning of the Gospel of John (the Easter reading), with decoration consistent with the rest of the manuscript.

ff. 8r-9v: Liturgical prayers for the feast of St Katherine.

ff. 9r-181r: Psalter.

ff. 181r-195r: Canticles and hymns.

ff. 195r-195v: Lord's Prayer.

f. 195r: Apostolic Creed.

ff. 196r-198r: Quicumque vult.

ff. 198v-203v: Litany of Saints.

ff. 204r-208r: Prayers.

The manuscript contains later additions:

f. 1v: Added 12th-century prayers (with later initials?) to St Francis and St. Anthony of Padua.

f. 1v: An instruction for prayers to God and the Virgin Mary in Middle High German: '[...] ofthe sol beten und lesen / der mit got [zu] allen seiten wil wesen / So sprich got allen ofthe [so an dar leset] ein pater noster [...] / und sancte Marie ein ave Marie'; added in the (?) 12th century.

ff. 2r-7v: (?)13th-century additions to the calendar: 'Francisci confessoris' (4 October); 'Katherine v. martiris' (27 November); 'Thome archiepi. M'[artyr] (29 December); late 14th-early 15th-century additions to the calendar and in the margins (see especially ff. 8v-9r, 66v-67r, 80v, 82r, 102r, 120v, 208v); and erased additional calendar entries (ff. 4r, 5r and 6v), including 'translatio sci [? Francisci]' (25 May).

f. 208v: A prayer to St Odile [Odilia or Ottilia] of Alsace; added in the (?) 15th century.

Decoration:

2 full-page coloured initials within decorated frames at the beginning of Psalms 1 and 51: Initial 'B'(eatus vir) with a female figure holding up her hands in prayer, a dragon, and clasps (f. 9r); 'Q'(uid gloriaris) with a dragon and bird, clasps and foliate motifs (f. 65v). At the beginning of the other major Psalm divisions: 1 very large coloured, zoomorphic initial 'D'(omine exaudi) with foliate motifs and clasps (f. 123v); 7 large coloured, zoomorphic initials (ff. 34r, 50v, 66v, 82v, 102r, 141r, 181r) and 1 large coloured initial with foliate motifs and clasps (f. 120v), all followed by coloured and decorated display script. 12 small historiated initials in colours, usually with foliate motifs (ff. 17v, 31r, 37v, 55v, 103v, 118r, 143v, 153r, 168v, 193r), including a standing man holding a knife (f. 17v), two busts of Christ (ff. 31r and 169v), a king's bust (f. 103v), three standing women (f. 118r), a crouching woman (f. 153r), and two women in dialogue (f. 164r). Litany of saints under coloured ornamental arches, decorated with animals and human heads, including an enthroned queen (ff. 198v-203v). Many decorated and zoomorphic initials in colours with foliate motifs and clasps, occasionally including geometric patterns or human and animal heads. Simple initials in red, and display script in colours. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048721", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2890: Psalter, with litany and additional prayers and canticles" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048721

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2890 : Psalter, with litany and additional prayers and canticles

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2891]/040-002048721

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

German, Middle High
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1125

End Date:

1174

Date Range:

2nd quarter of the 12th century-3rd quarter of the 12th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 185 x 260 mm (text space: 115 x 195 mm).

Foliation: ff. 208 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end); f. 1 is a medieval parchment leaf that originally served as a flyleaf; multi-coloured stitching in the margin of ff. 93, 99, 116, 181 similar to that in some manuscripts from the monastery of Weingarten, Germany. Other minor repair stitching on ff. 141-144, 160); threaded book-marks (e.g., ff. 33, 101); some leaves are stained by candle wax (e.g., ff. 87v-88r).

Collation: Quires of 8.

Script: Protogothic (featuring ampersands).

Binding: British Museum in-house. Remains of the previous 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather pasted on the inside covers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Southern Germany.

Provenance:

The embroidered parchment repairs with threads of different colours are typical for monasteries in South-Western Germany and Switzerland (see Sciacca, 'Stitches, Sutures and Seams' (2010), p. 58).

? The cathedral church of Augsburg: see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 56.

Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: Edward Harley purchased this manuscript on January 20, 1721/22 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 254).

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 ‘20 die mensis Januarij, A.D. 1721/22’ (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. 718 [no. 2890].

W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pl. XIV.8.

Wilhelm Köhler, 'Die Karolingischen Miniaturen', in Zweiter Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 52-77 (p. 56).

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. 56, 254, 418.

Christine Sciacca, 'Stitches, Sutures, and Seams: "Embroidered" Parchment Repairs in Medieval Manuscripts', in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 6, ed. by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 57-92 (p. 58) [without this manuscript].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Southern Germany