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Harley MS 2930

Record Id:

040-002048761

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048761

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000c9

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2930

Title:

A Psalter-Hours

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 3r-8v: A calendar, including additions in two slightly later hands, including obits on July 16 for Lambreht, Maria, Cunrat, Liugart, and Adelhart.

ff. 10v-13v: A prefatory cycle of full-page miniatures.

ff. 14v-114v: Psalter.

f. 115r: Canticles.

ff. 121r-125r: Litany and collects.

ff. 125r-156v: Hours of the Virgin.

ff. 157r: Office of the Dead, Use of Liège.

ff. 174v-181r: The Psalter of the Virgin Mary (a poem in 151 stanzas, beginning 'Ave porta paradysi lignum vitae quod amisi').

ff. 181v-182r: Mass prayers, with some feminine endings (ff. 181v, 182v).

ff. 183r-193v: Meditations on the Hours of the Passion and the twelve gifts of the Holy Sacrament in French (beginning 'Cilh ki ne seit dire ses hores u qui les vuet dire plaisamment a deu').

ff. 193v-203v: Commendation of the Soul, with a second litany (ff. 196r-197v), imperfect at the end.

Numerous added notes and instructions on how and when to read the Psalms, in German, 14th century (all erased except f. 58r). According to Oliver they are in the Ripuarisch dialect spoken in Cologne (see Oliver, Gothic Manuscript Illumination (1998), p. 268).

Decoration:

4 full page miniatures in colours and gold, each divided into two registers within a rectangular frame: the Annunciation and Nativity (f. 10v); the Adoration of the Magi and the Entry into Jerusalem (f. 11v); the Crucifixion and the holy women at the tomb (f. 12v); the Ascension and Pentecost (f. 13v).

1 full-page historiated initial in colours and gold: Psalm 1, the Coronation and the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (f. 14v).

10 other large historiated initials in colours and gold, at the major divisions of the Psalms, including Psalms 51 and 101, and Psalm 2, and at other divisions of the text: Psalm 2, David harping, with a full border (f. 15r); Psalm 26, Christ healing a blind man (f. 29r); Psalm 38, the Flight into Egypt (f. 38r); Psalm 51, the Massacre of the Innocents (f. 46v); Psalm 52, the Temptation of Christ (f. 47r); Psalm 68, Jonah and the Whale (f. 56r); Psalm 80, the raising of Lazarus (f. 67v); Psalm 97, the elevation of the Host (f. 78v); Psalm 101, the Sorrow in the Garden (f. 80r); Psalm 109, the Trinity (f. 90v); 'Confitebor tibi', Doubting Thomas (f. 115r); Matins, the Virgin and Child (f. 125r); Office of the Dead, Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham and Dives in torments (f. 157r); 'Ave porta paradysi', the Virgin returning the diabolical charter to a Theophilus (f. 174v).

Initials in red with blue pen-flourishing and in blue with red pen-flourishing, some with faces in the bowls. Small plain initials in red or blue.

Sewing holes in the outline of a rectangular shape (f. 9), and above the miniatures (ff. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14), suggesting former curtains.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048761", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2930: A Psalter-Hours" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048761

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2930 : A Psalter-Hours

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2931]/040-002048761

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1275

End Date:

1299

Date Range:

4th quarter 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: 155 x 110 mm (text space: 85 x 60 mm).

Foliation: ff. ii + 203 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and three at the end); f. i is a paper flyleaf at the beginning and f. ii is a paper flyleaf at the end; ff. 1-2 are parchment flyleaves.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum. Brown tooled leather.

The quires are mounted separately on paper guards.

Custodial History:

Origin: Southern Netherlands (Brabant).

Provenance:

Written for a Brabantine woman, possibly a Beguine: feminine endings in prayers (ff. 181v, 182v), and together with masculine endings (e.g. f. 193v) (see Oliver, Gothic Manuscript Illumination (1998), p. 267).

Additions to the calendar in two slightly later hands, including obits on July 16 for Lambreht, Maria, Cunrat, Liugart, and Adelhart.

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: sold to Edward Harley on 20 January 1721/22 (see Wright, Fontes (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 '20 die 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.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2930.

Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 7.

Georg Graf Vitzthum, Die Pariser Miniaturmalerei: von der Zeit des hl. Ludwig bis zu Philipp von Valois und ihr Verhältnis zur Malerei in Nordwesteuropa (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1907), p. 111.

J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscript~ (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 205.

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. 138 n. 7.

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. 254.

Judith H. Oliver, Gothic Manuscript Illumination in the Diocese of Liège (c. 1250 - c. 1330), Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts from the Low Countries, 2-3, 2 vols (Leuven: Uitgverij Peeters, 1988), II, no. 21.

Andreas Bräm, 'Buchmalerei des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts in Frankreich, Flandern, Hennegau, Maasland und Lothringen: Literaturbericht 1970-1992, Teil II', Kunstchronik, 47 (1994), 73-96 (p. 78).

Lilian M. C. Randall and others, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, 3 vols (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989-1997), III: Belgium, 1250-1530, 2 parts, I, p. 63.

Jeroen Reyniers, 'Het reliekschrijn van Sint-Odilia (1292) onder de loep. Een nieuwe bijdrage aan de studie van het oudst gedateerde kunstwerk op hout uit de Lage Landen', Clairlieu: Tijdschrift Gewijd aan de Geschiedenis der Kruisheren, 72 (2014), 131-61 (p. 154).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)