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Harley MS 2956

Record Id:

040-002048787

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048787

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000ec

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2956

Title:

Ordinal, Use of Sarum

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-46v, 50r-122r: Ordinal, Use of Sarum, with litanies including English saints such as Aethelwold, Cuthbert, Dunstan, Edmund and Swithun.

The manuscript contains later additions:

ff. 47r-49v: Added paper booklet with additional texts to the Ordinal, in Latin, including 'Ordo commendationis Animae'; added in the late 15th- or early 16th century by the same hand who copied ff. 122r-123r.

ff. 122r-123r: Additional texts to the Ordinal, in Latin, including 'Et introito ad altare dei: ad deum, qui laetificat iuventutem meam'; added in the late 15th- or early 16th century by the same hand who copied ff. 47r-49v.

f. 124r: The prayer Salve Sancta Parens, added in the late 15th- or early 16th century

f. 124v: Inscriptions of names (see Provenance section); written in the(?) 16th century.

f. 125r: Requests for prayers (see Provenance section); written in the 15th century.

Decoration:

Large initial in colours and gold with foliate decoration combined with a full foliate bar border (f. 1r). Large initials in colours (and occasionally gold) with foliate feathering extending into the margins (ff. 19r [enclosing a mask], 28v, 32r, 54r, 66r, 117r), Smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Coloured initials in red or blue. Line-fillers in red and/or blue. Catchwords written in frames representing scrolls.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048787", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2956: Ordinal, Use of Sarum" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048787

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2956 : Ordinal, Use of Sarum

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2957]/040-002048787

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:

1400

End Date:

1449

Date Range:

1st half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment; paper (only ff. 47-49; inserted smaller paper leaves).

Dimensions: 180 x 115 mm (text space: 120 x 65 mm).

Foliation: ff. 125 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end).

Collation: Mainly in quires of 8; indicated by catchwords, and leaf signatures (a combination of capital letters and horizontal strokes).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown mottled calf with gold fillets.

Custodial History:

Origin:

? England.

Provenance:

An unidentified religious community, 15th century: probably its requests for prayers on f. 125r: 'Orate pro animabus Johannes Stode [...] et Alicie filiarum eius / Item pro animabus Nicholas Wodewa[?r] [et] Alicie [...] eius et Margarete Ha[r]wyn / Item pro animabus Johannis Terei et Agenis Wor[...] et filiorum filiarumque ipsorum / Item pro animabus Richardi [.]h[?u]bbert et filiorum'.

Unidentified (?) 16th century owners: perhaps one of the four persons whose name is written on f. 124v: 'Thomas Colys [? Colyns] et Ursula / Wil[he]lm[us] [P?]ofeman et J[ohanna?]'

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 this manuscript to Edward Harley on 13 August 1724. Harley's librarian describes the manuscripts sold on this date as part of a shipment to Noel lately arrived 'from beyond the Seas' (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), II p. 307 n. 6; 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 ‘13 die Augusti, A.D. 1724’ (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. 721 (no. 2956).

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 307 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. 254.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England