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Harley MS 2961
- Record Id:
- 040-002048792
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048792
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000f1
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100058097479.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2961
- Title:
-
Leofric Collectar
- Scope & Content:
-
The Leofric Collectar, comprising a collectar, a hymnal and a series of sequences for a community of secular canons. The manuscript is imperfect: it ends mid-sequence and appears to be missing its final quire.
Judging by its script, it was made at Exeter during the episcopate of Bishop Leofric of Exeter. The manuscript's contents, particularly its office for St Lambert, are very similar to offices attributed to Bishop Stephen of Liège, leading some scholars to suggest it was compiled by Leofric himself, who had trained in Lotharingia. There are other English liturgical manuscripts from this period with Lotharingian influences that were not connected to Leofric (Milfull, Hymns (1996), p. 48). The manuscript also features the earliest known office for St Olaf (Iversen, 'Transforming' (2000), p. 406).
The manuscript contains:
ff. 1r-217v: a collectar;
ff. 218r-251r: a hymnal;
ff. 251v-256v: sequences for a community of secular canons.
Decoration: red, green, and black initials, red rubrics, and musical notation throughout.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048792", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2961: Leofric Collectar" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048792 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2961 : Leofric Collectar - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2962]/040-002048792
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058097479.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1050
- End Date:
- 1072
- Date Range:
- 1050-1072
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 230 x 160 mm.
Foliation: ff. 256 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Script: English Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum in-house binding.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Exeter Cathedral.
If this manuscript is the 'collectaneum' mentioned in the list of Leofric's gifts to Exeter, then it was made before his death in 1072 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct D.2.16, ff. 1r-2v, ed. by Lapidge, 'Surviving Booklists' (1985), p. 134). The manuscript was written by four scribes. The first scribe wrote the majority of the manuscript, a second scribe wrote ff. 153 and 185, a third scribe wrote ff. 193-198, and a fourth scribe wrote ff. 234-256 and most of the musical notation (Milfull, Hymns (1996), p. 47). The scribe who wrote most of the musical notation was also responsible for the musical notation in other manuscripts from Exeter, notably the Leofric Psalter (Harley MS 863).
Provenance:
Leofric, bishop of Exeter (d. 1072): probably corresponding with the list of his books (Lapidge, 'Surviving Booklists' (1985), pp. 134, 136). Samuel Knott claimed there was an Old English inscription at the back of the volume which proved it had belonged to Leofric, but this has now been lost: 'Extant fragmenta subscripsionis Saxonicae in laceris extremi folii reliquiis quibus opinor testatum fuit Leofricum eundem donasse' (f. 1r).
Dr. Samuel Knott (b. 1661, d. 1668), rector of Combe Raleigh in Devon; antiquary and collector of manuscripts: inscribed 'Nactus sum hunc librum Exoniae ego Sam. Canutus [Knott] in Caemiterio S. Petri. Extant fragmenta subscripsionis Saxonicae in laceris extremi folii reliquiis quibus opinor testatum fuit Leofricum eundem donasse.'; inscribed 'Hunc librum dedisse ecclesiae S. Petri (Exoniensi) apparet ex praefatione Sermonis in die paschae Saxonice et Anglice procurante M. Parkero Archiepiscopo Cantuar. Londini editi ubi extat catalogus librorum a Leofrico datorum sacrorum slten (Nam) et Persium dedit et Boetii [Consol]ationem Saxonice. Ibi constat dedisse .I. yinter raeding boc cum aliis' (f. 1r).
Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d. 1709), vicar of Totnes and archdeacon of Barnstaple: sold by his widow on 17 May 1715 to Robert Harley (see The Diary of Humfrey Wanley (1966), I, 11).
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 ‘7 May 1715' (f. [iii]). 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:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2961.
Edmund Bishop and Frances Aidan Gasquet, The Bosworth Psalter (London: George Bell and Sons, 1908), p. 48 n. 2.
Christopher Wordsworth and Henry Littlehales, The Old Service-Books of the English Church, 2nd edn (London: Methuen & Co., 1910), pp. 129, 210.
Edward Samuel Dewick and Walter Howard Frere, The Leofric Collectar, Henry Bradshaw Society, 45, 56, 2 vols (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1914-1921).
T.A.M. Bishop, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts, Parts II and III', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2 (1954-58), 185-99 (pp. 193-97).
N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 236.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N.R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 83.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I, 11.
E. M. Drage, 'Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter 1050-1072: a reassessment of the manuscript evidence' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford University, 1978), pp. 369-70.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 718.
Susan Rankin, 'From memory to record: musical notations in manuscripts from Exeter', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), 97-112.
Helmut Gneuss, 'Liturgical books in Anglo-Saxon England and their Old English terminology', in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes, ed. by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 91-142 (pp. 112-13).
Susan Rankin, ‘The Liturgical Background of the Old English Advent Lyrics: A Reappraisal’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes, ed. by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 317–40 (p. 324).
Patrick Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 6, 13 n. 38.
Michael Lapidge, 'Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, ed. by Mary P. Richards, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 87-168 (pp. 132-39).
David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 312.
Inge B. Milfull, The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and Edition of the Durham Hymnal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 13-15, 47-49.
Gunilla Iversen, 'Transforming a Viking into a Saint: The Divine Office of St. Olav', in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. by Rebecca A. Baltzer and Margot E. Fassler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 401-29 (pp. 406-11).
The Leofric Missal I, ed. by Nicholas Orchard, Henry Bradshaw Society, 113 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 2002), pp. 48, 208, 225.
Claus Michael Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 141.
Elaine Treharne, 'Producing a Library in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Exeter, 1050-1072', The Review of English Studies, n.s. 54 (2003), 155-72 (p. 161)
K. D. Hartzell, Catalogue of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1200 containing Music (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006), no. 159.
Richard Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 132-36.
Richard W. Pfaff, 'Liturgical Books', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume I, c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 449-59 (p. 453).
Susan Rankin, 'Music books', The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume I, c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 482-506 (p. 503).
The Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220, ed. by Mary Swan and others, electronic book, 2010-2013 [accessed 12 November 2015].
Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 431.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)