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Harley MS 3038
- Record Id:
- 040-002048869
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048869
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000158
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3038
- Title:
- Odo, Ysagoge in theologiam; Leviticus glossed; Gospel of John glossed
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript, containing the texts of Leviticus and the Gospel of John with extensive gloss commentaries, can be precisely dated and localised to the Cistercian monastery of Buildwas, Shropshire, due to the ownership inscription with a date clause that was written by the main scribe (f. 7v). This makes it the only known surviving book with extensive gloss commentary from Buildwas and possibly the earliest precisely dateable English Cistercian manuscript (Sheppard, The Buildwas Books (1997), p. 40). It also contains a summary version of the rarely attested Ysagoge in theologiam (Introduction to theology) by Odo (fl. c. 1135-1140), an otherwise unknown English author (ff. 3r-7v) (see Evans, ‘The Ysagoge in theologiam' (1991), pp. 1-2).
Contents:
ff. 3r-7v: A summary version of Odo, Ysagoge in theologiam, illustrated with branching diagrams.
ff. 7v-58v: Leviticus, with gloss commentary.
ff. 58v-91v: Gospel of John, with gloss commentary, imperfect at end, the main text ending: ‘Cucurrit ergo et venit ad symonem petrum’; and the gloss ending: ‘Cucurrit nuntiare discipulis ut aut secum dolerent’.
The manuscript contains a few additions:
f. 1r: An added rectangular fragment of white tawed skin, with 15th-century verses in English and Latin, beginning: ‘Do mon for thi selffe wyl thou art’ (transcribed in Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, II (1808), p. 727).
ff. 2r-2v: A parchment fragment, used as a flyleaf, from a large-format copy of St Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, written c. 1160-1170 by another known Buildwas Abbey scribe (see Sheppard, The Buildwas Books (1997), p. 43); now with a parchment strip with ownership inscription pasted on the recto.
Decoration:
Diagrams in brown ink (ff. 3v, 5r-5v, 6v). 2 large initials in green or red with 'reserved' designs, at the beginning of the preface to St John (f. 59r) and the text of St John (f. 59v). Numerous large initials in red, yellow, blue, brown or green, some with pen-work decoration in the same or another colour or colours (ff. 3r-8r). Paraph marks in brown with pen-work decoration (e.g. f. 6v). Small paraph marks in red. Rubrics in red. Abbreviated running header in upper margins, ‘Le’ for Leviticus and ‘Jo’ for John.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048869", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3038: Odo, Ysagoge in theologiam; Leviticus glossed; Gospel of John glossed" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048869 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3038 : Odo, Ysagoge in theologiam; Leviticus glossed; Gospel of John glossed - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3039]/040-002048869
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1176
- End Date:
- 1176
- Date Range:
- 1176
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 315 x 215 mm (text space: 235 x 175 mm; prickings for the ruling, which varies from folio to folio to accommodate the gloss, are still visible).
Foliation: ff. 91 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1 is an added rectangular fragment of white tawed skin (possibly part of former binding), with 15th-century verses in English and Latin; f. 2 is a medieval parchment fragment used as a flyleaf, bound with the rest of the book at Buildwas Abbey since it is a fragment from a manuscript written c. 1160-1170 by another Buildwas scribe.
Collation: Gatherings mainly of 8 leaves; indicated by traces of quire marks (ff. 18v, 34v, 42v) and catchwords (f. 90v).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum in-house; black half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; rebound in May 1948.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Buildwas, Midlands, England.
Provenance:
The Cistercian abbey of St Mary, Buildwas, written by a scribe of the abbey's scriptorium in 1176: according to an inscription on f. 7v: 'Liber Sancte Marie de Bildewas. Scriptus anno ab incarnatione domini Millesimo centesimo septuagesimo sexto' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 87).
Edward Pount, ‘armiger’, early 16th-century: according to a partially erased ownership inscription recording the gift of the book from him to (probably) Roland Vaughan on f. 2r: ‘Sum Liber Rolandi Fau[..] ex dono Edwardi [...]’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 277).
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.
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 available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), p. 727 (no. 3038).
Edward Maunde Thompson, Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), pl. 179.
Samuel H. Thomson, Latin Bookhands of the Later Middle Ages, 1100-1500 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pl. 86.
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), I, p. 131, no. 723, II, pl. 104.
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), pp. 14, 360.
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. 38, 277.
C. F. R. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1984), pp. 25 n. 61, 36.
Jennifer M. Sheppard, ‘The Twelfth-Century Library at Buildwas: Assessing the Evidence’, in England in the Twelfth Century: Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1990), 193-204 (pp. 198-99).
Michael Evans, ‘The Ysagoge in Theologiam and the Commentaries Attributed to Bernard Silvestris’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 54 (1991), 1-42 (p. 1, fig. 2D).
David N. Bell, An Index of Authors and Works in Cistercian Libraries in Great Britain, Cistercian Studies Series, 130 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1992), p. 166.
Jennifer M. Sheppard, 'Some Twelfth-Century Monastic Bindings', in Making the Medieval Book: Techniques of Production, ed. by Linda L. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1992 (Los Altos Hills: Anderston-Lovelace, 1995), 181-98 (pp. 183-84).
Jennifer M. Sheppard, The Buildwas Books: Book Production, Acquisition and Use at an English Cistercian Monastery 1165-c.1400, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, Third Series, 2 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1997), pp. 39-44 (no. 9).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire