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Harley MS 3093

Record Id:

040-002048924

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048924

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0001b3

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3093

Title:

Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri; Prudentius, Psychomachia; Frithegod of Canterbury, De Hierusalem supera; Prosper of Aquitaine, Epigrammata; Eclogi Theoduli; Theobaldus, Physiologus; Arator, De actibus Apostolorum; Sedulius, Carmen Paschale; Sedulius, Hymnae

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a collection of late antique and early medieval texts, written in Latin verse. It is known for containing the oldest surviving copy of Theobaldus' Physiologus. The text is a compilation of animal lore from North Africa that was widely read and gave rise to the bestiary tradition in early medieval Europe (see generally Book of Beasts (2019), pp. 34-36).

The volume also includes works by the Roman authors Juvencus (fl. c. 330) and Prudentius (b. 348, d. after 405), and Christian poets Sedulius (fl. 1st half of the 5th century) and Prosper of Aquitaine (b. c. 390, d. c. 455), as well as one of only a few surviving copies of De Hierusalem supera. This Latin hymn was written by Frithegod (fl c. 950-c. 958), a poet and clergyman who served as a teacher for Oda (d. 958), Archbishop of Canterbury (on the text, see Kitson, 'Lapidary traditions' (1983), p. 110; Lapidge, 'A Frankish scholar' (1988), 45-65).

Contents:

ff. 1v-19v: Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri (Books of the Gospels), Bks. I-IV.

ff. 20r-25v: Prudentius, Psychomachia (Battle of the Soul).

f. 25v: Frithegod of Canterbury, De Hierusalem supera.

ff. 26r-34r: Prosper of Aquitaine, Epigrammata (Epigrams).

ff. 34r-36r: Eclogi Theoduli (Eclogues of Theodulus).

ff. 36r-38r: Theobaldus, Physiologus.

ff. 38r-53v: Arator, De actibus Apostolorum (On the acts of the Apostles), Bks. I-II.

ff. 53v-69r: Sedulius, Carmen Paschale (Easter poem), Bks. I-VI.

f. 69r-v: Sedulius, Hymnae (Hymns), imperfect.

f. 70r-v: added pen-trials.

Decoration:

Large and smaller initials in light or dark red, one in black (f. 65v), occasionally with reserved designs and some penwork decoration in red and occasionally light brown. Initials highlighted in red. Rubrics in red.

The cataloguing of this manuscript was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048924", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3093: Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri; Prudentius, Psychomachia; Frithegod of Canterbury, De Hierusalem supera; Prosper of Aquitaine,…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048924

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3093 : Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri; Prudentius, Psychomachia; Frithegod of Canterbury, De Hierusalem supera; Prosper of…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3094]/040-002048924

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:

1000

End Date:

1049

Date Range:

1st half of the 11th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 275 x 195 mm (written space: 200 x 140 mm), in two columns.

Foliation: ff. 70 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 2 parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 69 + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).

Collation: Gatherings individually mounted on guards: i-ii⁸, iii^6-3 (fourth-sixth cancelled), iv-ix⁸, x⁴.

Script: Protogothic, written by several hands.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Rebound 22 November 1968. Red half-leather binding, with the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers. Gilt-tooled covers of red morocco from the previous Harley binding, attributable to Thomas Elliott, pasted onto the inside covers.

Custodial History:

Origin: France.

Provenance:

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: purchased from him 13 August 1724 (see Diary (1966), II, pp. 304-05 n. 7; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p 255).

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 mensis Augusti, A.D. 1724’ (f. [vi] recto).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 the 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. 3093.

An Old English Miscellany Containing a Bestiary, Kentish Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, Religious Poems of the Thirteenth Century, ed. by Richard Morris (London: Trubner for the Early English Text Society, 1872), pp. 201-09.

Arator: The Codices, ed. by Arthur Patch McKinlay (Cambridge, Mass., 1942), p. 45

Aratoris Subdiaconi, De Actibus Apostolorum, ed. by Arthur Patch McKinlay, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 72 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1951), p. xiii, no. 22.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II, pp. 304-305 n. 7.

C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 255.

Theobaldi "Physiologus", ed, by P. T. Eden, Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 6 (Leiden and Köln: E. J. Brill, 1972), p. 9.

Seven versions of Carolingian Pastorals, ed. R. P. H. Green, Medieval and Renaissance Latin Texts (Reading: Department of Classics, University of Reading, 1980), p. 117 n. 30.

Peter Kitson, 'Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part II, Bede's "Explanatio apocalypsis" and related works', Anglo-Saxon England, 12 (1983), 73-123 (p. 110).

Michael Lapidge, 'A Frankish scholar in tenth-century England: Frithegod of Canterbury/Fredegaud of Brioude', Anglo-Saxon England, 17 (1988), 45-65 (pp. 48-49).

Dora Faraci, Il bestiario medio inglese (Ms Arundel 292 della British Library) (Rome: Japadre, 1990), p. 258.

Carl P. E. Springer, The Manuscripts of Sedulius: A Provisional Handlist, Transaction of the American Philosophical Society, 85 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1995), pp. 63-64.

Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899 (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 466, 484, 490.

H. McKee, The Cambridge Juvencus Manuscript Glossed in Latin, Old Welsh and Old Irish: Text and Commentary (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2000), p. 424.

Michael Lapidge, 'Frithegodus Cantuariensis diac.', in La trasmissione dei testi latini del Medioevo / Mediaeval Latin Texts and their Transmission, ed. by Paolo Chiesa and Lucia Castaldi (Florence: SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004), p. 142

The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages, ed. by David Badke, [http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manulocshelf.htm] [accessed 14 August 2009].

Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, ed. by Elizabeth Morrison and Lairsa Grollemond (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019), p. 36.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Places:

France