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Harley MS 3240

Record Id:

040-002049071

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049071

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00026c

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3240

Title:

Speculum humanae salvationis

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains an illuminated copy of the popular anonymous late medieval illustrated treatise, the Speculum humanae salvationis or Mirror of Human Salvation, and was made in either Germany or Switzerland in the last quarter of the 14th century.

Contents:

ff. 1r-48r: Speculum humanae salvationis.

ff. 48v-52r: Sorrows and Joys of the Virgin.

Decoration:

Small illustrations in colours and gold throughout (ff. 4v-52). Initials in blue, green, or red throughout. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049071", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3240: Speculum humanae salvationis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049071

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3240 : Speculum humanae salvationis

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3241]/040-002049071

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:

1375

End Date:

1399

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 280 x 210 mm (text space: 240 x 180 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: ff. 52 (+ 6 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum/British Library in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Germany or Switzerland.

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 (see Wright 1972): sold to the Harleys on 20 January 1721/2.

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. [vi]).

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.

Administrative Context:

Germany or Switzerland.

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: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3240.

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. 12.

Edgar Breitenbach, Speculum humanæ salvationis: Eine typengeschichtliche Untersuchung (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1930), p. 5 no. 62.

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), pp. 253-54.

Stella Panayotova, 'Cockerell and Riches', in The Medieval Book: Glosses from Friends & Colleagues of Christopher de Hamel, ed. by James H. Marrow, Richard A. Linnenthal, and William Noel (Houten: Hes & De Graaf, 2010), 377-386 (p. 385).

Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Nigel F. Palmer, The Prayer Book of Ursula Begerin, 2 vols (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag, 2015), I, p. 113, fig. 78.

Database of illustrations of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, ed. by Berthold Kress, in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database [accessed 3 July 2018].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)