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Harley MS 3644

Record Id:

040-002049476

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049476

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000099

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3644

Title:

John le Breton, Treatise on the Laws of England

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-173r: John le Breton, Treatise on the Laws of England (also known as Britton).

Decoration:

Large puzzle initial in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours including foliate motifs and a dragon head, and forming a full border at the beginning of book 1 (f. 4r). Puzzle initial in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour or in both colours at the beginning of subsequent books (ff. 46v, 97r, 162r). Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Paraphs in red or blue. Capitals marked in red. Line-fillers in red and blue. Some line-fillers and running titles in brown ink with foliate motifs, faces, animal heads (e. g., ff. 7v, 14r) . Pen-drawings, mostly marginal, in brown and red ink, related to the text (a homicide (f. 11), a murder scene (f. 11v), a man falling off a horse (f. 12r), a prison (f. 13r), an underdrawing with 2 men (f. 14v; unfinished), a man carrying a jug and another container (f. 45; for a section on measures), 2 men standing beside city walls (f. 46v; one seems to be taking the other man's clothes), a man with a spade (f. 47v), a man with a spear (f. 67v), a standing man (f. 73r), family diagrams (ff. 110r, 132v, 164r, 165r) (some drawings have been excised as on ff. 12r, 115r, 121r, or heavily trimmed)). Hybrid creatures in brown and red ink (ff. 51r, 69r, 97r, 108r, 162r), playing the viola (f. 74v) and the portable organ (f. 75r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049476", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3644: John le Breton, Treatise on the Laws of England" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049476

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3644 : John le Breton, Treatise on the Laws of England

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3646]/040-002049476

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Old

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1300

End Date:

1349

Date Range:

1st half 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: 250 x 150 mm (written space: 170 x 115 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: ff. 173 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1964.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

Cancelled inscription in a medieval hand (f. 1r).

The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, in Kent: inscribed, 13th or 14th century, 'Liber s[an]c[t]i Augusti[ni] Cant[uariensis] de statutis et legibus Anglie cu[m] ?P', partly repeated below in a later hand (f. 4r), pressmark 'D. xvi. G. iii' and inscribed, 16th century, 'liber sancti Augusti. Cantuariensis De statutis et legibus Anglia quod vide, so entitled heer in the beginning of this book after these tables' (f. 1r).

Sir Thomas Moyle (b. before 1500, d. 1560), lawyer and speaker of the House of Commons: inscription recording his gave this manuscript to John Ramsey (f. 173v; see transcription below).

John Ramsey, of Gray's Inn 1539: inscribed in a cursive hand 'liber Joh[an]nis Ramsey de Greys Inne ex dono Thome Moyle de Greyes Inne milite quemquidium librum ego p[re]fatus Joh[ann]es Ramsey accomadam[us] Johann[es} Walpole de Greys Inne [...]' and, in a non cursive hand 'liber Joh[an]nis Ramsey ex dono Thome Moyle de Greysinne militis [end erased]' (f. 173v), see also inscription on f. 3r.Robert Tomson, 16th century: inscribed 'Robert Tomson liber' (f. 173v).

F. B., 17th century: inscription recording his gift of the manuscript to Henry Box (f. 1r; see transcription below).

Henry Box, 17th century: inscribed, 17th century, 'Henrico Box Amico ?opt. D. FB:' (f. 1r).

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.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3644.

Montague Rhode James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: 1903), p. 532.

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. 44.

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. 57, 79, 95, 247, 281, 330.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England