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Harley MS 3776
- Record Id:
- 040-002049608
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049608
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00011d
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3776
- Title:
- The ‘Codex ruber’ or ‘Waltham Abbey miscellany’, part 1
- Scope & Content:
-
The first surviving fragment of a collection of miscellaneous religious and historical tracts. The medieval numeration of the contents indicates that the folios were formerly in a different order, with ff. 25–62 coming after ff. 94–117. Four other 14th-century manuscripts, which may or may not be from Waltham, have been bound with this volume: ff. 63–66, 67–93, 118–27, 128–35 (including a calendar, ff. 129r–134v; Millar, pp. 114–15).
ff. 1r–24v: Vita uiri uenerabilis Haroldi quondam anglorum regis, ending imperfectly.
ff. 25r–42v: ‘Ista que secuntur uidelicet de Regibus knouto. Haedeknouto et harolo deficiunt in libro de Inuentione Crucis nostre de Waltham. Et ideo hic insecuntur ad instructionem et solamen legere uolecium. ut habetur in Cronicis nostris. Mortuo igitur sueno …’ Includes some verses written in Middle English and Old French (ff. 39r–40r).
ff. 43r–62v: De inuentione sancte crucis de Waltham (the ‘Waltham Chronicle’), ending imperfectly with contents to book 2.
ff. 63r–66v: Chronicle in English from 1066 to 1128, ‘Primus rex post conquestum fuit Willelmus Bastardus.’
ff. 67r–75v: The Voyage of St Brendan.
ff. 75v–82r: Henry of Sawtry, Pugatorium S. Patricii.
ff. 82r–89v: Life of Tundalus, ‘Hibernia insula est in ultima in occidentali occeano posita ab austro in boream porrecta’.
ff. 89v–92r: Three visions of hell, ‘Senem quendam venerabilem qui me vocis imperio’;
f. 92r–v: Extract from Ranulph Hidgen, Polychronicon, ‘Beda libro tertio de historia anglorum narrat.’
ff. 94r–116v: Bonaventure, Meditatio, ‘Transfige dilectissime iesu medullas anime mee.’
ff. 116v–117v: Verses on women: ‘Femina fons fellis fons sumans fictile fasma / Primum pomellis presumpsit prodere plasma … Es medicus vere vere michi queso medere.’
ff. 118r–127v: Martyrology, mainly of English and Welsh saints, ending with an index.
ff. 128r–135v: Fragments of a missal, including Benedictiones per totum annum (f. 128r–v) and a kalendar (ff. 129r–134v).
Decoration:
Numerous initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or red with purple pen-flourishing, including monstrous heads, faces, crowns, trefoils, oak and ivy leaves, hybrid creatures (ox head on f. 28, boar on f. 33r). 3 large initials in colours extending in a bar border along the text, with ivy and flower buds (ff. 67r, 75v, 82r). Smaller red initials with pen-flourishing in purple ink, or blue with red flourishing. Marginal red ink drawing: a knight in armour (f. 1r). Small coloured initials and paraphs in red or blue. Line-fillers in red ink.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049608", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3776: The ‘Codex ruber’ or ‘Waltham Abbey miscellany’, part 1" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049608 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3776 : The ‘Codex ruber’ or ‘Waltham Abbey miscellany’, part 1 - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3777]/040-002049608
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3776 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
French, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1345
- End Date:
- 1369
- Date Range:
- 1345-1360s
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Dimensions: 260 × 200 mm (written area 200 × 145 mm).
Foliation: ff. 135 (+ 5 unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning and at the end + 1 unfoliated leaf after f. 127). The various texts have been numbered and these numbers have been written in a medieval hand (original?) in the top right corner of the relevant pages. A copy of Millar’s British Museum Quarterly article has been bound at the beginning of the volume after f. [v].
Script: Gothic; Gothic cursive (ff. 67r–92v).
Binding: British Library, rebound 1976.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: The Augustinian abbey of the Holy Cross, Waltham, Essex. A terminus post quem is provided by a poem written in one of the original hands lamenting the death of the ninth abbot of Waltham, Richard of Hertford, who died in 1345 (Harley 3776, ff. 38v–39r).
Provenance:
Added inscriptions in various medieval hands (f. 93v).
Annotations in a 16th-century hand (ff. 5v, 48v, 50r, etc.).
William Bowyer, Keeper of the Records in the Tower: owned at least ff. 63–66 in 1565, inscribed, 'Sn Guiliel Bowyer. 1565' (f. 63r).
John Pr— (1568): inscribed, ‘An Olde Calender belonginge to me John Prim[...?] ?servaunt to M. George h[...] chamberlaine of the cittie of London. 1568' (f. 128r): owned probably only ff. 128–135.
Hugo de Hoveden (16th century): inscribed (f. 63r).
Lord William Howard (b. 1563, d. 1640), antiquary and landowner: annotations throughout, early 17th century, a pen-drawing of a lion in his hand (see Arundel 155, f. 2r for similar drawing), a signature, probably his, has been cut from the top (f. 67r).
Nicholas Roscarrock (b. c.1548, d. 1633/4), Catholic activist and hagiographer, a member of William Howard's household from 1607: annotations possibly in his hand (ff. 118r–127r).
John Warburton (b. 1682, d. 1759), of Bury, county Lancashire, antiquary and herald, Somerset Herald in 1720: sent by Warburton to the Harleys on 30 January 1721/22 after extensive negotiations with Humfrey Wanley, who implies that the fragmentation of the book was due to him (Diary, i, 130; Millar, pp. 112–13).
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 ‘16 Julij 1720’ (f. [v]).
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, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in unum collecti, 2 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1697), II, no. 632.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Robert Nares and others, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–12), iii, 61.
William Stubbs, The Foundation of Waltham Abbey. The Tract 'De Inventione Sanctae Crucis nostrae' (1861), pp. xxxi-xxxii, 1-44 (collation of the text on ff. 43-62v), and p. 46 (transcription of ff. 62r-v), p. 46.
William Winters, ‘Historical Notes on Some of the Ancient Manuscripts Formerly Belonging to the Monastic Library of Waltham Holy Cross’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6 (1877), 203–66 (pp. 229–30), https://doi.org/10.2307/3677989
H.L.D. Ward and J.A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883–1910), ii (1893), pp. 533–34, 458, 416, 505.
Eric George Millar, ‘A Manuscript from Waltham Abbey in the Harleian Collection’, The British Museum Quarterly, 7.4 (1933), 112–118, https://doi.org/10.2307/4421478.
C.H. Talbot, ‘A List of Cistercian Manuscripts in Great Britain’, Traditio, 8 (1952), 402-18 (p. 416), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0362152900011740.
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. 193.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715–1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 130 n. 1.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 199, 347.
P. J. and R. M. Huggins, ‘Excavation of Monastic Forge and Saxo-Norman Enclosure, Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1972-73’, Essex Archaeology and History, 5 (1973) 127-84 (p. 30, n. 27).
Paul Gerhard Schmidt, ‘King Harold und die Reliquien von Waltham Abbey, Essex: Die Reliquienliste in B.L. MS Harley 3776’, Anglo-Saxonica, Festschrift für Hans Schabram zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Klaus R. Grinda, Claus-Dieter Wetzel (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1993), 75-90.
The Waltham Chronicle. An Account of the Discovery of our Holy Cross at Montacute and its Conveyance to Waltham, ed. by Leslie Watkiss and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. l–lii, 90 (= transcription of verses on f. 62r–v), pl. 2 (= reproduction of f. 47v).
A. I. Doyle, ‘English Carthusian books not yet linked with a charterhouse’, ‘A Miracle of Learning’. Studies in manuscripts and Irish learning. Essays in honour of William O’Sullivan, ed. by Toby Barnard, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Katharine Simms (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), 123-35 (p. 124, n. 20).
G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison, and David M. Smith, 2nd edn (London: British Library, 2010), nos. 995–996.
- Exhibitions:
- Harold II: The Life, Legend and Legacy of the Last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Epping Forest District Museum, Waltham Abbey, 17 September 2016 - 24 December 2016
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)