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Harley MS 3812

Record Id:

040-002049645

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049645

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000141

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3812

Title:

Physician's folding almanac

Scope & Content:

A portable physician's folding almanac with calendrical information. The manuscript includes:

1. Calendar canon (f. 1r);

2. Calendar (three months to a leaf, one month per half-leaf, the first displayed on versos, the following two on rectos) with lunar conjunctions of the 19-year Metonic cycle beginning on 1463, 1482, 1501 entitled 'Januaris … December' (ff. 1-4, rectos and versos);

3. Canon, table of moveable feasts and table of planetary hours (f. 5r), canon for leap years and table of lunar-zodiacal correspondences entitled 'Canones cum tabularum / festorum mobilium / aurei numeri / litterarum dominicalium / planetarum / loci lune / signorum / flebotomie'(f. 5r, lower half), zodiacal influence on human body and the Bloodletting Man (f. 5v, upper half).

Decoration: Ink drawing of the Bloodletting Man (f. 5v). Initials and some rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049645", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3812: Physician's folding almanac" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049645

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3812 : Physician's folding almanac

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3803]/040-002049645

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

5 folded folios.

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3812 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1458

End Date:

1468

Date Range:

c 1463

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 138 x 50 mm when folded; 270 x 180 mm when unfolded.

Foliation: ff. 5, folded into eight parts. Unfoliated.

Layout: Ruled in red ink for columns of 31-35 lines.

Script: Gothic cursive (secretary); written in brown or red ink. Initials (4 lines) in red.

Binding: Folded leaves sewn together in a tab at the lower edges. Kept in a leather box together with Harley MS 937.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

Thomas Palmer, inscribed with his name 'Thomas Palmer', 17th century (f. 3r).

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, née Cavendish 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. Harleian shelfmarks '121.A.3 / 3812' in ink and 'I/II [.]' in pencil (f. 1r).

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3812.

Harry Bober, 'The Zodiacal Miniature of the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: its Sources and Meaning', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 11 (1948), 1-34 (p. 26 n. 6).

Broxbourne Library, Styles and Designs of Bookbindings from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Centuries, selected and described by Howard M. Nixon, with and introduction by Albert Ehrman (London: Maggs Brothers, 1956), p. 9 n. 3.

Loren MacKinney and Thomas Herndon, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, New Series, 5 (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965), p. 138, no. 86.46.

Laurel Means, 'For as moche as yche man may not haue þe astrolabe: Popular Middle English Variations on the Computus', Speculum, 67 (1992), 595-623 (p. 600 n. 24).

Hilary M. Carey, 'What is the Folded Almanac? The Form and Function of a Key Manuscript Source for Astro-medical Practice in Later Medieval England', Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 481-509 (pp. 488 n. 41, 506 no. 11, 508 no. 11).

Pamela Robinson, 'A 'very curious Almanack': the gift of Sir Robert Moray FRS, 1668', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 62 (2008), 301-14 (p. 308).

J. P. Gumbert, Bat Books: A Catalogue of Folded Manuscripts Containing Almanacs or Other Texts, Bibliologia, 41 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), no. 48, pp. 173-75.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)