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Harley MS 3846

Record Id:

040-002049682

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049682

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000165

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3846

Title:

Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita et conversatione Anselmi Cantuariensis; Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Davidis Scotorum regis; Aelred of Rievaulx, Genealogia regum Anglorum; Vita Sancti Oswaldi; poem on St Oswald; Henry of Sawtry, Tractatus de purgatorio Sancti Patricii; a genealogy of kings, excerpts from chronicles and a political poem

Scope & Content:

This manuscript consists of two parts (ff. 1-147 and ff. 149-196) that were written, respectively, in the first and second half of the 16th century.

Contents:

ff. 2r-70r: Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita et conversatione Anselmi Cantuariensis.

ff. 71r-85r: Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Davidis Scotorum regis (= De genealogia regum Anglorum, Chapter 1).

ff. 86r-103v: Aelred of Rievaulx, Genealogia regum Anglorum.

ff. 104v-133r: Vita Sancti Oswaldi, compiled by the ‘Chancellor of York’ in the year 1515; followed by a scribal colophon: ‘Nunc scripsi totum, pro Christo da mihi potum Be it trew be it fals so it is as the copy was’.

f. 133v: A Middle English poem on St Oswald, ‘God have mercy of sawls / Sayd kyng oswald / As he to therth fawls / His fouen emong / So it may wel be thowght / Then of god and sawls was all his thowght / And of the bodies hele or nowght / In that batel strong’.

ff. 134r-147r: Henry of Sawtry (Saltrey), Tractatus de purgatorio Sancti Patricii (‘Relatio cuidam sapientis De purgatorio sancti Patricii in hibernia’).

f. 149r: A diagram of the genealogy of English kings.

ff. 149v-150r: Chronicle of the English kings from 1133 to 1262, featuring Middle English citations of inscriptions on a cross near Godstow and in the abbey church of St Albans.

ff. 151r-151v: Excerpts from the Historia Brittonum, followed by a list of Kings and Middle English note: ‘taken out of Sir John ap Rhise boke, wher as he saieth that he toke yt owt Nennius or gildas’.

ff. 152r-152v: A diagram of the genealogy of English kings (continued).

ff. 153r-154v: A Middle English poem on Bothwell, following the murder of Lord Darnley (1567).

ff. 154v-158r: A diagram of the genealogy of English kings (continued), possibly based on Richard of Cirencester, Speculum Historiale de Gestis Regum Angliae (title on f. 155r).

ff. 158v-159r: A survey of ‘cathedras’, arbishoprics and bishoprics in Ireland.

ff. 160r-196r: Chronicle from the birth of Christ to 1281.

The manuscript contains a few later additions:

f. 1r: A title for Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita et conversatione Anselmi Cantuariensis, added in the 17th century.

f. 104r: A Middle English verse, ‘Crysty and welle loved we grete you well’, added in the 16th century.

f. 148v: A table of contents for ff. 1r-147r, added in the 16th or 17th century.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049682", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3846: Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita et conversatione Anselmi Cantuariensis; Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Davidis Scotorum regis; Aelred of…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049682

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3846 : Eadmer of Canterbury, Vita et conversatione Anselmi Cantuariensis; Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Davidis Scotorum regis; Aelred…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3838]/040-002049682

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1500

End Date:

1599

Date Range:

16th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 200 x 155 mm.

Foliation: ff. 195 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); 1 unfoliated paper leaf between f. 133 and f. 134 (f. [133a]); and f. 147 and f. 158 (f. [147a]); f. [iv] is a paper with bibliographical notes mounted onto a paper guard; f. 1 is a former flyleaf; f. [iii] and f. 1 contain a ‘Pro Patria’ watermark available in 18th-century England (see Heawood, Watermarks (1950), nos 3695-3718).

Script: Gothic cursive.

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

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

An unknown 16th-century English owner: added a Middle English verse to f. 104r.

William Howard (b. 1563, d. 1640), of Naworth Castle: listed as his manuscript no. 651 in Edward Bernard’s Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 2 vols (Oxford: Adams, 1695-1697), II; a title on f. 2 and other titles and notes in his hand (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 199).

Charles Howard (b. 1669, d. 1738), 3rd Earl of Carlisle, in the 18th century: probably owned most of the manuscripts purchased by Harley from John Warburton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 198).

John Warburton (b. 1682, d. 1759), antiquary and herald: purchased from him by Harley in 1720 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 347).

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 Julii, 1720’ (f. [iii]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.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 87.

Harry Leigh Douglas Ward and John Alexander Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II (1893), pp. 463-64.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 436.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Aelred of Rievaulx, Saint, Abbot of Rievaulx, ?1110-1167,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000116245633,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/39386818
Eadmer of Canterbury, c 1060-after 1126,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/000000007139399X,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/100181126
Henry of Saltrey, fl 1150,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000374450437,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/51780608

Places:

England