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Harley MS 3858

Record Id:

040-002049694

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049694

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000171

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3858

Title:

Collection of theological works

Scope & Content:

The manuscript, originally in one volume, is now bound in two volumes: vol 1. ff. 1*-154; vol. 2: ff. 155-342.

Volume 1 includes:

f. 1v: A list of contents (volumes 1-2).

ff. 4r-110v: Petrus Wilhymleyd, Tabula septem custodiarum.

ff. 111r-154v: Robert Masham, Table of biblical concordances.

Volume 2 includes:

ff. 155r-258v: Robert Grosseteste, Dicta CXLVII.

ff. 258v-334r: Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron.

ff. 334r-337r: Robert Grosseteste, De Confessione.

ff. 337r-341r: Table of concordances to the works of Robert Grosseteste.

Decoration:

Partial bar borders with large initials in colours and gold (ff. 4r, 155r). Blue initials with red penwork decoration or pen-flourishing, some large, some small, some with reserved designs. Paraphs in red or blue.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049694", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3858: Collection of theological works" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-002359344", "parent" : "040-002049694", "text" : "Harley MS 3858, ff 1r-154v: Petrus Wilhymleyd, Tabula septem custodiarum and Robert of Masham, Table of biblical concordances" },{ "id" : "041-002359357", "parent" : "040-002049694", "text" : "Harley MS 3858, ff 155r-342v: Robert Grosseteste, Dicta CXLVII, Hexaemeron and De confessione" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049694

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3858 : Collection of theological works

Contains:

Harley MS 3858, ff 1r-154v : Petrus Wilhymleyd, Tabula septem custodiarum and Robert of Masham, Table of biblical concordances
Harley MS 3858, ff 155r-342v : Robert Grosseteste, Dicta CXLVII, Hexaemeron and De confessione

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 3858

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3850]/040-002049694

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

Parchment codex.

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1395

End Date:

1418

Date Range:

1395-1397

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimension: 260 x 190 mm (text space: 195 x 145 mm).

Foliation: Vol I: ff. 1* + 154 (+ 5 unfoliated flyleaves: 3 paper flyleaves at the beginning and 1 parchment and 3 paper flyleaves at the end; + 1 blank parchment leaf after f. 62; 2 blank parchment leaves after f. 110; ff. 1, 1*, 2-3 are parchment flyleaves); Vol. II: ff. 188 (+ 7 unfoliated paper flyleaves: 3 at the beginning and 4 at the end, f. 342 is a medieval parchment flyleaf). Catchwords and bifolium signatures.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding. Rebound in two volumes in 1985.

Custodial History:

Origin: England (Oxford?).

Provenance:

Robert Masham (fl. 1390-1418), a Benedictine monk of Durham Cathedral priory and bursar of Durham College, Oxford (1395-1397): written by him, probably at Oxford (see Rouse and Rouse, Registrum Anglie (1991) and the entry in the 1395 Durham library catalogue below).

John Wessington (b. c. 1371, d. 1451), bursar of Durham College, Oxford (1398-c. 1403 and 1405-1406) and prior of Durham cathedral priory (1416-1446), assigned by him to the Cathedral library: 'Opus vii custodiar. fr[atru]m sup[er] novu[m] test[amentu]m cu[m] alijs trac[ata]t[is] lincoln. assignat[ur] co[mun]i librarie dunelm. p[er] d[omi]n[u]m Joh[an]em Wessy[n]gton' (f. 3v).

The Benedictine Cathedral priory of St Cuthbert, Durham: Durham cathedral library shelfmarks 'J' and '2^a 5^ti G' (ff, 3v, 4r) and ownership inscription with a title: 'Opus vii custodiaru[m] fr[atru]m sup[er] novu[m] test[amentu]m de co[mun]i libraria dunelm.' and 'D[ic]ta lincoln. examaro[n] eiusdem co[n]fess. eiusdem' (f. 4r); included (added?) in the 1395 library catalogue with the information that the manuscript came from the monk Robert Masham (d. 1418): 'I. Opus VII. Custodiarum Fratrum super Novum Testamentum. Concordanciae super Bibliam cum contractula in fine, dicta Lincoln cum Tabula. Exameron Ejusdem. Confessiones Ejusdem. ii. fo. 'sic anniversaria' Per Robertum Masham Monachum' (see Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Dunelm: Catalogues of the Library of Durham Cathedral, ed. by J. Raine and B. Botfield, Publications of the Sutrees Society, 7 (London: Nichols and Son, 1938), p. 79).

Thomas Tempest (d. 1692), 4th baronet, county Durham, in his library: inscribed 'Sr Thomas Tempest Baronet' (f. 2r); bequeathed to his daughter, Jane.William Widdrington, 4th baron Widdrington (b. 1678, d. 1743), husband of Jane (d. 1714), disposed of Tempest’s medieval manuscript collection to the Harleian Library after her death (Doyle, ‘Library of Sir Thomas Tempest’, 1984).

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.

Administrative Context:

England (Oxford?).

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), III (1808), no. 3858.

Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century, intro. by R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: University Press, 1939), p. 52.

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. 73.

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. 142, 325, 351.

A. I. Doyle, ‘The Library of Sir Thomas Tempest: Its Origins and Dispersal’, in Studies in Seventeenth-Century English Literature, History and Historiography: Festschrift for Professor T. A. Birrell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Brithday, ed. by G. A. M. Janssens and F. G. A. M. Aarts (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984), pp. 83-93.

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books ed. by N.R. Ker, Supplement to the Second Edition, ed. by Andrew G. Watson, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 15 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1987), p. 30.

A. I. Doyle, 'Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England (c. 1375-1530)', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda L. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 1-21 (p. 18).

Registrum Anglie de Libris Doctorum et Auctorum Veterum, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, ed. by R.H. Rouse and M.A. Rouse (London: British Library, 1991), pp. ciii, cxvii, cxxiii, no. R 87.

John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 56.

R.B. Dobson, Durham Priory 1400-1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 377.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names: