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Harley MS 3859
- Record Id:
- 040-002049695
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049695
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000172
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056055489.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3859
- Title:
-
Vegetius, De rei militari; Macrobius, Saturnalia; Pseudo-Sallust, Investiva in Ciceronem; Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae; Augustine, De heresibus; Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium; Pseudo-Ovid, Cantus avium; De bestiis; Cosmographia; Pollio, De architectura
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-38r: Flavius Renatus Vegetius, De rei militari (On military matters) (Books 1-4), beginning: 'Antiquis temporibus mos fuit bonaru[m] artium'; ending: 'frequentior usus invenit qua[m] vet[us] doctrina monstraverat'.
ff. 40v-41r: Astrological and geographical diagrams.
ff. 42r-168v: Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia, beginning: 'Multas variasq[ue] res in hac vita'; ending: 'lunari repugnat humori'. (Books 1-6 are on folios 42r-146v, followed by 3 blank folios; Book 7 is copied by a different scribe on folios 147r-168v).
ff. 169r-173r: Pseudo-Sallust, Invectiva in Ciceronem (Invective against Cicero), beginning: 'Graviter et iniquo a[n]i[m]o maledicta'; ending: ' honeste ego effari possi[m]'.
ff. 174v–193r, 195r–198r: Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons), the earliest copy of this text, formerly attributed to Nennius, with Annales Cambrie (Annals of Wales) (ff. 190r-193v) and Welsh genealogies (ff. 193v-195v) interpolated.
ff. 190r–193r: The ‘Harleian genealogies’.
ff. 199r-204v: Augustine of Hippo, De heresibus (On heresies), chapters 51–90, beginning: 'Semiarrianos epiphanius dicit, qui similis essentie'; ending: 'auferri q[uo]d capiti defuisset. Explicit liber Beati Augustini ad cavendum diversas hereses utilissimus'.
ff. 205r-251v: Caius Julius Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium (Collection of Memorable Things), preceded by the dedication to Adventus, 'Julius Solinus Advento salutem'; beginning: 'Cum et aurium clementia'; explicit, 'sui congrere insularu[m] qualitatem'.
ff. 251v-252r: Pseudo-Ovid, Cantus avium (The singing of birds), beginning: 'Parrus enim quamquam per noctem tinnipet omnem'; ending: 'Que cantu cunctas exuperat volucris', followed by Quadrupedum (Quadruped) or De bestiis (On beasts), beginning: 'Sed iam quadrupedum fari discrimina vocum'; explicit, 'sive sonare queant'.
ff. 253r-285v: Cosmographia (Cosmography) of Aethicus Ister, beginning: 'Philosophorum scedulas sagaci indagatione'; explicit, 'tothmos azathot yrchony zothychyn. Explicit liber Aethici philosophi cosmographi natione scithica nobili prosapia parentum abea enim aethica philosophia a reliquis sapientibus origine traxit'.
f. 286v-365v: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De architectura (On architecture), beginning: 'Cum divinia tua mens et numen imperator'; ending: 'in decem voluminibus haberet explicata'.
Decoration:
Two circular diagrams in ink with decoration in green (f. 40v) or red (f. 41r).
A large initial in red with penwork decoration in the same colour (f. 253r).
One initial in red with green penwork decoration (f. 1r); one initial in green with red penwork decoration (f. 303v) and one initial in yellow with penwork decoration in the same colour (f. 337v).
Numerous initials in red or green, some with pen-flourishing. Numbers and rubrics in red. Highlighting of letters in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049695", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3859: Vegetius, De rei militari; Macrobius, Saturnalia; Pseudo-Sallust, Investiva in Ciceronem; Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae;…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049695 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3859 : Vegetius, De rei militari; Macrobius, Saturnalia; Pseudo-Sallust, Investiva in Ciceronem; Historia Brittonum and Annales… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3851]/040-002049695
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056055489.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
Welsh - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1140
- Date Range:
- Early 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 265 × 150 mm (text space: 190/200 × 95/125 mm).
Foliation: ff. 365 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); the first and last folios are pasted to marbled end pages; 2 unfoliated parchment leaves after f. 146; f. 146a is a ruled medieval parchment flyleaf.
Script: Protogothic..
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
In Italy from the late 14th century: annotations of various periods, including of Hermolaus Barbarus (f. 15v): (see Reeve, 'Two Manuscripts at the Escorial' (1994), pp. 829-39).
Ovidio Montalbani (fl. 17th century) professor of mathematics at Bologna: (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani: (1972)).
Added, pasted-on strip of parchment with 19th-century painted insects and a turtle (f. 39v).
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 ‘Januarii 1724/5' (f. 1).
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/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3859.
H. Idris Bell, ‘A Solinus Manuscript from the Library of Coluccio Salutati’, Speculum, 4 (1929), 451-61 (p. 451).
Carol Herselle Krinsky, 'Seventy-eight Vitruvius Manuscripts', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30 (1967), 36-70 (p. 52).
Richard E.M. Moore, 'A Newly Observed Stratum in Roman Floor Mosaics', American Journal of Archaeology, 72 (1968), 57-68 (p. 58 n. 13).
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 242, 436.
David N. Dumville, 'The Welsh Latin annals', Studia Celtica 12/13 (1977/78), 461–67 (pp. 461-62, 466).
Charles R. Shrader, 'A Handlist of Extant Manuscripts Containing the De Re Militari of Flavius Vegatius Renatus', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 33 (1979) 280-305 (p. 290).
Nennius: British History and The Welsh Annals, ed. and trans. by John Morris (London: Phillimore, 1980), pp. 1-3.
M. E. Milham, 'A Handlist of the Manuscripts of C. Julius Solinus', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 37 (1983), 126-29 (p. 127).
Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L. D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 350-51, 443.
B. Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 3 vols (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982-1989), I, 215 no. C. 250; II (1985), pp. 330 no. C. 60, 500 no. C. 39, 832 no. C.12.
Michelle Brown, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1991), pl. 4.
Registrum anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum, ed. by Richard H. and Mary A. Rouse, and R.A.B. Mynors, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 2 (London 1991), p. 225.
Wendy Davies, 'Celtic Kingships in the Early Middle Ages', in Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe, ed. by Anne J. Duggan, King’s College London Medieval Studies, 10 (London: King’s College, 1993), pp. 101-24 (p. 110).
David N. Dumville, ‘St Patrick in the Historia Brittonum: Three Texts’, in Saint Patrick, A.D. 493-1993, ed. by David N. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History, 13 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 221-32 (pp. 222-5).
M. D. Reeve, 'Two Manuscripts at the Escorial', in Actas del VIII Congreso Español de Estudios Clásicos, 3 vols (Madrid: EDICLAS, 1994), II, 829-39 (pp. 829-39).
Richard Gameson, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c.1066-1130) (Oxford, 1999), no. 450.
Stephan Schuler, Vitruv im Mittelalter: Die Rezeption von 'De architectura' von der Antike bis in die frühe Neuzeit (Cologne: Böhlau, 1999), pp. 341, 356.
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 439.
Historia Britonum: The History of the Britons attributed to Nennius, trans. by Richard Rowley (Lampeter: Llanerch, 2005), pp. 1-2.
Michelle P. Brown, Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age (London: British Library, 2007), pl. 3.
Anna A. Novokhatko, The Invectives of Sallust and Cicero: Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 28, 56-110.
Robert A. Kaster, Studies on the Text of Macrobius' 'Saturnalia' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 6, 18, 70, 71, 89-93.
C. T. Allmand, The 'De Re Militari' of Vegetius: The Reception, Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 356.
The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister: Edition, Translation and Commentary, ed. by Michael W. Herren, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin, 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), [an edition of the text].
Ben Guy, ‘The origins of the compilation of Welsh historical texts in Harley 3859’, Studia Celtica, 49 (2015): 21–56.
David Paniagua, 'An Inventory of the Manuscripts of Julius Solinus', Scriptorium, 73 (2019), 101-25 (p. 109).
Daniel Huws, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes, c.800-c.1800, 3 vols (Aberystwyth: The National Library of Wales and University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2022), I, pp. 684-85.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.