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Harley MS 3885

Record Id:
040-002049721
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
040-002049721
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00018c
LARK:
SLARK:
Format:
ISAD(G)
Reference (shelfmark):
Harley MS 3885
Title:

John Scottowe, Alphabet book, with English and Latin phrases

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-24v: John Scottowe, Alphabet book, with English and Latin phrases; inscribed 'Mr Tharlton' (inside the letter 'T') with a poem about him, beginning, 'The picture here set down, / Within this letter T, / Aright doth shew the form and shape / Of Tharlton unto thee' (f. 19r).

Richard Tharlton, a swineherd turned comedian, poet, and comic actor was brought to London by the Earl of Leicester. Tharlton entertained Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers and was said to cure 'her melancholy better than all her physicians.' (see Ryan, Poetry and Poets (1826), pp. 185-90). According to Backhouse, ‘John Scottowe’ (1976), pp. 3-4, the manuscript was probably intended for educational use, with short passages suitable to be set as copies for a pupil. For another writing book by Scottowe dating to 1592 see Chicago, Newberry Library. The earliest known printed book of this type is De Beauchesne and Baildon's Booke containing Divers Sortes of hands (1570).

Decoration:

24 full-page initials in ink with details in gold with animal heads, foliage, and figures, some with Elizabethan coats of arms and mottos (one initial on each recto).

Collection Area:
Western Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Harley Collection
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "040-002049721", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3885: John Scottowe, Alphabet book, with English and Latin phrases" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-002045828
040-002049721
Is part of:
Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

 

Harley MS 3885 : John Scottowe, Alphabet book, with English and Latin phrases
Hierarchy:
032-002045828[3877]/040-002049721
Container:
View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
Record Type (Level):
File
Extent:
1 volume
Digitised Content:
Languages:
English
Latin
Scripts:
Latin
Start Date:
1575
End Date:
1599
Date Range:
4th quarter of the 16th century
Era:
CE
Access:

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User Conditions:
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 360 x 325 mm.

Foliation: ff. 24 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).

Script: Humanistic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Norwich.

Provenance:

John Scottowe (d. 1607), calligrapher and schoolmaster, writing master of Norwich: inscribed 'per me Johannem Scottowe' on a banderolle next to the letter 'J' (f. 9r) (see also Backhouse, ‘John Scottowe’ (1976), pp. 3-4; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 299).

Elizabeth and John Dawtry: their names inscribed on f. 1r in the 16th century, possibly by John Scottowe (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 126).

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.

Publications:

Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 175 n. 37.

Janet Backhouse, John Scottowe's Alphabet Books (London: Roxburghe Club, 1974).

Janet Backhouse, 'John Scottowe of Norwich: An Elizabethan Writing Master', Society of Scribes and Illuminators Newsletter, 8 (1976), 3-4.

Janet Backhouse, 'An Elizabethan Schoolboy's Exercise Book', Bodleian Library Record, 9 (1978) 323-32 (pp. 324, 331).

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 94.

Richard Ryan, Poetry and Poets: Being a Collection of the Choicest Anecdotes Relative to the Poets of Every Age and Nation, together with Specimens of Their Works and Sketches of Their Biography, Illustrated by Engravings (London: Sherwood, 1826), pp. 185-190.

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. 126, 299.

Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)
Names:
Scottowe, John, d. 1608,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000061511104
Places:
Norwich, England