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Harley MS 3906

Record Id:

040-002049742

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049742

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001a1

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3906

Title:

A Latin chronicle of England from Brutus to the murder of James I of Scotland in 1437, with a continuation from 1437 to 1456 with material concerning Sherborne Abbey

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 2r-111r: A Latin chronicle of England which covers the period from Brutus to the murder of James I of Scotland in 1437, with the prophecies of Merlin, an abridgement of the Historia regum Brittaniae, an account of the Heptarchy and post-Conquest monarchs up to 1377 from the Polychronicon, a brief account of the reign of Henry V, and a continuation (ff. 108r-111r) from 1437 to 1456 with material concerning the Benedictine abbey of Sherborne in Dorset.

Listed as the second version of the Latin Brut in Matheson, The Prose 'Brut' (1998). Luxford ('The Latin "Brut" Chronicle' (2002), pp. 288-90), notes that the contents do not fit Matheson's definition, and bears little resemblance to the Brut tradition. The text begins: 'Adam pater generis humani genuit qui genuit Enos'; and ends: 'Eodem anno apparuit commata in mense Junij' [Halley's Comet'].

The manuscript contains later additions:

f. 1r: A title inscription: 'Historia Regum Angliae ad A.D. 1456'; added in the 17th century

f. 1r: A title inscription: 'Historia Mundi & De Rebus Gestis Romanorum'; added in the 17th century.

Marginal notes and maniculae added by late 15th- and 16th-century readers.

Decoration:

Initial with foliate and spray decoration in gold and colours (f. 2r). Initials in blue with pen-flourishing in red. Paraphs in red. Initials highlighted in yellow.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049742", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3906: A Latin chronicle of England from Brutus to the murder of James I of Scotland in 1437, with a continuation from 1437 to 1456 with…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049742

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3906 : A Latin chronicle of England from Brutus to the murder of James I of Scotland in 1437, with a continuation from 1437 to 1456…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3898]/040-002049742

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1451

End Date:

1460

Date Range:

c 1456-1460

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 165 x 115 mm (text space: 100 x 60 mm).

Foliation: ff. 111 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf and 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1 is a parchment leaf that originally served as a flyleaf.

Collation: Gatherings of 8, with quire signature in the lower right corner of the rectos in the first half of the gatherings, and horizontal catchwords in frames in the lower right corner of the last verso.

Script: Gothic cursive (Secretary).

Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gilt-tooled mottled brown leather.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Sherborne, Dorset.

Provenance:

Written at the Benedictine abbey of Sherborne, Dorset, soon after 1456 (see Kingsford, English Historical Literature (1913), pp. 158, 310-12, 346-49; Matheson, The Prose 'Brut' (1998), pp. xxi, 16, 43).

'W. Lockton', 16th century: his name inscribed on f. [iii]recto (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).

'John ffleck', 17th century: his name inscribed on f. 1r (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).

James Newton, bookseller (fl. 1725), who sold Harley a number of heraldic manuscripts and the cartulary of Walden, Harley MS 3697: sold to Edward Harley on 19 October 1725 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 251).

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, ‘19 die Octobris, 1725’ (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 & Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 95 [no. 3906].

Charles L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), pp. 158, 310-12, 346-49.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 389 n. 9.

Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 251, 437.

Lister M. Matheson, The Prose 'Brut': The Development of a Middle English Chronicle, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 180 (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998), pp. xxi, 16, 43.

Julian M. Luxford, 'A Previously Unlisted Manuscript of the Latin Brut Chronicle with Sherborne Continuation', Medium Aevum, 71:2 (2002), 286-93.

Edward Kennedy, 'Glastonbury', in The Arthur of Medieval Latin literature : The Development and Dissemination of the Arthurian Legend in Medieval Latin, ed. by Siân Echard. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011), pp. 109-31 (pp. 121, 130, n. 86).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Sherborne, England