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Harley MS 3945
- Record Id:
- 040-002049782
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049782
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001c9
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3945
- Title:
-
Prose Brut
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-117v: The Prose Brut; Common Version to 1333.
Decoration:
A large gilded initial with foliate decoration in the margin reaching down to the bas de page (f. 1r). Large (3-line) initials in red up to f. 41r; after that, empty spaces for initials have occasionally been filled with large (3-line) initials in black ink, featuring a crown (ff. 42v, 46v), and a human face (f. 42v). Added drawings in black or brown ink of a plant (f. 42r), two noblemen (f. 44r) [below a banderol reading: 'mestres stafforde'], a heart with a wound and a cross (ff. 45r, 54r), a boar's head and a sword (f. 52r), flowers (f. 60r), and human heads [upside down] (ff. 84v-85r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049782", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3945: Prose Brut" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049782 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3945 : Prose Brut - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3938]/040-002049782
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 260 x 180 mm (text space: 190 x 110 mm) .
Foliation: ff. 117 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 1 unfoliated parchment stub after f. 2 and f. 40; f. 117 is a torn leaf.
Collation: Indicated by catchwords in frames of black ink.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house; blind-stamped and gold-tooled brown speckled leather.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
John Acton or John Rofford, 15th or 16th century: their names inscribed in the lower margin of f. 50r: 'John Acton off thomele - John Rofford off th[…]' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
William Taylard, 15th or 16th century: his name inscribed in the upper margin of f. 53v: 'Item that I Wyllyam Taylard of' (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
John Tilar [? Tyler], 15th or 16th century: his name inscribed in the upper margin of f. 67r: 'John Tilar' [2x] (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
John Bland, owned in the 16th century: his ownership inscription on f. 117v: 'Liber Johannis Blandi'; faded, but legible with UV light; previously unidentified and not listed under his entry in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 74, where Bland is recorded as the owner of Harley MS 4733. This manuscript, containing Middle English poems, contains an ownership inscription in the same script on f. 127v.
John Batteley (b. 1647, d. 1708), archdeacon of Canterbury: sold by him to Edward Harley on 5 November 1723 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, p. 263; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 66-67).
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 its librarian Humfrey Wanley '5 die Novembris, A. D. 1723'.
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. 98.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 263.
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. 66-67.
Lister M. Matheson, The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 180 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1998), pp. 83, 108.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- England