Harley MS 3954

The main part of this miscellany contains catechetical texts, some with exempla and devotional poems about the Passion in Middle English with rubricated headings in Latin. However, the manuscript is especially known for its copy of William Langland's dream-vision Piers Plowman and an illustrated version of Mandeville's Travels.

Contents:

ff. 1r-69v: Mandeville's Travels, 'John Maundevylle'.

ff. 70r-74r: A poem on the infancy of Christ, 'Hic incipit infancia salvatoris'.

ff. 74r-76r: A poem on the merits of hearing Mass, 'Hic testatur quartum meritum habebimus in audiente misse. Scriptum est: omnis servitas per quas tu facis veniendo ad ecclesiam ab angelis dei coram omnipotenti deo in regno celorum manifestabuntur'.

ff. 76r-78r: A poem on the virtues of Mass, 'Augustinus in libro de civitate de vij virtutibus missarum [etc.]'.

ff. 78v-81r: A poem on the seven virtues and the seven deadly sins, 'Hec sunt vij virtutes .contra. vij. vices'.

ff. 81r-82v: A poem on the seven works of mercy, 'Hic incipiunt .vij. facta elemosine sicut evangelium testatur'.

ff. 82v-85v: A poem on the seven sacraments, 'Hic incipiunt .vij. sacramenta ecclesiase in remissionem omni peccatorum'.

ff. 85v-86v: A poem on the seven principal virtues, 'Iste sunt .vij. virtutes. principales'.

ff. 87r-88r: An ABC Poem on the Passion; no heading, begins: 'A place as man my se / Quan a chyld to scole xal set be'.

ff. 90r-91v: Lament of the Blessed Virgin (Filius regis mortuus est); no heading, begins: '[As] reson hathe rulyd my recles mynde'.

ff. 92r-107v: William Langland (c. 1325 - c. 1390), Piers Plowman, 'Perys Plowman' (A-B version).

[ff. 88v-89v are blank]

Decoration:

99 miniatures illustrating Mandeville's Travels: most are with colours; all are without frames; some have labels; the illustrations are drawn with brown ink in spaces between the text columns and margins. Towards the end of the text are blank spaces where miniatures were planned. Simple pencil drawings of anthropomorphic figures in empty spaces (f. 33v, 43v and f. 89r). Large initials in red throughout the manuscripts.

The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:

f. 1r: 2-part image: Mandeville dressed as a knight, saying goodbye to his companions, he is blessed by a monk at a church door’;

f. 2r: Mandeville, embarking on a ship with fish in the sea below, looks back at England, represented by a house and green meadows (above); Mandeville, beside paths leading in different directions, shows the way to the next town (below);

f. 2v: Mandeville beside the River Danube;

f. 3r: Mandeville in the margin points to a view of Constantinople with a statue of Justinian on a horse before the church of Hagia Sofia;

f. 3v: Monks at an abbey in Cyprus greeting Mandeville and giving bread to another pilgrim;

f. 4r: Seth asking and angel for oil from the Tree of Mercy;

f. 4v: The discovery of the True Cross (above); a monk showing a nail and part of the Crown of Thorns to a kneeling Mandeville (below);

f. 5v: A monk showing another part of the Crown of Thorns in Paris (above); a view of Troy (below);

f. 6r: Mount Athos (above); Aristotle’s tomb, depicted as an altar with men debating around it (below);

f. 6v: Mount Olympus with two men in the clouds at its peak, one of them holding a sponge to his nose; a jousting scene, watched by the Emperor of Constantinople (below);

f. 7r: The Emperor, holding a book, has a man with a spade uncover the skeleton of Hermogenes buried in the floor of Hagia Sofia, while another man kneels beside it and points to it;

f. 8v: Hippocrates’ daughter as a dragon tossing a knight into the sea;

f. 10r: Men digging in the miraculous pit of Mynon, blowing glass and loading a ship with a wheelbarrow;

f. 11v: Bedouins sleeping in a tent, roasting meet, fighting and a camel is attacked by wild beasts;

f. 12v: Men digging in the Vale of Hebron and loading minerals into baskets (above); the tomb of Lott beside a dry tree (below);

f. 13r: The miracle of the field of flowers: a maiden is accused and is about to be burned but the fire turns to roses;

f. 13v: Mandeville knees before the Virgin and Child at the Church of St Nicholas;

f. 14r:2-part image: the Annunciation to the shepherds; the tomb of Rachael with twelve stones;

f. 19r: Men swimming in the Dead Sea, with the walls of a city or hermitage (unfinished);

f. 19v: Lot’s wife on a hill with Sodom beneath her;

f. 20r: The River Jordan with fish;

f. 23r: Damascus with mules and merchants and Cain slaying Abel in the foreground

f. 24v: Monks give food to Mandeville at Antioch, with a picture of the Virgin and Child in the background;

f. 24v: A man eating rats, men and an ox are killed by a storm;

f. 28r: St Athanasius in a mitre with a scroll that reads ‘Quicumque vult’ in the city of Trebizond;

f. 28v: A young man with a bird on a perch in the Castle of the Sparrowhawk;

f. 29r: Noah’s ark on top of Mount Ararat with a monk carrying away a piece of wood;

f. 29v: Men mining salt near Tabriz;

f. 30r: A man of Chaldea with a barefoot woman in a short garment holding a child (above); Amazons with their queen and men they have killed;

f. 31r: Three sciapods with one large foot each;

f. 31v: A man with a huge eel in a river in India;

f. 32r: Nude men with huge testicles and a man and woman lying in the water to keep cool in Ormuz;

f. 32v: Wooden ships (above); people of Cana worshipping fire and the sun;

f. 33r: Snake worshippers and tree worshippers (above); people worshipping the first thing they see in the morning (centre); people worshipping a three-headed idol (below);

f. 34v: Large rats are attacked by dogs (above); Mandeville and others drinking from the fountain of youth (below);

f. 35r: At Mt Polumbum ox urine is collected in a bowl and offered to the king to wash in;

f. 35v: People worshipping an idol and sacrificing a child (above); the cremation of a man and his widow, with well-dressed people watching and one fanning the blaze with bellows;

f. 36r: Two couples, the women with beards; the tomb of St Thomas in India with men disputing beside it;

f. 36v: An idol in St Thomas’s church with a bishop kneeling, pilgrims self-flagellating, and a figure casting coins in a pool;

f. 37r: An idol in a cart with men throwing themselves under its wheels and being trampled;

f. 37v: Mandeville meeting naked men and women in Sumatra;

f. 38r: A man is marked with a cautery iron by two others, while a figure in a large hat watches;

f. 39r: Men harvesting trees for flour, honey and poison (unfinished);

f. 39v: Bamboo, with men looking for stones underneath it;

f. 40r: Three-part image: men setting dogs on a sick man, cutting him up and eating him (above); men stabbing each other and catching blood to drink;

f. 40v: Mandeville watches the cave-dwellers of Tracota eating snakes and one holding their precious stone (above); cynocephales (dog-headed men) worshipping an ox;

f. 41r: Cynocephales on horseback with lances attacking knights; their king and court outside a city with a pearl necklace and a giant ruby;

f. 41v: An ox idol on a throne, cannibals cutting up and eating a body while musicians play at a feast in the Andaman Islands;

f. 42r: Cyclops eating raw fish (above), blemmyae watched by Mandeville who is writing in a book (centre); men with eyes and mouth in their backs (below);

f. 42v: Mandeville meets men and women with flat faces (above); Mandeville peers out from the forest at men with elongated upper lips;

f. 43r: Nude people in a forest drinking with straws;

f. 44v: A city (added later)

f. 45r: Mandeville with small people (above); the small people fight against large cranes (below);

f. 46r: The court of the Great Khan with scribes, his three wives and heir, courtiers and musicians at a feast;

f. 50r; The Khan’s body seated at a laden table in his tent, with a mare nursing a foal outside;

f. 53r: Men picking bunches of huge purple grapes (above); Gog and Magog and their followers are buried within the Caspian hills by Alexander and his army who are digging on the lower left (below);

f. 54r: Trees bearing wool and men fighting (above); Mandeville watching hippopotami (creatures that are half-man half-horse) eating a man;

f. 54v: Mandeville watches a griffon carrying a knight and a horse to feed to his babies in their nest;

f. 55r: Mandeville on a ship on a stormy sea with sailors who show him wrecked ships overgrown by trees;

f. 56r: Wild men with horns (unfinished);

f. 57v: Mandeville at the entrance to the Perilous Valley, looking at a devil’s head

f. 58v: Two giants clothed in skins;

f. 59r: Women with precious stones for eyes are attacked, and a man lies dead;

f. 59v: Women burning their dead children;

f. 60v: Crocodiles (like snakes) eating a man;

f. 61r: Two giraffes near a chapel in the land of Prester John;

f. 61v: Chameleons depicted as dogs in different colours, one striped (above), spotted wild swine (centre) and red, white and blue lions (below);

f. 62r: Two elephants attacked by a rhinoceros (depicted as a horse with a leopard’s head);

f. 63v: The dwarf-like people of Pytan smelling apples;

f. 64r: Feathered people (above); the trees of the sun and moon (below) with people eating fruit and wild animals;

f. 64v: White elephants (above); spotted unicorns and white lions (below);

f. 65r: Two- part image: Prester John as an emperor and then kneeling as he is ordained by an archbishop;

f. 65v: Ants load gold onto the back of a horse; a man with a foal watches (lower right);

f. 67r: Tibet, as a town of tents;

f. 67v: A priest chops up a body and feeds pieces to the birds.

There are thirty-eight blank spaces for miniatures following.