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Harley MS 3958

Record Id:

040-002049795

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049795

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001d6

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3958

Title:

Pseudo-John of Damascus, Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat; Life of St Brendan; sermons by Peter Comestor and others

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-1v: Life of St Alexis [Vita Sancti Alexii]; imperfect (the text is a fragment of the text's end).

ff. 1v-103v: Pseudo-John of Damascus (translator), Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat ('Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat servorum dei greco sermone editus Johanne damaceno viro sancto et erudito').

ff. 103v-121v: Life of Saint Brendan ('Vita Sancti Brendani');

ff. 121v-122r: Prognostications for weather and crops; the first eight lines and opening words of new sections within the text have been erased.

ff. 122v-123r: Commentary on Psalm 1 (Beatus vir).

ff. 124r-191r: Collection of 41 sermons by Peter Comestor, entitled: 'Ordo sermonum magistri petri comestoris'.

ff. 191v-203v: Collection of unidentified sermons, beginning: 'Vos filij audit e me timorem domini docebo vos'.

ff. 204r-235r: Collection of unidentified sermons, beginning: 'Homo nascitur ad laborem et avis ad volatum. Qui est avis nascitur ad volatum. Qui est homo nascitur ad laborem' and ending: 'Cardj super Canonem'.

ff. 236r-237v: Collection of unidentified sermons, the first one complete one begins: 'Sub verborum brevitate dicendi quatuor quidem dantur nobis intelligi'

ff. 238r-241v: Collection of unidentified sermons.

ff. 242r-252v, 254r-256r: Collection of sermons, beginning: 'Quatuor modis dicitur quis esse in ecclesia'.

ff. 253r-253v: Unidentified fragment of a sermon.

ff. 256v-260r: Collection of sermons, beginning: 'Qui sanat contritos corde. Hec sunt contriciones penitentis'.

f. 260r: A short tract, entitled: 'De Christi[a]na virginis'.

ff. 260v-262v: Sermons, beginning: 'Vexilla regis prodeunt fulget crucis misterium' and 'Fuit Moises cum Domino quadraginta dies'

ff. 263r-272r: Ermengaldus, Contra Waldenses.

f. 272r: Treatise against the Waldensians, beginning: 'Ad confutandam pravitatem hereticam de rasura capitis fidelium'.

The manucsript contains a later addition:

ff. 123r-123v: A faded text on the (?) articles of faith; written in the (?) 13th or 14th century.

f. 191r: Copy of the epitaph of Peter Comestor, begininng: 'Petrus eram quem petra tegit'; added in the 16th century.

f. 272v: Latin verses and inscriptions, including: 'Si sapiens fore vis sex serva que tibi mando / Quid loqueris vel ubi de queis cui quomodo quando'; written in the 15th and 16th century.

Decoration:

1 large initial in red and blue with red and blue penwork decoration at the beginning of the Life of St Brendan (f. 103v). 1 large initial in red with red penwork decoration at the beginning of Barlaam and Josaphat (f. 2r). 1 large initial in red with red and brown penwork decoration at the beginning of the sermons of Peter Comestor (f. 124r). Smaller initials in red with red and brown penwork decoration. Small plain initials in red, in blue with red penwork decoration, or in red with blue or red penwork decoration. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049795", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3958: Pseudo-John of Damascus, Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat; Life of St Brendan; sermons by Peter Comestor and others" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049795

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3958 : Pseudo-John of Damascus, Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat; Life of St Brendan; sermons by Peter Comestor and others

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3951]/040-002049795

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:

1175

End Date:

1249

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 12th century-1st half of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 300 x 205 mm (text space: 230 x 140 mm, some folios in two columns).

Foliation: ff. 272 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); f. 1 is a mutilated leaf; 1 unfoliated parchment stub after f. 123.

Collation: Indicated by catchwords.

Script: Gothic, written above top line; written by more than one scribe.

Binding: Post-1600. Blind-tooled brown leather over wooden boards; red fore-edges.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Southern France.

Provenance:

The Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide, near Narbonne, founded as a Benedictine house c. 1093; adopted Cistercian observance c. 1145, owned in the 13th century: its ownership inscription on f. 122r: 'Liber sancte marie fontis frigidi' [and punctus flexus punctuation marks] (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 154).

Peter Corningtone [? Corvingtone], owned in the 17th century: his ownership inscription on f. 272r: 'Ex libris Petri Corningtone' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 112).

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:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 98 (no. 3958).

H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II, pp. 125-26, 516-30.

John Hennig, 'The Manuscript Sources of Early Scholastic Theology', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des Études relatives aux manuscrits, 4 (1950), 309-13 (p. 311).

[C. H. Talbot], 'Cistercian Manuscripts in England', Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, 14 (1952), 208-12, 264-77 (p. 271).

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. 112, 154.

Anne Bondeelle-Souchier, Bibliothèques Cisterciennes dans la France médiévale (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1991), p. 113.

David N. Bell, 'Fons Sapientiae: A Study of the Book Collection of the Abbey of Fontfroide from the Twelfth Century to the Fifteenth', Citeaux, 1-2 (1995), 77-109 (pp. 98-99).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Petrus Comestor, c 1100-c 1179,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000083431084,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/40175167

Places:

Southern France