Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Harley MS 3960
- Record Id:
- 040-002049797
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049797
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001d8
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3960
- Title:
-
Cartulary of Melrose Abbey
- Scope & Content:
-
f. ir: Fragment of a former flyleaf with inscription.
f. 1r–109r: Cartulary, arranged topographically. Includes copies of numerous royal and occasional papal and episcopal charters throughout (with contemporary additions: ff. 65r–66v, 76v, 100r, 102r–109r).
f. 110v: Added text of an indulgance, dated 1437, with a gloss in Middle English.
f. 111r: ‘Melrose’ (?) scribbed across a full page.
f. 111v: Added indulgence (15th century).
Decoration:
Red initials and paraphs. Initial with black penwork decoration for added charter (f. 110v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049797", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3960: Cartulary of Melrose Abbey" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049797 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3960 : Cartulary of Melrose Abbey - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3953]/040-002049797
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1488
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 1488-1490s
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Dimensions: 370 × 270 mm.
Foliation: ff. i + 111 (+ 3 modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and end). Contemporary foliation, ‘i’–‘cix’ (ff. 1–109).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Cistercian abbey of St Mary, Melrose, Roxburghshire: inscribed, ‘Liber sancte marie de melros’ (f. ir).
Provenance:
? Thomas Hamilton, earl of Melrose and first earl of Haddington (b. 1563, d. 1637), lawyer and politician: possessed many former lands of Melrose Abbey.
? Thomas Hamilton, sixth earl of Haddington (b. 1680, d. 1735), politician and forester: Bishop William Nicolson saw a register of Melrose Abbey in his library before 1702 (Nicolson, p. 225).
? James Anderson (b. 1662, d. 1728), historiographer and antiquary.
Patrick Anderson, son of James Anderson, who inherited his father’s legal practice in London: presented to the Harleian collection 11 July 1730 (Wright, p. 49).
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:
-
William Nicolson, The Scottish Historical Library (London, 1702), p. 225, http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100040774633.0x000001.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Robert Nares and others, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–12), iii, 99.
Cosmo Innes, Liber sancte Marie de Melros, 2 vols, Bannatyne Club (Edinburgh, 1837), https://archive.org/details/libersanctemarie00bann (vol. 1), https://archive.org/details/libersanctemarie02bann (vol. 2).
‘A Delver in Antiquity’ [W. B. D. D. Turnbull], Fragmenta Scoto-Monastica (Edinburgh, 1842), pp. 10–11.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 49.
G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison, and David M. Smith, 2nd edn (London: British Library, 2010), no. 1168.
Alasdair Ross, ‘The Bannatyne Club and the Publication of Scottish Ecclesiastical Cartularies’, Scottish Historical Review, 85 (2006), 202–30 (pp. 212–13), https://doi.org/10.1353/shr.2007.0024.
Richard A. Marsden, Cosmo Innes and the Defence of Scotland’s Past, c. 1825–1875 (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014), p. 137.
Alice Taylor, The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124–1290 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 230.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Anderson, James, historiographer and antiquary, 1662-1728
Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire