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Harley MS 3971

Record Id:

040-002049808

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049808

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001e3

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3971

Title:

Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen (Poem on Charlemagne and the Scottish saints)

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-66r: Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen (Poem on Charlemagne and the Scottish saints). This poem, a production of the Irish monastic community (called 'scoti') on the Continent, is 'a close verse rendering of the principal sections (IV and V) of a Latin prose chronicle from Regensburg which combines a fabulous account of the Christianisation of Bavaria by Charlemagne with the history of the Irish monastic foundations' (Palmer, Review (1984), p. 486).

Decoration:

Puzzle initials in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours forming a three-sided border including foliate motifs (f. 1r), or on one side along the text (ff. 4v, 5v, 20v, 25r, 28v, 31v (x2), 33v, 39v, 41v, etc.). Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049808", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3971: Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen (Poem on Charlemagne and the Scottish saints)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049808

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3971 : Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen (Poem on Charlemagne and the Scottish saints)

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3964]/040-002049808

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

German, Middle High

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1325

End Date:

1374

Date Range:

2nd quarter of the 14th century-3rd quarter of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 330 x 240 mm (text space: 230 x 170 mm, in 2 columns).

Foliation: ff. 66 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 7 unfoliated blank ruled leaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated ruled parchment leaf and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [i]recto (bibliographical notes).

Collation: Mainly in quires of 8. Quire marks and Roman numerals on the verso of the last leaf of each quire.

Script: Gothic

Binding: British Museum in-house; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Southern Germany (Regensburg).

Provenance:

The Benedictine priory of Weih Sankt Peter, Regensburg, affiliated with the abbey of St. James the Great in Bavaria: in a similar style, format and hand to Harley 3973, which contains the history of the foundation of the priory (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 284).

Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: sold to the Harleys on 20 January 1721/2 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 253-54).

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 ‘20 die mensis Januarij 1721/22’ (f. [iv]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:

Pádraig A. Breatnach, Die Regensburger Schottenlegende (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1977), esp. pp. 79-82.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 100.

Deutsche Handschriften in England, ed. by Robert Priebsch, 2 vols in 1 vol (Hildesheim: Olms, 1979, first publ. Erlangen: Junge, 1896-1901), II: Das British Museum mit einem anhang über die Guildhall-Bibliothek, no. 28.

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. 138 n. 7.

Nigel F. Palmer, Review of Frank Shaw, Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen: Nach der Handschrift Harley 3971 der Britischen Bibliothek London zum ersten Mal kritisch ediert, in The Modern Language Review, 79 (1984), 486-88.

Frank Shaw, Karl der Grosse und die schottischen Heiligen: Nach der Handschrift Harley 3971 der Britischen Bibliothek London zum ersten Mal kritisch ediert, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, 71 ( Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. 1981).

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. 253-54, 284.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Regensburg, Germany