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Harley MS 4123

Record Id:

040-002049960

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049960

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00028d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4123

Title:

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae; Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troiae; Martinus Polonus, Chronica pontificum et imperatorum

Scope & Content:

A composite manuscripts of two parts that were produced separately.

Part 1 (ff. 2r-126r) was written in the Southern Netherlands in 1349.

Part 2 was written in England or the Southern Netherlands in the 2nd half of the 14th century.

Contents:

Part 1:

ff. 2r-49r: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).

ff. 50r-126r: Guido delle Colonne ['de Columnis' or 'de Columna'], Historia destructionis Troiae (A History of the Destruction of Troy) or Historia troiana, in 35 books, preceded by a table of contents (ff. 50r-53v), with a prologue (f. 54r), verse epitaphs of Hector and Achilles (f. 125v) and an epilogue (f. 126r).

Part 2:

ff. 127r-159r: Martinus Polonus, Chronica pontificum et imperatorum (Chronicle of Popes and Emperors); the death of Pope Honorius IV in 1287 is mentioned at the end.

ff. 160r-167r: Sex aetates mundi (Six Ages of the World).

ff. 167v-170v: A table of Roman provinces.

ff. 171r-v: Hugh of Saint-Victor, Expositio mappe mundi (Explanation of the map of the world).

The manuscript contains a later addition:

f. 1v: A table of contents; added by a 17th-century hand.

Decoration:

Part 1:

Large (4- to 6-line) puzzle initials in blue and red with partial (one-sided) borders in blue and red (ff. 2r, 9v, 21r, 26r, 34v, 43v, 49r). 1 large (4-line) red initial with red penwork decoration and pen-flourishing (f. 54r). Large (2-line) plain initials in blue or red; only the blue ones with penwork decoration and pen-flourishing in the opposite colour. Capitals highlighted in red. Rubrics in red. Manicules in brown ink (e.g. 94r-95r).

Part 2:

1 large (4-line) puzzle initial in blue and red with penwork decoration in red (f. 127r). Large (2-line) plain red initials. Capitals highlighted in red. Rubrics in red. Paraphs in red. Underlining in red. Cadel with anthropomorphic features (f. 167r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049960", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4123: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae; Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troiae; Martinus Polonus, Chronica…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049960

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4123 : Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae; Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troiae; Martinus Polonus,…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4116]/040-002049960

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:

1349

End Date:

1399

Date Range:

1349-2nd half of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 315 x 210 mm [Part 1]; 330 x 210 mm [Part 2] (text space: 205/210 x 130/135 mm, in 2 columns [Part 1]; 245 x 145/150 mm, written in 1 or 2 columns [Part 2]).

Foliation: ff. 171 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); f. 1 is a parchment leaf that originally served as flyleaf; single unfoliated leaves after ff. 126 and 159; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes).

Collation: ff. 62-126: gatherings mostly of 8, with horizontal catchwords within frames in the lower right margin of the last verso of each gathering, and leaf signatures in the lower margin of the rectos in the first half of gatherings; ff. 127-171: gatherings mostly of 10, with horizontal catchword in the lower right corner of the last verso of gatherings. The occasional disparity between catchwords and first words on the following leaf may indicate that a loss of leaf/leaves has occurred with consequent loss of text.

Script: Gothic; ff. 2r-126r was copied by the scribe 'Albertus filius Iohannis Alberti, presbyter de Dyst'.

Binding: British Museum in-house: gold-tooled black half leather with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; marbled endpapers.

Binding: British Museum in-house, 19th century; marbled endleaves.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Southern Netherlands (? Diest) [Part 1]; Southern Netherlands or England [Part 2].

Scribe:

Albertus, priest of Diest, Southern Netherlands (modern-day Flanders in Belgium), copied ff. 2r-126r in 1349: his name ('Albertus filius Iohannis Alberti, presbiter de Dyst') inscribed in colophons on ff. 49r: 'filius Johannis Alberti presbyter de Dyst. Orate pro eo omnes quicumque hanc hystoriam studiose inspexeritis per legendo. Finito libro anno a nativitate domini 1300 .49. mensis decembris. In vigilia lucie virginis'; and f. 126r : 'Explicit liber de casu Troie dictus Troianus. Quem scripsit Albertus filius Johannis Alberti presbyter de Dyst. Orate pro eo' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 48).

Provenance:

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.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4123.

Harry L. D. Ward and John A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), 1: Harry L. D. Ward (1883), pp. 40-42, 236.

Guido de Columnis, Historia Destructionis Troiae, ed. by Nathaniel Edward Griffin (1936, repr. New York: Kraus, 1960), p. xiii, manuscript H [an edition of the text].

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. 48, 440.

Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 805.

Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, ‘Studien zur Überlieferung der Chronik des Martin von Troppau (Erfahrungen mit einem massenhaft überlieferten historischen Text)', Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 41 (1985), 460-531 (p. 526).

The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 5 vols (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985-1996), III (1989): Julia C. Crick, A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts, pp. 170-71, no. 104.

The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 5 vols (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985-1996), IV (1991): Julia C. Crick, Dissemination and Reception in the Later Medieval Ages, pp. xiii, 47, 56-57, 62, 139, 141, 171, 177, 189, 205, 210.

Marc-René Jung, La Légende de Troie en France au moyen age (Basel & Tubingen: Francke, 1996), pp. 565, 647.

P. D. A. Harvey, 'The Sawley map and other world maps in twelfth-century England', Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography, 49 (1997), 33-42 (p. 42 n. 32).

Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain. An Edition and Translation of De gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae], ed. by Michael D. Reeve, trans. by Neil Wright, Arthurian Studies, 69 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), p. x

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Geoffrey of Monmouth, historian and Bishop of St Asaph, c 1100-c 1154,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000123212370,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/89028232
Guido delle Colonne [de Columnis or de Columna], judge and poet, fl 13th century,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000109290786
Hugh of Saint-Victor, c 1096-1141,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121201563,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/9865788
Martinus of Troppau, Archbishop of Gniezno, d 1278,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000079696071

Places:

Diest, Belgium
England
Southern Netherlands