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Harley MS 4203
- Record Id:
- 040-002050040
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050040
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0002df
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161515840.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4203
- Title:
- John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-181v: John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes; an English translation of Laurent de Premierfait’s Des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes, which is a French translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (‘On the Fates of Famous Men’); featuring Latin rubrics, and a colophon in French on f. 181v: ‘Sy fyne le livre de John Bochas des cas des nobles hommes & femmes translate du latyn en francoys par laurence du premyer fait Clerk de la diose de troye & fut compile ceste translacion le .xxve. jour davril Mil CCCC. & ix. et cest assavoyr le lundy apres pasques che [crossed out] closes’; imperfect.
Decoration:
Numerous initials in blue with red pen-flourishing including foliate motifs. Capitals marked with yellow. Paraphs in red, blue or brown.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050040", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4203: John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050040 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4203 : John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4196]/040-002050040
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161515840.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
French, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper and parchment.
Dimensions: 395 x 280 mm (280 x 200 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 181 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
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.
- Publications:
-
Lydgate's Fall of Princes, ed. by Henry Bergen, 4 vols, Early English Text Society, 121-124 (London: Early English Text Society, 1924-27), I, p. xxiii; IV, pp. 56-58, as 'H5'.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4203.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon: Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Paul, Trench, and Trübner for The Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (p. xiv).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)