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Harley MS 4205
- Record Id:
- 040-002050042
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050042
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0002e1
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4205
- Title:
- 'Sir Thomas Holme's Book of Arms': anonymous verses on the kings of England, to Henry VI; Military Roll of Arms; Legh's Men of Arms
- Scope & Content:
-
'Sir Thomas Holme's Book of Arms'. This manuscript, together with two other manuscripts (London, British Library, Add. 45133 and London, Guildhall Library, Print Room (s.n.)) is known as 'Sir Thomas Holme's Book' because his arms appear in two of these manuscripts (the present volume (f. i recto), and Add. 45133). For a discussion on the date of the various parts, see Scott 1996.
Contents:
1. (ff. i verso-8r): Anonymous verses on the kings of England, to Henry VI, made c. 1445-c. 1450. See Boffey and Edwards 2005, no. 444. Incipit (f. 1r): 'At westminster william Icrowned was / the first day of Cristynmasse'. Coloured drawings of English kings, one per page (ff. 1r-8r), in armour and tabard, presenting a plaque with the verses that describe him. On f. i verso, a coloured drawing of a knight (an ancestor of Thomas Holme?), in armour and tabard, disembarking from William the Conqueror's ship; a second armoured knight, without tabard, stands on the shore.
2. (ff. 9r-40v): Military Roll of Arms, made before 1448, c. 1446. Coloured drawings of knights in armour and tabard, four per page, mounted on horses and jousting or fighting with swords. Each knight is labelled with his name. The knights are organized according to county: Suffolk (ff. 9r-17v), Essex (ff. 18r-29v), Kent (ff. 30r-36v), and Yorkshire (ff. 37r-40v). Folio 23 is an inserted parchment leaf, with only one knight (f. 23r), added later and labelled 'Willen cope of essex gentil man'; a large patch of dark blue paint in the centre of the recto may be an unfinished drawing of a shield.
3. (ff. 41r-112r): Legh's Men of Arms, made last quarter of the 15th century or 1st quarter of the 16th century. Coloured drawings of knights in armour and tabard, one per page, holding an armorial banner. The name of each knight is written near the bottom of the page in French. Folios 91v, 103v-104v, 105v, 106v, 107v,108v, 109v, 110v, and 111v are blank except for the name of the knight that was intended to be painted on these pages. Folio 112v is the same (originally blank, with the name of the intended knight near the bottom of the page), but bears added heraldic motifs.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050042", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4205: 'Sir Thomas Holme's Book of Arms': anonymous verses on the kings of England, to Henry VI; Military Roll of Arms; Legh's Men of Arms" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050042 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4205 : 'Sir Thomas Holme's Book of Arms': anonymous verses on the kings of England, to Henry VI; Military Roll of Arms;… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4198]/040-002050042
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 paper codex, 112 + i folios
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4205 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1440
- End Date:
- 1524
- Date Range:
- c 1445-1524
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper; watermark of a barbed anchor with small cross (throughout the 3 parts of the manuscript), similar to no. 389 (identified as Estopey, 1418 and Troyes, 1426) in C. M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, ed. by Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968) [facsimile of the 1901 edn with added material].
Dimensions: 390 x 290 mm.
Foliation: ff. 112 + i (+ 9 unfoliated paper flyleaves: 3 modern flyleaves (ff. [i*-i***]) at the beginning, 3 flyleaves (ff. i****-i******) before f. i, and 3 modern flyleaves (ff. [113-115]) at the end; 1 unfoliated paper leaf before f. 41).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather, green leather inner covers with Harley arms; marbled endpapers and gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (probably London).
Provenance:
Folios 1r-40v (verses on the kings of England and Military Roll of Arms):
Roger Legh (d. 1460), herald, Clarenceux King of Arms (1435-1460): entered in Thomas Benolt's 1534 inventory as a volume 'made by' Roger Legh (see Scott 1996, Marks and Williamson 2003).
Probably William Hawkeslowe (d. 1476), Clarenceux King of Arms (c. 1461-1476) (see Scott 1996).
All:
Sir Thomas Holme (d. 1493), Clarenceux King of Arms (1476-1493), admission to the Order of the Garter in 1482: his arms within a garter, motto 'hony soit qui mal y' (f. i recto).
Thomas Benolt (d. 1534), herald and diplomat, Clarenceux King of Arms (1511-1534): features in his 1534 inventory of 'the Visitation of many shires' (see Scott 1996, Marks and Williamson 2003), his inventory mark 'X' (f. i verso).
Added coloured drawings of heraldic motifs, 16th century (f. 112v).
Christopher Bateman (fl. 1698, d. c. 1730), bookseller and book auctioneer in London: sold to Robert Harley on 27 May 1720 (see Wright 1972).
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 ‘27 May 1720’ (f. [i***** 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: old British Museum press mark: '125. C. 7' (f. [i****]).
- Administrative Context:
- Origin: England (probably London)
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), III (1808), p. 127 (no. 4205).
Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York: Columbia, 1943), no. 444.
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. 48 n. 8.
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. 66, 70, 195.
Ann Payne, 'The Salisbury Roll of Arms, c. 1463', in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Daniel Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 187-98 (pl. 6).
Two East Anglian Picture Books: A Facsimile of the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary and Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 1504, ed. by Nicholas Barker (London: The Roxburghe Club, 1988), p. 19 n. 2.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 85 [with additional bibliography].
Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, ed. by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London: V&A Publications, 2003), no. 77 [exhibition catalogue; with additional bibliography].
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), no. 444.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pl. 20.
- Exhibitions:
- Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery, V&A, London, 1 October 2016 - 5 February 2017
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)