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Harley MS 4260

Record Id:

040-002050097

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050097

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000328

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100161515993.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4260

Title:

John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 2r-108r: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady, in 6 books.

f. 108r: A Latin verse prayer for the king, copied twice entirely, and once partially, attributed to ‘quod Clerk .J.’.

The manuscript contains a later addition:

f. 1v: A Latin note about other copies of Lydgate’s Life of Our Lady by Samuel Knott (b. 1661, d. 1668).

Decoration:

Small red initials.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050097", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4260: John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050097

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4260 : John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4253]/040-002050097

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_100161515993.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Middle

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1475

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

4th quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 275 x 190-200 mm.

Foliation: ff. 108 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); f. 1 is a paper leaf that originally served as a flyleaf; each leaf has been mounted onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

? Judith Denham of Margate, owned in the 17th century: her name inscribed with that of another unidentified woman in the margin of f. 19r: ‘Judeth Denham - Jane flud[...] Margat’.

Samuel Knott (b. 1661, d. 1668), rector of Combe Raleigh in Devon; antiquary and collector of manuscripts: his notes on f. 1v and throughout the manuscript (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 211).

Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d. 1709), Prebendary of Exeter; Archdeacon of Barnstaple: Harley purchased the manuscript from him through his widow in 1715 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 88).

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 '17 May 1715' (f. 1r).

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:

Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), no. 2574/23.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 103.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 441.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)