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Harley MS 4344
- Record Id:
- 040-002050181
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050181
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003a0
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4344
- Title:
- A chronicle of England to the reign of King Henry VI (r. 1422-1461, 1470-1471)
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-76r: A chronicle of England to the reign of King Henry VI (r. 1422-1461 and again from 1470-1471) beginning: 'Britannia que et Anglia dicitur a Bruto nomen sortita que ante ipsius adventum albion [dice]batur'.
The manuscript contains a few additions:
f. 76v: A fragment of the 'Benedicciones ante prandium in vigilia pasche' from the new Sarum Customary; added in the 14th century.
f. 77r: A legal document (upside down and crossed out) featuring names such as 'Thome Smyth', 'Magister Johannes Taunton'; containing the date 7 June 1402, with a section in Middle English: 'the and thy mandoment bathe I kynne the for na somand[e] and [...] I schal not go a foot for the no for the official nomore'.
f. 77v: A legal document (vertically orientated) featuring names such as 'Jacobius Hacomble', 'Hugone Candelesby', and 'Roberte Ayleston'; containing the date 7 [? October] 1404.
Decoration:
Partial bar border in red and blue with a large (5-line) initial in blue with red pen-flourishing (f. 1r). Large (2-line) initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Paraphs in red
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050181", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4344: A chronicle of England to the reign of King Henry VI (r. 1422-1461, 1470-1471)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050181 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4344 : A chronicle of England to the reign of King Henry VI (r. 1422-1461, 1470-1471) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4337]/040-002050181
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1475
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Mixture of paper and parchment leaves.
Dimensions: 190 x 125 mm (text space: 130 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 77 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); f. 77 is a reused parchment flyleaf bound upside down.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling; the Harleian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on white paper on the insides of the upper and lower covers; re-backed at the British Museum on 9 January 1962.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Lord William Howard (b. 1563, d. 1640), antiquary and landowner, of Naworth Castle, Cumberland, the younger son of Thomas Howard (b. 1538, d. 1572), 4th duke of Norfolk: his signature probably once appeared in the top right corner of f. 1r, which has been cut out (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972, p. 199).
John Warburton (b. 1682, d. 1759), of Bury, county Lancashire, antiquary and herald, Somerset Herald in 1720: sold to Edward Harley on 16 July 1720 in a parcel of manuscripts containing Harley MSS 2188, 2195, 2311, 2320, 2377, 2880, 2885, 2965, 3013, 3097, 3490, 3639, 3723, 3724, 3775, 3776, 3846, 3897, 3908, 3935, and 4219 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 347).
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 ‘16 July 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.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 137 [no. 4344].
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. 60, n. 6.
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. 199, 347.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- England