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Harley MS 4353
- Record Id:
- 040-002050190
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050190
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003a9
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4353
- Title:
- Cyfraith Hywel Dda
- Scope & Content:
-
Cyfraith Hywel Dda (Laws of Hywel the Good), Llyfr Cyfnerth version ('V' text), ending imperfectly in the middle of a sentence. At least one leaf is missing between ff. 31 and 32 and after f. 45.
The manuscript contains several marginal notes, mostly by Jaspar Gryffyth (d. 1614), who also inserted ff. 4-5 and 28 to supply missing text. There is an englyn (a short poem) on f. 11r.
Written in South or mid Wales, possibly at Neath, by the Book of Taliesin scribe (X86), who also wrote Cotton MS Cleopatra A XIV, and Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MSS 3036, Peniarth 2 and Peniarth 6, part iv.
Complete copies of the text are Cotton MS Cleopatra A XIV, ff. 34-107 (by the same professional scribe), and Cotton MS Cleopatra B V, ff. 165-222.
Decoration:
Large initial in red with penwork decoration extending into the margin in purple (f. 16v). Initials in red and purple.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050190", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4353: Cyfraith Hywel Dda" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050190 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4353 : Cyfraith Hywel Dda - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4346]/040-002050190
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Welsh, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1324
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 200 x 130 mm (text space: 150 x 85 mm).
Foliation: ff. 45 (+ 1 unfoliated early modern and 4 modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 modern at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Library in-house. Rebound in 1983.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Wales (Neath?).
Scribe:
The Book of Taliesin scribe.
Provenance:
Rhys ap Hywel ap Ieuan ap Gwallter Wogan, 15th century (inscription, f. 16r).
Jaspar Gryffyth (d. 1614), antiquary and Church of England clergyman: his inscription 'Sum liber Jaspar Gryffyth. 1586'; his marginal notes (passim) and addition of ff. 4-5 and 28 in which he supplied missing text from Cotton MS Cleopatra B V, ff. 165r-222r (f. 2r; see Wright 1972; Ovenden 2004).
Timothy Middleton, son of Sir Thomas Myddelton (b. 1549/56, d. 1631), merchant and politician: his inscription 'Timothy Middleton this booke douth owe' (ff. 32r, 43, up-side-down; Ovenden 2004).
Moses Williams (1685-1742), cleric and scholar: inscriptions noting the loss of leaves (ff. 31v, 37v), 1714 (inscription, f. 2).
Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), Anglo-Saxon scholar, palaeographer, and librarian of Robert and Edward Harley, earls of Oxford: his inscription 'Liber Humfredi Wanley A.D. 1714' (f. 1v; see Wright 1972, Ovenden 2004).
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:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4353.
A Catalogue of Manuscripts relating to Wales in the British Museum, ed. by Edward Owen, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1900-1922), II (1903), p. 429.
Welsh Medieval Law, being a text of the Laws of Howel the Good, namely the British Museum Harleian MS. 4353 of the 13th century, ed. by Arthur Wade Wade Evans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
John G. Evans, Report on Manuscripts in the Welsh Language, vol. II, Part IV: Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Welsh Language: British Museum Manuscripts, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 48 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1910), p. 949, no. 10.
Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 173, 344, 443.
Richard Ovenden, 'Jaspar Gryffyth and his Books', The British Library Journal, 20 (1994), 107-39, at 107, 130.
Daniel Huws, Medieval Welsh Manuscripts (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), p. 59.
Morfydd E. Owen, 'The Laws of Court from Cyfnerth', in The Welsh King and his Court, ed. by Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards, Morfydd E. Owen, and Paul Russell (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 425-77, at 426, n. 9.
Daniel Huws, A repertory of Welsh manuscripts and scribes c.800–c.1800, 3 vols (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2022), I, p. 686.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)