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Harley MS 4362

Record Id:

040-002050199

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050199

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003b2

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4362

Title:

Collection of surveys of France, royal ordinances, feudal rights, and a chronicle of French kings

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains texts relating to French law, finance, and history that strongly resemble the contents of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms français 4924, a 15th-century manuscript that was made for a member of the Chambre des Comptes (Chamber of Accounts) in Paris. Harley MS 4362 was likely also made for the Chamber of Accounts, most likely in the latter half of the reign of King Louis XII (r. 1498-1515).

Contents:

ff. 1r-4v: A table to find the date of Easter from the year 1360 to the year 1554; with later additions going up to 1570.

ff. 5r-10v: Calendar of saints, including French saints such as Genevieve, Charlemagne, Landry of Paris, Louis the Saint, Clodoald (Cloud), Magloire of Dol, and Nicasius of Rheims.

f. 11r: A tract on moveable feasts, entitled: 'Festa mobilia camera compotorum'.

f. 11v: Instructions for calculating in French, beginning: 'Se tu veulx scavoir combine vj vij viijd […] par Jour font par an'.

ff. 12r-12v: Mnemotic verses and rules for calculating the number of days in the month, entitled: 'Sequitur per versus numerus dierum cuiuslibet mensis'.

ff. 13r-14r: 'Estimatio summarum reddituum per diem ad summas per annum'.

ff. 14v-15v: Table of French provinces, entitled: 'Provincie Regni'.

ff. 15v-16r: 'Nomina ecclesiarum in quibus dominus noster Rex habet Regaliam'.

ff. 16v-18v: 'Valor decimarum omni provinciarum et diocesium Regni'.

f. 19r: Tract on royal rights, beginning: 'Deus Um episcopus alicujus episcopatus ubi dominus rex habet regaliam'.

ff. 20r-82r: Royal ordinances concerning finance, beginning: 'Ordonnances sur le fait des finances du Royaume factes a Saulmur en mois de Septembre mil quatre cens quarente trois, renant le feu Roy Charles de bonne memoire septiesme de ce nom'; the latest date among the orders is 1507, during the reign of Louix XII.

ff. 83v-97v: Accounts of feudal rights 'les droiz feodaulx'; with a list of 'les bailliages de france'

ff. 98r-124r: History of the kingdom of France, entitled: 'Origo Regum Franciae ab anno 374 Franci cum fuerunt origine Trojani'; beginning: 'Destructa antiquitus Troja, Priamus, sic vocatus a Francis, in memoriam Priami, quondam regis Troje et Anthenor'; followed by a chronicle of French kings, until King Louis XII in 1498.

The manuscript contains a few additions:

f. 125v: A memorandum in French, concerning a procession beginning at the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Paris; dated 11 March 1523.

f. 126r: An excerpt from Ovid, Metamorphoses: 'Sed scilicet ultima semper Expectanda dies homini: dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet; added in the 16th century.

f. 126r: Notes with folio references; added in the 16th century.

Decoration:

2 large gold initials in red frames (ff. 20r, 98r). Large plain blue and red initials. Large black initials with cadels.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050199", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4362: Collection of surveys of France, royal ordinances, feudal rights, and a chronicle of French kings" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050199

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4362 : Collection of surveys of France, royal ordinances, feudal rights, and a chronicle of French kings

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4355]/040-002050199

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1507

End Date:

1520

Date Range:

1507-c 1515

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 340 x 285 mm (text space: 220 x 160 mm).

Foliation: ff. 126 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated blank but ruled parchment leaf between f. 124 and f. 125; paper remains on f. 126v contain fragments of a printed Latin text, published in the (?) 16th century; original foliation of Roman numerals in brown ink throughout, replaced by a modern British Museum foliation of Arabic numerals in pencil (followed here).

Script: Gothic cursive (Bâtarde).

Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-stamped and -tooled red Morocco leather; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France (? Paris).

Provenance:

? Chambre des Comptes, Paris: the contents suggest that the manuscript may have been made for a member of the Chamber of Accounts.

Pierre Séguier (b. 1588, d. 1672), chancellor of France from 1635 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 300-01).

Andrew Hay (d. 1754?), book dealer: sold together with other manuscripts from the Séguier collection on 5 September 1720 (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 182-183).

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 ‘5 Septembris, 1720’ (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:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 164.

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. 51 n. 7.

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. 182-83, 300-01.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Ovidius Naso, Publius, Roman poet, 43 BC-17,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121427757

Places:

France
Paris, France