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Harley MS 4388

Record Id:

040-002050225

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050225

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003e4

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4388

Title:

Anglo-Norman miscellany, including Les proverbes de Salemon and Chastoiement d’un pere a son fils

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-86v: Sanson de Nantuil, Les proverbes de Salemon, the Latin text of the book of Proverbs, chapter 1 to chapter 19:27 with a translation and commentary in Anglo-Norman verse. The 12,000 octosyllabic couplets were composed by Sanson de Nantuil for Aeliz de Condet between 1136-1154, possibly as a manual of moral instructions for her son Roger; this manuscript is the only surviving copy of the text (see Isoz Proverbes de Salomon (1994)).

ff. 87r-99v: Guichard or Guischart de Beauliu, Le Romaunz de temtacioun de secle or Sermon del secle, a sermon on worldly temptation. This is one of four copies of the text, in rhyming alexandrines, another of which is Egerton MS 2710 (see Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature (1963)).

ff. 99v-115v: Chastoiement d’un pere a son fils, an Anglo-Norman translation of the Disciplina clericalis (lacking a quire of 8 leaves after f. 110).

ff. 115v-119v: Elias or Elie of Winchester, L'afaitement Catun, an Anglo-Norman translation of the Disticha Catonis.

Decoration:

Large initials with foliate pen-flourishing in blue, silver, red and green. Small initials in blue, silver, red or green. Rubrics in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050225", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4388: Anglo-Norman miscellany, including Les proverbes de Salemon and Chastoiement d’un pere a son fils" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050225

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4388 : Anglo-Norman miscellany, including Les proverbes de Salemon and Chastoiement d’un pere a son fils

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4381]/040-002050225

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4388 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Anglo-Norman
French, Old
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1200

End Date:

1224

Date Range:

1st quarter of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 280 x 190mm (text space: 210/220 x 130/140mm) in two columns.

Foliation: ff. 119 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and the end).

Script: Gothic, written above the top line.

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

Custodial History:

Origin:

England or France.

Provenance:

James Ravenscroft (b. 1595, d. 1680), lawyer and merchant, Jesus College, Cambridge, 1613; B. A. 1616; Inner Temple 1616: his name 'Jacobus Ravenscrofte' (f. 1r).

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.

Information About Copies:

Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4388.

Harry L. D. Ward and John A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II: Harry L. D. Ward (1893), 247-52.

Arvid Gabrielson, Le Sermon de Guischart de Beauliu: Édition critique de tous les manuscrits connus, avec introduction (Uppsala: 1909), [an edition based on this manuscript].

M. Dominica Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 134-38.

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. 282, 444.

Les proverbes de Salemon by Sanson de Nantuil, ed. by C. Claire Isoz, 3 vols, nos 44, 45, 50 (London, Anglo-Norman Text Society 1988-1994), [an edition of the text from this manuscript].

Le livre de Catun, ed. by Tony Hunt (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1994), [on the text].

William MacBain, 'Anglo-Norman Literature', in Medieval France: an encyclopedia, ed. by William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn (New York and London: Garland, 1995), pp. 35-38 (p. 37).

Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature, A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), nos 254, 263, 458, 597.

Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), pp. 170-71, 178.

Ian Short, 'The Texts: Introduction', in The Trinity Apocalypse (Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.16.2), ed. by David McKitterick (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 123-36 (p. 132).

Bruce R. O’Brien, Reversing Babel: Translation among the English During an Age of Conquests, c. 800 to c. 1200 (Maryland: University of Delaware Press, 2011), pp. 121, 246, 284.

Maria Careri, Christine Ruby and Ian Short, Livres et écritures en français et en occitan au XIIe siècle: Catalogue illustré (Rome: Viella, 2011), no. 40.

'Etude et édition des traductions françaises médiévales de la Disciplina Clericalis de Pierre Alphonse' (University of Geneva: Langues et littératures francaises et latines médiévales) at: http://www.unige.ch/lettres/mela/files/7414/2902/1302/CPFTableLondresBLHarley4388.doc.pdf [accessed 6 May 2016], [for a detailed list of contents of 99v-115v, Chastoiement d'un pere a son fils].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)