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Harley MS 4417

Record Id:

040-002050254

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050254

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000311

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4417

Title:

Livre de Sydrac; Huon de Méry, Le tournoiement Antechrist

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains the Livre de Sydrac (Book of Sydrac), an anonymous philosophical work in Old French, written between 1270 and 1300. The text is presented in the form of a dialogue between an ancient Babylonian king named Boctus and Sydrac, a philosopher. The volume also includes Le Tornoiement de l'Antechrist (The Tournament of the Antichrist), an Old French octosyllabic poem by Huon de Méry (fl. 1200-1250).

Contents:

ff. 1r-11r: Table of contents (ff. 1r-7v were added in the late 14th century);

ff. 11r-141v: Livre de Sydrac;

ff. 142r-170r: Huon de Méry, Le Tornoiement de l'Antechrist.

f. 170v is blank.

Decoration:

6 column miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 11r, 27r, 46r, 63v, 76r, 122v). Large initial with a dragon and foliage extending into a partial bar border ending in ivy tendrils with a grotesque (f. 142r). Large puzzle initial in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours (f. 27r). Initials in red with dark blue or grey (or faded blue) pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing (occasionally with reserved designs in the shape of hybrid creatures (e.g., ff. 46r, 54v). Coloured initials in red or blue.

The subjects of the miniatures are:

f. 11r: King Boctus and Sydrac (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 1);

f. 27r: A bishop and a saint (probably St Peter), holding a key (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 49);

f. 46r: A man rowing in a boat with animals, a woman holding the prow (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 138);

f. 63v: King Boctus and Sydrac (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 208);

f. 76r: King Boctus and Sydrac (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 258);

f. 122v: King Boctus and Sydrac within a roundel, surrounded by stars (Livre de Sydrac, Chapter 394).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050254", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4417: Livre de Sydrac; Huon de Méry, Le tournoiement Antechrist" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050254

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4417 : Livre de Sydrac; Huon de Méry, Le tournoiement Antechrist

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4410]/040-002050254

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Old

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1350

End Date:

1399

Date Range:

2nd half of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 330 x 230 mm (written space: 205 x 170 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: ff. 170 (+ 3 unfoliated paper and 1 unfoliated ruled parchment leaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated ruled parchment leaf after f. 141 + 2 unfoliated parchment leaves and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).

Collation: Mainly in quires of 8.

Catchwords written horizontally.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Purple leather. Marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: Northern France.

Provenance:

Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: sold to Edward Harley on 18 January 1723/4 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 253-54; Diary (1966), p. 265 n. 7).

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:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4417.

H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library (London: British Museum, 1883), I, pp. 908-09.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 265 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. 253-54.

Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Rodopi 2002), II, p. 578.

A. C. Spearing, 'Dream Poems', in Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches, ed. by Susanna Fein and David Raybin (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), pp. 159-178 (p. 176 n. 10).

Douglas Kelly and others, 'Arthurian Verse Romance in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', in The Arthur of the French: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature, ed. by Glynn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt (University of Wales Press, 2020), pp. 393-460 (p. 450 n. 6).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Huon de Méry, French poet, fl 1200-1250,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000116654154,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/69032500
Noel, Nathaniel, bookseller, fl 1681, d c 1753

Places:

Northern France