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Harley MS 4419
- Record Id:
- 040-002050256
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050256
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000313
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057738439.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4419
- Title:
-
Lancelot du Lac
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Lancelot du Lac, Part I, from the Lancelot-Grail or Prose Vulgate Cycle.
Lancelot du Lac, also known as the Lancelot propre, is divided into 3 parts. Part I, beginning 'En la marche de Gaule', relates the birth and childhood of Lancelot and begins the chivalrous exploits of Arthur's knights. The text in the present manuscript is incomplete, beginning in the latter half of Part 1, at 'Ore sen vet Galehot entre lui et son conpaignon' and ending mid-sentence several lines before the end of Part 1, at 'Qant il ont grant piece demore ensemble si est esvueillez li amis a la demoiselle et destendi ses braz et tasta entor lui quil cui...'.
Decoration:
Historiated initial in colours with a seated king and foliate decoration including acanthus leaves forming a partial border with a bird and 2 human figures (f. 1r). Numerous large puzzle initials in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours spreading between the columns and into the margins. Numerous smaller initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050256", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4419: Lancelot du Lac" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050256 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4419 : Lancelot du Lac - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4412]/040-002050256
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex, 169 folios
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100057738439.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
French, Old - Scripts:
- Undetermined
- Start Date:
- 1350
- End Date:
- 1399
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 330 x 230mm (text space: 245 x 145mm)
Layout: 2 columns of 45 lines.
Foliation: ff. 169 (+1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with the arms of Nicolas Foucault in gold in the centre of each cover. (The paper flyleaf at the beginning is made of ?16th-century documents pasted together; f. 169 is a folio made of 2 parchment flyleaves pasted together with 1 paper flyleaf with another part of the ?16th-century documents used at the beginning of the volume; these documents have also been used on the inside of the covers).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, ?N.
Provenance:
Added drawings in a ?medieval hand (f. 169).
Inscriptions in a late 15th-century hand in French (on the 2nd parchment leaf forming f. 169, visible where the glue has dried and the leaves have partially detached).
Nicolas Joseph Foucault (b. 1643, d. 1721), Marquis de Magny, statesman and archaeologist: his arms on the binding and his book-plate with the legend 'EX BIBLIOTHECA | NICOLAI JOSEPH FOUCAULT | COMITIS CONSISTORIANI' with his arms [sable] a lion rampant, dexter, crowned [argent], as supporters two lions [argent]; a couronne de marquis surmounting the shield (inside the upper cover).
Thomas Ballard, bookseller and book auctioneer in London; his sale, 20 February 1720/21, lot 236, bought for Edward Harley through Nathaniel Noel.
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 '23 Februarij 1720/1' (f. 1).
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:
-
H. Oskar Sommer, Le Roman de Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur (London: Privately printed, 1894), facing p. xxiv.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4419.
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I, H. L. D. Ward, pp. 353-54.
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. 91 n. 4.
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. 62, 155-56.
Roger Middleton, 'Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners' in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. by Carol Dover (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 219-35, (p. 225).
Alison Stones et al., 'The Lancelot-Graal Project' (University of Pittsburgh, revised 2009), online at http://www.lancelot-project.pitt.edu/LG-web/Arthur-LG-LibraryList.html [accessed 01.02.2016).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)