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Harley MS 4479

Record Id:

040-002050317

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050317

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003d0

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4479

Title:

Collection of French state papers

Scope & Content:

This manuscript comprises four parts that were brought together at an unknown point in time, and possibly only bound together in the Harleian Library. The latter is suggested by the fact that the manuscript contains no less than three inscriptions with the acquisition date that Humfrey Wanley, Keeper of the Harleian Library, typically added at the beginning of a manuscript.

Contents:

Part 1:

ff. 1r-88r: Extracts from the registers of Parliament, from 1364 until 1545, in French, beginning: 'Du Registre du conseil de lan mil troye cene soixante quatre'.

Part 2:

ff. 89r-107v: Jehan Durant, Arrests of the Court of Parliament, 1543, in Latin and French, entitled: 'Compilation des arrestz de la Court de Parlement de Paris faicte par nous Jehan Durant, conseiller recue en icelle court le douzieme jour de Mars 1543. Et ledit Jour recue conseiller en la Chambre des requestes du palays a Paris'.

Part 3:

ff. 108r-203v: D. Consages, Alphabetical compilation of legal definitions, 1564, in French, with the following introduction: 'En ce present volume est compris en brief le style et usage de la practique de France, suyvant les ordonnances royaux. Composé en forme d'alphabet par Monsieur de Consages a present president a Bordeaux, et lorsqu'il la escript estoit president de la petite Chambre des enquestes a Paris, l'an mil cinq cens cinquante trois'; signed: 'Escript en Octobre 1564 - Scriptoris de D. Consaga Epigramma'; and the poem: 'Huc, huc Lector, ades, doctumque evolve labellum / Quem tibi composuit Consageana manus / Jurisprudentes inter quos Gallica tellus / Nunc habet, uic non laus ultima jure datur / Aspera quæque fuit plana et amœna via est'.

Part 4:

ff. 205r-388v: Arrests of the Parliament, 1553, in French, entitled: 'Arrest du prive counseil sur séance des magistratz advocatz et procureur du Roy 1553'.

ff. 388r-388v: 'Table des arrestz'.

The manuscript contains a few additions:

f. 1r: Fragment of an 'Extraict des Reigstres de parlement'; written in the 16th century.

f. 204v: A note in French; dated to 1570.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050317", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4479: Collection of French state papers" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050317

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4479 : Collection of French state papers

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4473]/040-002050317

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1538

End Date:

1569

Date Range:

c 1543-c 1564

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; parchment (f. 1 only).

Dimensions: 280-295 x 175-190 mm .

Foliation: ff. 391 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 at the end); f. 1 is a folded parchment sheet, which is a fragment of a 16th-century register; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown (inscribed with the number '93') on f. 1v; 1 unfoliated blank paper leaf between f. 88 and f. 89; 1 between f. 89 and f. 90; 1 between f. 107 and f. 108; and 14 between f. 203 and f. 204; 4 unfoliated paper stubs after f. 204; and 1 unfoliated paper fragment after f. 391.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum in-house; marbled paper over cardboard.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France.

Provenance:

'De Villoutreys', 16th century, owned f. 1r: their name inscribed twice below the register.

Pierre Séguier (b. 1588, d. 1672), chancellor of France from 1635 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 300-301).

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’ (ff. 2r, 89r, 205r).

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. 162.

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. 68 n. 1.

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)

Places:

France