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Harley MS 4763

Record Id:

040-002050606

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050606

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000119

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4763

Title:

Thomas Beckington, De iure regis Angliae ad Franciscam; poem in praise of Henry V

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-275r: Thomas Beckington, De iure regis Angliae ad Franciscam; treatise including state letters and other documents concerning the right of England to France, and literary works such as an excerpt from the Somnium viridarii, Chapter 186 (ff. 35r-41r); the Bucolicum carmen XII [Duodecima et ultima eglogha] by Petrarch with commentary by Francesco Piendibeni [da Montepulciano] (ff. 55v-57v); a commentary against the French view of the treaty of Troyes written by Jean de Rinel, secretary of Henry VI, in 1435 (ff. 196v-199v); and the Songe du Verger (ff. 199v-209r); opening with an effaced rubric. Written in Latin, but also including items in Middle French and Middle English (e.g. vernacular translations of the Treaty of Troyes on ff. 138v-146r).

ff. 279v-299r: Poem in praise of Henry V, beginning: 'Terreni decus imperii'; ending with a prose hymn and preceded by a prose preface and table of contents (f. 275v).

The manuscript contains an addition:

f. 1*recto: 'Orate pro anima'; perhaps in the same hand as a similar inscription on f. 3*recto (see Custodial History); added in the 16th century.

Decoration:

Genealogical diagrams in brown, yellow and/or red ink (ff. 33r, 35r). Initials in yellow and brown ink with pen-flourished ascenders and descenders, a few with faces (e.g. f. 286v, 294v). Capitals marked in yellow. Cadels with human faces. Spaces left for large initials.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050606", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4763: Thomas Beckington, De iure regis Angliae ad Franciscam; poem in praise of Henry V" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050606

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4763 : Thomas Beckington, De iure regis Angliae ad Franciscam; poem in praise of Henry V

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4762]/040-002050606

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1450

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

2nd half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 310 x 215 mm (text space: 195 x 130 mm; ruled in red ink).

Foliation: ff. 1*-3* + 299 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 1 blank but ruled leaf after f. 299; ff. 1*-3* are parchment leaves; f. 1* is a former pastedown; 2 unfoliated paper pastedowns on f. [ii]recto (bibliographical notes).

Collation: Indicated by (horizontal) catchwords, some in decorative frames.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum in-house; red half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stampedon the outside covers; rebound on 10 November 1966.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England

Provenance:

? William Carter (b. 1549, d. 1584), printer and secretary to Nicholas Harpsfield: a request for prayers for his soul inscribed on f. 3*recto: 'Orate pro anima Will[ia]m Kart[e]r' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 208).

John Osborn (b. c. 1615, d. 1699), of Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire: his ownership inscription on f. 2*recto: 'Liber domini Joannis Osborne Baronetti de Chicksands comitatu Bedfordense' (inked out, but legible under ultraviolet light); and his signature (also effased) on f. 2*recto (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 261-262).

Thomas Hannibal Cibo, 17th century: inscribed with his name on 3*verso (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).

Thomas Rawlinson (b. 1681, d. 1725), book collector: a reference to Rawlinson's sale of April 1729 inscribed by Humfrey Wanley on f. 2*recto: 'Oxford April 1729, B H O M' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 283).

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.

Publications:

Henry Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 2 vols (London: Chiswel, 1691), I, 573.

Urbain Plancher, Histoire générale et particuliere de Bourgogne, 4 vols (Dijon: Antoine de Fay, 1739-81), IV, cxlviii (no. cxxi), cli (no. cxxii).

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 202 (no. 4763).

Friedrich Richard Schneider, Der europäische friedenskongressvon Arras (1435) und die Friedenspolitik Papst Eugens IV. und des Basler Konzils (Greiz: Henning, 1919), pp. 123-59.

P. S. Lewis, 'War Propaganda and Historiography in Fifteenth-Century France and England', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 15 (1965), 1-21 (pp. 4 n. 4, 12 n. 5, 14 n. 6).

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. 208, 262, 283.

Nicholas Mann, Petrarch Manuscripts in the British Isles, Censimento dei Codici Petrarcheschi, 6 (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1975), no. 120.

Nicholas Mann, ‘La prima fortuna del Petrarca in Inghilterra’, in Il Petrarca ad Arquà: Atti del Convegno di studi nel VI Centenario (1370-1374) (Arquà Petrarca, 6-8 novembre 1970), ed. by Giuseppe Billanovich and Giuseppe Frasso (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1975), 279-89 (p. 283 ).

Georges Peyronnet, 'Les sources documentaires anglaises de l'histoire médiévale de la Bretagne (suite)', Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de L'Ouest (Anjou, Maine, Touraine), 94 (1987), pp. 5-19 (p. 7).

Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries, 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 180.

Emil J. Polak, Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters: A Census of Manucsripts Found in Part of Western Europe, Japan, and the United States of America, Davis medieval texts and studies, 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 325, 340

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Beckington, Thomas, Bishop of Bath and Wells, c 1390-1465,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000079738841
Francesco Piendibeni [da Montepulciano], c 1353-c 1433,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/2304147270501835700008
Jean de Rinel, Jean, King's Secretary in his Realm of France, fl 1434-1442
Petrarca, Francesco, poet, 1304-1374

Places:

England