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Harley MS 4764

Record Id:

040-002050607

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050607

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00011a

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4764

Title:

John Fordun, Scotichronicon, books 1 to 5; Patrick Russell's abridgement of Walter Bower's continuation of the Scotichronicon, books 6 to 10

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1v-113r: John Fordun, Scotichronicon, books 1 to 5. Book 1 features a verse with an achrostic of the author's name on f. 1v: 'Incipies opus hoc adonay nomine nostri / Exceptum scriptis dirigat emanuel / fauces ornate ructent dum verbula nectant'. Each book is introduced by a capitula list (ff. 2r-v, 18-19, 44-45, 67-68, 87v-88v).

ff. 114r-188r: Patrick Russell, Abridgement of Walter Bower's continuation of the Scotichronicon, books 6 to 10.

The manuscript contains later additions:

Annotations in various post-medieval hands throughout.

f. [iv]vero: An erased inscription, beginning: 'Incipit [...]'; written in the 15th century.

f. 1r: An acrostic poem of John Fordun's name; added in the 15th century.

f. 1r: 'Usque sexum codicem laus sua convaluit. Hinc ad finem operis alter onus subijt. Lib. Paslet'; added in the 16th or 17th century .

f. [191]verso: 'Sent down Nov. 26. 1764 / Maj Johnston'.

f. [192]recto: 'Nov. 26. 1764 / Major Johnston'.

f. [192]verso: According to Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 185, this folio features a pencil note by Thomas Hearne (b. 1678, d. 1735), antiquary: 'Lent me by the Earl of Oxford Rec[d]. May 3[d]. 1729 Tho. Hearne'; but this note cannot be found here or elsewhere in the manuscript.

Decoration:

1 large historiated initial in colours and gold with a lion, a dragon, and two heraldic arms, combined with a decorated border on 2 sides with ivy and flowers at the beginning of book 1 (f. 3r). 4 large initials in colours and gold combined with a decorated border on 1 side with ivy and flowers (ff. 1v, 19r, 45v, 68r). Numerous smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with brown or blue pen-flourishing. Numerous ascenders and descenders are decorated with penwork in brown ink including tracery (e. g., ff. 3v, 47v), foliate decoration (e. g., ff. 7r, 8r), faces (ff. 12r, 12v, 59v (fine coloured drawing)), a dragon head (f. 31v), a running dog (f. 52r), foliage with birds (f. 61r), a doe (ff. 67r, 113r). Cadels. The manuscript also features a circular wind diagram [with 12 names of the winds written inside the diagram, and four names: 'Borias', 'Oriens', 'Auster', and 'Occidens' written on the outside of the diagram] that was added in the late 15th or early 16th century (f. 2v); and contours of a shield in brown ink that was added in the 16th or 17th century (f. [190]v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050607", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4764: John Fordun, Scotichronicon, books 1 to 5; Patrick Russell's abridgement of Walter Bower's continuation of the Scotichronicon, books 6…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050607

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4764 : John Fordun, Scotichronicon, books 1 to 5; Patrick Russell's abridgement of Walter Bower's continuation of the…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4763]/040-002050607

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

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: 320 x 230 mm (text space: 215 x 140 mm).

Foliation: ff. 188 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated parchment flyleaves + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown (with the Harleian shelfmark '4764' printed) pasted onto f. 1r; and 1 on f. [193]verso (note of examination).

Collation: Indicated by leaf signatures and horizontal catchwords; each quire has been separately mounted onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Rebound in 1972.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Scoitland.

Provenance:

Part 1 (ff. 1v-113v): the large decorated initial on f. 3r features two coat of arms: the Royal arms of Scotland and an unidentified coat of arms.

Part 2 (ff. 114r-188r) was written between 1497 and 1515 by Richard Striveling for George Broun, bishop of Dunkeld (see Skene 1871, p. xxix, and Watt 1998, p. 198).

All:

'G E M', ? 16th century: their (?) initials inscribed around unidentified added arms and a signature on f. 1v.

'Huntly' [possibly an earl of Huntly: perhaps George Gordon, 4th earl (d. 1562), or George, the 5th earl (d. 1576)], mid-16th century: their name ('Huntly') inscribed on ff. 1v, 3r (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 201).

William Gordone, chancellor of Dunkfeld c. 1564: inscribed with his name and title on ff. 1r [in red], 2v, 88v, 114r (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 167).

'[?]archall', 16th or 17th century: their (?) name inscribed on f. 188r.

J. (or T.) Chalmour, late 17th century: inscribed with his name on f. 1r (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 100).

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:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 202 [no. 4764].

William F. Skene, 'Additional Notice of the Manuscripts of Fordun's Chronicle', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 9 (1870-72), 13-24 (pp. 14, 18).

Johannis de Fordun Chronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. by William F. Skene (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1871), pp. xxviii-xxix.

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. 100, 167, 185, 201.

Marjorie Drexler, 'The Extant Abridgements of Walter Bower's "Scotichronicon"', The Scottish Historical Review, 61:171[1] (1982), 62-67 (pp. 66-67).

Scotichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English, ed. by Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt and Alan Borthwick, 9 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press/Edinburgh, 1987-98), 9 (1998), pp. 196-97.

Dauvit Broun, The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), pp. 24-25.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Fordun, John, chronicler, d c 1363,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000071413815

Places:

England