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Harley MS 4978
- Record Id:
- 040-002050822
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050822
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x0001f1
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056057327.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4978
- Title:
- St Jerome, Sermo de persecutione christianorum; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (books 1-5); Collection of canon law
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1v-3v: An unidentified obituary, imperfect.
ff. 4r-5r: St Jerome (b. c. 347, d. 420), Sermo de persecutione christianorum (Sermon on the persecution of Christians).
ff. 5r-7v: A collection of patristic citations, beginning: 'Sanctus Ciprianus: hec est voluntas Dei'.
ff. 8r-148v: Bede the Venerable (b. c. 673, d. 735), Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), books 1-5, a 12th-century quire has been inserted (ff. 68-76) in order to replace leaves containing chapters 14-24.
ff. 148v-151v: A small collection of canon law related to consanguinity, beginning with Pseudo-Isidore, Epistula de gradibus consanguinitatis (Epistle on the Degrees of Consanguinity), beginning: 'Beatus Isidorus de consanguinitate sic loquitur, cuius series vii gradibus dirimetur hoc modo' and an excerpt from Isidore, Etymologiae, book IX (9.6.29), and including canons from the council of Rome of 721, led by Pope Gregory II (between 715-731). It also includes excerpts from St Jerome's commentary on Ezekiel and St Ambrose (b. c. 339, d. 397)'s sermon 8 (ff. 149r-151v).
Decoration:
Titles in rustic capitals in ink.
A marginal pen-drawing of a dog (f. 98r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050822", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4978: St Jerome, Sermo de persecutione christianorum; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (books 1-5); Collection of canon law" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050822 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4978 : St Jerome, Sermo de persecutione christianorum; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (books 1-5); Collection of canon law - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4978]/040-002050822
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056057327.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0850
- End Date:
- 0874
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 9th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 240 x 185 mm (text space 190 x 130 mm).
Foliation: ff. 151 (+ 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1965. Covers of the previous 'Harleian' binding of gilt-tooled red morocco, attributable to Thomas Elliott, pasted onto the modern pastedowns.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Central France and Reims, Northeastern France.
Provenance:
Copied in Central France in the 3rd quarter of the 9th century (see Machielsen, 'L'origine anglo-saxone du supplément canonique' (1963)) and brought to Reims where ff. 4-151 were added, copied by a typical Reims hand (see Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (2004)).
? The Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame de Josaphat, Lèves (diocese of Chartres), founded in 1117: a 12th-century inscription at the end of the obituary related to Lèves 'de Levesvilla/ uxor defuncti Almarrici debet/ duos modios tritici' (f. 3r); perhaps added the marginal notes written by 11th-century hands (e. g., ff. 37r; 150v, 151r); and a 12th-century quire supplementing the Historia ecclesiastical gentis Anglorum (ff. 68-76v).
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 13th August 1724 (see Wright and Wright, The Diary of Humphrey Wanley (1966); Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
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, '13 die mensis Augusti, A.D. 1724' (f. 1r).
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 at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4978.
L. Machielsen, 'L'origine anglo-saxonne du supplément canonique à l'Histoire ecclésiastique de Bède', Revue Bénédictine, 73:1/2 (1963), 33-47 (p. 35).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 115 [cited in the rejected manuscripts].
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 304 n. 7.
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. by Bertram Colgrave and Roger A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. lxii.
Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 255, 451.
Gerald Bonner, Wearmouth, Bede and Christian Culture: An Exhibition of Manuscripts at The Central Museum and Art Gallery, Sunderland (Sunderland: [n. pub.], 1974), no. 11.
Bernhard Bischoff, 'The Court Library of Charlemagne', in Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, trans. and ed. by Michael Gorman, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology, 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; most originally pub. in Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte I-III (Stuttgart: Hieresmann, 1966-1981), pp. 56-75 (p. 67).
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen), ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für die Herausgabe der Mittelalterlichen Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998, 2004, 2014), II: Laon-Paderborn, p. 122 (no. 2483).
'London, British Library, Harley 4978', at 'Innovating Knowledge', ed. by Evina Steinová ((Huygens Institute, Amsterdam, 2021), online at https://db.innovatingknowledge.nl/#detail/M0171 [accessed 28.01.2022].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.