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Harley MS 4996

Record Id:

040-002050840

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050840

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000203

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4996

Title:

Speculum humanae salvationis

Scope & Content:

This copy of the popular anonymous illustrated text known as the Speculum humanae salvationis (Mirror of Human Salvation) was probably made in Alsace or the Upper Rhine area in the mid-14th century.

Contents:

ff. 1-3v: list of contents, prohemium and prologue.

ff. 4r-46v: Speculum humanae salvationis.

Decoration:

168 column-width ink drawings, with colour wash, arranged in pairs at the top of each page throughout. 4 coloured drawings in a different hand (2 per page arranged vertically, f. 46r-v). Initials in red. Capitals marked in red.

The subjects of the miniatures include:

f. 4r: Fall of the rebel angels and creation of Eve.

f. 4v: Temptation of Eve.

f. 5v: Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark.

f. 13r: the Flight to Egypt and the Virgin and Child.

f. 16r: Mary Magdalene and King Manasse.

f. 16v: the prodigal son and David and Nathan.

f. 19r: the Arrest of Christ and Samson kills the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

f. 21r: Flagellation of Christ and Hur tormented.

f. 22v: Lemech and his wives and Job afflicted.

f. 24v: Parable of the Vineyard and grapes from Canaan.

f. 25r: Nabuchodonosor dreams of the tree.

f. 25v: deaths of Codrus and Eleazar.

f. 27r: The entombment of Christ and the Ark of the Covenant.

f. 29r: Christ kills the devil and Benaiah kills a lion.

f. 33v: Christ and the lamb and the assumption of Elijah.

f. 35v: the parable of the lost drachma and Michal, wife of David.

f. 36r: Woman clothed with the sun.

f. 37r: Mary intercedes for mankind, offering SS Francis and Dominic to convert sinners, and Abigail intercedes with David for Nabal.

f. 39v: Parable of the virgins and the lamps and David and Balthazar.

f. 45r: The Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation in the Temple.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050840", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4996: Speculum humanae salvationis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050840

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4996 : Speculum humanae salvationis

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4996]/040-002050840

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:

1345

End Date:

1355

Date Range:

c 1350

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 305 x 210 mm (text space: 245 x 185 mm), in 2 columns.

Foliation: ff. 1* + 47 (+ 4 modern unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning and at the end); where f. 1* is a paper fragment pasted onto f. [iv].

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Post-1600. Dark purple morocco binding; marbled endpapers.

Quire marks.

f. 1* is a paper fragment pasted onto f. [iv].

f. 47 is a ruled leaf with later annotations and drawings.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Alsace or South-West Germany (Upper Rhine).

Provenance:

Whitehall Palace: this manuscript was found at the West Gate of Whitehall Palace [in 1723]; see inscription by Edward Harley transcribed below recording this event (f. 1*, a paper fragment pasted onto f. [iv]).

Thomas Robe (presumably the Thomas Robe, of Clerkenwell, Clerk of the Market of the Royal Household c. 1726-c. 1737: inscription by Edward Harley, see below (f. 1*, a paper fragment pasted onto f. [iv]).

Theophilus Downes (b. 1657/8, d. 1726), nonjuror and author: inscribed by Edward Harley 'By Theophilus Downes. Given by Mr Thomas Robe [?]. This book is said to have been found in taking down the West Gate of Whitehall between the Wainscott and the Wall and was given by Mr. Thomas Robe Sept. 1726.' (f. 1*, a paper fragment pasted onto f. [iv]).

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.

Administrative Context:

Alsace or Germany

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4996.

Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 8.

Edgar Breitenbach, Speculum humanæ salvationis: Eine typengeschichtliche Untersuchung (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1930), p. 5, no. 63.

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. 139, 287, 353.

Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Nigel F. Palmer, The Prayer Book of Ursula Begerin, 2 vols (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf, 2015), I, pp. 42, 69, 113, 115-17, 120-21, 125, 135, 143, 148, 152, 182, 207, 215, 218, 232, 241, 245, 248, 250, 257, 266, 313-15, 387, 430; figs. 76, 86, 97, 101, 120, 144, 211, 263, 266, 279, 283, 285, 319, 339, 359, 438, 441.

Database of illustrations of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, ed. by Berthold Kress, in Warburg Institute Iconographic Database: https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/vpc/VPC_search/subcats.php?cat_1=14&cat_2=812&cat_3=2903&cat_4=5439&cat_5=13111&cat_6=9245&cat_7=2915 (accessed 21 April 2021).

Thomas Flum, 'Notre Dame de Fribourg-en-Brisgau La Chute des Anges et la Genese au portail nord du choeur', Bulletin monumental, 172-2 (2019), 123-38 (pp. 129-30).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)