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Harley MS 5041
- Record Id:
- 040-002050885
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050885
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000230
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056057588.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5041
- Title:
- A Patristic florilegium, imperfect; Vita Sancti Fursei, prayers and chants, imperfect.
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript consists of two nearly contemporary parts that were bound together at an early period. The first text, dating to the 2nd half of the 8th century, is a unique Patristic florilegium (ff. 1r-78v): it quotes several authors, but its direct source has not been identified. It was produced in the North East of France and written in a Merovingian cursive minuscule (ff. 1r-8r) and uncials capitals (ff. 8v-78v).
The second part, dating to the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 8th century, contains a Life of St Fursey (ff. 79r-98v) to which extracts from prayers and chants (without musical notation) have been added in a similar hand (ff. 98v-99r). This part was probably written in the North of France (? Seine-et-Marne) in a Merovingian cursive minuscule and with a number of Insular abbreviations and letter forms.
St Fursey (b. c. 590, d. c. 649) was a monk-missionary from Ireland. After gaining the patronage of Sigebert, king of East Anglia, he travelled to northern France in the 640s, where he received protection from Erchinoald, Clovis II's mayor of the palace of Neustria (the western part of the kingdom of the Franks) and Burgundy. Erchinoald encouraged Fursey to establish the Benedictine monastery of Lagny-sur-Marne in Seine-et-Marne.
Contents:
ff. 1r-78v: A Patristic florilegium including extracts from St Jerome (b. c. 347, d. 420), St Augustine (b. 354, d. 430), the Pseudo-Isidore, De ortu et obitu patriarchum (The Birth and Death of Patriarchs) (ff. 75r-v) and the prologue to the Epistle to Romans (ff. 76r-78v), imperfect at the beginning: 'Quibus modis conpungimur ad Christum post facinora'.
ff. 79r-98v: Vita Sancti Fursei (Life of St Fursey), beginning: 'Incipit transitus beati Fursei fuit. Fuit vir viae venerabilis furseus nomine nobilis quidem genere'.
ff. 98v-99r: Prayers and chants, imperfect.
Decoration:
Decorated initial in pen (f. 76r). Titles and rubrics in display capitals in silver. Large initials, some decorated, a few in silver or green (f. 75r).
Title and initial in silver (f. 79r, partly effaced). Initials in silver (many effaced).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050885", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5041: A Patristic florilegium, imperfect; Vita Sancti Fursei, prayers and chants, imperfect." , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050885 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5041 : A Patristic florilegium, imperfect; Vita Sancti Fursei, prayers and chants, imperfect. - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5041]/040-002050885
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056057588.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0700
- End Date:
- 0799
- Date Range:
- 8th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 180 x 135 mm (text space: 130/40 x 95/100 mm).
Foliation: ff. 100 (+ 3 unfoliated early modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Collation: Gatherings mostly of 8.
Script: Merovingian cursive minuscule and uncial.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1856.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ? Northern France or Northeastern France.
Provenance:
Unknown 9th- and 10th-century owners: notes and pen trials in Caroline minuscule added in 9th-century and 10th-century scripts (ff. 99v, 100r).
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.
- 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 (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), II (1808), no. 5041.
Carl Fr. W. Zangemeister and Wilhelm Wattenbach, Exempla Codicum Latinorum litteris majusculis scriptorum. Supplementum (Heidelberg: 1879), pls 57, 57a.
[E. Maunde Thompson and G. F. Warner], Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1881-1884), Part II, Latin, pp. 53-54, pl. 31.
Bruno Krusch, 'Vita virtutesque Fursei abbatis latiniacensis et de Fuilano additamentum nivialense', in Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi merovingici, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum, 4 (Hannover: Hahn, 1902), pp. 423-40 (p. 429).
Codices Latini Antiquiores, ed. by E. A. Lowe, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934-1966), II: Great Britain and Ireland (1935), nos 202a and b.
Bernhard Bischoff, 'Frühkarolingische Handschriften und ihre Heimat', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits, 22 (1968), 306-14 (p. 309).
David Ganz, 'The Merovingian Library of Corbie', in Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, ed. by Howard B. Clarke and Mary Brennan, BAR International series, 113 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1981), pp. 153-72 (p. 171 n. 49).
Rosamond McKitterick, 'The Scriptoria of Merovingian Gaul: A Survey of the Evidence', in Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, ed. by Howard B. Clarke and Mary Brennan, BAR International series, 113 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1981), pp. 173-207 (p. 206 n. 103).
Rosamond McKitterick, 'Knowledge of Canon Law in the Frankish Kingdoms before 789: The Manuscript Evidence', The Journal of Theological Studies, 36 (1985), 97-117 (p. 108).
David Ganz, 'Corbie and Neustrian Monastic Culture 661-849', in La Neustrie: Les pays au nord de la Loire de 650 à 850 : Colloque historique international, ed. by Hartmut Atsma, 2 vols (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1989), II, pp. 339-47 (p. 341 n. 12).
Rosamond McKitterick, 'Nuns' Scriptoria in England and Francia in the Eighth Century', Francia, 19 (1989), 1-35 (pp. 17, 20).
Günther Glauche, 'Incipit clericalis vel monachalis sancti Hieronymi presbyteri', Bibliotheksforum Bayern BFB, 22 (1994), 141-47 (p. 146).
Rosamond McKitterick, 'Women and Literacy in the Early Middle Ages', in Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th-9th Centuries, Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS452 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1994), pp. 1-43 (p. 7 n. 15).
Bernhard Bischoff, 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. 13, 27.
Michelle P. Brown, The life of St. Fursey: What we know, Why it Matters (Norwich: Fursey Pilgrims, 2001; repr. 2003), p. 16.
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998-2014), II (2004): Laon-Paderborn, ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, p. 123 (no. 2486a).
Oliver Rackham, Transitus Beati Fursei: A Translation of the 8th Century Manuscript: Life of Saint Fursey (Norwich: Fursey Pilgrims, 2007), pp. iii, viii-ix, with pls.
Isabel Moreira, Heaven's Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 115-17.
Chris Wilson, 'The Vision of St Fursa in Thirteenth Century Didactic Literature', in Saints and Sancticity, ed. by Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011), pp. 159-70.
- 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.