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Harley MS 5054

Record Id:

040-002050898

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050898

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00023d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 5054

Title:

The direct manner and order of Proceeding in Causes and Suytes depending in the high Court of Chancery; Plato, Apologia Socratis; William of Auxerre, Summa aurea; and other texts

Scope & Content:

This manuscript consists of five parts that were produced separately.

The first three parts (ff. 1-30; ff. 31-54; ff. 55-54) were written in England in the 17th century.

The fourth part (ff. 79-200) was written in England in the 2nd half of the 15th century.

The fifth part (ff. 202-309) was written in England or France in the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 13th century.

Contents:

Part 1:

ff. 1r-30r: 'The direct manner and order of Proceeding in Causes and Suytes depending in the high Court of Chancery'.

Part 2:

ff. 31r-54v: Exposition of the Ten Commandments, beginning: 'In this booke the Ten Commandements are Expounded'.

Part 3:

ff. 55r-78v: English tracts concerning geometrical problems.

Part 4:

ff. 79r-79v: Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, Argumentum, beginning: 'Socrates philosophus vir omnium innocentissimus'

ff. 79v-97v: Plato, Apologia Socratis; translated by Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, beginning: 'Quid vobis acciderit iudices ab accustoaribus meis nescio'.

ff. 97v-98r: Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, Argumentum, beginning: 'Dampnato socrate et in carcerem truso'.

ff. 98v-106r: Plato, Crito; translated by Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, beginning: 'Quid tu hoc temporis o Cryto'.

ff. 107r-118v: Pseudo-Seneca, De copia verborum.

ff. 119r-124r: Pseudo-Seneca, De remediis fortuitorum.

ff. 124v-152r: Abridgement of Julius Valerius, Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, beginning: 'Egipti sapientes fati rationem dominio primi feruntur'; and including Epitaphium Alexandri (f. 167v).

ff. 152r-166r: Letter from Alexander the Great to Aristotle on the marvels of India.

ff. 166r-167v: Table of chapters belonging to the abridgement of Valerius.

f. 167v: Three short sentences, beginning: 'Alexander illiricos atque thraces feliciter dimicans'; 'Primus alexander pillea natus in urbe'; and 'Idem [pro id est] per XII annos alexander oppressit orbem se trementem ferroque regna lesit. Finitur liber'.

ff. 168r-178r: Correspondence between Alexander the Great and Dindimus, king of the Brahmins.

ff. 178r-181r: Parva Recapitulatio.

ff. 182r-200v: Firmianus Lactantius, De opificio Dei vel hominis formatione.

This part contains a few additions:

f. 201r: Latin verse, beginning: 'Qui facit incestum deflorans aut homicida / Sacrilegus, patrum percussor vel sodomita'; followed by a list of acts against religion ('Hoicidium / Heresis / Simonia / Excommunicacio / Scisma / Apostasia') and virtues, including: 'Veritas / Securitas/ and ffamiliaritas'); added in the (?) 16th century.

Part 5:

ff. 202r-309v: William of Auxerre, Summa aurea (abbreviated version); imperfect at the end.

Decoration:

Parts 1-2:

No decoration.

Part 3:

Geometrical figures drawn in brown ink.

Part 4:

Large 'champ' initials in colours and gold with foliate feathering (ff. 79, 107 (x2), 119 (x2), 182), the last painted over a flourished initial. Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Capitals marked in red. Line-fillers in red ink. A few ascenders decorated with pen-flourishing in red and brown (f. 192v).

Part 5:

No decoration; spaces left blank for initials.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050898", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5054: The direct manner and order of Proceeding in Causes and Suytes depending in the high Court of Chancery; Plato, Apologia Socratis;…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050898

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 5054 : The direct manner and order of Proceeding in Causes and Suytes depending in the high Court of Chancery; Plato, Apologia…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[5054]/040-002050898

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1225

End Date:

1699

Date Range:

2nd or 3rd quarter of the 13th century-17th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: paper [Parts 1-3]; parchment [Parts 4-5].

Dimensions: 175 x 145 mm [Part 1]; 170 x 135 mm [Part 2]; 185 x 150 [Part 3] 185 x 140 mm [Part 4]; 185 x 130 mm [Part 5] (text space: 140 x 115 mm [Part 1]; 160 x 125 mm [Part 2]; 170 x 120 mm [Part 3]; 120 x 80 mm [Part 4]; 130 x 85 mm, in 2 columns [Part 5]).

Foliation: ff. 309 (+ 3 modern unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); 7 unfoliated paper leaves after f. 53; 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 106 and 2 after f. 181; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on the inside cover (bibliographical notes).

Collation: Each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic and Gothic cursive; written by different hands.

Binding: British Museum in-house; red half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; rebound in 1970.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England (Parts 1-4); England or France (Part 5).

Provenance:

Part 4:

'Mayhow', 15th or 16th century: name added at the end of several texts (ff. 167v, 181, 200v), but unlikely to be the name of the scribe, as the hands differ.

Part 5:

John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Edward Harley on 22 June 1726 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), II, p. 340 n. 7; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 162).

All parts:

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 ‘22 die Junii, A.D. 1726’ (f. 202r).

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. 243 (no. 5054).

John Hennig, 'The Manuscript Sources of Early Scholastic Theology', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des Études relatives aux manuscrits, 4 (1950), 309-13 (p. 311).

David John Athole Ross, ‘A Check-list of MSS of Three Alexander Texts: The Julius Valerius Epitome, the Epistola ad Aristotelem and the Collatio cum dindimo’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 10 (1956), 127-32 (p. 130).

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 340 n. 7.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 162.

Betty Hill, 'Epitaphia Alexandri in English Medieval Manuscripts', Leeds Studies in English, 8 (1975), 95-103 (pp. 96, 99).

David John Athole Ross, 'Parva recapitulatio: An English Collection of Texts Relating to Alexander the Great Ross', Classica et mediaevalia, 33 (1981-1982), pp. 191-203 (pp. 144-46).

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), pp. 183-84.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Bruni, Leonardo, Italian humanist, 1370-1444,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121442279
Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, rhetorician and Christian apologist, c 260-c 340
Plato, 427 BC-347 BC
Pseudo-Seneca,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000446442218,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/39386650
Valerius, Julius, 3rd century-4th century,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121209792
William of Auxerre, c 1150-1231,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000108138459

Places:

England
France