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Harley MS 5102

Record Id:

040-002050946

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050946

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00026d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 5102

Title:

Psalter with Canticles

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r–136v: Psalms 1–150, with interlineal text in French (ff. 1r–23r); one of the 'Oxford Psalter' translations, according to Dean and Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature (1999). A folio has been removed after f. 91, so that the text of Psalm 99:4-101:9 and the initial at the beginning of Psalm 101 is lacking. At f. 51 a replacement page has been added with the text copied in a 14th-century hand.

ff. 136v–139v: Canticles.

Decoration:

1 full-page Beatus initial in colours and gold with masks, animals heads, and interlace, within a rectangular frame (f. 1r). Historiated initials or very large decorated initials in colours and gold at the beginning of Psalms 26, 38, 51, 52, 68, 80, 97, (101 lacking) 109 (ff. 23v, 37v, 49, 49v, 61r, 77v, 90v, 104r). Large initials in colours and gold at the beginning of the other Psalms, some also with animals or hybrids in the bowls of the letters, or zoomorphic in the form of fish, hybrids, or dragons. Small initials in red or blue. Line-fillers in red or blue. Rubrics in red or gold.

Inserted miniatures, last quarter of the 12th century: 5 full-page miniatures in colours and gold: Psalm 18, Becket entombed (f. 17r); Psalm 34, the murder of Becket (f. 32r); Psalm 73, the sacrifice of Abraham with 2 bishops (f. 68r); Psalm 118:161, St Peter and 3 other Apostles (f. 118r); Psalm 140, Peter walking on water and Christ teaching the disciples (f. 129r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050946", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5102: Psalter with Canticles" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050946

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 5102 : Psalter with Canticles

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[5102]/040-002050946

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_5102 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1175

End Date:

1224

Date Range:

4th quarter 12th century-1st quarter 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 310 × 220 mm (written area 230 × 145 mm).

Foliation: ff. 139 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end).

Script: Gothic, written above top line.

Binding: Post-1600. Brown diced leather; green leather inner covers and endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: England (East Midlands?); England or France (ff. 17r, 32r, 68r, 118r, 129r).

Provenance:

‘Peter Coffin’: name incised in illuminated initial, 16th century (f. 54r).

‘Cateryn Newelle’ and ‘Rafe Cowche’: names incised in miniature, 16th century (f. 118r).

‘… I say’: written on illuminated initial, 16th century (f. 87r).

Dene Grenwell: name written in late 16th century (f. 10v).

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 https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.

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, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 5102.

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. 7.

[J. A. Herbert], Illuminataed Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 20.

Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), p. 118.

[Eric G. Millar], British Museum Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 4 (London: British Museum, 1928), pl. 15.

Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934.), no. 105.

T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 204, 288-89.

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

C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 116.

Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 40.

François Avril and Patricia Danz Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire VII^e-XX^e siècle (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1987), p. 52.

Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. by Henri-Jean Martin and Jean Vezin ([n.pl.]: Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis, 1990), p. 320.

Ruth J. Dean and Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publication Series, 3 (London, 1999), no. 445.

Nigel Morgan, ‘The Decorative Ornament of the Text and Page in Thirteenth Century England: Initials, Border Extensions, and Line Fillers’, in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 1-33 (pp. 2, 13, pls 3, 13).

C. M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 135.

Paul Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170-1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pl. 6.

Greg Buzwell, Saints in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), p. 48.

Jeffrey Weaver and Madeline Harrison Caviness, The Ancestors of Christ Windows at Canterbury Cathedral (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013), p. 18, fig. 7.

Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Nigel F. Palmer, The Prayer Book of Ursula Begerin, 2 vols (Dietikon-Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag, 2015), I, p. 170, fig. 188.

English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum, ed. by Clare Browne, Glyn Davies and M.A. Michael with Michaela Zöschg (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2016).

Exhibitions:

Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery, V&A, London, 1 October 2016 - 5 February 2017

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)