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Harley MS 5134
- Record Id:
- 040-002050978
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050978
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00028d
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5134
- Title:
- Britton
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a copy of the Britton, the earliest summary of the laws of England in French, purportedly written by command of King Edward I and uncertainly attributed to John le Breton [Bretun] [John Brito] (d. 1275), justice and bishop of Hereford.
Contents:
ff. 2*verso-4*verso: Table of contents for Britton.
ff. 1r-142r: ? John le Breton, Britton.
The manuscript contains various additions:
f. 1*verso: Fragment of an indenture in Latin, referring to Henricus Hothom, rector of the parish church of East Tisted ('Estystede') in Hampshire, Johannes Brode, rector of the parish of Woldham, Kent, Johannes Bonde, William Hawkyn of the diocese of Rochester, and Thomas Walesby, clerk of the diocese of York, dated 1395/96.
f. 2*recto: Statutes in Latin; added in the 14th century.
ff. 142v-143r: 'Officium Coronatoris'; added in the 14th century.
ff. 143v-144v: 'Juramentum Justiciariorum', 'Juramentum vicecomitis', 'Juramentum maiorum et Ballivorum'; added in the 14th century.
f. 144v: A memorandum relating to a 'clausula warantiae'; added in the14th century.
f. [149]recto: Fragment of an indenture in Latin, referring to a 'Magister Walterus', and 'Johannes boaufitz laicus' of the parish of Towcester, Northamptonshire, no date; written in the 14th century.
Decoration:
1 large puzzle initial in blue and red with foliate decoration and pen-flourishing (f. 1r). Large (2-line) initials in blue or red with penwork decoration and pen-flourishing in red or blue. Paraphs alternating between blue and red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050978", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5134: Britton" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050978 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5134 : Britton - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5134]/040-002050978
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- French, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1399
- Date Range:
- 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 220 x 150 mm (text space: 180 x 105).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 2* + 3* + 4* + 145 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 4 unfoliated blank parchment leaves after f. 1*; and 4 after f. 144; ff. 1* and 145 are parchment leaves that originally served as flyleaves; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. 1*recto (a printed Harleian shelfmark and subject category in pencil: 'Law').
Collation: Indicated by catchwords (mostly cropped off).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Musuem in-house; gold-tooled brown speckled leather with the initials 'M. B.' (Museum Brittanicum) gold stamped on the upper cover.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Robert Paynell, son of Henry Paynell of Belaugh, co. Norfolk, admitted to Gray's Inn in 1619: sold through Wilcox, a bookseller in Little Britain, to the Harleys in November 1721 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), I, p. 123 n. 1; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 271).
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 '18 die Novembris, A. D. 1721' (f. [1*a]recto).
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 forms 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. 248 (no. 5134).
Britton; the French Text Carefully Revised with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes, ed. by Francis Morgan Nichols, 2 vols (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1865), I, pp. li-lii.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 123 n. 1.
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. 271, 354.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Le Breton, John, or Britton; Bishop of Hereford
- Places:
- England