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Harley MS 5146

Record Id:

040-002050990

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050990

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000299

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 5146

Title:

Tenurae; Natura Brevium; Novelli Tenores

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a number of collections of legal cases written in Latin and French. It also contains a previously unidentified stanza from the Middle English poem The Court of Sapience, usually attributed to John Lydgate, but here assigned to Geoffrey Chaucer. The poem has only been identified in five other manuscripts (see 'Court of Sapience', Index of Middle English Verse Online [= DIMEV] [accessed 3 March 2022]).

Contents:

ff. 1v-9r: Documents on feudal holdings, ending: 'Expliciunt Tenure'; the note: 'Anno milleno quadringintesimo trino / Bellum Salopie fuit in Mag nocte marie' [22 July 1403]; followed by a crossed out and effaced poem revealing the name of the scribe (Christopher […]): 'Cris notatur toforus simul accipiatur / Et […] lungatur qui scripsit sic nominatur'.

ff. 10r-70r: Natura Brevium, ending: 'Explicit hic prorsus brevium natura que cursus'; written in Latin and French.

ff. 71r-96v: Exemplary law cases; written in French.

f. 97r: 'Tenannt en fee simple', followed by similar cases.

f. 98r: A short (?) legal note in French.

f. 98v: Table of contents ('Incipit tabula huius libri').

ff. 99r-166v: Collection of law cases, entitled 'Novelli Tenores', beginning: 'Tenant en fee simple'; and ending: 'Expliciunt novelli tenores / Quod oliverus woode'.

ff. 167r-192r: Law cases from the reign of 1-2 Henry VI; written in French; ending: 'Finis adest mete, nunc explicit, ergo valete'.

The manuscript contains several additions:

f. 1*verso: A memorandum listing possessions remaining elsewhere: 'James a barrow hath off myn remay[n]yng yn hys hows In primis a close presse / item a joynyd bed of Estrych borde Item a standing bed of Elme [etc.]'; added in the 16th or 17th century.

f. 2*verso: A drawing of a soldier in arms, holding a halberd, in brown ink; added in the 16th or 17th century.

f. 2*recto: A memorandum listing items, written by the same hand that copied the memorandum on f. 1*verso: 'lent to Jamys coke […] a keverlett a mantel an old shete a greate pyllow'; added in the 16th or 17th century.

f. 1r: A previously unidentified stanza from the Middle English poem The Court of Sapience [DIMEV 5365], beginning: 'Woo Worthe the debate that no man may pease / Woo worthe the penance that axyth no pytte'; often spuriously attributed to John Lydgate, but here to Geoffrey Chaucer ('Chawcer'); added in the 15th century.

f. 192r: An inscription about the manuscript: 'Memodandum that this boke was wryten in the xxijth yere of kyng Edward the iiijthe per […] Wode etcaetera' [1482/3]; added in the 15th century.

f. 192r: An inscription in French, beginning: 'Regardes a la fyne'; added in the 15th or 16th century.

f. 193r: A Latin poem (? pangram), beginning: 'Omnis lux ymni […]'; added in the 15th or 16th century.

Decoration:

2 large (3-line) plain red initials (ff. 71r, 123r); large black initials with cadels in black ink throughout ff. 99r-108r, occasionally with cadels in red ink; 2 large initials in frames of black ink (ff. 127v, 137r), with one (f. 137r) featuring a face inside the letter. Capitals highlighted in red ink on f. 99r.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050990", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5146: Tenurae; Natura Brevium; Novelli Tenores" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050990

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 5146 : Tenurae; Natura Brevium; Novelli Tenores

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[5146]/040-002050990

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1478

End Date:

1488

Date Range:

c 1483

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; parchment (ff. 1*-2*, 193-[194] only).

Dimensions: 300 x 220 mm (text space: 210 x 140 mm).

Foliation: ff. 1* + 2* + 3* + 4* + 193 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); ff. 1*-2*, 193-[194] are parchment leaves that were added as flyleaves; 3 unfoliated blank paper leaves after f. 70 and f. 166; 1 unfoliated paper stub after f. 98.

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

Script: Gothic cursive.

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

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

'Christopher', copied ff. 1v-9r: according to a scribal jingle on f. 9r.

'Oliver Woode', copied ff. 99r-166v: according to an inscription on f. 166v.

'Arthur', owned in the 16th century: his ownership inscription on f. 1*recto; 'Arthur […]rcy is boke' followed by various memorandums about loans: 'lent to Ric[hard] ?Oldan […] a boke […] - lent to Th[om]as Andrews a boke of Charles - lent to Herry Lay[le] ijs viijd'.

John Anstis the elder (b. 1669, d. 1744), owned by him in 1719: donated the manuscript to the Harleian Library in 1719 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 51).

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 'Mr Anstis, A. D. 1719' (f. 2*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. 249 (no. 5146).

Wright, Cyril Ernest, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 51.

'Court of Sapience', Index of Middle English Verse Online [= DIMEV] [accessed 3 March 2022] [without this manuscript].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England