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Harley MS 5158

Record Id:

040-002051002

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002051002

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x0002a5

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 5158

Title:

Book of law cases for the reigns of Henry IV to Henry VI

Scope & Content:

This composite manuscript consists of three distinct parts that were produced separately. Together the manuscript contains reports on law cases from the reigns of Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI.

Contents:

Part 1:

ff. 3r-17r: Law cases from the time of Henry V and Henry VI [with additions on f. 14r from the reign of Henry VIII and continuing to 1557)]; written in French in the 16th century;

ff. 17v-22v: Notes on law in French; written in the 16th century.

Part 2:

ff. 23r-106v: Law cases from the time of Henry IV; written in the late 15th or early 16th century.

ff. 107r-109r: Additional notes on law cases in French; written in the late 15th or early 16th century

Part 3:

ff. 110r-273v: Collection of law cases from the time of Henry VI, with an explicit which attributes the work to 'J. Caryll' in the 3rd year of the reign of King Richard III [1485/6].

ff. 274v-275v: Additional notes on law cases in French; written in the late 15th or early 16th century.

The manuscript contains a few additions:

ff. 2r-2v, 256r-256v: Two parchment leaves from a copy of the Codex Iustinianus, Book IV, with the rubric 'De fide instrumentorum et amissione eorum et antapochis faciendis et de his quae sine scriptura fieri possunt'; written in the 2nd half of the 13th century.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002051002", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5158: Book of law cases for the reigns of Henry IV to Henry VI" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002051002

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 5158 : Book of law cases for the reigns of Henry IV to Henry VI

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[5158]/040-002051002

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
French
French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1475

End Date:

1565

Date Range:

c 1480-c 1560

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper; parchment (only ff. 1, 2, 276).

Dimensions: Leaves of varying sizes measuring 290-310 x 210-220 mm, mounted to fit a volume measuring 310 x 230 mm (text space: 190 x 125 mm); ff. 14, 152, and 159 are small paper strips.

Foliation: ff. 276 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); f. 1 is a small parchment leaf (165 x 125 mm) mounted on a paper leaf; ff. 2 and 276 are fragmentary parchment leaves from a 13th-century manuscript.

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

Script: Gothic.

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

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

An unknown 16th-century owner: their inscription on f. 1r: 'R[…] Burgen. […] my booke of […] on the Parliament'.

William Fletewood (b. ? 1535, d. 1594) of Middle Temple, Recorder of London 1571, owned the manuscript: his name inscribed on f. 1r: 'ffletewood' and 'William ffletewood [2x] ys the owner of this booke' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 153).

? 'Johannes Caryll', 16th century: his name inscribed in the right margin on f. 276r (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)); perhaps the 'Johannes Carryll, armiger' who was summoned to Westminster as member of Parliament for Sussex on 5 October 1553 (see Stenning, 'A Return of the Members of Parliament for the County and Boroughs of Sussex' (1882), p. 161).

John Anstis the elder (b. 1669, d. 1744), herald and antiquary, gift to Robert Harley (prior to 1724) together with other manuscripts: according to an inscription by Humfrey Wanley, Keeper of the Harleian Library, on f. 1r: 'Mr Anstis A. D. 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.

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. 249.

Alan H. Stenning, 'A Return of the Members of Parliament for the County and Boroughs of Sussex', Sussex Archaeological Collections Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County, 32 (1882), pp. 141-65 (p. 161).

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. 51, 153.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England