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Harley MS 5237
- Record Id:
- 040-002051081
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002051081
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x0002f4
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056057696.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5237
- Title:
-
Boethius, De institutione musica (imperfect)
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-42v: Boethius (b. c. 480, d. 524), De institutione musica (On the Principles of Music), imperfect (Book 1, 23-Book 5, 8) beginning at the chapter 23 of the first book: 'Hoc igitur modo per singular tetrachorda in generum proprietates partitio facta est', ending at the chapter 8 of book five: 'si coniungitur nete quidem diezeugmenon'. Several parts are missing due to the loss of some leaves and quires. The manuscript includes numerous short glosses written mainly by a thirteenth-century English hand.
Decoration:
Tables and diagrams in red and brown, occasionally with some green. Two full-page diagrams (ff. 35v-36r). Small initials in red or blue with penwork decoration in the same and the alternate colour, occasionally with reserved designs. Rubrics in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002051081", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5237: Boethius, De institutione musica (imperfect)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002051081 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5237 : Boethius, De institutione musica (imperfect) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5237]/040-002051081
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056057696.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 220 x 150 mm (text space: 145 x 85 mm; on f. 28 in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 42 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1966.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France or England.
Provenance:
An unknown 13th-century owner: added notes throughout by a 13th-century hand.
'John Rippon', 17th century: inscribed with his name (ff. 24v, 42r); perhaps his (?) 16th- or 17th-century numbers on f. 1r.
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 http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III, no. 5237.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 286.
John Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York: Scribner, 1984), no. 105.
Calvin M. Bower, ‘Boethius’ De Institutione Musica: A Handlist of Manuscripts’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits, 42 (1988), 205-51 (p. 221 no. 44).
Codices Boethiani : A Conspectus of Manuscripts of the Works of Boethius ed. by M. T. Gibson and Lesley Smith, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 25 (London: Warburg Institute, 1995- ), I: Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, p. 151, no. 132.
Nicholas Bell, Music in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2001), p. 8.
Christian Meyer and others, The Theory of Music: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500: Addenda, Corrigenda, RISM B/III, 6 vols (München: Henle, 2003), VI, p. 397.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.