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Harley MS 5274
- Record Id:
- 040-002051119
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002051119
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00031a
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5274
- Title:
-
John le Breton, Britton
- Scope & Content:
-
Previously catalogued as 'Vetera Statuta' (Ancient Statutes), this manuscript contains a copy of the Britton, the earliest summary of law in England written in French, and being an updated version of Henry Bracton's mid 13th-century De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (Laws and Customs of England). The work has been attributed to John le Breton (d. 1275), who purportedly wrote it at the command of King Edward I.
Contents:
ff. 1r-222v: John le Breton, Britton; containing the 'Livre de Condicion', 'Livre de Disseisine', and 'Livre de Intrusion', which is imperfect at the end.
The manuscript contains a few later additions:
ff. 22v, 46v, 48v (lower margin): Draft indentures, the first one addressed to the Chief Constable of the Launditch Hundred in Norfolk, referring to Thomas Ha[n]t of [?W]eston and Thomas Smyth concerning a matter about cattle, beginning: 'Henricus octavus dei gracia anglie et ffrancie rex fidei defensor et dominus Hibernie videlicet Norffolk ac Capitalibus Constabill. hundred de laundyche [...] Salutem'; added in the 1st half of the 16th century.
Decoration:
4 large (4- to 8-line) puzzle initials in red and blue with penwork decoration and pen-flourishing in the same colours including hybrid creatures and foliate motifs and partial (1-sided) J-borders in blue and red (ff. 1r, 59r, 64r, 124r). Large (2-line) initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Line-filler in brown ink in the shape of a hybrid creature (f. 18v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002051119", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5274: John le Breton, Britton" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002051119 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5274 : John le Breton, Britton - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5275]/040-002051119
- 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:
- 1349
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment; paper (ff. i and 222 only).
Dimensions: 250 x 170mm (text space: 170 x 100mm)
Foliation: ff. i + 222 + 222* (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); ff. i and 222* are paper flyleaves; ff. 177, 197-222v are partly torn; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. 1r (with a printed Harleian shelfmark and subject category in pencil: 'Law').
Collation: Mainly in quires of 8; indicated by catchwords; each quire has been mounted separately onto a paper guard.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Library in-house; red half leather binding with the Harleian arms gold stamped on the outside covers; rebound in September 1987.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
John Batteley (b. c.1646, d. 1708), Church of England clergyman and antiquary; bought in 1723 through his nephew, John Batteley, by Edward Harley, along with other manuscripts (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), II, p. 263 n. 1; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 66-67).
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 ‘5 die Novembris, A.D. 1723’ (f. 1r).
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. 257 (no. 5274).
Sam Worby, Law and Kinship in Thirteenth-Century England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), p. 183.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 263 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. 66-67.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- John le Breton, Bishop of Hereford, d 1275
- Places:
- England