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Harley MS 6041
- Record Id:
- 040-002051889
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002051889
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000899.0x000234
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161516919.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 6041
- Title:
- William Langland, Vision of Piers Plowman
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-96r: William Langland, Vision of Piers Plowman.
ff. 97r-102v: A form of confession in Middle English prose; added below the text is ‘Explycit pere [p] Symele’.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 96v: Latin sayings: ‘ego sum bonus puer quem Deus amat’ and 'Equore cum gelido Zepherus [sic] fert exinia [sic] kymbys [sic]', added in the 16th century.
Decoration:
Small red initials, often with penwork decoration in brown ink.
Marginal drawings in brown ink throughout the manuscript; drawings of four types of fish on f. 96v (‘A trowthe’; ‘A pyke’; ‘my[n]nu’; ‘A perpose’).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002051889", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 6041: William Langland, Vision of Piers Plowman" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002051889 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 6041 : William Langland, Vision of Piers Plowman - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[6045]/040-002051889
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161516919.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1424
- End Date:
- 1474
- Date Range:
- 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 225 x 150 mm.
Foliation: ff. 102 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); ff. 23-26, and 35 are fragmentary or damaged, partially made out of new blank paper substituting the missing parts of the original leaves.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house: re-bound on 15 August 1966.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
Hoo family of Bedfordshire: probably commissioned the manuscript; probably their coats of arms on ff. 1r, 1v, 2v, 3v, 4v, 5v, 96v (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 196).
William Holyngborne, monk of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury between 1510-1539: owned in the late 15th or early 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 96v. (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 196); ‘Thys boke p[er]teynet to my dane Will[ia]m holyngborne’; St Augustine’s possibly acquired the manuscript through a donation from the Hoo family as is suggested by a partially erased inscription below Holyngborne’s ownership inscription: ‘[E]t the gyft of’, followed by the coat of arms of the Hoo family.
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:
-
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: The British Library, 2005), nos 1459/7A.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 313.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 463.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)