Harley MS 6563

Contents:

ff. 1r-4v: the Hours of the Virgin, probably Use of Sarum (imperfect);

ff. 5r-9v: the Office of the Dead (imperfect);

ff. 10r-25v: the Hours of the Virgin, probably Use of Sarum (imperfect), followed by the hymn Salve Regina (continued on f. 32r);

ff. 27r-31v, 33r-35r: the Hours of the Holy Spirit (imperfect and out of sequence);

f. 32r: the hymn Salve Regina (continued from f. 25v), with the prayer Omnipotens sempiterne;

ff. 36r-43r: the Seven Penitential Psalms (imperfect);

ff. 43r-50v: the Litany, including southern English saints, e.g. Edmund, Fremund, Alban, Amphibalus, Kenelm, Edward, Dunstan, Botulph, Osyth, Frideswide and Mildred, as well as the Scottish saint Machar;

ff. 52r-84v: the Office of the Dead (imperfect);

ff. 86r-87v: the Gradual Psalms (imperfect);

ff. 88r-105v: the Commendation of the Soul, consisting of Psalm 118 (ff. 88r-102r, imperfect), Psalm 138 (ff. 102v-105r) and prayers (ff. 105r-108v, imperfect);

ff. 109r-110v: the prayer O intemerata (imperfect), using the feminine form 'peccatrici'.

Decoration:

The decoration of the manuscript has been linked to the so-called Milemete group, active in London in the 1320s, especially to the Psalter in Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College MS 76 (see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (1986), no. 89). Pin-pricks were used on many leaves to transfer a design from one side to the other (see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (1986), no. 89, and Alexander, Medieval Illuminators (1992), p. 162).

Originally the manuscript probably contained historiated initials or miniatures at the opening of the texts and the hours in the Hours of the Virgin, the pages of which have been deliberately removed.

Marginal scenes in colours in the lower border of almost every page, often extending across openings or over both sides of a page and sometimes forming thematic sequences across several pages. The subjects include: figures with scrolls bearing text from the Apostles' Creed (f. 1r-v); a series of women, perhaps representing the sins of lust (f. 2r), sloth (f. 3r) and avarice (f. 4r); a dog riding an ape (f. 6v); a figure fighting a butterfly (ff. 8v-9r); the rich man's banquet and Lazarus the beggar (ff. 10v-12r); animal or human musicians (ff. 13v, 14r, 34r, 38r, 40r-41v, 43r-44v, 58r); foxes preaching to a flock of birds (ff. 14v-15r, 54v-55); animals and hybrids fighting (ff. 15v-16r); a rabbit huntsman (ff. 20r-v, 96v-97r, 97v); an ape pointing to its anus (ff. 22r, 106r); a fox schoolmaster teaching a dog pupil (ff. 22v-23r); a dog beggar (f. 23v); two figures playing a ball game (f. 36r); a man on his deathbed (f. 37r), followed by a tomb (f. 37v), a figure playing trumpets (f. 38r), and a ? grave with a crucifix and a plaque inscribed with John 1:1-6 (f. 38v); dancing animals (ff. 42r-v); a series of birds (ff. 48r-50v); dog and ? wolf huntsmen (ff. 53v-54r); a funeral scene (ff. 58v-59r); a woman fighting with a distaff (f. 59v); figures fighting snails (ff. 61v-63r, 86v-87r); a man surrendering to an armed woman (ff. 63v-64r); tradesmen at work, a tailor (f. 65r), baker (f. 66r), smith (f. 68v) and agricultural labourers (f. 89r-v); a man eating a boot (f. 65v); a ? hermit emerging from his cell with his hands clasped, looking towards a seated woman (ff. 67v-68r); a war between mice and cats (ff. 71v-75r); an axe-wielding monkey trying to catch a squirrel in a tree (ff. 81v-82r); naked women warriors (ff. 86r, 86v-87r); a man gives an object to a seated group (f. 88r-v); a woman mourner by a tomb (f. 90r); a monkey riding a goat (f. 91v); courting scenes (ff. 93v-95r); a lion in bed (f. 98v); a monkey peddler (f. 100r); a monkey playing dice (f. 100v); a dog with a sword and shield (f. 101v); as well as numerous other human, animal and hybrid figures.

A series of 212 surviving shields of arms in colours, in the top outer corner of almost every page (see Goodall, 'Heraldry' (1997), 193-206).

Partial foliate borders with animals and hybrids on every page. Small initials (2 lines) in gold on red and blue grounds. Small initials (1 line) in gold with red or purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Line fillers in gold on red and blue grounds.