Harley MS 6718

This composite manuscript consists of three distinct parts that were produced separately in England in the 15th century.

Part 1 (ff. 2-15) contains a collection of Latin sermons with occasional quotations in Middle English.

Part 2 (ff. 16-33), contains a Middle English verse commentary on the Pater Noster that has been excerpted from William of Nassyngton’s Speculum Vitae.

Part 3 (ff. 35-42) contains a Latin treatise for making testaments.

The manuscript also contains a leaf from another manuscript, reused as a flyleaf, with a fragmentary Middle English instruction of masses that was part of a vision of Purgatory (f. 1r). The numbers of masses and the text's style correspond with the Middle English visionary account A Revelation of Purgatory (1422) and suggest that the fragment represents the conclusion of a previously unknown work by its author. The latter was a woman who is thought to have been an anchoress at Winchester, possibly situated at the Benedictine nunnery of St Mary at Winchester, also known as Nunnaminster. She is likely to be the same Winchester anchoress who was twice consulted by Richard Beauchamp (b. 1382, d. 1439), 13th Earl of Warwick, in 1421. A Revelation of Purgatory survives in three full-text copies: Lincoln Cathedral Library, MS 91 [The Thornton Manuscript]; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. th. c. 58; Warminster, Longleat House, MS 29 Lincoln. Excerpts of her work have recently been discovered in Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS Lat. 228, and a testament at the London, The National Archives, PROB 11/12/249. For the author and her work's transmission, see Harley, A Revelation of Purgatory (1985); Erler, '“A Revelation of Purgatory”' (2007); Drieshen, 'English Nuns as ‘Anchoritic Intercessors’' (2017); A Revelation of Purgatory, ed. McAvoy (2017).

It is likely that all three parts were all written in Northern England. The Middle English texts on the flyleaf (f. 1r) and part 2 are written in a Northern English dialect (McIntosh et al., A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (1986), I, p. 113). The household notes on ff. 1v, 34r-34v contain patronymics based on and referring to locations in Northern England. Part 3 predominantly contains examples from York Minster.

Contents:

Part 1:

ff. 2r-15v: A collection of Latin sermons with occasional words in Middle English.

Part 2:

ff. 16r-33r: Middle English verse commentary on the Pater Noster, excerpted from William of Nassyngton’s Speculum Vitae, beginning ‘ffor it es pryvelaged als we se / be reson of thynges thre’.

Part 3:

ff. 35r-42v: A Latin treatise on making testaments, entitled ‘Hic incipit modus faciendi testamenta’.

The manuscript contains a few additions:

f. 1r: An instruction for masses in Middle English, beginning: 'and certayne monkes to synge of saynt Petre in certayne houses'. The conclusion of a vision of Purgatory, most likely representing a previously unknown work by the female author of A Revelation of Purgatory (1422); copied in the 2nd half or 4th quarter of the 15th century.

f. 1v: Household notes concerning payments in English; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.

ff. 34r-34v: Household notes concerning payments in English; added in the late 15th or early 16th century.