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Harley MS 7183/1

Record Id:

040-002053037

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002053037

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000935.0x0002c8

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 7183/1

Title:

Sermon and homily collection

Scope & Content:

A collection of short sermons and homilies to be read on particular feast days or following particular Bible readings. Mostly by St Augustine and St Ambrose, but also including texts attributed to Pope Gregory, Pope Leo, St Remigius, Origen, Jerome, and Bede, interspersed with extracts from Paul’s Epistles.

The text ends mid-sentence and continues in Harley MS 7183/2.

Horizontal catchwords.

Decoration:

1 very large historiated initial in colours and gold with interlace, animal head and enclosing Ambrose, seated (f. 1r). 5 large historiated initials, with a blessing cleric, bust-length (Gregory (f. 23r), Stephen (f. 67r), Remigius (f. 111v)), or with the head of a saint (John the Baptist (f. 106v). 1 defaced historiated initial (f. 267r). 1 very large decorated initial in colours and gold with interlace, foliate decoration and human head (f. 44r). Display script in red and black, occasionally with penwork decoration in the same colour follows the very large initials (ff. 1r, 44r). Numerous large initials in colours (some with zoomorphic element) with white tendrils on a blue, green and/or dark red ground, sometimes including interlace, animal heads (ff. 15r, 21v, 31r, 109v, etc.), owls (ff. 12r, 79r, 91r, etc.), fish (ff. 9r, 41r, 58v, 80v, 92r, 95r, 111v, 143r), an owl meeting a fish (f. 36r), hybrid creatures (ff. 11r, 89v, etc.), birds (ff. 14r, 20r, 38r, 44v, 55r, 69r, 154v, etc.), two birds drinking from a cup at the top of a corinthian column (f. 7v), a serpent (ff. 82r, 149r), human heads (ff. 42r, 79r, etc.), or fully zoomorphic initials (e.g., in the shape of a hybrid creature standing on its tail and biting its back (ff. 2v, 72r, 101v), a wolf swallowing a bird (f. 28v), a hare (f. 68v), a bird (f. 81r)). Large coloured initials in red. Initial in brown ink with brown penwork decoration (f. 122v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002053037", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 7183/1: Sermon and homily collection" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002053037

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 7183/1 : Sermon and homily collection

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[7193]/040-002053037

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1150

End Date:

1174

Date Range:

2nd or 3rd quarter of the 12th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 565 x 375 mm (text space: 420 x 260 mm).

Foliation: ff. 154 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).

Script: Protogothic.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house.

Condition: The outer margin of f. 121 has been excised.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Italy, Central.

Provenance:

Added annotations, late 14th century.

Antonius Pele, ?Florence, 3rd quarter of the 15th century: 3 added medallions, one enclosing a bishop with a crozier and 2 with his arms, and inscribed in large letters 'Antonius Pele antonii de pascis' (f. 1).

John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Edward Harley on 22 June 1726 (Diary 1966; Wright 1972)

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 ‘22 die mensis Junij, A.D. 1726’ (f. 1).

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:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 7183.

W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day and Sons, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pls XI.2-3, p. 32.

The Palaeographic Society: Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions, 2nd series, ed. by Edward Augustus Bond, Edward Maunde Thompson, and George Frederic Warner, (London: Cloves and Sons, 1884-1894), II, pl. 55.

J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 168.

Edward Maunde Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), p. 443.

Edward B. Garrison, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, 4 vols (Florence: L’impronta, 1953-1964), I (1954), p. 39 n. 8; II (1955-1956), 69, figs. 107, 191-193.

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. 337 n. 1.

Knut Berg, Studies in Tuscan Twelfth-century Illumination (Oslo: University Press, 1968), no. 106, figs 132-37.

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. 162, 273.

Édouard Jeauneau, ‘Dans le sillage de l'Erigène: Une homélie d'Héric d'Auxerre sur le prologue de Jean’, in Études erigéniennes (Paris : Études augustiniennes, 1987), pp. 537–557 (p. 542).

Miklós Boskovits, The Origins of Florentine Painting, 1100–1270, (Florence: Giunti, 1993), I, pp. 32, 34.

Stan Knight, Historical Scripts: From Classical Times to the Renaissance, 2nd edn (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998), p. 59.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)