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Harley MS 7333
- Record Id:
- 040-002053187
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002053187
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000935.0x00035e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161517548.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 7333
- Title:
-
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and other Middle English poetic works by Benedict Burgh, John Lydgate, Richard Sellyng, Charles d'Orléans, John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-24v: Middle English Prose Brut.
f. 25r: Benedict Burgh, Cato Minor.
ff. 25r-30v: Benedict Burgh, Cato Major.
ff. 30v-31r: Complaint of a Prisoner against Fortune.
ff. 31r-32v: On the English title of Henry VI to the Crown of France.
f. 32v: A roundel on the Coronation of Henry VI.
ff. 33r-35v: John Lydgate, Guy of Warwick.
ff. 36r-36v: Richard Sellyng, Evidens to be ware.
f. 36v: Charles d'Orléans, Mon cuer chaunte Ioyeuxsement.
ff. 37r-118r: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales.
ff. 120r-121v: John Gower, Confessio Amantis [excerpt].
ff. 121v-122r: Impingham’s Proverbs.
ff. 122r-129v: John Gower, Confessio Amantis [excerpts].
ff. 129v-132v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules.
ff. 132v-133v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Compleynt of Mars.
ff. 134r-135r: Geoffrey Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite.
ff. 135r-135v: Anonymous, The complaynte ageyne Hope.
ff. 135v-136v: ? Geoffrey Chaucer, Compleint d’amours.
ff. 136r-146r: John Lydgate, The Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund.
ff. 147r-147v: John Lydgate, Complaint þat Christ maketh of his Passioun.
f. 147v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Lak of Stedfastnesse.
f. 147v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Gentilesse.
f. 147v: Geoffrey Chaucer, Truth (Balade de Bon Conseyl).
f. 148r: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse.
f. 148r: A stanza from John Lydgate’s Pageant of Knowledge (‘Two balades by Halsam Squiere’).
ff. 148r-148v: Þanswer of deþe agayne vn to man.
ff. 148v: An extract from the English prose translation of Guillaume de Deguileville’s Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme.
f. 148v: Two Latin poems, the first beginning: Versus Memoriales.
ff. 149r-149v: John Lydgate, The Kings of England sithen William Conqueror.
ff. 149v-150r: ? Benedict Burgh, A Christmasse game made by Maister Benet Howe.
ff. 150r-203r: Extracts from the Gesta Romanorum.
f. 180v: A comment on the story of the three cocks in the Gesta Romanorum.
f. 200v: Three couplets from the Gesta Romanorum.
ff. 204r-211v: Thomas Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes.
Decoration:
5 marginal sketches in brown ink of a stock in a tun, a rebus for the name 'Stoughton', some with fish (ff. 32v, 45v, 189rr, 190, 192r). Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing, some large, some small. Calligraphic initials in brown ink. Paraphs in red or blue. Running headers in red. Rubrics in red. Capitals marked in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002053187", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 7333: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and other Middle English poetic works by Benedict Burgh, John Lydgate, Richard Sellyng,…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002053187 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 7333 : Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and other Middle English poetic works by Benedict Burgh, John Lydgate, Richard… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[7343]/040-002053187
- 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_100161517548.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 455 x 330 mm (text space: 330 x 230 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 211 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Leicester.
Provenance:
John Shirley (d. 1456), amateur scribe, written by or associated with him: see Christianson, A Director of London Stationers (1990), pp. 159-60.
The abbey of St Mary de Pratis, Leicester: perhaps written at or owned by the abbey (see Matheson, The Prose Brut (1998); and Shonk, 'B. L. Harley MS 7333’ (1988), pp. 81-91).
‘William Stoughton’ (fl. late 15th century), cellarer of the abbey of St Mary de Pratis (Pré), Leicester: his name inscribed on f. 41r (‘Stoughton’); a ‘stock-in-a-tun’ rebus on ff. 32v, 45v, 189r and 192r (3x). The Stoughton arms (a saltire between four door staples) inscribed on ff. 189r, 190r, and 192r (see Shonk, 'B. L. Harley MS 7333’ (1988), pp. 81-91).
‘Doctor Peni’, owned c. 1500: his name inscribed on f. 150r: ‘'Doctor Peni writ this book'; perhaps John Penny (d. 1519/20), LL.D. of Oxford and canon at Leicester by 1480; prior in 1493; abbot in 1496; bishop of Bangor in 1504; bishop of Carlisle in 1508 (see Manly-Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), 1, pp. 214-215).
‘Galfridus Ithell’, owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 133r; possibly the man of the same name who lived at Tugby near Leicester and died in 1599 (see Manly-Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), 1, p. 217).
The Fuller family of Tugby, owned in the late 16th or early 17th century: their names inscribed on f. 12v: ‘Richard Fuller’, ‘[...]ne Dier’, ‘[R]uth Fuller’, ‘[F]rances Fuller’, ‘[E]lizabeth Fuller’, and ‘[E]dward Fuller’.
John Somers (b. 1651, d. 1716), baron Somers, lawyer and politician: no. 3 in his catalogue of manuscripts [Harley MS 7191, f. 153r] and his pressmark ‘H. 10’ on f. 2r (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 308-309).
Sir Joseph Jekyll (bap. 1662, d. 1738), lawyer and politician, brother-in-law of Somers: Somers’s manuscripts were passed on to him (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 204).
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 by Edward Harley on f. 2r: 'Oxford BH, Dec 1738'.
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), no. 7333.
Julia Boffey, 'French lyrics and English manuscripts: the transmission of some poems in Trinity College, Cambridge MS. R. 3. 20, and British Library MS. Harley 7333', Text: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship, 4 (1988), pp. 135-46.
C. Paul Christianson, A Director of London Stationers and Book Artisans 1300-1500 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1990), pp. 159-60.
A. E. B. Coldiron, 'Translation, canons, and cultural capital: manuscripts and reception of Charles d'Orléans's English poetry', in Charles d'Orléans in England (1415-1440), ed. by Mary-Jo Arn (Cambridge: Brewer, 2000), pp. 183-214 (pp. 190-91).
John Gower, Trilingual Poet: Language, Translation, and Tradition, ed. by Elisabeth Dutton, with John Hines and R. F. Yeager (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), p. 17.
Barbara Kline, ‘Scribal agendas and the text of Chaucer's tales in British Library MS Harley 7333’, in Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602, ed. by Thomas A. Prendergast and Barbara Kline (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999), pp. viii, 116-44, 301.
The Life of St Edmund, King & Martyr: John Lydgate’s Illustrated Verse Life Presented to Henry VI: A Facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2278 (London: British Library, 2004), pp. 5, 16.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Paul, Trench, Trübner for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (pp. xii, xv, xx, xxii).
Lister M. Matheson, The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 180 (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998), pp. xxv, 13, 15, 74, 215, 226, 228, 268-71 (no. 155).
The Text of the Canterbury Tales Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts, ed. by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, 8 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), I, pp. 207-18.
Hermann Oesterley, Gesta Romanorum (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchandlung, 1872), pp. 237-39.
Derek Pearsall, ‘The Manuscripts and Illustrations of Gower’s Works’, in A Companion to Gower, ed. by Sian Echard (Cambridge: Brewer, 2004), pp. 73-97 (p. 77).
Nicholas Perkins, Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes: Counsel and Constraint (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2001), pp. 153, 157 n. 27, 161 n. 46, 162 n. 50, 173, 183.
Jean-Pascal Pouzet, 'Quelques aspects de l'influence des Chanoines Augustins sul la Production et la Transmission Litteraire vernacularie en Angleterre (XIII-Xve siecles)', Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (January-March 2014), 169-213 (pp. 178, 211, 213).
V. J. Scattergood, ‘Literary culture at the court of Richard II’, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 29-43 (p. 37).
M. C. Seymour, 'The English manuscripts of Mandeville's Travels', Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions, 4 (1974), 253-97 (p. 271).
The Beauchamp Pageant, ed. by and intro by Alexandra Sinclair (Donington: Richard III and Yorkish History Trust, 2003), p. 15 n. 62.
Timothy A. Shonk, 'B. L. Harley MS 7333: the “publication” of Chaucer in the rural areas', in Essays in Medieval Studies: Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association, 15 (1988), pp. 81-91.
Geoffrey Chaucer, Complete Works, ed. by Walter William Skeat, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), I, pp. 58, 335; IV, p. ix.
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Pitman, 1883–1910), III (1910), pp. 252-55.
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. 204, 308.
Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, Composed during the Period from the Accession of Edward III to that of Richard III, 2 vols (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859-61), II, p. 131.
Thomas Wright and James Orchard Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae: Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language, 2 vols (London: Pickering, 1841-43), 1841, I, p. 234.
Thomas Wright, Specimens of Old Christmas Carols, Selected from Manuscripts and Printed Books (London: Percy Society, 1841), p. 28.
Julius Zupitza, Specimens of All the Accessible Unprinted Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, 9 parts (London: Chaucer Society, 1890-1902), pt. III.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)