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Harley MS 7371

Record Id:

040-002053225

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002053225

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000935.0x000385

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 7371

Title:

Miscellany of English historical papers

Scope & Content:

This manuscript is a miscellany of historical papers in English, French and Latin, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. They were part of two separate manuscripts (ff. 1-77; and ff. 80r-184v) that were joined together at a later point. The volume also contains fragments of a 13th-century copy of a theological text (probably the Moralia in Job) that were used as flyleaves for the second manuscript.

Contents:

f. 1r: A table of contents for ff. 80v-183v.

ff. 1r-77v: A tract in English and French, entitled ‘The Privileges and speciall Rightes belonging to the Baronage of England’, written in the late 16th or early 17th century.

f. 80v: Latin and English poems, beginning ‘nos vagabunduli’;a poem on the counties of England, beginning ‘Hernord [sic] schir shild and sper’; an English poem ‘Eares lyving thinge that draweth arre in Natures heavenly frame’.

ff. 81r-121r A history of the English nobility, intersected with blazons; featuring added texts with the dates 1603 (f. 120v) and 1647 (f. 121r).

ff. 121v-132r: Texts on English law and statutes, featuring ‘The copie of a booke in written hand found in Sir Edward Saunders studie after his death [d. 1576]’.

f. 133v: Latin verses and a prose text on Mary, Queen of Scots, dated 1587; beginning ‘O Maria Scota meretrix’ [crossed out].

ff. 133r-138r: A History of the Bishops of Lichfield (Latin), entitled ‘De Episcoporum Lichefield’; ending with Bishop William Overton (r. 1580-1609).

f. 138r: Notes in Latin relating to the Scottish kings James I to James V.

ff. 138v-140v: Lists of blazons of arms, organised according to region.

ff. 141r-152v: Texts on English law and statutes, featuring ‘The statutes and ordinances of the noble order of the garter reformed explaned and renued by the noble Prince Henry the viij’.

f. 152v: Latin poems written by ‘H. B.’; one is an obit for ‘Jo. Br.’ buried at the Inner Temple in 1586 (beginning ‘Qualia fert corpus vivum’); the other is headed ‘R. B. in persona defuncti’ (beginning ‘Causidici certant ego plus certare recuso’).

ff. 153r-157r: Blazons of arms; intersected with a political prophecy in Latin on f. 154r, introduction as a ‘prognosticatio’ that was purportedly found in a Franciscan convent in Konstanz in 1492 and concerns the prophecy that an anonymous Franciscan friar made in 1379; beginning ‘Lilium regionis’.

ff. 157v-159r: Genealogies of kings and queens, with a note on expressing or publishing statements about the successor of Queen Elizabeth I; followed by a note on Mary, Queen of Scots.

f. 160r: An English tract entitled ‘This is the booke of the generation of Antichrist the destroier the child of the divell’.

ff. 160v-167v: Texts on English law and statues in Latin and English, intersected with blazons of arms and lists of nobilities; ending with descriptions of tombs and other parts in the church of St Peter, Hereford.

ff. 168r-171v: English descriptions on the nobility, wonders and laws of Wales.

ff. 172r: Blazons of arms.

f. 172v: The Old English-Latin alphabet, entitled ‘Alphabetum Saxoniensis’.

ff. 173r-181v: An English heraldic collection entitled ‘Of Armorye’, written in the early 17th century: featuring an added letter with the date 1633 on f. 178r; f. 181v features the Latin poems 'De effigie Justiciae' (beginning 'Que dea; Justicia cur torvo lumine; flecti'); and 'De effigie Iudicium' (beginning 'Effigies manibus truncae ante altaria Divum').

f. 182r: A note with payments for ‘Charge of Beacon’, dated 1609.

ff. 183r-183v: A letter to the ‘Cunstables of the hundred of Ras[...]low’ concerning the repair of a beacon, dated 1619.

The manuscript contains a number of additions:

ff. 79r-79v: A list of Latin words (D-L), perhaps an index for the Moralia in Job, written in the 13th century.

f. 79v: Latin excerpts, beginning ‘Urbanus servus servorum dei Monacho ferventissimo Abbati calido’, added in the 16th century

f. 80r: Memorandi dated ‘3 Septembre 1574’ concerning the sale of various types of salt (‘whytt salte’; ‘Lysborn salte’; ‘baye salte’).

ff. 154v-155r, 156v-157r, ff. 160r-159v, f. 164v, 165v: Notes of a merchant concerning the sale and purchase of merhandise (e.g. herring and clothes), dated between 1561-1574.

ff. 184r-184v: A fragment of the (?) Moralia in Job, written in the 13th century.

f. 184v: Latin verses, one beginning ‘De gripho - Integra lex - equi custo – rectique magistra’, added in the 16th century.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002053225", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 7371: Miscellany of English historical papers" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002053225

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 7371 : Miscellany of English historical papers

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[7381]/040-002053225

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
French
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1550

End Date:

1649

Date Range:

2nd half of the 16th century-1st half of the 17th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper and parchment.

Dimensions: 320 x 185-250 mm.

Foliation: 1* + 184 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); ff. 1, 79 and 184 are parchment leaves; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. 1*recto and f. 183v; 1 unfoliated strip of paper between f. 184 and f. [185] (note on foliation); each leaf has been mounted onto a paper guard.

Script: Gothic.

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

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

? ‘William Jones’, owned in the 16th century: his name twice inscribed on f. 80r: ‘William Johans’ and ‘William Jones’.

? ‘Thomas’, owned in the 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 184v: ‘Amicus alter ipse / By me Thomas’.

An unknown early modern owner: his note ‘Folia signata No 77’ on a paper pastedown on f. 1*recto.

Thomas Rawlinson (b. 1681, d. 1725), book collector: bought from him by Edward Harley as noted on f. 1r: ‘Bought in mr Rawlinson sale’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 283).

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), no. 3449/2.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 528.

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. 474.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)