Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Royal MS 17 A XVI
- Record Id:
- 040-002107247
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x000188
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165176538.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 17 A XVI
- Title:
- Almanac, including a calendar and astronomical information
- Scope & Content:
-
An almanac, including an astronomical calendar in pictorial form, for 1420, with miscellaneous additions.
A similar almanac, dated 1412, is now Harley MS 2332.
Contents: f. 1v: Added 15th-century meteorological notes from Christmas to Twelfth Night, in a year in which Christmas fell on Sunday, regarded as forecasting the weather of the next twelve months. Incomplete, ending on 2 January.
f. 2r: Added 15th-century diagram in red of the orbits of the sun and moon with estimates of the distance of the planets according to Rabbi Moyses and notes on Arabic numerals.
f. 2v: Added 15th-century diagram of the division of the world between Shem, Ham, and Japheth
f. 3r: Added 15th-century short text on reasons for fasting on Friday, beginning, 'Oportet nog, fratres, magis'.
f. 3v: Added 15th-century four-line verse, beginning 'It is a wonder, be þe rode, whan too hedys loke in a hode'.
ff. 3v-4v: Added 15th-century verses rhyming ababccbccb on Ave Maria, beginning 'Ave, hayll Marie, full of grace, of þi body comme he'.
ff. 5r-16r: A calendar, beginning imperfectly with the first half of January lacking, with the days arranged in a horizontal line across an opening, and pictograms of saints or their attributes above, including northern saints such as Sts John of Beverley, William, and Wilfrid in red, and the occupations of the months and signs of the Zodiac on the left-hand sides. The second and third lines give hours and minutes of daylight, the fourth and fifth the golden numbers and dominical letters, and the remaining twelve lines the year, hour, and minute of conjunctions of the sun and moon for four cycles 1406-1481, with a stub after f. 11.
A later hand has inserted under their days the dates of an eclipse of the sun, on 17 June, 1433, and of the battles (1403-1471) of Shrewsbury, Agincourt, St. Albans (both the 1st and 2nd)), Northampton, Ferrybridge (on 6 April, should be 29 March 1461), Edgecott, Barnet, and Tewkesbury, written vertically.
ff. 16v-19r: A table of eclipses for the same four cycles, with the months marked by symbols taken from the occupations of the months.
ff. 19v-20r: A table of regnant planets for each day of the week.
ff. 20v-22r: A table of significant events in pictograms with numbers above, of a T-O map with the number 7118; Adam and his age, 932; Eve and her age, 705; a hell-mouth, 4604; the Ark, with, 4562; the Nativity, 1420; a mitre with a sword, representing St Thomas of Canterbury, 313; a king, 101; spears and halberds, 74, the Battle of Crecy; spears and halberds, the Battle of Poitiers; shrouds, 7; spears and halberds, 18, perhaps the Battle of Homildon Hill or of Shrewsbury; a circular stone enclosure with a building in the centre, 4, perhaps the capture of Calais; a king holding a sword, 8, representing the accession of Henry V, 8.
f. 21r: Zodiac man, the figure of a man with the signs of the Zodiac influencing his various members.
f. 21v: A pictorial prognostication table by Dominical letters.
f. 22v: A charm in Middle English, headed 'Seynt Leo . . . . . . (erasure) wrote þis writt to kyng Charls'; begins 'Messyas + Sother + Emanuel' (also in Add MS 37677, f. 107r; Add MS 37787, f. 174v; and Harley MS 586, f. 173v.
f. 23r:-v: Tables of Assise of bread, and another, possibly the Assise of beer, with a figure of a woman.
f. 24r: Mnemonic verses (inaccurately given) for the Dominical letters, 1420-1447, begins 'Fons educit agrum fons estas (read escas) bos eget (read agit) edus'.
f. 24r: A table of the terminus paschalis, 1406-1424.
f. 24v: A table of Dominical letters, 1420-1447.
ff. 25r:-26v: A table of the positions of 27 fixed stars.
f. 26r: The latitude of ten towns, including London, Oxford, Lincoln, York, and Berwick.
f. 26v: Mnemonic verses, including 'Hii versus notant ebdomadas . . . . . . (erased) ad primam dominicam quadragesimae omni anno', showing the week between Epiphany and Lent for each year of the nineteen years' lunar cycle, begins 'In grauibus kausis hastam gerit improbus hostis'; verses showing the Dominical letter for each year of the twenty-eight years' solar cycle, begins 'Grati florentes existant (sic, for extant) divina colentes'; two lines on the year of the Christian era, viz. 'Annus erat decimus solis luneque secundus quando fuit dominus sacra de virgine natus'; three nearly illegible lines, begins 'Sub Jano'
f. 27r: A diagram, with a volvelle of three concentric revolving disks, for finding the place of the sun and moon.
f. 27v: Added 15th-century five-line verses on the Eucharist, beginning, 'Hyt semes quite and is red'.
f. 27v: Added 15th-century six-line verses on corruption of the times in England, begins 'Whenne feith fayles in prestys sawes'.
f. 27v: Added couplet in a later hand: ‘In all this worlde ys none so tru as she that bare our lorde Jhesu'. In Add MS 24663, f. 1r, attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer and printed by William Caxton, but without ascription, in his edition of Chaucer's Anelida (cf. Skeat's Chaucer, supplementary vol., p. 450).
f. 28r: Added 15th-century four-line verses on the age of the Virgin (cf. Royal MS 8 F VI, f. 28)r, beginning, 'Virgo parens vixit sexaginta tribus annis'.
f. 28v: Added 15th-century text on a vision of St Thomas concerning the seven Joys of the Virgin, beginning, 'It is sed pat [saynt Thomas of Canterbery erased] in hys life wyrchipt our lady', (cf. a Latin text in Add MS 37787, f. 178).
f. 29v-29r: Added 15th-century hymn to the Virgin of 11lines, beginning, '[H]ayll be þou, qwen of gret honour, our lord þi hert has fild with grace'.
f. 30v-30r: Added 15th-century verses on mortality, beginning, 'Erth opon erth is vappyd and wroght',e nds 'And yit sal erth [unto?] erth lang ere þenn he wold'. A longer variant of 40 lines of the verses printed by Perry, Religious Pieces, Early English Text Society (1867), p. 95, from the Thomton manuscript at Lincoln. Other variations of these verses are now Cotton MS Titus A XXVI, f. 153r; Harley MS 1671, f. 1*r; Add MS 37788, f. 83v.
Decoration:
12 calendar pages with tinted drawings in colours of the labours of the months and the signs of the Zodiac, and various pictures and emblems representing saints' days and other feasts (ff. 5-16). The occupations of the months are January: lacking; February: digging; March: pruning; April: picking flowers; May: hawking; June: hoeing; July: moving; August: reaping; September: threshing; October: sowing; November: pig-killing; December: drinking. Various pictograms in colours throughout.
A tinted drawing of Zodiac man (f. 21r).
A volvelle in red and black with the planets and days of the months (f. 27r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107247 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 17 A XVI : Almanac, including a calendar and astronomical information - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1410]/040-002107247
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100165176538.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1420
- End Date:
- 1420
- Date Range:
- 1420
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 145 x 110 mm (written space: 110 x 80 mm).
Foliation: ff. 31 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600.British Museum in-house. Brown half-leather binding with the Royal arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers. Rebound in 1969.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Northern England (Yorkshire).
Provenance:
Inscribed with various names: 'dan Thomas Rowland, priour of [the] monastery', possibly Luffield, 1487-1494 (f. 31r); And. Jarves (f. 17); Myles Lambregos (?), f. 18; Ales Thomson de Ely (f. 21); Joh. Sumter de Thesauro (f. 24v); Rob. Howell (?) (f. 24v); Rob. Barfot (f. 25v); Will Horble, alyter Cadderon (f. 26r); Raff and Johan Jessen (f. 31r); Joh. Bestoun (f. 31); a note of money lent 'to Edward Redes wyeff' (f. 31v).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 2r); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 1633; passed to Henry Frederick, prince of Wales.
Henry Frederick (b. 1594, d. 1612), prince of Wales and eldest child of James I: his collection became part of the Royal Library: perhaps in the catalogue of 1661 (f. 35, no. 7).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Publications:
-
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, pp. 217-18.
Russell Hope Robbins, 'Popular Prayers in Middle English Verse', Modern Philology, 36.4 (1939), 337-50 (p. 344).
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 195.
A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library (London, 1979), I, no. 901.
Laurel Means, 'Ffor as muche as yche man may not have the astrolabe, Popular Middle English Variations on the Computus', Speculum, A Journal of Medieval Studies, 67.3 (1992), 595-624.
J. B. Friedman, ‘Harry the Haywarde and Talbot his god: An illustrated girdlebook from Worcestershire’, in Art into Life: Collected Papers from the Kresge Art Museum Medieval Symposia, ed. by C. G. Fisher and K. L. Scott (Michigan, 1995), pp. 115-53 (pp. 132-35).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), I, p. 68, n. 4, p. 72, n. 31, II, p. 153.
Pamela Robinson, 'A 'very curious Almanack': the gift of Sir Robert Moray FRS, 1668', Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 62 (2008), 301-14 (p. 309).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)