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Harley Ch 43 A 14
- Record Id:
- 040-003380324
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002404891
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100048357607.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100171735443.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley Ch 43 A 14
- Title:
-
Birth amulet with prayers and invocations to Sts Cyricus and Julitta
- Scope & Content:
-
An amulet in roll form, thought to have been used as a birth girdle.
Headed with a diagram of a cross, followed by a text in Middle English invoking the protection of the Cross on the wearer, with specific reference to childbirth. This is followed by prayers in Latin, invoking Sts Cyricus and Julitta in suffering and death, similar to other surviving examples. Printed by Bühler, ‘Prayers and Charms in Certain Middle English Scrolls’ (1964), pp. 274–75.
Decoration:
Diagram of a cross (approximately to the scale of fifteen times the height of a human figure, as specified in the text). Two-line initial in black opening the second section.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002404891
040-003380324 - Is part of:
- Harley Ch : Harley Charters
Harley Ch 43 A 14 : Birth amulet with prayers and invocations to Sts Cyricus and Julitta - Hierarchy:
- 032-002404891[0045]/040-003380324
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley Ch
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 roll
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100171735443.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1424
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Dimensions: 475 × 70 mm (trimmed).
Foliation: One membrane, attached to two pieces of modern parchment for conservation.
Script: Gothic cursive.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England. The final prayer is for a ‘Willelmo’.
Provenance:
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:
-
Curt F. Bühler, ‘Prayers and Charms in Certain Middle English Scrolls’, Speculum, 39.2 (1964), 270–78, https://doi.org/10.2307/2852729.
Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 305.
Thomas Forrest Kelly, The Exultet in Southern Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 19.
Carole Rawcliffe, ‘Women, childbirth, and religion in later medieval England’, in Women and religion in medieval England, ed. by Diana Wood (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003), 91–117 (p. 116).
Mary Agnes Edsall, ‘Alongside St Margaret: The Childbirth Cult of Saints Quiricus and Julitta in Late Medieval English Manuscripts’, in Manuscripts and printed books in Europe, 1350–1550: Packaging, presentation and consumption, ed. by Emma Cayley and Susan Powell (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), pp. 187–206 (pp. 195–99, 202–05).
Mary Agnes Edsall, ‘Arma Christi Rolls or Textual Amulets? The Narrow Roll Format Manuscripts of “O Vernicle”’, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 9.2 (2014), pp. 178–209 (p. 194 n. 50), https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2014.0019.
Mary Morse, ‘‘“Thys moche more ys oure Lady Mary longe”: Takamiya MS 56 and the English birth girdle tradition’, Middle English Texts in Transition: A Festschrift Dedicated to Toshiyuki Takamiya on His 70th Birthday (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2014), pp. 199–219 (pp. 201, 203, 209n, 212).
Peter Murray Jones and Lea T. Olsan, ‘Performative Rituals for Conception and Childbirth in England, 900–1500’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 89.3 (2015), 406–33, https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2015.0076.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)