Harley MS 110, ff 56r-56v

Origin: Old Minster, Winchester in the mid-11th century (Bell, Music (2001), p. 59).

Provenance:

Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary: owned (see the catalogue of his library, Additional MS 22918, no. 257, ed. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966), no. A 257). His note on f. 1r shows that the gradual was bound with the tenth-century patristic texts on ff. 2-55 by his lifetime: 'Epigrammata Prosperi, exemplar vetustissimum et magni aestimandum...' (f. 1r).

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet: owned (see Bernard, Catalogi (1697), no. 10046 (p. 388)). Later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1966)).

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, née Cavendish 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.