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Detailed record for Harley 2320
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| Title |
Astrological treatises and treatise on lace-making, imperfect. |
| Origin |
England |
| Date |
1st quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Artists |
Attributed to the style of Johannes (ff. 5, 31) and of Herman Scheerre (f. 52) (Scott 1996). |
| Decoration |
2 large historiated initials combined with a full border of acanthus and other foliate motifs (f. 5: man kneeling, f. 31: scribe ?writing). 1 historiated initial with a lady making lace (f. 52). Smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing adopting foliate patterns. Initials in red or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
155-145 x 120 (100 x 75) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 74 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Remains of the previous binding (gold- and blind-tooled dark brown sprinkled leather) pasted on the inside covers. |
| Provenance |
Added inscriptions and texts including recipes, 15th -16th century (ff. 70v, 71, 72v-74).
Inscribed in red in English, 16th century: inscribed 'Born the 5 of September in the morn. 1552. Richerd Havell. Richerd Hooper, Maud Derrye' (f. 19v) .
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 as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘16 July 1720’ (f. 1).
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. |
| Notes |
Begins with a calendar (imperfect).
Catchwords.
For a more detailed list of contents, see Catalogue 1808. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2320.
Rossel Hope Robbins, ‘English Almanacks of the Fifteenth Century’, Philological Quarterly 18, 4 (1939), 321-331 (p. 321, n. 2).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 61 n. 4.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 346-47.
E. G. Stanley, ‘Directions for making many sorts of laces’, Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Russell Hope Robbins, ed. by Beryl Holland (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1974), 89-103.
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. 72 n. 25 and II, p. 78.
Catalogued for the Harley Medical Manuscripts Project [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/INDEX.asp], accessed 29 May 2008. |
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f. 5
Historiated initial |
f. 31
Historiated initial |
f. 52
Historiated initial |
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f. 52
Historiated initial |
f. 52v
Text page |
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