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Detailed record for Harley 261
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| Author |
William of Malmesbury, Henry of Sawtrey |
| Title |
Gesta regum Anglorum (ff. 4-103v); Gesta pontificum Anglorum (ff. 108-167); Henry of Sawtrey's De purgatorio S. Patricii (ff. 167v-175) |
| Origin |
England, S. (Rochester?) |
| Date |
Last quarter of the 12th or 1st quarter of the 13th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Protogothic, written above the top line |
| Decoration |
3 initials in red and green or in red and blue with penwork decoration in red or blue (ff. 58v, 73, 93). Some large and numerous smaller initials in red, green, blue or, rarely, in light brown, occasionally and after f. 108 frequently with penwork decoration in red and/or blue. Rubrics and running headers (ff. 4v-103) in red. |
| Dimensions in mm |
300 x 210 (220 x 150) in 2 columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 175 (+ 3 paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end of the manuscript) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Remains of the previous binding (gold- and blind-tooled dark brown leather) pasted on the inside covers; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Up until the 17th century, Harley 23 formed ff. 173-223 of this manuscript.
The cathedral priory of St Andrew, Rochester; perhaps owned by Alexander, precentor of Rochester in the early 13th century: inscribed, late 13th/14th century 'Liber de claust(ro) Roffens(is). Alexand(er) p(re)ce(ntor)' (f. 4); (for this type of ownership-inscription and its reliability see English Benedictine Libraries. The Shorter Catalogues, ed. by R. Sharpe, J. P. Carley, R. M. Thomson and A. G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London: British Library, 1996), pp. 465-467; see ibid. p. 526 for information on Alexander, the precentor); perhaps no. 120 ('Hystoria Willelmi Malmesburiensis') in the library catalogue of 1202 (the entry is identified with this manuscript in Medieval Libraries 1964 and Richards 1988; but not in English Benedictine Libraries, p. 512, B79.120).
Added notes by various 13th-17th century hands (ff. 1-3v, 103v-107v) including notes on monastic foundations, verses, an index to the Gesta regum Anglorum (ff. 103v-106v) and a list of contents recording texts contained in both Harley 261 and 23 (the list is written on f. 2 in a 13th-century hand): see A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts 1808, p. 100).
Robertus, 16th century: inscribed with this name (f. 2v).
P. W., 16th/17th century: inscribed with these initials (f. 4).
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972): annotated the list of contents (f. 2) and added no '13' (f. 4); the manuscript is recorded in his catalogue as no. A278 (see Watson 1966).
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson 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. |
| Notes |
Part 2 of this manuscript is Harley 23.
Two sets of quire marks (in the centre of the lower margin of the verso of the last leaf of the quires) for ff. 4-108 ('i'-'xiii') and ff. 108-155 ('i'-'vi'); catchwords.
Perhaps the exemplar for Harley 528 (see Watson 1966, p. 331 (A108)). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), no. 261.
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II (1893), pp. 457-58.
C. H. Talbot, ‘A List of Cistercian Manuscripts in Great Britain’, Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 8 (1952), 402-18 (p. 410).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 161.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), pp. 124, 135 (no. A278, X108).
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. 48, 131, 264, 288.
Mary P. Richards, 'Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 78 (1988), i-xii, 1-129 (p. 35). |
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