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Detailed record for Harley 107
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| Author |
Aelfric |
| Title |
Grammar and Glossary, imperfect (ff. 1-71v), a grammatical dialogue in Latin (ff. 71v-72v), and other short texts (see Notes) |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (Kent?) |
| Date |
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 11th century |
| Language |
English and Latin |
| Script |
Anglo-Saxon minuscule |
| Decoration |
Large initials in green or red, the red now oxidised, some with penwork decoration. Rubrics in red. |
| Dimensions in mm |
270 x 185 (210 x 145) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 1* + 73 ( + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 1* + 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1970. |
| Provenance |
? Kent: evidence of the spelling: see Ker 1957.
f. 1* r-v contains text in Latin in a 14th-century ? hand.
f. 73 is a parchment leaf with a portion of a 17th-century charter or deed in Latin.
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972).
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 |
The words ‘[Christu]s regnat. Crist rixað.......Casere’; followed by a Latin glossary of names of birds (20 lines) and fishes (2 lines) (f. 72v.) |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 107.
N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 227.
Peter Clemoes, ‘The Chronology of Aelfric’s Works’, in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture, presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. By Peter Clemoes, (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1959) pp. 212-47 [on the text generally].
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. B225, p. 58 n. 285.
Julius Zupitza, Aelfric’s Grammatik und Glossar, Text und Varianten, erste abteilung (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1880, reprinted with preface by Helmut Gneuss, 1966). [edition of the text].
Luke M. Reinsma, Aelfric, An Annotated Bibliography , Garland Reference Library, 617, (New York: Garland, 1987) pp.183-90 [on the text generally].
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 414. |
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