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Detailed record for Harley 2278
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| Author |
John Lydgate |
| Title |
Metrical lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, in the presentation copy for Henry VI |
| Origin |
England, S. (probably Bury St Edmunds) |
| Date |
between 1434 and 1439 |
| Language |
English and Latin |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Artists |
Robert Pygot, as Hand III, according to Rogers |
| Decoration |
2 full-page miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 1v, 3v). Numerous large framed rectangular miniatures in colours and gold. 1 large historiated initial in colours and gold, forming a 3-sided border (f. 10v). Large initials in colours on gold grounds, with foliate decoration extending into the margins (ff. 2, 4, 4v, 5, 6. 118v, 119v). Large initials in gold on red and blue patterned grounds, with foliate sprays in colours and/or gold extending into the margins. Large initial in green, pink, and white (f. 69v). Cadels with penwork decoration in brown and/or black. Paraphs in pink. Small initials and display script in red or blue (f. 119v). Text in red. |
| Dimensions in mm |
250 x 170 (140 x 90) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 119 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated parchment leaves at the beginning and 1 parchment leaf and 1 paper flyleaf at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling; gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
Possibly made under the supervision of John Lydgate (b. c.1370, d. 1449/50?), poet and prior of Hatfield Regis.
Commissioned by William Curteys, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of St Edmund, Bury St Edmunds, as a gift for Henry VI: the royal arms in an initial (f. 6); a portrait of the king (ff. v, 6); later royal pressmark 'No 467' (f. 1).
Thomas, baron Audley of Walden (d. 1538): inscription of Thomas Audelay 'Audelay baron' (f. 119v).
Early 18th-century inscription 'Mrs L D' (f. [ii]).
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 with the date of acquisition by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley '16 die Augusti A. D. 1720.' (f. [iii]); inscribed 'Oxford B H' (f. 2).
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 |
John Lydgate (probably from Lidgate, 10 miles from Bury), a monk of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, translated this work on the life of king Edmund and his cousin Fremund from Latin into English verse to be presented to the 12-year-old King Henry VI, to commemorate his stay at Bury from Christmas 1433 to Easter 1434.
It is likely that this manuscript was made at Bury under Lydgate's supervision for presentation to the king, and completed at some point thereafter, probably before 1439, when Lydgate began to receive a royal pension, and Abbot Wheathampstead of St Albans commissioned a similar work. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2278.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 15.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (pp. xviii, xxii).
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 36.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 91.
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 92 n. 3.
C. E. Wright, English Vernacular Hands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1960), no.18.
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. 22.
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. 56, 110, 122, 186.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 74
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 56.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 646.
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund: a Newly-Located Manuscript in Arundel Castle', Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 13 (1982), 335-66 (pp. 337, 340, 341, 351 n. 51, 352, etc., figs 7, 8).
J. J. G. Alexander, 'Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 141-62 (p. 151, pl. 11).
Nicholas J. Rogers, ‘Fitzwilliam Museum MS 3-1979: A Bury St Edmunds Book of Hours and the Origins of the Bury Style’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by David Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 229-43 (pp. 231, 235-36, pl. 4).
Two East Anglian Picture Books : A Facsimile of the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary and Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 1504, ed. by Nicholas Barker (London: The Roxburghe Club, 1988), p. 11.
Kathleen L. Scott, ‘Design, Decoration and Illustration’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 56 n. 22).
A. I. Doyle, 'Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England (c. 1375-1530)', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 1-21 (p. 7).
D. B. Mahoney, 'Courtly Presentation and Authorial Self-fashioning: Frontispiece Miniatures in Late Medieval French and English Manuscripts.', Medievalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide, 21 (1996), 97-142 (pp. 125-126).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 78, pls 310-13.
Nicholas Rogers, 'The Bury Artists of Harley 2278 and the Origins of Topographical Awareness in English Art', in Bury St Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology and Economy, ed. by A. Gransden, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 20 (Leeds, 1998), pp. 217-27.
Boccaccio visualizzato: Narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. by Vittore Branca, Biblioteca di Storia dell'arte, 30, 3 vols (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1999), III: Opere d'arte d'origine francese, fiamminga, inglese, spagnola, tedesca, pp. 277, 279.
Gothic: Art for England 1400-1547, ed. by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London: V & A Publications, 2003), no. 318, pp. 95, 181, pl. 122 [exhibition catalogue].
The Life of St Edmund, King & Martyr : John Lydgate’s Illustrated Verse Life Presented to Henry VI : a facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2278, introduction by A. S. G. Edwards (London: British Library, 2004) [facsimile].
Greg Buzwell, Saints in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), p. 45-46. |
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f. 1v
The Temptation |
f. 3v
Arms of Bury |
f. 4v
Henry VI praying |
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f. 6
Presentation of the text |
f. 6
Presentation of the text |
f. 9
Lydgate praying |
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f. 10
Alkmund and Siware |
f. 10v
David and a lion |
f. 11v
Detail |
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f. 12
Alkmund on pilgrimage |
f. 13
Detail |
f. 13v
Birth of Edmund |
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f. 16v
Offa at sea |
f. 17
Detail |
f. 18v
Detail |
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f. 19
Detail |
f. 20
Detail |
f. 20v
Detail |
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f. 21
Detail |
f. 22
Detail |
f. 22v
Offa's burial |
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f. 22v
Detail |
f. 23
Death of Offa |
f. 24
Detail |
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f. 25
Alkmund and Edmund |
f. 25
Detail |
f. 25v
Alkmund with clerks |
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f. 25v
Detail |
f. 26
Detail |
f. 27
Detail |
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f. 27v
Detail |
f. 28
Edmund praying |
f. 28
Detail |
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f. 28v
Building of Hunstanton |
f. 29
Edmund holding court |
f. 29v
Bishop Kunbertus |
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f. 30
Edmund travelling |
f. 31
Edmund's coronation |
f. 32
Detail |
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f. 34
Detail |
f. 36
Detail |
f. 37
Edmund and hunting |
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f. 39
Detail |
f. 41v
Lothbrok |
f. 42
Detail |
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f. 43v
Lothbrok hunting |
f. 44
Detail |
f. 44v
Detail |
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f. 45v
Detail |
f. 46
Detail |
f. 47
Detail |
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f. 47v
Detail |
f. 48
Detail |
f. 48v
Detail |
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f. 49v
Illuminated initial |
f. 50
Detail |
f. 52
Detail |
| |
f. 52v
Detail |
f. 54
Edmund asking advice |
f. 55v
Detail |
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f. 56v
Detail |
f. 58
Detail |
f. 58v
Detail |
| |
f. 60v
Detail |
f. 61
Detail |
f. 62
Martyrdom of Edmund |
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f. 63
Martyrdom of Edmund |
f. 63v
Edmund's head |
f. 64
Wolf with Edmund's head |
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f. 65
Edmund's body |
f. 66
Edmund's head |
f. 66
Edmund's head |
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f. 67v
Restoration |
f. 68v
Detail |
f. 69v
Decorated Initial |
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f. 70
Illuminated initial |
f. 72
Detail |
f. 72v
Rainbow |
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f. 74
Burchard writing |
f. 75
Detail |
f. 76
Detail |
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f. 77
Fremund's christening |
f. 79
Detail |
f. 79v
Detail |
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f. 80
Detail |
f. 81
Fremund at prayer |
f. 82v
Detail |
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f. 83
Detail |
f. 84v
Detail |
f. 85
Detail |
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f. 85v
Detail |
f. 86
Miniatures |
f. 86v
Fremund at battle |
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f. 87v
Detail |
f. 88
Detail |
f. 88v
Detail |
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f. 89
Fremund's head |
f. 90
Detail |
f. 90v
Detail |
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f. 91
Detail |
f. 91v
Detail |
f. 92
Detail |
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f. 92v
Detail |
f. 93v
Miniatures |
f. 94
Detail |
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f. 95
Detail |
f. 96
Detail |
f. 96v
Detail |
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f. 97
Detail |
f. 97v
Miniatures |
f. 98v
Arrival of the Danes |
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f. 100v
Detail |
f. 102v
Edmund and Ailwyn |
f. 103v
Murder of sweyn |
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ff. 105v-106
Sweyn; shrine of Edmund |
ff. 105v-106
Sweyn; shrine of Edmund |
f. 105v
Death of Sweyn |
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f. 105v
Death of Sweyn |
f. 106
Edmund's shrine |
f. 106
Woman |
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f. 106
Woman |
f. 107v
Detail |
f. 108
Detail |
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f. 108v
Edmund's shrine |
f. 109
Detail |
f. 110v
Detail |
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f. 112v
Ailwyn at Cripplegate |
f. 113v
Detail |
f. 114v
Detail |
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f. 115
Detail |
f. 115v
Bury St. Edmund's |
f. 117
Entombment of Edmund |
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