|
|
|
|
|
|
Detailed record for Harley 2795
|
|
|
|
| Title |
Gospels, with prologues, and capitula (ff. 227-241) |
| Origin |
France, Central (Loire valley) |
| Date |
9th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Caroline minuscule |
| Decoration |
Canon tables in colours and gold, with architectural frames, and birds (ff. 9-12v). Large initials in gold with a red outline (ff. 1, 4, 6v, 7v, 13, 18v, 75, 78v, 113, 120v, 183, 186). Headings in gold, some with an outline in red or in red. Small initials and numbers in gold. Small initials in red. Text entirely in gold or red. Small stylised leaves in red or blue, some with gold, in certain headings (ff. 13, 76, 78, 113, 184). |
| Dimensions in mm |
280 x 205 (190 x 120) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 241 (5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. The previous covers of brown leather with gold tooling affixed to the inside covers; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Small fragment with inscription (5th flyleaf).
Johann Georg Graevius (b. 1632, d. 1703), German classical scholar and critic: possibly sold to Wilhelm in 1703 with the rest of his library (see Wright 1972).
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (b. 1658, d. 1716), owner of a library in Düsseldorf: bought the entire Graevius library in 1703 (see Clark 1891; Wright 1972).
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 '8 die Mensis Augusti A. D. 1724' (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. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), I, no. 2795.
[E. Maunde Thompson and G. F. Warner], Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1881-1884), Part II Latin, p. 31.
A. C. Clark, 'The Library of J. G. Graevius', The Classical Review, 5 (1891), 365-372 (p. 367, 369).
Wilhelm Köhler, 'Die Karolingishen Miniaturen', in Zweiter Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 52-77 (p. 57).
Eric Millar, Souvenir de l’Exposition de Manuscrits Français à Peintures organisée a la Grenville Library (British Museum) in Janvier-Mars 1932 (Paris: Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits à Peintures, 1933), no. 4.
Theodor Klauser, Das ro¨mische capitulare evangeliorum: Texte und Untersuchungen zu seiner a¨ltesten Geschichte, Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen. 28 (Munster: Aschendorffschen, 1935), p. L no. 167*.
Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and David Ganz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 17.
Bonifatius Fischer, Die Lateinischen Evangelien bis zum 10. Jahrhundert, 4 vols (Freiburg: Herder, 1988-91), I: Varianten zu Matthäus, Vetus Latina die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel: Aus der Geschichte der Lateinischen Bibel, 13, p. 27*.
Margaret T. Gibson, The Bible in the Latin West, The Medieval Book, 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), no. 5.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 42, fig. 29. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
f. 9
Canon tables |
ff. 9v-10
Canon tables |
f. 20
Illuminated letters |
| |
f. 78v
Illuminated letters |
f. 79
Illuminated initials |
|
|
|
|
