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Detailed record for Harley 3860
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| Author |
Robert Grosseteste, William of Waddington and others |
| Title |
Brief History of the Kings of England and Scotland up to Henry III (Brevis historia Regum Angliae et Scotiae usque ad Henricum III), Story of the Seven Sages of Rome (L'estoire de 7 Sages de Roume), Castle of Love (Le Château d'Amour), Manuel des Péchés (Books VII and VIII), and Omnes articuli fidei Christianae, imperfect |
| Origin |
England, N. (possibly Durham) |
| Date |
1st quarter of the 14th century |
| Language |
Latin and French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Scribe |
Written by more than one scribe |
| Decoration |
Tinted drawing of Locrini, Kambrini, and Albanactis and a puzzle initial in red and blue (f. 3). Marginal drawings in brown, yellow and red (ff. 23, 25, 26, 27v, 28v, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 41, 42v, 48 (and a rare depiction of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, f. 48). Geneaological diagrams of English and Scottish kings in brown, red, and yellow with busts of kings and queens and crowns (ff. 12-18). Large puzzle initials in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours (ff. 48, 61v). Large initials in blue with red and blue pen-flourishing. Plain initials in blue or red. Rubrics in red. Paraphs in red or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
270 x 160 (195 x 120) some folios in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 82 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Tan leather with gold-tooling. |
| Provenance |
The Benedictine cathedral priory of St Cuthbert, Durham: 'no internal evidence but on the basis that it belonged to Sir Thomas Tempest' (according to Wright 1972).
Thomas Tempest (d. 1743), 4th baronet, county Durham: inscribed, 'Sr Tho. Tem. Baronet' (f. 3).
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 Cavendish, née 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 |
ff. 1-2 are parchment leaves inscribed with added text in a cursive hand. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3860.
Harry Leigh Douglas Ward and John Alexander Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II, pp. 199-206 and III, pp. 296-97.
J. Murray, Le Chateau d'Amour de Robert Grosseteste (Paris: Edouard Champion, 1918), p. 25.
Emile Jules Arnould, Le Manuel des Péchés; étude de littérature religieuse anglo-normande, XIIIe siècle (Paris: Droz, 1940), pp. 385-86.
S. Harrison Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge: University Press, 1940), pp. 152-55.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 142, 325.
Anthony Ian Doyle, 'The Library of Sir Thomas Tempest. Its Origins and Dispersal', in Studies in Seventeenth-Century English Literature, History and Bibliography, ed. by G.A.M. Janssens and F.G.A.M. Aarts (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1984), p. 83.
Matthew Sullivan, 'Historical Notes on Some Readers of the Manuel des Péchés and its Middle English Descendants' Scriptorium: Revue internationale des Études relatives aux manuscrits, 46 (1992), pp. 84-86 (p. 84).
Matthew Sullivan, 'A Brief Textual History of the Manuel des Péchés, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93 (1992), pp. 337-45 (p. 342). |
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f. 3
Locrini, Kambrini, and Albanactis |
f. 31
An empress |
f. 48
Robert Grossteste, bishop of Lincoln |
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f. 48
Robert Grossteste, bishop of Lincoln |
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