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Detailed record for Harley 3954
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| ff. 1-69v |
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| Author |
Sir John Mandeville |
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| Title |
Travels |
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| ff. 70-123v |
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| Author |
Anonymous; William Langland (ff. 92-123v) |
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| Title |
Infancy of Christ (ff. 70-74); Merits of the Mass (ff. 74-76); Virtues of Masses (ff. 76-78); Seven Virtues and Vices (ff. 78v-81); etc., Piers Plowman (ff. 92-123v) |
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| Origin |
England, E. (East Anglia) |
| Date |
2nd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Decoration |
99 coloured drawings illustrating the text, with 38 spaces left for images. |
| Dimensions in mm |
295 x 150 (225 x 95) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 124 (f. 124 is a medieval flyleaf; + 2 unfoliated original parchment leaves after f. 88; + 3 paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. |
| Provenance |
Inscribed in English, 15th century (f. 89v).
Inscribed in Latin, 15th century (f. 124).
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 |
Written in a Norfolk dialect.
Combination of the beginning of text B with the end of text A (Doyle, 1986).
Made in a vertical quarto shape, perhaps for travel or for carrying: see Scott 1996. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), II, no. 3954.
A. I. Doyle, Remarks on surviving manuscripts of Piers Plowman, Medieval English religious and ethical literature: essays in honour of George H. Russell, ed. by Gregory Kratzmann and James Simpson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), pp. 35-48 (pp. 42, 48).
William Langland, Piers Plowman: a parallel-text edition of the A, B, C and Z versions, ed. by A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Longman, 1995).
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. 70b.
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 20-21, pl. 16.
Kathryn A. Smith, Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of Hours, (London: British Library, 2003), p. 293 n. 106.
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005), p. 99, no. 1459, 'A' version.
Kathleen Scott, 'Scribal Activity in English Manuscripts c. 1400-c. 1490: A mirror of the craft?', in Pen in Hand: Medieval Scribal Portraits, Colophons and Tools, ed. by Michael Gullick (Walkern, Herts: Red Gull Press, 2006), pp. 115-49 (p. 130, fig. 24, no. 32). |
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ff. 1-69v |
| Sir John Mandeville Travels |
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f. 1
Coloured drawing |
f. 2
Mandeville |
f. 2v
Hungary |
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f. 3
Constantinople |
f. 3v
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f. 6v
Constantinople |
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f. 8v
Dragon |
f. 8v
Dragon |
f. 8v
Dragon |
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f. 9
Text |
f. 13v
Coloured drawing |
f. 14
Annunciation to the Shepherds |
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f. 21v
Text page |
f. 24
Sardenak |
f. 24v
Land of the Tartars |
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f. 29
The Ark |
f. 30
Amazons |
f. 31
Sciopod |
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f. 32
Inflammation |
f. 32
Inflammation |
f. 35
King of Ind |
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f. 36
Thomas |
f. 36v
Idol worship |
f. 40
Cannibals |
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f. 40v
Cynocephales |
f. 41
Cynocephales |
f. 42
Monstrous races |
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f. 43
Pygmies |
f. 44v
City |
f. 46
Palace |
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f. 50
Tent |
f. 54v
Griffins |
f. 61
Gerfaunts |
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f. 64
Feathered men |
f. 67v
Death rites |
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