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Detailed record for Harley 4012
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| Title |
Various religious and moral treatises including The Cleansing of Man's Soul (ff. 1-68v), a Passion poem (ff. 106-108v), Life of Catherine (ff. 115-123v), Life of Margaret (ff. 124-130), Life of Anne in verse (ff. 130v-139v), an excerpt from St Patrick's Purgatory (ff. 140-151v). |
| Origin |
England, E. |
| Date |
c. 1460 |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic (Secretary). Gothic Hybrid (Bastard Secretary). |
| Decoration |
Ink drawing of Christ on the Cross (f. 109). 10 large initials in gold and colours with acanthus leaves extending in the margins to form 2-3-sided partial borders (ff. 1, 1v, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12v, 16v, 83v, 101). Smaller initials in gold and colours with pen flourishing extending in the margins. Numerous initials in blue (sometimes with reserved designs) with red pen-flourishing. Cadels sometimes developing into a larger motif (e. g., ff. 9, 11v, 30, 67, figure on f. 33v, fish on f. 45v, faces on ff. 101v-102), scrolls wrapped around ascenders (e.g., ff. 50v-51, 52). |
| Dimensions in mm |
280 x 195 (200 x 135) |
| Official foliation |
ff. i* + 153 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 101 + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 151 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end) |
| Collation |
i-xix8 (ff. 1-151). |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. BM/BL in-house. |
| Provenance |
Added inscription, 15th century (f. 152v).
Anne Wingfield (b. c. 1426, d. 1500), daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Harling and Jane Gonvile, East Anglian resident, with connections to, among others, Sir John Fastolf and the Pastons: inscribed, 15th century, 'Thys ys the boke of dame Anne Wyngefeld of Har[l]yng' (f. 153, visible under ultra-violet light); may have been made for her (see Dutton, 'Piety, Politics and Persona' (2000) and Jenkins, 'St Katherine and Laywomen's Piety' (2003)).
Thomas Rawlinson (b. 1681, d. 1725), book collector: borrowed from him in 1720 by Thomas Hearne, antiquary and diarist (bap. 1678, d. 1735), inscribed 'Lent me by Thomas Rawlinson Esq. Read over in 1720. Tho. Hearne' (f. i*), sold to Edward Harley in the sale of Rawlinson's manuscripts on 4 March 1734 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (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 ‘20 die mensis Januarij, A.D. 1721/22’ (f. 1); inscribed 'Oxford B.H.' (f. 1).
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 |
For a more detailed list of contents, see Catalogue 1808.
f. [iv] is a former pastedown.
ff. 1-68v: prologue (f. 1); 'A shewing in generall wordis that a sawle corruptithe with synne hit must be waishid and clensid from the filthe of sinne…'.
ff. 69-72: 'The Charter of our eritage'.
f. 73: 'Foure thingis be nedefull to evere Cristen man and woman to rule theein be to obtayne the blisse of heuen'.
ff. 73-77: 'Here is the mirroure of sinnes'.
ff. 77v-78: 'Theis be the wordis that our saueoure Iehsu spake to his holy spouse and virgen Sent Moll in al thi werkis kepe iii thingis in thi mynde'.
ff. 79-83: 'Here beginneth a tretes of mekeues withoute whiche noman maie come to ane other vertu or loue of godd for hit is the grounde of all perfeccion of goone and vertue'.
ff. 83v-100v: 'Here foloing be the artikill of the faith redy for every man to rede and se'.
ff. 101-102: chapter list for the following treatise.
ff. 103- 103v: Mirror of St Edmund, imperfect.
ff. 104-105v: treatise on 'fowre maner of wasshingis', imperfect at beginning.
ff. 106-108v: 'Iehsu the sonne of mare mylde', verse.
ff. 109-109v: 'Ho sumener saith this praier in the worship of the passion shall haue C. 3ere of pardon'.
ff. 110-113: '…the pardon of the monastery of Shene whiche is Syon'.
ff. 113v-114v: 'Here is foling a short and a frutefull tretes how that ther was assembelid viii wide men and masters for to declare what meret tribulacion is for manne mekely sufferd'.
ff. 115-123v: Prose Life of St Catherine.
ff. 124-130: Prose Life of St Margaret.
ff. 130v-139v: Verse Life of St Anne.
ff. 140-151v: Verse Life of St Patrick.
f. 152v: copy of a quitclaim, Binham (Norfolk), dated 10 July, 20 Henry VII (1505). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4012.
Carleton Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 156-58.
Auvo Kurvinen, ‘MS. Porkington 10: Description with extracts’, Extrait du Bulletin de la Société néo-philologique de Helsinki (Finlande), Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 54 (1953), 33-67 (p. 52).
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. 282-83.
Edward Wilson, 'A Middle English Manuscript at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, and British Library MS Harley 4012', Notes and Queries, 222 (July-Aug. 1977), 295-303.
Edward Wilson, 'An Unpublished Passion Poem in British Library Harley MS. 4012', Notes and Queries, 222 (1977), 485-88.
Robert Easting, 'The Middle English 'Hearne Fragment of St Patrick's Purgatory', Notes and Queries, 35 (1988), 436-37.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books: Ideals and Reality in the Life and Library of a Medieval Prince (Stroud, Gloucestershire, Sutton, 1997), p. 68n.
Anne M. Dutton, 'Piety, Politics and Persona: MS Harley 4012 and Anne Harling', in Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. by Felicity Riddy, York Manuscripts Conferences: Proceedings Series, 4 (York: York Medieval Press, 2000), pp. 133-46.
A. S. G. Edwards, 'Fifteenth-Century English Collections of Female Saints' Lives', The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), 131-41 (p. 138).
Jacqueline Jenkins, 'St Katherine and Laywomen's Piety: the Middle English prose life in London, British Library, Harley MS 4012', in St Katherine of Alexandria: Texts and Contexts in Western Medieval Europe, ed. by Jacqueline Jenkins and Katherine J. Lewis, Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 153-70.
Kari Anne Rand, 'The Syon Pardon Sermon: Contexts and Texts', in Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell, ed. by Martha W. Driver and Veronica O'Mara (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 317-49 (pp. 331-332, 342). |
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f. 1
Illuminated initial |
f. 109
Crucifixion |
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