|
|
|
|
|
|
Detailed record for Harley 4327
|
|
|
|
| Title |
Psalter, with a calendar |
| Origin |
France, N. E. (Metz) |
| Date |
c. 1365 |
| Language |
French with some Latin |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
17 initials in colours and gold with rinceaux decoration extending into the margins (ff. 21, 50v, 69v, 88, 106, 128v, 170v, 234, 240v, 248v, 252v, 255v, 257v, 260, 264v, 268, 286v). Similar initials in colours and gold without marginal extensions. Champ intials. Plain initials in red and blue. Rubrics in red. Marginal notes for rubricator. |
| Dimensions in mm |
140 x 110 (100 x 70) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 331 (+ 4 unfoliated paper + 1 parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 4 paper flyleaves at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house; rebound in 1965. |
| Provenance |
Inscription, probably relating to ownership (f. 330v).
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 |
There is a marginal inscription with the date 1365 on f. 214.
ff. 330 and 331 (both flyleaves) are reused folios from another manuscript. Both leaves have text in Gothic script and f. 330 has an inscription in a cursive hand on on the verso. The French prayers on these reused leaves are not in the Lorraine dialect ('langue messin'), and they refer to various biblical figures, including Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego who were thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar.
There are single blank parchment leaves after ff. 20 and 233.
The calendar is complete.
Horizontal catchwords. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4327.
Samuel Berger, La Bible française au Moyen Âge. Étude sur les plus anciennes versions de la Bible écrites en prose de langue d'oïl (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1884), pp. 270-80, 400.
François Bonnardot, Le Psautier de Metz, texte du XIVe siècle. Édition critique publiée d'apres quatre manuscrits par François Bonnardot Bibliothèque française du Moyen Âge, 3 (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1884), [an edition of the text of the Lorraine/Metz Psalter, with variants from Harley 4327]. |
|
|
