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Detailed record for Harley 4350
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| Author |
Various authors including Robert Grosseteste , Johannes de Sacro Bosco , Jordanus de Nemore, Albumasar |
| Title |
Various astronomical and calendrical texts including Grosseteste's Computus correctorius (ff. 4-15), Sacro Bosco's Algorismus (ff. 15v-25v), Nemore's De plana sphaera (ff. 30-36v), Albumasar's De floribus astrorum (ff. 43v-67v), and a glossed Computus with calendar (ff. 68-119v) |
| Origin |
France and England (ff. 114-119v only) |
| Date |
2nd half of the 13th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Gothic, written below top line |
| Scribe |
Written by different scribes |
| Decoration |
5 historiated initials in colours and gold (a man writing numbers (f. 15v)), with a tendril extending into the margin (a man holding an orb (f. 4), a man holding an astrolabe (f. 31; cockerell head and dragon head included in the body of the initial), and a man ?reading (f. 68v)). Diagrams and tables in brown and red ink with yellow (ff. 1, 74, 80v, 89, 90, 101, 111v-113, 118), geometrical diagrams in red (ff. 31-36, 69v, 70v). Initials in colours and gold (ff. 30, 38, 43v, 68). Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Capitals marked with yellow. Paraphs in red or blue. Catchwords written on a fish (f. 75v), on a pointing hand (f. 83v), on knotwork (f. 91v), or on an ornate panel (f. 99v), in brown and yellow. The style of the catchword decoration and of some diagrams seems to be influenced by Islamic designs. |
| Dimensions in mm |
185 x 130 (various) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 123 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unwritten parchment bifolio at the beginning + 1 unfoliated unwritten leaf after f. 2 + 1 unwritten parchment bifolio and 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1970. |
| Provenance |
Added table for the years 1140 to 1544, ?14th century (concerned with bissextile years; f. 120v).
Added texts and inscriptions in various medieval hands (ff. 1v-2, 121, 123).
Added annotations in a medieval hand concerning the appearance of a comet in the Paris sky in 1264, also date of 1265 (f. 25v).
Added inscription, post-medieval (f. 3).
Pen trials and list of contents, 18th century (f. 121v).
James Woodman (d. 1728), London bookseller: acquired from Woodman by Edward Harley on 2 July 1724 (f. 1; see 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 ‘2 Julij 1724’ (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 |
Composite manuscript.
Containing a calendar with English saints (ff. 114-119v): including Kentegerni (written over an erasure, in a late 13th-century hand?), Cuthberti, Oswaldi.
For a more detailed list of contents, see Catalogue 1808.
Catchwords written horizontally.
ff. 37r-v, 113v, 120, 123v are blank.
f. 123 is a former pastedown.
f. 122 has been partly excised and repaired. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4350.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 296 n. 3.
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. 358-59. |
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f. 4
Man holding an orb |
f. 15v
Man writing numbers |
f. 31
Detail |
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f. 31
Man with astrolabe |
f. 68v
Man reading |
f. 68v
Detail |
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