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Detailed record for Harley 6149
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| Author |
Adam Loutfut (author and compiler) |
| Title |
Various heraldic treatises, including 'the Gaige of Battail' (ff. 1-5), heraldic treatise by Adam Loutfut (ff. 5-44), 'The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry', translation of the French version of Ramon Lull's 'Le libre del ordre de cavayleria' (ff. 83-109), a poem on heraldry (ff. 151-155), Tractatus de nobilitate (ff. 155-164v), De duellis (ff. 164v-173v), imperfect |
| Origin |
Scotland |
| Date |
c. 1494 |
| Language |
English and Latin (only ff. 79-81, 127-128v, 155-173v) |
| Script |
Gothic cursive, 1st line in Gothic non-cursive script (f. 1) |
| Decoration |
Numerous coats of arms in colours. Initials in red ink, some with reserved areas, some with penwork decoration (ff. 96, 98, 106v). 10 large initials with cadels in brown and/or red ink (ff. 10, 72v, 109v, 111, 111v, 112, 116v, 126, 126v, 127v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
255 x 200 (190 x 125) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 173 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end) |
| Form |
Paper and parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Adam Loutfut, Scottish scribe who was in the service of Sir William Cummyn of Inverellochy, Marchemond Herald and (after 1512) Lyon King of Arms: colophon dated 1494 at the end of the 2nd text: 'Explicit iste liber honorabili armigero Wilelmo Cummyn de Inverellochy alias marchamond heraldo p[er?] Ad[am] Loutfut. Anno dm mo ccco nonamo quarto [...] ?xxix Septembrii' (f. 44) and inscribed 'en eftyr folowis ane lytil treaty of the Instruccion of the figures of armes and of the blasoning of the samyn eftir the fraynche oppinyon translatit owt of fraynche in Scottes at the Co[m]mand of an wirschepfull man Wilzim Cumyn of Inuerellochy al[ia]s Marchemond herald be his obedient sone in the office of armes Kintyr purseuant and undir his correccion as eftir folowis be cheptours' (see Byles 1926).
Inscribed 'Michall' (f. 16), 'George Lee' (ff. 17, 20, 25) and 'George Lee Michall' in pencil: 18th century (f. 24v). Inscribed in the same hand 'John Lee' in pencil: 18th century (ff. 24v, 26v).
Various inscriptions (ff. 77, 145).
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 |
This manuscript was compiled in 1494 by Adam Loutfut, a Scottish scribe who was in the service of Sir William Cummyn of Inverellochy, Marchemond Herald and (after 1512) Lyon King of Arms (see 'Provenance' and Byles 1926). ff. 1-44 and 83-173v are in the hand of Adam Loutfut who also wrote the passage on f. 78 (see 'Provenance') announcing a text that is missing.
Catchwords.
Parchment was used for the outside bifolio of most quires (ff. 9-10, 19-20, 30, 39-40, 49-50, 59-60, 67-68, 75-76, 83, 94-95, 105-106, 117-118, 129-130, 141-142, 153-154, 166-167).
The paper contains various watermarks, the two most common being a coat of arms and a unicorn. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 6149.
Queene Elizabethes Achademy, ed. by F. J. Furnivall (London: Early English Text Society, 1869), pp. 93-104 [text of the poem on heraldry at ff. 151-155 in the present manuscript].
John Robert Horne Stevenson, Heraldry in Scotland. Including a recension of ’The Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland’ by the late George Seton, 2 vols (Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons, 1914), I, p. 25 n. 2.
The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, translated and printed by William Caxton from a French version of Ramon Lull's 'Le libre del ordre de cavayleria' together with Adam Loutfut's Scottish Transcript (Harley 6149), ed. by Alfred T. P. Byles (London: Early English Text Society, 1926), pp. xxvi-xxx [concerns the text at ff. 83-109 in the present manuscript].
Terence O'Neill, 'Adam Loutfut's Book', The Coat of Arms, 4-32 (1957), 307-10.
'The Scottish Prose version of Vegetius 'De re militari'', Studies in Scottish Literature, 8 (1970-1971), 174-83.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 121.
L. A. J. R. Houwen, The Deidis of Armorie: A Heraldic Treatise and Bestiary, 2 vols (The Scottish Text Society 1994), II, pp. xxxv-lv.
The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages, ed. by David Badke, [http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manulocshelf.htm] [accessed 14 August 2009]. |
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f. 12v
Heraldry |
f. 13
Heraldry |
f. 15v
Heraldry |
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f. 16
Heraldry |
f. 16v
Heraldry |
f. 17
Heraldry |
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f. 24
Heraldry |
ff. 28v-29
Heraldry |
f. 28v
Heraldry |
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f. 29
Heraldry |
f. 30
Heraldry |
f. 30
Mermaid with mirror |
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ff. 32v-33
Heraldry |
f. 32v
Heraldry |
f. 33
Heraldry |
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f. 126
Explicit |
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