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Detailed record for Harley 652
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| Part 1 |
ff. 1-216v |
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| Title |
Homiliary |
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| Origin |
England, S. E. (Canterbury) |
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| Date |
last quarter of the 11th century or 1st quarter of the 12th century |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Caroline minuscule |
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| Artists |
The initials by the same artist as Canterbury Cathedral MS Lit. A. 8: see Gameson 2008. |
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| Decoration |
Large historiated initial in colours with the head of Christ and entwined animals (f. 1). Large initial in colours with entwined animals and head terminals. Large initials in red, green, yellow, purple, or blue, some with penwork decoration. Small initials in brown, green or blue. Rubrics in red. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
350 x 235 (270 x 170) in two columns |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 1*-4* |
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| Author |
Alanus de Farfa |
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| Title |
Homiliarium |
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| Origin |
France, N. E. |
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| Date |
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 9th century |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Caroline minuscule |
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| Decoration |
Large initials in brown with penwork decoration. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
340 x 230 (320 x 200) |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 1*-4* + 216 ( + an unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and 2 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1986. |
| Provenance |
The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury: liturgical evidence; corresponds to the 14th century catalogue number inscribed 'D.x.g.ii' (f. 4*).
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 |
The manuscript also includes a series of lives of saints connected to St. Augustine's:
'In translatione sanctae Myldrithae virginis' (ff. 209v-210);
'In festivitate sancti Adriani Abbatis' (ff. 210 -211v);
'Lectiones de sancto Laurentio archiepiscopo' (ff. 211v-212v);
'De sancto Iusto archiepiscopo' (ff. 213-214);
'De sancto Honorio archiepiscopo' (ff. 214v - 215);
'De sancto Theodoro archiepiscopo' (ff. 216r-216v).
The lives are abbreviatons of those written by Goscelin of Canterbury (see Cotton Vespasian B XX and Harley 105). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 652.
C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 122.
Andrew G. Watson, 'An Identification of some Manuscripts owned by Dr. John Dee and Sir Simonds D'Ewes', The Library, 5th series, 13 (1958), 194-98 (p. 197).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 44.
C. Lambot, 'Le sermon CCXXIV de saint Augustin et sese recensions interpolées', Revue Benedictine 79 (1969), 195-205 (p. 200) (this MS. as 'h3').
Anne Lawrence, ‘Manuscripts of Early Anglo-Norman Canterbury’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Canterbury before 1220, ed. by Nicola Coldstream and Peter Draper, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 5, 1979 (Maney and Son, Leeds, 1982), pp. 101-11 (pp. 102, 105).
Mary Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78, part 3 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1988), p.109.
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 423.9 (ff. 1*-4*), no. 424.
Richard Gameson, ‘L’Angleterre et la Flandre aux Xe et XIe siècles: le témoignage des manuscrits’, in Les Échanges culturels au Moyen A^ge, Série Histoire Ancienne et Médiévale, 70 (Paris: Sorbonne, 2002), pp. 165-206, (p. 183) [ff. 1*-4*].
Richard Gameson, 'La Normandie et l'Angleterre au Xie siècle: Le temoignage des manuscrits', in La Normandie et l'Angleterre au Moyen A^ge, Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle, 4-7 octobre 2001, ed. by Pierre Bouet and Véronique Gazeau (Caen: CRAHM, 2003), pp. 129-159 (p. 148 n. 78).
Richard Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral: Manuscripts and Fragments to c. 1200 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2008), pp. 194.
Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: University Press, 2009), p. 117. |
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Part 1
ff. 1-216v |
| Homiliary |
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f. 1
Inhabited initial |
f. 1
Inhabited initial |
f. 160
Inhabited initial |
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f. 160
Inhabited initial |
f. 209v
Coloured initials |
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Part 2
ff. 1*-4* |
| Alanus de Farfa Homiliarium |
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f. 1*
Decorated initial |
f. 4*
Decorated initial |
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