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Detailed record for Harley 326
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| Title |
Edward's IV's Descent from Rollo (ff. 1-7); Romance of the Three Kings' Sons (ff. 8-123) |
| Origin |
England, S. (probably London) |
| Date |
c. 1475 - c. 1485 |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Artists |
The Three Kings' Master |
| Decoration |
4 half-page miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 8, 9, 13v, 29v). 18 smaller miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 40, 45v, 67v, 77, 88v, 90, 96v, 98v, 99v, 102, 105v, 106v, 107v, 108v, 109v, 113, 117v, 120v ). 1 large initial in colours and gold with acanthus motifs (f. 8). Large champ initials. Paraphs in red or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
Part 1: 235 x 175 (180 x 115) Part 2: 235 x 175 (220 x 145) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 123 ( + 3 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Paper and parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather with the gold-tooled arms of Sir Simonds d'Ewes in the centre of the upper and lower covers; gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972).
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson 1966).
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 is the only fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript of a romance in English to survive, according to Sutton and Visser-Fuchs 1997.
'This manuscript contains the sole surviving translation in Middle English of the Romance of the Three Kings' Sons, a text that had been copied in French in 1463 (Paris, B.N. fr. 92) by David Aubert, a Burgudian court scribe, entrepreneur and possibly author of the romance' (Scott 1996, p. 332).
The manuscript has been severely trimmed.
ff. 1-7 (Edward IV's Descent from Rollo) is written on paper. This section of the manuscript is not illuminated.
Ruled in ink.
The same artist painted the miniatures in London Lambeth Palace 265, dated by its scribe to 1477 (according to Scott 1996, no. 125). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 326.
H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I (1883), p. 782.
The Three Kings' Sons, ed. by F. J. Furnivall, Early English Text Society 67 (London: Early English Text Society, 1895).
The Buik of Alexander, ed. by Robert Lindsay Graeme Ritchie, Scottish Text Society, 4 vols (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1925), I, p. xliv n. 6.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 93.
A Manual of the Writings in Middle-English 1050-1500, ed. by J. Burke Severs, 4 vols (New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967-73), I, pp. 163, 321.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p 131.
Henry Grinberg, 'The Three Kings' Sons and Les Trois Fils du Rois: Manuscript and Textual Filiation in an Anglo-Burgundian Romance,' Romance Philology, 28 (1975), 521-29.
Carol Meale, 'Patrons, Buyers and Owners: Book Production and Social Status', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 201-38 (p. 212, pls 19, 20).
Kathleen L. Scott, ‘Design, Decoration and Illustration’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 31-64 (p. 58 n. 37).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 124.
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. 239, fig. 74.
Pamela Porter, Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2000), p. 33.
Pamela Porter, Courtly Love in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 16.
Raluca Radulescu, 'Yorkist Propaganda and "The Chronicle from Rollo to Edward IV"', Studies in Philology, 100 (2003), pp. 401-24.
Jane Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 247.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pls 92, 93. |
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f. 9
Marriage of king Alfour and princess Sybil |
f. 9
Marriage of king Alfour and princess Sybil |
f. 13v
Prince Philip leaving Paris |
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f. 13v
Prince Philip leaving Paris |
f. 13v
Prince Philip leaving Paris |
f. 29v
The Christian fleet |
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f. 29v
The Christian fleet |
f. 40
A storm destroying the Christian fleet |
f. 40
A storm destroying the Christian fleet |
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f. 67v
The Turks withdrawing their seige |
f. 67v
The Turks withdrawing their seige |
f. 67v
The Turks withdrawing their siege |
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f. 88v
Messengers delivering a message to a king |
f. 90
The Turkish army |
f. 90
The Turkish army |
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f. 90
The Turkish army |
f. 96v
Princes taking leave of Ferant |
f. 96v
Princes taking leave of Ferant |
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f. 96v
Princes taking leave of Ferant the Turk |
f. 98v
The coronation of the emperor |
f. 98v
The coronation of the emperor |
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f. 99v
Two men embracing |
f. 99v
Two men embracing |
f. 102
Prince Humphrey receiving the news of his father's illness |
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f. 102
Prince Humphrey receiving the news of his father's illness |
f. 102
Prince Humphrey |
f. 105v
The king receiving messengers |
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f. 105v
The king receiving messengers |
f. 105v
The king receiving messengers |
f. 108v
Various rulers greeting king Humphrey of England |
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f. 108v
Various rulers greeting king Humphrey of England |
f. 108v
Various rulers greeting king Humphrey of England |
f. 113
Knights jousting |
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f. 117v
The wedding of Philip of France and Iolante of Sicily |
f. 117v
The wedding of Philip of France and Iolante of Sicily |
f. 120v
King Philip and Queen Iolante |
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