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Detailed record for Harley 4196
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| Author |
Walton Hilton |
| Title |
Miscellany, including the Prick of Conscience and the Expanded Northern Homily Cycle |
| Origin |
England, N. |
| Date |
Last quarter of the 14th century or 1st quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Scribe |
Written by four scribes |
| Decoration |
Large initials in gold on grounds of blue and pink with painted flourishes at the beginning of each new narrative section. Cadels in ink including faces of animals, human faces, and leaves (ff. 134-164v). Catchwords decorated in ink with penwork scrolls, and in one case a dragon (f. 172v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
380 x 275 in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. I + 258 (+ 2 unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning before f. i and 1 after f. I + 3 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house: rebound in 1883 |
| Provenance |
William Brown (b. 1590/91, d. 1645?) poet: inscribed 'William Browne 1622' (f. 1).
James Anderson (b. 1662, d. 1728), historiographer and antiquary: sold to Harley on 19, November 1725.
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 ‘19 die mensis Novembris, A.D. 1725’ (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 |
A religious miscellany copied by four scribes (1: ff. 1-132, 2: ff. 133-164v, 3: ff. 165-205v, 4: ff. 206-258v). The contents include the expanded version of the Northern Homilies, saints' lives in verse, the Prick of Conscience (IMEV 3428.44), and the Gospel of Nichodemus (IMEV 512). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4196.
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), II (1893), pp. 739-40, 746.
Ruth Wilson Tryon, 'Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English Verse', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 38 (1923), pp. 313-20 (p. 323).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, 394.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 49, 85.
‘The Northern Homily Cycle. The expanded version in MSS Harley 4196 and Cotton Tiberius E vii. II. From septuagesima to the Fifth Sunday after Trinity.’ ed. Saara Nevanlinna. Mémoires de la Société néophilologique de Helsinki, 41 (1973), 1-294.
Robert E. Lewis and Angus McIntosh, A Descriptive Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience, Medium aevum monographs, new series, 12 (Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1982), pp. 66-67 [with additional bibliography].
John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 320 n. 33.
C. M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 263.
Richard Morris's 'Prick of Conscience': A Corrected and Amplified Reading Text, prepared by Ralph Hanna and Sarah Wood, Early English Text Society, O.S. 342 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). |
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ff. 6v-7
Illuminated initial |
f. 164v
Cadels |
ff. 164v-165
Cadels |
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f. 213
Cadels |
f. 213
Cadels |
f. 233
Text |
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