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Detailed record for Harley 1527


Title		Bible moralisée (section of the Oxford-Paris-London Bible moralisée)
Origin		France, Central (Paris)
Date		2nd quarter of the 13th century
Language		Latin
Script		Gothic
Decoration		1408 miniatures in colours and gold, of 8 roundels in two columns of 4 in rectangular frames on a folio, usually on alternating facing folios interspersed with 2 blank folios with underdrawings executed as pressure-tracings with a stylus (miniatures on ff. 4v-5, 6v-7, 8v-9, 10v-11, 12v-13, 14v-15, 16v-17, 18v-19, 20v-21, 22v-23, 24v-25, 26v-27, 28v-29, 30v-31, 32v-33, 34v-35, 36v-37, 38v-39, 40-41v, 42v-43, 44v, 45v-46, 47v-48, 49v-50, 51v-52, 53v-54, 55v-56, 57v-58, 59v, 60v-61, 62v-63, 64v-65, 66v-67, 68v-69, 70v-71, 72v-73, 74v-75, 76v-77, 78v-79, 80v-81, 82v-83, 84v-85, 86v-87, 88v-89, 90v-91, 92v-93, 94v-95, 96v-97, 98v-99, 100v-101, 102v-103, 104v-105, 106v-107, 108v-109, 110v-111, 112v-113, 114v-115, 116v-117, 118v-119, 120v-121, 122v-123, 124v-125, 126v-127, 128v-129, 130v-131, 132v-133, 134v-135, 136v-137, 138v-139, 140v-141, 1442v-143, 144v-145, 146v-147, 148, 149v-150, 151v-152, 153v). Large initials in red with blue penwork decoration, or in blue with red penwork decoration. Running headings in blue or gold letters. Unfinished from ff. 60v-65 (lacking initials and decoration).
Dimensions in mm		400 x 275 (295 x 200)
Official foliation		ff. 153 ( + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end)
Form		Parchment codex
Binding		Post-1600. Brown leather with blind and gold tooling.
Provenance		Probably commissioned by Blanche of Castile as a wedding gift for Marguerite of Provence in 1234 (see Lowden 2000). In England by last quarter of the 13th century, where it was the basis of a copy, now Additional 18719 (see discussion Lowden 2000 p. 185). John Thwayte: 16th-century inscription 'John Thwayte' (f. 2v). ? Sir Christopher Heydon (b. 1561, d. 1623), soldier and writer on astrology: he presented volume 1 to the Bodleian Library (now Bodley MS 270b). William Innys, bookseller, Prince's Arms, St Paul's Churchyard, owned until 1711: receipt signed 'Wm Innys' to John Kemp for payment for manuscripts for £40 dated 30 June 1711 (pasted onto f. 1, Harley 1526). John Kemp (b. 1665, d. 1717): above receipt; his sale at the Phoenix Tavern, Pall Mall, 27 March 1721?, acquired by Harley. 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		Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts. Note that the f. 3 is placed after f. 153. This manuscript and Harley 1526 are part of a Bible moralisée that is divided between Oxford, Paris and London (consequently it is known as the Oxford-Paris-London Bible moralisée). Volume 1 is Oxford, Bodley MS 270b, Volume 2 is Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms latin 11560, and Volume 3 is divided into the two Harley volumes (Harley 1526 and 1527). The separation of the Harley volumes seems to have been originally intended (Lowden 2000 pp.146-48).
Select bibliography		Note that this bibliography is for both Harley 1526 and Harley 1527. A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), nos 1526, 1527. Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 8. Georg Graf Vitzthum, Die Pariser Miniaturmalerei: von der Zeit des hl. Ludwig bis zu Philipp von Valois und ihr Verhältnis zur Malerei in Nordwesteuropa (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1907), pp. 4. 9-10. [George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I, (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 22. J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 199-200. A. de Laborde, La Bible moralisée illustrée conservée à Oxford, Paris et Londres: Reproduction intégrale du manuscrit du XIIIe siècle accompagnée de planches tirées de Bibles similaires et d’une notice, 5 vols. (Paris, 1911-27). [J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 22. Hugo Buchthal and Francis Wormald, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 49, 51, 53 ff., 62, 64 ff., 73 ff, 80, 97 n. 2. Jean Porcher, French Miniatures from Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Collins, 1960), p. 90. R. Haussherr, 'Eine Warnung vor dem Studiern von zivilem und Kanonischem Recht in der Bible moralisee', Fruchmittelalterliche Studien 9 (1975), 390-404. Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d'Acre, 1275-1291 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 72 n. 146, 109 n. 175. Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 25. Richard Kenneth Emmerson and Suzanne Lewis, 'Census and Bibliography of Medieval Manuscripts containing Apocalypse Illustrations, ca. 800-1500 III', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 42 (1986), 443-472, no. 154. Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), II: 1250-1285, p. 138. Alison Stones, 'Indications écrites et modèles picturaux, guides aux peintres de manuscrits enluminés aux environs de 1300', in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age: Colloque international, ed. by. Xavier Barral i Altet, 3 vols (Paris: Picard, 1986-90), III: Fabrication et consommation de l'oeuvre, 321-49. Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. by Henri-Jean Martin and Jean Vezin ([n.pl.]: Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis, 1990), p. 409. Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 62, fig. 91. Janet Backhouse, ‘Sire Robert Cotton’s Record of a Royal Bookshelf’, British Library Journal, 18 (1992), 44-51 (p. 48). The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come, ed. by Frances Carey (London: British Museum, 1999), pp. 71-2, no. 7 [exhibition catalogue]. John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées, 2 vols (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2000), I, The Manuscripts, esp. pp. 139-87, II, passim [with additional bibliography]. Nigel Morgan, ‘French Interpretations of English Apocalpyses’, in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, Proceedings of the 1996 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by John Mitchell and Matthew Moran, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 8 (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 137-56 (p. 139). Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2 vols (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2000), I, p. 337 n.120. Christopher de Hamel, The Book: A History of the Bible (London: Phaidon, 2001), p. 146. Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 27. John Lowden, 'The Apocalypse in the Early-Thirteenth-Century Bibles Moralisées: A Re-Assessment', in Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom, Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Nigel Morgan, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 12 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2004), pp. 195-217 (pp. 198, 207-12, 216, pls 20, 26-28, 31). Nigel Morgan, 'Illustrated Apocalypses of Mid-Thirteenth-Century England: Historical Context, Patronage and Readership', in The Trinity Apocalypse (Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.16.2) (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 3-22 (p. 4). Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 106, fig. 93. John Lowden, ‘The Holkham Bible Picture Book and the Bible Moralisée’, in The Medieval Book: Glosses from Friends and Colleagues of Christopher de Hamel, ed. by James H. Marrow, Richard A. Linenthal, and William Noel (Houten, 2010), pp. 75-83.

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