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Detailed record for Harley 4826
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| Part 1 |
ff. 4-144v |
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| Author |
John Lydgate, Thomas Hoccleve |
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| Title |
Lives of St Edmund and St Fremund (ff. 4-46); Secrees of Old Philisoffres (ff. 52-81); Regiment of Princes (ff. 84-144v); imperfect |
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| Origin |
England, S. (probably Bury St Edmunds) |
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| Date |
c. 1450- c. 1460 |
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| Language |
English |
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| Script |
Gothic cursive |
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| Scribe |
Edmund-Fremund scribe |
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| Decoration |
Large miniature combined with a foliate initial and a three-sided foliate border in colours and gold including acanthus leaves (f. 4). Marginal miniature in colours and gold of the Miracle of Edmund's head (f. 26v) (miniature excised on f. 139)). Large historiated initials combined with a three-sided border in colours and gold including acanthus leaves (Lydgate praying to God (f. 52), Thomas Hoccleve (f. 84)). Numerous large initials in colours and gold with foliate extensions into the margins (ff. 6, 53v, 78, 106, 107v). Large initials in gold with pink pen-flourishing. Smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with pink pen-flourishing gold, blue or with red pen-flourishing. Small initials in blue or red with red penwork decoration. Catchwords written on brown ink scrolls (some catchwords have been erased). |
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| Dimensions in mm |
300 x 210 (210 x 100) |
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| Part 2 |
f. 1* |
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| Title |
Added tinted drawing |
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| Origin |
England |
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| Date |
2nd quarter of the 15th century, after 1426 |
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| Language |
N/A |
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| Script |
Gothic cursive |
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| Decoration |
Inserted tinted drawing of a monk (probably John Lydgate) presenting his book held by a pilgrim (with hat, staff and satchel with the scallop shell) to a knight in armour, probably Thomas Montague , Earl of Salisbury (f. 1*). |
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| Dimensions in mm |
300 x 210 |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 1* + 146 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated paper leaf after f. 51 + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather with blind tooling. |
| Provenance |
Part 1:
Added poem (on the Chaucer page), 15th century:
'Off worthy Chaucer
here the pickture stood
That much did wryght
and all to doo us good.
Summe ffuryous ffoole
have Cutt the Same in twayne
His deed doo shewe
He bare a barren Brayne' (f. 139).
Sir William Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk (b. 1527, d. 1579): added title page in English, text in Latin, and epitaph (ff. 1-3, 81v).
Erased inscription (f. 145) and added text in English in cursive Gothic script, 15th century (ff. 145v-146v).
Part 2 (f. 1*):
The prologue to the translation states that it was begun in 1426 at the command of 'my lord [o]f Salisbury'.
Added miniature of a pilgrim with a monk (f. 1*). The figure of the monk may represent either Lydgate (d. c. 1450), a Benedictine monk at the abbey of Bury St Edwards, Suffolk, or Deguileville (d. c. 1358), a Cistercian at the abbey of Chalis in Valois, and the earl of Salisbury, Thomas Montague (d. 1428) may be the figure in armour (Scott 1996 p. 305).
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.
One of 12 suriving complete copies of the text.
Inserted paper leaves with title pages and text in English (ff. 1, 51, 82-83).
F. 1* is a piece of parchment bound after f. 1 with, on one side a pen & brown ink wash faintly tinted in red, and on the verso, recipes in English. It must have been inserted in this manuscript around 1632, with a note identifying the subject added on f. 1v.
Leaf signatures. Catchwords written horizontally. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4826.
Lydgate and Burgh's Secrees of old Philisoffres: A version of the 'Secreta Secretorum', ed. by Robert Steele, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, 66 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1894), p. xiv.
Henry Noble McCracken, The Lydgate Canon. Appendix to the Philological Society's Transactions 1907-1909, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. for the Philological Society, 1908), pp. iii-xlvi (pp. xxii, xxiv).
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 92.
Anglo-Flemish Art under the Tudors (London: British Museum, 1954), no. 1 [unpublished exhibition catalogue].
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund: a Newly-Located Manuscript in Arundel Castle', Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 13 (1982), 335-66 (pp. 336, 342, 343 n. 32, 346, etc., fig. 10).
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. 56 n. 22).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), I, 29, 32, 34, 42, 71 n. 1, 72 n. 26; II, no. 111, 148, 159, 258, 286-87, 303-04, 308, 314, fig. 391 [with extensive additional bibliography].
Nicholas Perkins, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes: Counsel and Constraint (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001), pp. 157-59, 161 n. 46, 170, 174, 181.
Douglas Gray, ‘Lydgate, John (c.1370-1449/50?)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17238, accessed 10 Nov 2010].
The Life of St Edmund, King & Martyr : John Lydgate’s Illustrated Verse Life Presented to Henry VI : a facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2278, introduction by A. S. G. Edwards (London: British Library, 2004), p. 16. |
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Part 1
ff. 4-144v |
| John Lydgate, Thomas Hoccleve Lives of St Edmund and St Fremund (ff. 4-46); Secrees of Old Philisoffres (ff. 52-81); Regiment of Princes (ff. 84-144v); imperfect |
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f. 1*
Pilgrim |
f. 4
Martyrdom of Edmund |
f. 6
Decorated initial |
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f. 8
Decorated initial |
f. 26v
Edmund's head guarded by a wolf |
f. 52
Lydgate in prayer |
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f. 53v
Decorated initial |
ff. 69v-70
Decorated initials |
ff. 72v-73
Decorated initials |
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f. 82
Detail |
f. 84
Thomas Hoccleve |
f. 107v
Decorated initial |
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Part 2
f. 1* |
| Added tinted drawing |
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