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Detailed record for Harley 4751

Title Bestiary, with extracts from Giraldus Cambrensis on Irish birds
Origin England, S. (Salisbury?)
Date 2nd quarter of the 13th century
Language Latin
Script Gothic, written above top line
Decoration Numerous (106) miniatures in colours of animals. Large initial on a rectangular ground in colours (f. 1). Large initials in blue with red pen-flourishing, or in red with blue pen-flourishing. Rubrics in red.
Dimensions in mm 308 x 232 (205 x 140)
Official foliation ff. 2* + 74 ( + an unfoliated parchment leaf at the beginning and at the end)
Form Parchment codex
Binding Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of red leather with extensive gold tooling; gilt edges.
Provenance 16th-century recipes in English (ff. 24v, 26v).
This copy is related to other manuscripts that may have been made in Salisbury.
Various 16th-17th-century inscriptions: ' John Bollocke of Marden' (f. 34v), 'Abraham Millard' (Ilined out) (f. 43v), John Burd' (f. 53), 'James Solbrery' (f. 58), 'Edward Lord Herbert' (f. 65v), 'Richard Bowen' and 'Thomas Newcombe' (both upside down) (f. 69v), 'Edward Griffith' (f. 70v), 'Edmund Maddock' (f. 72v),
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 A 'Second Family' bestiary: see James.
ff. 1* and 2* are small notes on the text in English pasted onto unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning.
Crossed tironian ets.
Select bibliography A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4751.

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. 6.

J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 187.

Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 3, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1925), pl. 13.

Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pl. 56.

M. R. James, The Bestiary: Being a Reproduction in full of the Manuscript Ii.4.26 in the University Library, Cambridge (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1928), pp. 15-16, no. 18.

Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934), no. 102.

T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 294-95.

Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the end of the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), pp. 388-89, 394-95, pls 213, 220a, 225, 226, 227.

Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 76.

John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), no. 263.

Two East Anglian Pictur Books: A Facsimile of the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary and Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 1504, ed. by Nicholas Barker (London: The Roxburghe Club, 1988), p. 5.

Ann Payne, Medieval Beasts (London: British Library, 1990), p. 14.

Dora Faraci, Il bestiario medio inglese (Ms Arundel 292 della British Library) (Rome: Japadre, 1990), p. 258.

Ann Payne, 'The Northumberland gestiary and its group', Sotheby's Art at Auction 1990-1991, ed. by Sally Prideaux (London: Sotheby's, 1991), pp. 159-65 (p. 162).

Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 4-5, 137-40, 173, 176,

The Mythical Quest: In Search of Adventure, Ropmance and Enlightenment, intro. by Penelope Lively (London: British Library, 1996), pl. on p. 74, p. 98.

Ron Baxter, Bestiaries and Their Users in the Middle Ages (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998), pp. 147, 177.

Xenia Muratova ‘Le bestiare medieval et la culture normande’, in Maylis Baylé, ‘Architecture et enluminure dans le monde mormand’, in Manuscrits et enluminures dans le monde normand (Xe-XVe siècles), ed. by Pierre Bouet and Monique Dosdat (Caen: Presses Universitaires, 1999), pp. 51-68 (p. 154 n. 8).

Pamela Porter, Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2000), p. 23.

Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 22-25, pl. 17, 20.

Michelle P. Brown, 'Marvels of the West: Giraldus Cambrensis and the Role of the Author in the Development of Marginal Illustration', in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 34-59 (p. 51).

Debra Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, & Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), fig. 73.

Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, ‘La sirène et l’o(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin et dans quelques bestiaries: Le texte et l’image’, in Bestiarires médiévaux: Nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits de les traditions textuelles, ed. by Baudouin Van den Abelle, Publications de l’Institut d’études médiévales, Collection Textes, études, congrés, 21 (Louvain: Brepols, 2005), pp. 169-82 (p. 180 , pl. 54).

Treasures of the British Library, ed. by Nicolas Barker and others (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 40-41.

Elizabeth Morrison, Beasts: Factual & Fantastic (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 83.

The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages, ed. by David Badke, [http://bestiary.ca/manuscripts/manulocshelf.htm] [accessed 14 August 2009].

Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pls 10, 12..


Images
* * *
 
Decorated initial

f. 1
Decorated initial
Animals

f. 2v
Animals
Animals

f. 2v
Animals
 
Tiger

f. 3v
Tiger
Panther

f. 4
Panther
Antelope

f. 5v
Antelope
 
Antelope

f. 5v
Antelope
Pard

f. 6
Pard
Unicorn

f. 6v
Unicorn
 
Unicorn

f. 6v
Unicorn
Unicorn

f. 6v
Unicorn
Griffin

f. 7v
Griffin
 
Elephant

f. 8
Elephant
Beavers

f. 9v
Beavers
Beavers

f. 9v
Beavers
 
Ibex and Hyena

f. 10
Ibex and Hyena
Hyena

f. 10
Hyena
Bonnacon and apes

f. 11
Bonnacon and apes
 
Bonnacon

f. 11
Bonnacon
Apes

f. 11
Apes


f. 11v
 


f. 13v
Goats

f. 14
Goats
Goats

f. 14v
Goats
 
Monoceros (unicorn)

f. 15
Monoceros (unicorn)
Monoceros (unicorn)

f. 15
Monoceros (unicorn)
Bear

f. 15v
Bear
 
Pigs

f. 20
Pigs
Cow

f. 23
Cow
Cow

f. 23
Cow
 
Camel

f. 24
Camel
Donkey

f. 25
Donkey
Donkey

f. 25
Donkey
 
Eagles

f. 25v
Eagles
Horses

f. 27
Horses
Horses

f. 27
Horses
 
Badgers

f. 30
Badgers
Cats and mice

f. 30v
Cats and mice
Cats and mice

f. 30v
Cats and mice
 
Hedgehogs

f. 31v
Hedgehogs
Ants

f. 32
Ants
Salamanders

f. 33v
Salamanders
 
Eagles

f. 35v
Eagles
Birds

f. 36
Birds


f. 37
 
House martins

f. 37v
House martins
Cranes

f. 39
Cranes
Cranes

f. 39
Cranes
 
Two parrots

f. 39v
Two parrots
Caladrius

f. 40
Caladrius
Caladrius

f. 40
Caladrius
 
Herons

f. 41
Herons
Herons

f. 41
Herons
Swan

f. 41v
Swan
 
Swan

f. 41v
Swan
Ostrich

f. 42v
Ostrich
Phoenix

f. 45
Phoenix
 
Phoenix

f. 45
Phoenix
Phoenix

f. 45
Phoenix
Pelicans

f. 46
Pelicans
 
Pelicans

f. 46
Pelicans
Owls

f. 46v
Owls
Owl

f. 47
Owl
 
Owl

f. 47
Owl
Siren

f. 47v
Siren
Partridges

f. 48
Partridges
 
Hawking

f. 49
Hawking
Detail

f. 51v
Detail
Swallows

f. 52v
Swallows
 
Geese

f. 54
Geese
Peacock

f. 54v
Peacock


f. 55
 
Dragon and elephant

f. 58v
Dragon and elephant
Dragon and elephant

f. 58v
Dragon and elephant
Basilisk

f. 59
Basilisk
 
Vipers

f. 60
Vipers
Vipers

f. 60
Vipers
Asp

f. 61
Asp
 
Asp

f. 61
Asp
Anphivena

f. 62
Anphivena
Reptiles

f. 62
Reptiles
 
Hydra and crocodile

f. 62v
Hydra and crocodile
Serpent

f. 64
Serpent
Fish

f. 68
Fish
 
Fish and reptiles

f. 68
Fish and reptiles
Whale

f. 69
Whale
Whale

f. 69
Whale
 

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