Harley MS 3097

Date

4th quarter of the 11th century - 1st quarter of the 12th century

Languages

Latin
Greek, Ancient

Physical Description

• Materials: Parchment.
• Dimensions: 280 x 175 mm (text space: 225 x 100 mm).
• Foliation: ff. 128 ( + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 1 unfoliated parchment stub between f. 46 and f. 47; 1 between f. 78 and f. 79; and 1 between f. 119 and f. 120; the lower half of f. 124 has been cut of. The paper flyleaves contain a ‘Pro Patria’ watermark available in 18th-century England (see Heawood, Watermarks (1950), nos 3695-3718).
• Script: Protogothic.
• Binding: Gold-tooled ruby leather binding, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘HIERONIMI EXP. DANIELI VIT. SANCT. AMBROSII TRACT. 4’.

Ownership

Origin: ? Peterborough, Eastern England. Provenance: The Benedectine abbey of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew in Peterborough, probably owned from the 11th or 12th century onward: the manuscript can be identified as nos 16 and 17 (‘[16] Hieronimus super Danihelem – [17] Ambrosius De sacramentis et Vita sanctorum Nicolai, Botulfi Guðlac’) in an 11th- or 12th-century booklist that is thought to record books in Peterborough abbey’s library (see James, ‘Lists of Manuscripts’ (1926), p. 27; Lapidge, ‘Booklists’ (1985), p. 77); the manuscript can be identified as no. 8. I in a 14th-century manuscript catalogue of Peterborough Abbey, but lists the first item of the manuscript as ‘Tract. Origenis de Susanna’ (James, ‘Lists of Manuscripts’ (1926), p. 31); the 12th- or 13th-century marginal annotations throughout the manuscript perhaps have been made by monks from Peterborough Abbey.An unknown 15th- or 16th-century owner: inscribed the word 'Butter' on f. 128v.William Howard (b. 1563, d. 1640), of Naworth Castle: listed as his manuscript no. 628 in Edward Bernard’s Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 2 vols (Oxford: Adams, 1695-1697), II, p. 19; the name ‘Fulcardus’ added by him in the margin of f. 61v (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 198-200). Charles Howard (b. 1669, d. 1738), 3rd Earl of Carlisle, in the 18th century: owned probably most of the manuscripts purchased by Harley from John Warburton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 198). John Warburton (b. 1682, d. 1759), antiquary and herald: purchased from him by Harley in 1720 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 346-47; Wright and Wright, The Diary of Humfrey Wanley (1966), I, p. 59 (‘S. Ambrosii tractatus varii’)). 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 '20 die Julii, 1720' (f. [ii] recto). 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.

Bibliography

• Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 2 vols (Oxford: Adams, 1695-1697), II, p. 19.
• A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 3097.
• Montague Rodes James, Lists of Manuscripts formerly in Peterborough Abbey Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926), p. 27 and p. 31.
• Edward Heawood, Watermarks mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Hilversum : Paper Publications Society, 1950), nos 3695-3718.
• Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. by Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: University Press, 1956), pp. 30-1 as 'H'.
• Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 151.
• The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I, p. 59.
• Bernhard Lambert, Bibliotheca Hieronymiana manuscripta: La tradition manuscrite des œuvres de Saint Jérôme, Insturmenta Patristica, 4:2 (Steenbrugge: Abbey of St Peter, 1969), p. 144.
• Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 198-200, 346-47.
• Michael Lapidge, ‘Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 33-90 (p. 77).
• Linda Nix, ‘Manuscript layout and re-production of the text in Anglo-Saxon England’, Gazette du livre médiéval, 25 (1994), 17-23 (pp. 20-21).
• Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), p. 77 (no. 434.5).