London, British Library, Harley 3810/I
| England |
| London |
| British Library |
| Harley 3810/I |
|
| s. xvin |
| English |
| Scribal Dialect: Warwickshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: 415 269, LP 7901 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, p. 244). |
An early fifteenth-century collection of miscellaneous items, secular and religious, including
Sir Orfeo and Richard Maidstone's
Penitential Psalms (Edden 1990, p. 19). The second part of the manuscript (not examined here) is from the second half of the fifteenth century (Guddat-Figge 1976, p. 204). The manuscript is thought to have been planned as an anthology but later organised into a commonplace book (Boffey 1985, p. 20).
Item: 1| ff. 1r-10r |
| Sir Orfeo (IMEV 3868) |
| 'We redyn...' |
| 'Lord vs graunt žat it so beo'. |
| 'Explicit orpheo regis'. |
| The rest of the incipit is illegible, however, in other manuscripts it reads 'We redyn ofte and fynde ywryte'. |
|
Item: 2| ff. 10v-13r |
| The Lady who Buried the Host/Panem Vitae (IMEV 622) |
| 'Cryst žat was crowned with caytyfes vnkynde'. |
| 'Žat lakež in god in forme of brede'. |
|
Item: 3| ff. 13v-14r |
| Moral Precepts (IMEV 3087) |
| 'Serve ži God truly'. |
| '& žou schalt now be žral to syn'. |
|
Item: 4| f. 14r-15v |
| Friday (IMEV 4275) |
| '?onge & olde lerneth this lore'. |
| 'Žo fryday for to fast & pray'. |
|
Item: 5| f. 16r-v |
| Love Letter (IMEV 3785) |
| 'To ?ou hie worschip & magnificence'. |
| 'For žis tyme now my leve y take'. |
Robbins 1959, pp. 198-200.
|
Item: 6| ff. 17r-34r |
| Penitential Psalms (IMEV 1961) |
| 'Lord in žyn anger vptake me nou?t'. |
| 'Žis graunt me god in personys žre amen'. |
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| Codex |
| Paper. No watermarks. |
| 145-50 x 100 mm |
|
Unascertainable, each folio is now separately mounted. One catchword - f. 8v. |
| Pricking not visible. Writing space of 125 x 65 mm. Single columns with 26-29 lines. Unruled, no margins. |
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One scribe writing in a small Anglicana hand with strong Secretary influences. Ink now a faded black. Body height: 1.5 mm.
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No decoration or illumination. Brackets for couplets by scribe.
Later drawings: f. 33r - later drawing of a man, upside down, large hat with feathers, puff sleaves, fitted bodice, 'pleated skirt' above knees. |
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Not medieval. 160 x 120 mm. Covered in red leather and fabric mitred and pasted onto pasteboard. Inside cover 'marbled' paper in red and blue. Four raised bands across the spine. Shield with supporting angels and scroll at bottom -'VIRTUTE ET FIDE' on front cover.
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| Part I: ff. 34. The whole manuscript has 131 leaves but ff. 1-34 form the first part of the manuscript and are in the same hand. |
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Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, August 2003.
- Bliss, A. J., ed, 1954. Sir Orfeo, London: Oxford University Press, p. xi.
- Boffey, J. 1985. Manuscripts of English Courtly Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages, Manuscript Studies 1, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, pp. 20, 128-129.
- A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1808-1812, 4 vol., London: G. Eyre and A. Strahan, 3. commenced by H. Wanley, and successively continued by D. Casley, W. Hocker, C. Morton, index by T. Astle, p. 83.
- Edden, V., ed, 1990. Richard Maidstone’s Penitential Psalms: edited from Bodl. MS Rawlinson A 389, Middle English Texts, 22, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 19.
- Guddat-Figge, G. 1976. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances, München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, pp. 204-205.
- McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L. and Benskin, M. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: County Dictionary, 4 vols, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 4.
- Robbins, R. H., ed, 1959. Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, New York: Columbia University Press.
