The Harleian Library, Harley Collection, Harleian Collection and other variants () is one of the main "closed" collections (namely, historic collections to which new material is no longer added) of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

in London, formerly the library of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The collection comprises 7,660 manuscripts, including 2,200

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

s, more than 14,000 original legal documents; and more than 500

roll Roll may refer to: Physics and engineering * Rolling, a motion of two objects with respect to each-other such that the two stay in contact without sliding * Roll angle (or roll rotation), one of the 3 angular degrees of freedom of any stiff bo ...

s. It was assembled by Robert Harley (1661–1724) and his son

Edward Edward is an English male name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortunate; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-S ...

(1689–1741). In 1753, it was purchased for £10,000 by the British government. Together with the collections of Sir Robert Cotton (the

Cotton library The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts that came into the hands of the antiquarian and bibliophile Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631). The collection of books and materials Sir Robert held was one of the three "foun ...

) and

Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector. He had a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British ...

(the Sloane library) it formed the basis of the British Museum's collection of manuscripts, which were transferred to the new British Library in 1973.British Library.
History of the Harley Library
". The collection contains illuminated manuscripts spanning the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

to the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. There are important early British manuscripts, many from Western Europe, and several Byzantine manuscripts in Greek and other languages.

Manuscripts

Among the most significant manuscripts are: *

Lacnunga The ''Lacnunga'' ('Remedies') is a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers, written mainly in Old English and Latin. The title ''Lacnunga'', an Old English word meaning 'remedies', is not in the manuscript: it was given ...

(Harley MS 585) *

Harley Psalter The Harley Psalter (British Library Harley MS 603) is an illuminated manuscript of the second and third decades of the 11th century, with some later additions. It is a Latin psalter on vellum, measures 380 x 310 mm and was probably produced ...

(Harley MS 603) *

Kildare Poems The Kildare Poems or Kildare Lyrics (British Library Harley MS 913) are a group of sixteen poems written in an Irish dialect of Middle English and dated to the mid-14th century. Together with a second, shorter set of poems in the so-called Los ...

(Harley MS 913) *''

Annales Cambriae The (Latin for ''Annals of Wales'') is the title given to a complex of Latin chronicles compiled or derived from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales. The earliest is a 12th-century presumed copy of a mid-10th-century original; later ...

'', in Harley MS 3859; including medieval Welsh genealogies and other items *''

Sumer Is Icumen In "Sumer is icumen in" is the incipit of a medieval English round or of the mid-13th century; it is also known variously as the Summer Canon and the Cuckoo Song. The line translates approximately to "Summer has come" or "Summer has arrived". ...

'', in Harley MS 978 *

Inventory of Henry VIII of England The Inventory of Henry VIII compiled in 1547 is a list of the possessions of the crown, now in the British Library as Harley MS 1419. The inventory was made following a commission of 14 September 1547 during the first year of the reign of Edward ...

(Harley MS 1419) *

Gospels of Mael Brigte Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense ...

(Harley MS 1602) *

Harley 1775 British Library, Harley MS 1775 is an illuminated Gospel Book produced in Italy during the last quarter of the 6th century. The text is in Latin and is a mixture of the Vulgate and Old Latin translations. This text is called "source Z" in critical ...

, an illuminated Gospel Book produced in Italy during the last quarter of the 6th century *

Minuscule 113 Minuscule 113 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 134 ( Soden), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 11th-century. The manuscript has complex contents, but some ...

(Harley MS 1810) - and many others, see the category at bottom of the page *

Harley Lyrics The Harley Lyrics is the usual name for a collection of lyrics in Middle English, Anglo Norman (Middle French), and Latin found in Harley MS 2253, a manuscript dated ca. 1340 in the British Library's Harleian Collection. The lyrics contain "both ...

(Harley MS 2253) *

Harley Golden Gospels The Harley Golden Gospels, British Library, Harley MS 2788, is a Carolingian illuminated manuscript Gospel book produced in about 800–825, probably in Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-larg ...

(Harley MS 2788) *

Ramsey Psalter The Psalter of Oswald also called the Ramsey Psalter (British Library, Harley MS 2904) is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated psalter of the last quarter of the tenth century. Its script and decoration suggest that it was made at Winchester, but certa ...

(Harley MS 2904) *

Book of Nunnaminster The Book of Nunnaminster (London, British Library, Harley MS 2965) is a 9th-century Anglo-Saxon prayerbook. It was written in the kingdom of Mercia, using an " insular" hand (as used in the British Isles), related to Carolingian minuscule. It was ...

(Harley MS 2965) *

Minuscule 3686 Harley MS 3686 is an early 15th-century Venetian hand-written re-creation of Claudius Ptolemy’s ''Geographia''. It is part of the Harleian Collection at the British Library. Description Original 2nd-century versions of ''Geographia'' typicall ...

Harleian Genealogies __NOTOC__ The Harleian genealogies are a collection of Old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harley MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Library, the manuscript, which also contains the '' Annales Cambriae'' (Recension A) and a version of ...

(Harley MS 3859) *Book of the Queen (Harley MS 4431) *

Minuscule 104 Minuscule 104 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), α 103 ( Soden), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 11th century.K. Aland, M. Welte, B. Köster, K. Junack, "Ku ...

(Harley MS 5537) *

Minuscule 505 Minuscule 505 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 248 (in the Soden numbering), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th-century. Scrivener labelled it by number 56 ...

(Harley MS 5538) *

Uncial 0121a Uncial 0121a (in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory-Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering), α 1031 (Biblical manuscript#Von Soden, Soden), is a Greek language, Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated Palaeography, paleographically to the 10th-c ...

(Harley MS 5613) * Ptolemy's ''Geography'' (Harley MS 7182 & 7195) *

Harley MS 7334 Harley MS 7334, sometimes known as the Harley Manuscript, is a mediaeval manuscript of Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'' held in the Harleian Collection of the British Library. It was formerly used as a base text for modern editions of the ''Tales'', ...

Harleian prayerbook The Harley Prayer Book (British Library, Harley MS 7653) is one of a group of four early Anglo-Saxon prayer books produced in Mercia, likely around Worcester. The others are the Royal Prayer Book, the Book of Cerne, and the Book of Nunnaminster. ...

(Harley MS 7653) *The

Harley Glossary The ''Harley Glossary'' is an Anglo-Saxon glossary, mostly providing glosses on Latin words. Manuscripts The Glossary mainly survives in the fragmentary British Library, MS Harley 3376 (which preserves the first six alphabetical sections, from ...

(eleventh-century Latin-Old English glossary, Harley MA 3376)

References

Catalogue

* (4 vols)
vol. 1
(MSS 1–1309)
vol. 2
(MSS 1310–3099)
vol. 3
(MSS 3100–7639)
vol. 4
(indexes)

External links

The foundation collections
at the Catalogue of Illuminated manuscripts
List of medicine and alchemist manuscripts
PDF, 192 KB

The Book of Nunnaminster (Harley 2965)
{{coord, 51.530, -0.128, type:edu_region:GB-CMD, display=title 1753 establishments in England Archives in the London Borough of Camden

Manuscripts

References

Further reading

Catalogue

External links