London, British Library, Harley 3090

From Clavis Canonum

London, British Library, Harley 3090 is the eponymous copy of the so-caled Harley Abreviation of Ivo's Decretum (H in Brett's edition).

The four twelfth-century copies of the Harly Abbreviation contain a heavily abbreviated text of the Decretum, which omit book XVII but have additions and many distinctive readings (Theiner 1836 182 n. 31, Fournier 1897 412-4123). London, British Library, Harley 3090, fol. 133v-134r are additions, though by a near-contemporary hand, very possibly that of the text. Bought by Humfrey Wanley for Harley on 16 Jan. 1722 (NS) from Charles Davis (C.E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani 125, Diary of Humfrey Wanley ed. C.E. and Ruth C. Wright (Bibliographical Soc. 1966 for 1961-2) 1. 127). Davis had been apprenticed to Noel, who had sold Harley many European mss, but by then was trading independently. The script suggests to Michael Gullick [personal comm.] a French hand of saec. XII1/2 or XI/XII, though similar to hands also found at Christ Church, Canterbury, and with some rather English decoration. The book is written in a neat small script, with a number of handsome initials at the beginning of the prologue and each book, and a carefully elaborated arbor. These employ delicate washes and elaborate pen-work and a variety of techniques. The lesser initials are overwhelmingly in alternating red and green, though the red sometimes fades to a pale violet. The collation at the beginning is slightly puzzling, for quire I is now of four, the first a mere stub. However, the Prologue begins on fol. 1v, leaving 1r blank, but the text shows that a leaf is missing after fol. 3, suggesting that it was once a quire of six, now lacking 1,2 and 6. The rest of the book is in regular quires of eight, with the exception of quires XIV and XVI, both originally of ten, though XVI lacks one, with no loss of text.

The other copies of the Harley Abbreviation are:

Schneider, MGH Ordines 493-494 notices that H alone of the group integrates its aberrant conciliar ordo into book IV, rather than placing it at the end. The Leipzig copy and Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 2196 appear closely related, not least through their added texts from Bernold of Constance (De excommunicatis vitandis, see MGH Fontes iuris antiqui 15 pp. 19, 22-23) and their shared papal catalogue ending with Calixtus II. In detail H and L, though clearly independent abbreviations, share a number of lesser readings which suggest a common archetype distinct from C or P, and closest to R, with which they share some major variants. Apart from a considerable number of lesser variants which H and R share, there are more substantial examples of the relationship at: Decretum 1.306, where H and R have the canon otherwise peculiar to M (though it was added to the end of L); the beginning of 6.415, where both have a sentence found otherwise only in A and L; 8.10, where both have a short addition from Augustine; 8.57, where both reverse the two elements of the canon; 8.133, where both have an added passage; 9.9, where both share an odd confusion of text and (probable) inscription; 11.31, where both expand the inscription in the same way (but wrongly); 12.14 and 29 (where both, with L, have a fuller beginning to the text). There is another trivial but intriguing connection between R and H in the inscription to 8.224. All other manuscripts have this as a letter addressed by St Boniface to ‘Hiltibaldo [or the like] regi Saxonum’, but these (rightly) have ‘Adelbaldo’ and ‘Athelbaldo’ – the ‘d’ perhaps representing an earlier thorn. There is a clear suggestion of accurate local knowledge of Aethelbald of Mercia here. If L (qv) is extremely close to R where they overlap, H differs sufficiently often from R to suggest that it derives independently from a shared ancestor. The omissions and insertions in H (first described by Theiner), are tabulated from the ms in the concordance below. See too the notes to Leiden BPL 184.1 for a further reduction of this form.

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Literature

Kéry p. 252

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