London, British Library, Harley 3090
| Library | London, British Library |
|---|---|
| Shelfmark | Harley 3090 |
| Century | saec. XII |
| Provenance | ? |
| European region of origin | England |
| Collection | Ivo of Chartres, Decretum |
| Digital Images | not online as of early 2025 |
| Description at | The Ivo of Chartres project |
| Author | Martin Brett |
London, British Library, Harley 3090 is the eponymous copy of the so-called Harley Abbreviation of Ivo's Decretum (siglum H in Brett's edition).
The four twelfth-century copies of the Harley 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.
The manuscript was 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 communication to Brett] a French hand of s. xii1 or xi/xii, though similar to hands also found at Christ Church, Canterbury, and with some rather English decoration. A further if yet slighter argument for its connection with Canterbury may be drawn from its text from the Council of Ephesus, as reported by Cyril of Alexandria, in 1. 3. H here agrees with CR in replacing the Dionysiana text found in the editio princeps and mss BDPV by the form peculiar to the Hispana Gallica, as transmitted in the Collectio Lanfranci.
The book is written in a neat small script, with handsome initials at the beginning of the prologue and of 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 fo. 1v, leaving 1r blank, but the text shows that a leaf is missing after fo. 3, suggesting that it was once a quire of six, now lacking 1, 4 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:
- Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, 955.9
- Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 2196 (W in Brett's edition). fos 4 ff
- Roma, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Corsini 41. E 1 (ex-Corsini 1808) (F in Brett's edition).
Schneider, MGH Ordines pp. 493-494 notices that the whole Harley group has a different synodal order to that of the copies of the complete Decretum, but that H alone of the group integrates its aberrant conciliar ordo into book four, rather than placing it at the end. The Leipzig copy and W appear closely related, not least through their association with the Bernold of Constance tract and their shared papal catalogue, originally ending with Calixtus II. Elsewhere 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 further lesser cases shared by H and R, there are more substantial examples of the relationship at: 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, begin with more of the source 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 two (rightly) have ‘Adelbaldo’ and ‘Athelbaldo’ – the ‘d’ in ‘Adel-‘ perhaps representing an earlier thorn. There is here at least a 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 existence of two additions in H at 8. 244 of passages from the material source, which CR omit but are also found in the apparent formal source, Tripartita 1.43.31, is a further indication that H at least, and perhaps the whole group, are not invariably mere satellites of R's exemplar. Even so, the close connection of H with an ancestor of R and to some degree therefore with C, might encourage the view that the whole Harley family depends ultimately on an English exemplar. The omissions and insertions in H (first described by Theiner), are tabulated from the ms in the concordance of Brett's, Decretum edition.. See too the notes to Leiden BPL 184.1 for a further reduction of this form.
Although clearly in its essentials an abbreviation of something close to R, there are a number of cases where the readings of H (and possibly others in the group) seem to show direct knowledge of the source. Only some of these are recorded in the text below, and the whole version deserves closer study and full collation.
For the sigla of Brett's edition, see the list in the article on Ivo's Decretum.
Links
For a list of manuscripts and a provisional edition, see Brett, Decretum.
Literature
Kéry, Collections p. 252
