The Harley Lyrics is a two-part manuscript. The first forty-eight folios, dating from the late thirteenth century, contain miscellaneous Anglo-Norman hagiographical texts. The remainder of the 142 folios, except a single page of recipes, is a collection of miscellaneous literary texts in Latin, Anglo-Norman (the French of England), and English including secular and religious lyrics. This latter section gives the manuscript its name. It was written in the period between 1314 and 1349, the active period of a scribe working in Ludlow, Shropshire, known as the Harley Scribe.
The Harley Lyrics preserve the earliest versions of certain English lyrics, and a wide variety of forms is represented (including carols, pastourelles, and comic poems). The contents of the lyrics reflect texts popular along the Welsh border in the early fourteenth century, making the manuscript an important record of provincial secular English culture.
An Informal Book of Everyday Texts
The first section of hagiographical texts is written in two columns of forty-nine lines in a neat Gothic Textualis. This section contains the main decorative feature of the manuscript: a bicolored puzzle initial (fol. 1r). Puzzle initials are enlarged capital letters usually in red and blue with pen flourishes. The second section of lyrical texts is far less formal in its presentation. Page layout alternates irregularly between two columns and one column and the script is the form of Gothic Cursiva known as Anglicana with ornamentation limited to rubrication.
The Lyrics of the West Midlands
As a collection of various types of lyrical texts, the Harley Lyrics captures the breadth of literary culture in the counties of the west Midlands. As a miscellany, the lyrics do not represent the work of a single author but rather verses that were popular (or available for copying).
An Object of Antiquarian Interest
One of the Harley lyrics is the Legenda de sancto Etfrido presbitero de Leominstria (Story of Saint Eadfrith, Priest of Leominster). There is no supporting evidence, however, that the book was ever at Leominster. Records of ownership begin in 1723 when John Batteley, a clergyman and antiquarian, sold the volume to Edward Harley. As a Harley manuscript, it became part of the foundation collection of the library of the British Museum in 1753.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Harley Lyrics": Facsimile of British Museum MS. Harley 2253 facsimile edition, published by Oxford University Press, 1965
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