Harley MS 6539 - A collection of miscellaneous religious works

GEMMS Manuscript ID
GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT- 34
(old series: GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-1147)
Title
A collection of miscellaneous religious works
Shelfmark
Harley MS 6539
Creation Date
ca. 1580 - 1630
Repository
Contents Note

This volume comprises the following: ‘Sinnes agaynst the [Ten Commandments]’ (ff. 1r–3r); an abstract of Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety (London, 1616) (ff. 4r–30v); ‘Annotatyons out of the Stewards last account written by Mr Bagnall minister of Hutton in Somerset shire’ (ff. 31r–41v); ‘A Right, Godlye, and Fruitfull Dialogue between a Sorrowfull Sinner, and Gods word comforting him’ (ff. 41v–44v); ‘David’s ultimum vale to his dead son’, an autograph funeral sermon by John Firmin (ff. 45r–59v); ‘A Caueat for Crab-Fish Christians’ (ff. 60v–75r); and ‘The Sacred Discipline of the Church described in the worde of God’ (ff. 76r–86v). For more information about the final item, see Patrick Collinson, Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-Puritanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), ch. 6. Items two and three appear to be written in the same hand. The manuscript has been dated by the present cataloguer according to the hands in the volume.

Material Features

Quarto. Mottled calf skin with gold-tooled border. See also British Library, Harley MSS 976, 977, 1753, 1784, 5068, 5258, 6028, 6208, 6535, 6536, 6538, 6559, 6568, 6572, and 6946.

Acquisition

The Harleian Library was founded by Robert Harley, First Earl of Oxford (1661–1724). According to Cyril Ernest Wright, Robert Harley ‘was primarily interested in English historical and political material and in volumes of sermons and theological controversy, sharing in the latter the taste of his Harley ancestors’. See Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972), p. xxxiv.

Source of Data

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani (London, 1972); A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum (1808), Vol. III, p. 374; Hannah Yip.

GEMMS record created
May 29, 2019
GEMMS record last edited
July 15, 2024