The Harleian Collection (or Harley Collection) is one of main collections of the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

The manuscript collection of more than 7,000 volumes, more than 14,000 original legal documents, and 500 rolls, formed by Robert Harley (1661–1724), and his son Edward Harley

Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer

Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer , styled Lord Harley between 1711 and 1724, was a British politician, bibliophile, collector and patron of the arts.-Background:...

 (1689-1741). In 1753, it was purchased for £10,000 by the British government and together with the collections of Robert Bruce Cotton

Robert Bruce Cotton

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet was an English antiquarian and Member of Parliament, founder of the important Cotton library....

 (1571–1631), and Hans Sloane

Hans Sloane

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...

 were formed the basis of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 library (after 1973 British Library).

The collection contains illuminated manuscripts span the early Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 to the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. The manuscripts came from France, Germany and Italy.

See also

• Cotton Library
  Cotton library
  The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...
  
  
• Harleian Genealogies
  Harleian genealogies
  The Harleian genealogies are a collection of Old Welsh genealogies preserved in British Library, Harleian MS 3859. Part of the Harleian Collection, the manuscript, which also contains the Annales Cambriae and a version of the Historia Brittonum, has been dated to c. 1100, although a date of c.1200...
  
  
• Minuscule 104
  Minuscule 104
  Minuscule 104 , α 103 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century.Formerly it was labelled by 25a, 31p, and 7r....
  
   (Harley 5537)
• Minuscule 113
  Minuscule 113
  Minuscule 113 , ε 134 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 11th century....
  
   (Harley 1810)
• Minuscule 505
  Minuscule 505
  Minuscule 505 , ε 248 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century....
  
   (Harley 5538)
• Harley MS. 7334
  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 Museum....
  
  
• Harley 1419 A & B, The Inventory of Henry VIII
  Inventory of Henry VIII of England
  The Inventory of Henry VIII of England compiled in 1547 is a list of the possessions of the crown, now in the British Library as Harley Ms. 1419....
  
  

Further reading

• British Library Journal vol. 15 (1989) is devoted to Robert Harley and his collections.
• C. E. and C. R. Wright, eds. "The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715–1726", 2 vols (London, 1966).

External links

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