Ms. codex. In English. Title devised by cataloger. Secundo folio: Queene Elizabethe began... Collation: Paper, indistinguishable armorial watermark, fol. ii + 87 + iii ; too tightly bound to collate, and apparently misbound. Modern arabic pencil foliation, upper outer corner of each page. Layout: One text column, with arms in outer margin (except for fol. 75, which may be bound backwards), 1-4 arms and entries per page. Bounding lines in plummet. Script: Written in an English secretary hand, with later marginal comments in brown ink. Decoration: 544 coats of arms in full color. Binding: 19th-century red straight-grain morocco over pastebgoard, gilt stamped, gilt board-edges and turn-ins, spine gilt-stamped with florets in compartments, all edges gilt, blue watered-silk pastedowns and endleaves. This collection of 544 coats of arms of noble and royal families of England begins with Brut and proceeds as far as 1612 (the later supplied title incorrectly gives the latest date as "the 3rd of James I," that is, 1605-6). Each coat of arms is accompanied by a heraldic description and brief history of the ennobled family. The arms are given in no clear order, although they do appear to be... Provenance: Possibly owned in the early eighteenth century by Peter Le Nevé, many of whose manuscripts were acquired by the manuscript's first known owner, John Ives; in Le Nevé's 1731 John Wilcox sales catalogue, lot 733 is described as "Arms of the Nobility since William the Conqueror, in Colours." Owned in 1770 by John Ives, a Norfolk historian, his signature on fol. i: "Johannes Ives de... Immediate source of acquisition: Acquired by BPL from a London bookdealer via the Frances Skinner Fund on 7 December 1927 (bookplate inside front cover). Call number: MS f Med.38. Former call number: Ms. 1329. Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based primarily on description by Lisa Fagin Davis.
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