Previous owners:
- The Benedictine priory of Leominster, Hereford (?): textual associations with Hereford and Leominster such as the 'Legenda de sancto etfrido presbitero de Leominstria' (ff. 132r-133r) (but Ker rejected the hypothesis that this manuscript may have belonged to the priory, see Ker 1964).
John Batteley (b. 1647, d. 1708), Church of England clergyman and antiquary:
- sold to Edward Harley with the rest of his collection through his nephew John Batteley on 5 November 1723.
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘5 die Novembris, A.D. 1723’ (f. 1r).
- Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), Duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundational collections of the British Library.