Henry Savile of Banke (1568 – 29 April 1617) was an English manuscript and book collector. He was the son of Henry Savile of Blaithroyd, in Southowram, Halifax and a distant relative of Sir Henry Savile (1549 – 1622).[1] He was admitted to Merton College and St Alban Hall, Oxford, becoming BA in 1592 and MA in 1595. He was licensed to practice physic in 1601.[1] Very little is known of his life except for his manuscript collection. Many of his manuscripts later became part of such collections like that of Sir Robert Cotton (1571 – 1631), including one of the most important Middle English manuscripts, the Pearl Manuscript.
The Collection
editThere are two surviving catalogues of Savile's manuscript collection, preserved as part of Add. MS 35213 and Harley MS 1879, both of which are now in the collections of British Library in London.[1][2] Savile's collection is directly linked to the survival of medieval manuscripts from the north of England after the destruction of monasteries in the sixteenth century.[3][4]
References
edit- ^ a b c Watson, Andrew G. (1969). The Manuscripts of Henry Savile of Banke. Bibliographical Society. ISBN 978-0-19-721779-5.
- ^ Gilson, J. P. (2010-01-20). "The Library of Henry Savile, of Banke". The Library. TBS-9 (1): 127–210. doi:10.1093/libraj/TBS-9.1.127. ISSN 0024-2160.
- ^ Hicks, Michael A. (1990). "John Nettleton, Henry Savile of Banke, and the Post-Medieval Vicissitudes of Byland Abbey Library". Northern History. 26 (1): 212–217. doi:10.1179/007817290790175818. ISSN 0078-172X.
- ^ Ramsay, Nigel (2004), Raven, James (ed.), "'The Manuscripts flew about like Butterflies': The Break-Up of English Libraries in the Sixteenth Century", Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 125–144, doi:10.1057/9780230524255_7, ISBN 978-0-230-52425-5, retrieved 2023-07-15