Catalogue of part of Archbishop Parker’s donation of books to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; England, s. xvi/s. xvii

Title

Catalogue of part of Archbishop Parker’s donation of books to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; England, s. xvi/s. xvii

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 167

Place of origin

England

Date

s. s. xvi/s. xvii

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Paper (watermark: four-leafed flower with basal leaves, within a double oval; no match in Briquet)

Physical extent

Folios: ii + 92 + i (pencil foliation, top right, added February 2014: 1–92). (variable)

Hands

Two contemporaneous scripts combining italic and secretary features, with first hand writing fol. 1–30 and the second fol. 31–49v (ie the final two sections). Kitchin dated the manuscript to ‘saec. xvi’, noting correctly that ‘the latest date of a printed book given is A. D. 1574’; the scripts, however, may be as late as the early seventeenth century.

Decoration

No decoration to this workmanlike copy. The scribes provide letters or headings in the top margin. The first scribe also provides on occasion a pagination in both the part he writes and that provided by his colleague: fol. 31–49 = pp. 69–103, but fol. 21–23 = 135–139, and fol. 26–30 = pp. 137–145 [!] and fol. 25 = p. 159 [!].

Binding

Vellum, half-backed in rough card, possibly s. xviii. Sewn on two thongs. Pastedowns and conjoint flyleaves later (s. xx?) additions, with a rectangle cut out at front pastedown so as to reveal the ChCh bookplate. Same paper label stuck to spine with present manuscript number.

Provenance

This small volume provides no explicit information about either its production or its route to Christ Church. While ChCh manuscript numbers do not relate exactly to order of accession, the high number within Kitchin’s designation of ‘codices MSS. Anglici’ (though this is only in small part in English), the absence of an early shelfmark and its non-appearance in any catalogue of the manuscripts before Kitchin all suggest that this did not arrive before the nineteenth century or, if it did, it was as part of Archbishop Wake’s bequest, which was excluded from Edward Smallwell’s cataloguing of the main archive (see Appendix IV). Wake certainly showed interest in his learned predecessor: this is evidenced not only by our MS 112 but also by his owning of a copy of the printed catalogue of Parker’s donation to Corpus (London, 1722), which now forms the opening part of MS 294 (though there is no sign that the printed catalogue and this manuscript have been compared). This manuscript, however, does not appear in the autograph list of the manuscripts he left to ChCh, MS 352/8, nor in the earliest catalogue of the ‘Arch.’ section of the collection as organised in its new home (MS LR 21b). However, that catalogue is written by two hands and the second script (s. xviii3/4) may be identifiable with that which appears on a blue slip sitting within our volume (presently between fols 48 and 49) and records a shelfmark: ‘E.1’. Perhaps, then, this was added as a late arrival to the Wake collection, with the Wake librarian cognisant of the archbishop’s interests.