Trinity Hall : The Parker Register

Trinity Hall

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The Parker Register is a list of the books and manuscripts that were owned by Matthew Parker (1504-1575) and passed to the keeping of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Matthew Parker was Master of Corpus Christi from 1544 to 1553, and then Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. His books came to Corpus Christi under an indenture dated 1569 between Parker, Thomas Aldrige (Master of Corpus), John Caius (Master of Gonville and Caius) and Henry Harvey (Master of Trinity Hall). These three colleges were chosen because they had close links to Norwich where Parker was born. Each College has a copy of the Register to serve as check lists for the annual audit of these books that Parker stipulated in the indenture. If Corpus failed to take care of the books then they would pass first to Gonville and Caius and then to Trinity Hall if Caius was negligent.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The same scribe was used for all three copies, although they differ slightly from each other. The three copies owned by the colleges are Corpus Christi, MS575, Gonville and Caius Coll., MS710/743 and Trinity Hall, THAR/7/1/13 (MS 29). The Trinity Hall copy has its original binding from the late 16th century with Parker’s arms blind stamped on both boards.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>It contains annotations by John Parker, son of Matthew Parker, dated 6 August 1593, of certain books not found by him during the annual inspection of Corpus Christi College.</p>