Cambridge University Archives : Inventories of books, records and other movable property of the University

Inventories of books, records and other movable property of the University (UA Collect. Admin. 4)

This is a volume of Inventories of books, records and other movable property of the University. From around 1300, the University's portable possessions were the responsibility of the University Chaplain. After c. 1400 they were housed in the 'new chapel' in the newly completed north range of the Schools buildings. These lists were compiled by a range of University Officers including perhaps the Chaplain and certainly the Proctors and Registrary. The two Proctors were appointed annually from early in the University's existence to represent the interests of the regent masters, keep accounts and to maintain discipline. The office of Registrary was created in 1504 to compile and maintain the records of the University. The lists date mainly from the fifteenth century and include the earliest surviving catalogues of the archives, 1420, and the library, 1424-40. They were bound up by the Proctors in 1473. Matthew Wren (1585-1667), Fellow of Pembroke College, added a further catalogue of the archives to the blank leaves at the back in 1622.

Jacqueline Cox, Keeper of the University Archives

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Information about this document

Physical Location: Cambridge University Library
Classmark: UA Collect. Admin. 4
Subject(s): Library catalogs
Origin Place: Cambridge
Date of Creation: ca.1420-1622 C.E.
Associated Name(s): Wren, Matthew, 1585-1667; Romilly, Joseph, 1791-1864; Clark, John Willis, 1833-1910; Henry Richards Luard; James, M.R. (Montagu Rhodes), 1862-1936
Extent: iii + 47 + i Leaf height: 275 mm, width: 180 mm.
Material: Parchment with additional paper leaves pasted in
Format: Codex
Binding:
Exterior binding contemporary with sewing up in 1473 on to four double sheepskin thongs fastened into oak boards by a couple of wooden pegs. Boards covered in buckskin, originally dyed red, though traces of colouring remain only where skin folded over inside boards. Rebound in early 1960s, same method of binding, same boards and (on front board only) original pegs being used. Buckskin cover, slightly strengthened at spine, replaced over original oak boards, cleaned of later accretions of end papers.
Foliation:
A modern numbering sequence from 1-47, inscribed in the bottom right corner of each folio, has been followed in describing the contents. There is an additional modern foliation (1-56) with several errors in the top right corner of each page from 5-42.
Additions:
"Registry" is written on the front inner board in the hand of Joseph Romilly, Registrary of the University 1832-1862.
Two leaves of modern paper fols i and ii have been pasted into the front of the volume. They contain a list of the contents of the volume in the hand of John Willis Clark, Registrary of the University 1891-1910.
A late-nineteenth-century University Registry bookplate is tipped into the volume between fols i and ii; a University Archives bookplate from the 1980s is pasted to fol. iiir.
There is a note in John Willis Clark's hand on fol. iiiv: "At the end of this Volume is Bishop Wrenns Catalogue of Muniments in the office in 1622".
There is a title inscription in a seventeenth-century hand at the top of fol. 1r: "Registrum librorum scriptorum aliorumque bonorum universitatis per procuratores compilatum, Anno Domini 1473"
A list of documents listed in Wren’s inventory (fols 39r-43r) which were missing in 1881 in the hand of Henry Richards Luard Luard, Henry Richards, 1825-1891 and dated 9 April 1881, is written on a sheet of paper pasted onto a blank leaf (fol. 38r).
Wren's inventory is annotated on fols 38v-43r by Joseph Romilly and other later Registraries.
A paper slip is added at the end of the volume with a note signed by M. R. James and dated 24 February 1912 concerning the medieval flyleaves: "8 leaves, 4 at each end of a Civil Law MA of cent. xiii-xiv. Two leaves probably English".
Provenance: Compiled in the University of Cambridge and stored in the University since its creation. Now part of the University Archives collection held at Cambridge University Library.
Author(s) of the Record: Jacqueline Cox, Keeper of the University Archives
Bibliography:
Bradshaw, Henry, Collected papers of Henry Bradshaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889).
Stokes, H. P., "Chaplains", Cambridge Antiquarian Society octavo series vol. 41 pp. 60-63 (1906).
Hall, C. P., "Wm Rysley's catalogue of the Cambridge University muniments, compiled in 1420", Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society vol. 4 pp. 85-99 (1965).

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Fragment of a civil law text (image 11, page 1r) Catalogue of the library, 1473 (image 19, page 5r) Guidance on how to find individual documents listed in the inventory, 1494 or 1495 (image 32, page 11v) Inventory of University valuables - silver seal, cash and muniments - in the Chest, 1420 (image 33, page 12r) Register of vestments and other ornaments in the new chapel, c. 1424 (image 46, page 18v) Catalogue of books given by various donors to the common library, 1424-40 (image 47, page 19r) Catalogue of the muniments, 1622 (image 89, page 39r) Fragment of a civil law text (image 99, page 44r)

Information about this document

Physical Location: Cambridge University Library
Classmark: UA Collect. Admin. 4
Subject(s): Library catalogs
Origin Place: Cambridge
Date of Creation: ca.1420-1622 C.E.
Associated Name(s): Wren, Matthew, 1585-1667; Romilly, Joseph, 1791-1864; Clark, John Willis, 1833-1910; Henry Richards Luard; James, M.R. (Montagu Rhodes), 1862-1936
Extent: iii + 47 + i Leaf height: 275 mm, width: 180 mm.
Material: Parchment with additional paper leaves pasted in
Format: Codex
Binding:
Exterior binding contemporary with sewing up in 1473 on to four double sheepskin thongs fastened into oak boards by a couple of wooden pegs. Boards covered in buckskin, originally dyed red, though traces of colouring remain only where skin folded over inside boards. Rebound in early 1960s, same method of binding, same boards and (on front board only) original pegs being used. Buckskin cover, slightly strengthened at spine, replaced over original oak boards, cleaned of later accretions of end papers.
Foliation:
A modern numbering sequence from 1-47, inscribed in the bottom right corner of each folio, has been followed in describing the contents. There is an additional modern foliation (1-56) with several errors in the top right corner of each page from 5-42.
Additions:
"Registry" is written on the front inner board in the hand of Joseph Romilly, Registrary of the University 1832-1862.
Two leaves of modern paper fols i and ii have been pasted into the front of the volume. They contain a list of the contents of the volume in the hand of John Willis Clark, Registrary of the University 1891-1910.
A late-nineteenth-century University Registry bookplate is tipped into the volume between fols i and ii; a University Archives bookplate from the 1980s is pasted to fol. iiir.
There is a note in John Willis Clark's hand on fol. iiiv: "At the end of this Volume is Bishop Wrenns Catalogue of Muniments in the office in 1622".
There is a title inscription in a seventeenth-century hand at the top of fol. 1r: "Registrum librorum scriptorum aliorumque bonorum universitatis per procuratores compilatum, Anno Domini 1473"
A list of documents listed in Wren’s inventory (fols 39r-43r) which were missing in 1881 in the hand of Henry Richards Luard Luard, Henry Richards, 1825-1891 and dated 9 April 1881, is written on a sheet of paper pasted onto a blank leaf (fol. 38r).
Wren's inventory is annotated on fols 38v-43r by Joseph Romilly and other later Registraries.
A paper slip is added at the end of the volume with a note signed by M. R. James and dated 24 February 1912 concerning the medieval flyleaves: "8 leaves, 4 at each end of a Civil Law MA of cent. xiii-xiv. Two leaves probably English".
Provenance: Compiled in the University of Cambridge and stored in the University since its creation. Now part of the University Archives collection held at Cambridge University Library.
Author(s) of the Record: Jacqueline Cox, Keeper of the University Archives
Bibliography:
Bradshaw, Henry, Collected papers of Henry Bradshaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889).
Stokes, H. P., "Chaplains", Cambridge Antiquarian Society octavo series vol. 41 pp. 60-63 (1906).
Hall, C. P., "Wm Rysley's catalogue of the Cambridge University muniments, compiled in 1420", Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society vol. 4 pp. 85-99 (1965).

Section shown in images 11 to 18

Title: Fragment of a civil law text
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): These leaves, dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, were used to strengthen the binding of the volume; corresponding leaves are found at fols 44-47.

Section shown in images 19 to 27

Title: Catalogue of the library, 1473
Author(s): Songer, Ralph, fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, 15th century; Cokerham, Richard, fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 15th century
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): The two authors were respectively the Senior and Junior Proctors of the University in 1473.
Bibliography:
Bradshaw 1889, 35-53 (transcription).

Section shown in images 32 to 32

Title: Guidance on how to find individual documents listed in the inventory, 1494 or 1495
Author(s): Fisher, John, Saint, 1469-1535
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): John Fisher, later Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal, and Catholic martyr, was Proctor of the University in 1494-95.

Section shown in images 33 to 43

Title: Inventory of University valuables - silver seal, cash and muniments - in the Chest, 1420
Author(s): Rysley, William, 15th century
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): The text was compiled in 1420 and annotated by Henry Richards Luard, Registrary 1862-91, in 1876.
Bibliography:
Hall 1965, 85-99 (transcription).

Section shown in images 46 to 46

Title: Register of vestments and other ornaments in the new chapel, c. 1424
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): This text was compiled c. 1424.
Bibliography:
Stokes 1906, 60-63 (transcription).

Section shown in images 47 to 83

Title: Catalogue of books given by various donors to the common library, 1424-40
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): This text was compiled over the period 1424-1440.
Bibliography:
Bradshaw 1889, 19-34 (transcription).

Section shown in images 89 to 97

Title: Catalogue of the muniments, 1622
Author(s): Wren, Matthew, 1585-1667
Language(s): Latin

Section shown in images 99 to 106

Title: Fragment of a civil law text
Language(s): Latin
Note(s): These leaves, dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, were used to strengthen the binding of the volume; corresponding leaves are found at fols 1-4.