Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940 (review)

'Summary' in the title of a manuscripts catalogue is a reassuring sign. It suggests a practical, realistic approach to the prime task of broadening public access to a collection. The best Summary Catalogues, like this one, find the sweet spot between the teasing brevity of a handlist and the oppressive zeal of a full catalogue. They tend to be compiled by scholar-librarians over decades, rather than by specialists hired to beat deadlines. Working librarians may lack time to bore down deeply into the research, but build up a breadth of experience in sharing the manuscripts with readers. Subject-defined projects attract short-term grants, but Summary Catalogues are more often financed from libraries' own funds (here supported from Dr Dorothea Oschinsky's bequest of 1995). This licenses a more amorphous range, to encompass orphan manuscripts otherwise unclassifiable by subject. A truly exhaustive, specialist catalogue may effectively smother its contents for subsequent research. A summary cataloguer does not claim the last word, but opens the library doors.

Cambridge University Library's earlier collections — manuscripts carrying 'two-letter' references such as Gg.5.35 — were described in the five-volume catalogue published in 1856-67. Further miscellaneous accessions after the mid nineteenth century, whatever their date, were allocated numbers as they arrived in the single sequence of Additional Manuscripts. The present catalogue picks out European manuscripts in the Additional sequence acquired before 1940 and written before 1500, with a few later ones of medieval character. There are a few exclusions: Greek manuscripts, as listed by P. Easterling in Scriptorium 16 (1962), pp. 302-23; collections of medieval fragments, except individual items with separate Add. numbers, and all Greek and Latin papyri; and individual archival documents (though cartularies are included). English legal manuscripts are covered less fully, given the overlap with J. H. Baker's A Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library (Woodbridge, 1996, with codicological descriptions by Jayne Ringrose). Illumination and miniatures are described, but will be further discussed in the forthcoming catalogue of CUL's Western Illuminated Manuscripts by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with Stella Panayotova. The numbers here run in broken sequence from Add. 43 to 6981, to a total of 324 — slightly more than the items-total, since volumes in sets are individually numbered. Their cataloguing history falls into three phases: 1926-30, an attempt by M. R. James, which foundered over manifold loose ends and the posthumous illegibility of his drafts; 1948-70, a revision upgraded to rewrite, by H. L. Pink in association with Sir Roger Mynors; and 1971-2009, the present work by Jayne Ringrose, which so fully supersedes previous work that it 'may be said to have been done anew'. This is a long gestation period, but all the richer for that.

Cambridge acquired these manuscripts through purchase and donation, piece-meal and in a few larger groups. Collecting was largely directed by four scholar-librarians, Henry Bradshaw, William Robertson Smith, F. J. H. Jenkinson, and A. F. Scholfield, who spent the Library's modest funds, attracted donations, and gave manuscripts themselves. Their interests and opportunities for acquisitions near home brought local manuscripts, including probably the first depiction of teaching at Cambridge (Add. 3471, fol. 125^r, a lecture within a thirteenth-century initial) and records from East Anglian archives such as the Black Book of Ely and Red Book of Thorney (Add. 3468, 3020-21). A Terrier of the West Fields of Cambridge lists the lands around 1370 where the UL now stands (Add. 2601). Larger donations embodied their collectors' interests: illuminated manuscripts bequeathed by Samuel Smith Sandars (1894); humanistic, theological, and liturgical texts given by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1919); and biblical manuscripts given by Arthur William Young (mostly in 1933-34) along with his Gutenberg Bible. Yet the collection's strength is its diversity, from the sixth century to the time of...