Search results for ""Author Rodney M Thomson""

Founded in 1284, Peterhouse is the University of Cambridge's oldest college. Its stated objective was to forward the study of theology,and before the Reformation it was a small community comprising a master and fourteen scholars.And yet by the late Middle Ages it had built up a substantial reference library. Today the college collection contains 277 manuscripts, almost all of which were at the College before the reformation, geared to the European university curriculum of the late middle ages.

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Books and learning in 12th-century Europe are the broad concern of the nineteen papers assembled here. The discussion of ’books’ ranges from important individual manuscripts, to collections manufactured in ’scriptoria’ and kept in ’libraries’; the ’learning’ is primarily the composition, transmission and study of Latin literary texts, both ancient and contemporary. Special attention is given to the Latin classics, to the literary culture of the larger Benedictine houses, to the phenomenal quantity of Latin satirical writing of the period, and to the dissemination and reception of texts and ideas over time. While the geographical focus is England, the relationship of English materials and developments to the wider European context is constantly emphasized.

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The first book-length study of the famous pre-1600 library at Corpus Christi College, one of the few college libraries to survive in its original form and with many of its original books in contemporary bindings. The library of Corpus Christi College is one of the most famous of all of those in Oxford and Cambridge. It is one of the few pre-1600 libraries to survive in something like its original form, and the only one still in use as a library. Its main space is still the original room built in 1517, and its furniture, if not original, is still early, most of it dating from 1604. A high proportion of its earliest book-stock, whether print or manuscript, still survives, and there is a wealth of documentation that makes it possible to chart the process of acquisition, especially the major donations of the Founder, Bishop Fox, and first President, John Claymond. And yet there is no modern, book-length study of the College Library. The present volume is intended to provide a scholarly but attractive and readable account of the Library from its conception in the mind of Richard Fox, to the appearance of its earliest surviving catalogue in 1589. It is extensively illustrated, highlighting the rarely-seen original bindings of the early books.

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William was a historian, biblical commentator, biographer and classicist; his intellectual achievement is studied here. William of Malmesbury (c.1090-c.1143) was England's greatest historian after Bede. Although best known in his own time, as now, for his historical writings (his famous Deeds of the Bishops and Deeds of the Kings of Britain), William was also a biblical commentator, hagiographer and classicist, and acted as his own librarian, bibliographer, scribe and editor of texts. He was probably the best-read of all twelfth-century men of learning. This is a comprehensive study and interpretation of William's intellectual achievement, looking at the man and his times and his work as man of letters, and considering the earliest books from Malmesbury Abbey library, William'sreading, and his "scriptorium". Important in its own right, William's achievement is also set in the wider context of Benedictine learning and the writing of history in the twelfth century, and on England's contribution to the "twelfth-century renaissance". In this new edition, the text has been thoroughly revised, and the bibliography updated to reflect new research; there is also a new chapter on William as historian of the First Crusade. RODNEY M. THOMSON is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Associate in the School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania.

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The manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford present an extraordinary variety of items, from humanist texts associated with Erasmus to John Dee's alchemical books and many vernacular MSS. This is the first full catalogue, with a large number of illustrations. The College of Corpus Christi, Oxford, was a 'Renaissance' institution both as to its foundation date (1517) and the intention of its founder, Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester. Both Fox himself and his choice as the College's first President, John Claymond, were friends of Erasmus, who approved of the foundation and especially of its library. Fox intended his foundation to be a conduit of Italian humanism to Oxford and to the English clergy. In itsextraordinary variety, this collection is a challenge to the cataloguer. Some manuscripts relate to the programme of the College's founder and first President, but most of the manuscripts reflect the particular interests of collectors from the late sixteenth century onwards. John Dee's books for example, mostly small, unpretentious and often fragmentary or made up of fragments, constitute a gold-mine for the historian of medieval chemistry and alchemy.These are supplemented by an important group of astronomical, arithmetical and medical texts. There is a substantial clutch of twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts from Lanthony Priory. Noteworthy, too, is the large number of manuscripts in several vernaculars: Old and Middle English and French, Old Irish, Catalan, and even a few words of fifteenth-century Czech. The bindings of the Corpus manuscripts have been wholly neglected. Many books retain important medieval bindings, some as early as the twelfth century, and a substantial number of beautiful blind-stamped bindings of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A special place in the collection is occupied by the approximately 1, 200 manuscript fragments, taken from bindings of books in the library in the late nineteenth century.

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The collection of medieval manuscripts at Pembroke College is an important one. Its most striking feature is that the majority of MSS 1-120 came from the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, as the gift of Thomas Smart in 1599. The collection of medieval manuscripts at Pembroke College is an important one. Its most striking feature is that the majority of MSS 1-120 came from the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, as the gift of Thomas Smart in 1599. Included among them is the famous 'Bury Gospels' (MS 120). It is one of the largest groups of monastic manuscripts to survive as an ensemble. The rest are, for the most part, the remains of the College's own medieval library, and have been little studied. In addition there are some twenty post-medieval acquisitions, including two splendid Anglo-Saxon Gospel Books. The main part of this catalogue contains individual, detailed descriptions of some 300 MSS and several hundred binding fragments. The descriptions are preceded by an Introduction outlining the history of the collection, and are accompanied by 130 colour plates. The collection was last catalogued by M. R. James in 1911, and over a century later, this publication both updates his account, and brings to bear modern techniques of manuscript study. Because of the Covid pandemic, the final check on MSS 235-327 was carried out after this book had been printed, and considerable additional details were discovered. This is available as a supplement to the Catalogue, which can be downloaded from the website of Pembroke College Library: https://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/college/library/manuscript-catalogue-supplement.

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Descriptive catalogue provides a crucial guide to one of the most important repositories of medieval manuscrips. Merton College, Oxford, one of the oldest colleges in the University, was founded in 1264. Its library contains some 328 complete medieval manuscript books (plus several hundred fragments in, or extracted from, the bindings of early printed books), dating from the ninth to the late fifteenth century. Most of them came to the College before the Reformation, and are the remains of its medieval collection, part of which was chained in the library, part in circulation amongst the Fellowship. Together with the College's surviving medieval archive, which includes no fewer than twenty-three book-lists, this material provides an important window on intellectual life at the University of Oxford between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and on the manufacture, acquisition and use of the books that supported it. This first catalogue of the medieval manuscripts since 1852 offers full and detailed descriptions of each item, supported by a colour frontispiece, 50 colour plates, and 107 black and white plates. Its introduction provides the first detailed history of Merton's medieval library, including an account of the building anddesign of the College's 'Old Library', built in the 1370s, western Europe's oldest library room still in use today; and the volume is completed with four appendices (including a comprehensive set of extracts from the College's medieval account rolls referring to its books and library) and two indexes. RODNEY M. THOMSON is Professor of History and Honorary Research Associate in the School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania.

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Collection of 277 litle-known medieval manuscripts, second only in number to Durham; special strengths are scholastic theology, biblical studies and sermons 13c-15c, and early music. Worcester Cathedral Library contains 277 medieval manuscripts, the largest number of any English cathedral except Durham. Most of them belonged to the pre-Reformation Cathedral Priory and date between the eleventh and late fifteenth centuries. The collection has never been adequately catalogued before, and is consequently little known; much of the contents of the books, their physical features and history, is here described for the first time. The libraryis rich in late medieval theology and sermon-literature. Many of the books are important because of their connections with Oxford University, and constitute a valuable source for the history of studies there after c.1300. The Worcester monks tended to annotate and write their names in their books, and some seventy of them are identified. Great treasures are the Worcester Antiphoner, and the fragments of early polyphonic music, some newly-discovered and described for the first time. About half the books are in their medieval bindings, including the second-oldest intact Anglo-Saxon binding. These are described individually, and the history of binding at the Cathedral Priory traced, by Michael Gullick. The rest of the Introduction is devoted to the history of the books and library to the early 1600s. There are indexes of incipits and of manuscripts other than those catalogued, as well as a general index.R.M. THOMSON is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Tasmania; MICHAEL GULLICK..Other Cathedral library catalogues; Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral Library and Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library.

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227 manuscripts dating from the 8th- to the 15th-century. The library at Hereford Cathedral is famous as one of the few surviving `chained libraries'; but the contents of the books secured to the seventeenth century presses are less well known. There are 227 western manuscripts, of whichabout half have been at the cathedral since before the Reformation. They range in date from the eighth to the fifteenth century, and include finely-illustrated patristic books of the twelfth century, a large collection of OxfordUniversity legal textbooks, and books of civil and canon law from the end of the thirteenth century. Over half the volumes survive in largely intact medieval bindings. The catalogue, begun by the late Sir Roger Mynors and completed by Professor Thomson, reflects the particular strengths of the collection. The many glossed books are described using a particularly effective system devised by Sir Roger Mynors. An introductory essay by Michael Gullick describes the medieval bindings, and the plates cover not only illumination and bindings, but medieval pressmarks and ownership inscriptions, as well as examples of scripts.

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A fresh look at William of Malmesbury which not only demonstrates his real greatness as a historian and his European vision, but also the breadth of his learning across a number of other disciplines. In the past William of Malmesbury (1090-1143) has been seen as first and foremost a historian of England, and little else. This volume reveals not only William's real greatness as a historian and his European vision, but also thebreadth and depth of his learning across a number of other fields. Areas that receive particular attention are William's historical writings, his historical vision and interpretation of England's past; William and kingship; William's language; William's medical knowledge; the influence of Bede and other ancient writers on William's historiography; William and chronology; William, Anselm of Canterbury and reform of the English Church; William and the LatinClassics; William and the Jews; and William as hagiographer. Overall, the volume offers a broad coverage of William's learning, wide-ranging interests and significance as revealed in his writings. Rodney M. Thomson is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Tasmania; Emily Dolmans is a lecturer in English Literature at Jesus College and Oriel College, University of Oxford; Emily A. Winkler is the John Cowdrey Junior Research Fellow in Medieval History at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and Departmental Lecturer in Medieval History. Contributors: Anne E. Bailey, Emily Dolmans, Daniel Gerrard, John Gillingham, Kati Ihnat, Ryan Kemp, William Kynan-Wilson, Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Stanislav Mereminskiy, Samu Niskanen, Joanna Phillips, Alheydis Plassmann, Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, Rodney M. Thomson, Emily Joan Ward, Emily A. Winkler, Michael Winterbottom.

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