Collectanea. First series / edited by C.R.L. Fletcher.

Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Collectanea. First series / edited by C.R.L. Fletcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/378 (page 60)
    [Port II. possession of a few of the books referred to in the catalogue; and the catalogue was without doubt, from its date, the com- position of the Fourth Provost or his amanuensis. Lysander is perhaps right in designating it as the oldest instrument of its kind extant. But what was to be done with so precious and fragile a relic ? How was it to be preserved against the casualties of time? How could it^be preserved, but in the morocco binding of Charles Lewis ? That cunning (alias clever) bibliopegist hath converted the narrow vellum roll into a thin quarto volume of some three or four leaves, enclosed within a dark blue exterior,’ &c., &c. It is from this thin quarto volume that the following list has been transcribed. The vellum roll described by Dibdin has been divided into three leaves, which have been carefully mounted by Lewis so as to exhibit both sides. On the face of the roll, now forming the rectos of the three leaves, the list is arranged according to the several branches of study, the Arts and the Superior Faculties. A few additional entries are made on the back of the roll, not, as far as appears, according to any systematic order of subjects. The hand- writing is, however, the same throughout; so that these entries must have been made either at the same time, or very shortly after the principal list. Each book is described by its title, with the opening words of its second leaf as a mark of identification, and in most cases with the price, or the name of the donor, or both. Dibdin is no doubt in error in assigning the year 1349 as the date of the roll. On the volume being shown to the Rev. W. D. Macray, of the Bodleian Library, he at once declared that the handwriting must be later than that year; and he suggested, what, as soon as stated, approves itself as a certain explanation, that the date ‘ xlix ’ refers to a regnal year, which can only be one in the reign of Edward the Third ; and the document is therefore unhesitatingly assigned to 1375. This discovery disposes of William of Daventry’s claim to the authorship of the catalogue, as he died in J 373*