The medieval manuscripts in Corpus Christi College

The Parker Library and the collection of medieval manuscripts in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, have been described in detail in a number of publications. I refer the interested reader to those, and provide an overview here.

The College was founded in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was consequently more than two hundred years old when it received the gift of Matthew Parker's books in 1575. C.R. Cheney notes that in spite of the relatively small size of the College (with the Master in the fifteenth century presiding over four to eight fellows), it had nevertheless accumulated a library of more than two hundred manuscripts and printed books before the Reformation. However, the Parker donation accounts for by far the greater part of the present collection.

Matthew Parker was born in 1504. He was admitted to Corpus Christi College, probably in 1520, became a College bible clerk the following year, and was elected to a fellowship in 1527. He was ordained a priest, and in 1535 became chaplain to Anne Boleyn. In 1544 he was elected Master of the College, and in 1547, over two years before clerical marriage was legalised, married Margaret Harleston, with whom he had been living for some years. In 1553, when Queen Mary came to the throne, Parker withdrew from the mastership. After Elizabeth's succession, he became Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1559.

Matthew Parker was already a considerable book collector, but mainly of printed books. He now developed an interest in medieval manuscripts which contained historical or scriptural texts which could justify the position and teaching of the reformed English church by relating it to the early English church. From about 1560, Parker appears to have begun a systematic search for such manuscripts, establishing first their existence and then their whereabouts after the dispersal of the monastic libraries. With John Bale's help and with the assistance of his own secretaries, particularly John Joscelyn, lists were drawn up of authors whose texts were considered important, and of people or institutions who now owned copies of those texts.