THE SOURCES OF THE COLLECTION

The University Library's existence can be traced back to the early fifteenth century, although the University of Cambridge possessed a collection of books before this. The Library acquired the manuscripts contained in this catalogue from the early fifteenth century onwards. The manuscripts display a wide range of provenances and came to the Library in a large variety of ways. Nonetheless, they represent only a small proportion of the Library's holdings of western medieval manuscripts, having been selected for inclusion in the catalogue because they contain illumination, illustration or notable decoration. The present attempt to provide an account of their provenance and the circumstances of their acquisition does not claim to be comprehensive even for illuminated and decorated manuscripts, nor in a sense does it need to be, for the two-volume History of Cambridge University Library by J. C. T. Oates and D. J. McKitterick covers the principal accessions of manuscripts and contains indexes of manuscripts cited.

The catalogues of the University Library are, as one might expect, a major source for reconstructing the development of its holdings. The catalogues (and some related sources) up to 1557 have appeared in a scholarly edition by Peter Clarke (with introduction by Roger Lovatt) as part of the British Academy's Corpus of Medieval English Library Catalogues. The two earliest catalogues date from the fifteenth century.