The Parker Library

Archbishop Matthew Parker was born #OTD in 1504. He left the bulk of his collection to @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social but in 1574 gave us 100 books, including this new edition of the Gospels in Anglo Saxon type (1571). The notes are by Abraham Wheelock, first Cambridge Professor of Arabic. CUL 1.24.9.

Initial 'B'(eatus) at the beginning of Psalm 1 in which David is depicted as playing music both in youth and later as king.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004: The Dover Bible, Volume II; 12th c; ? Christ Church, Canterbury; f.14r @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

Interior of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, showcasing rows of wooden bookcases filled with books, a vaulted ceiling, and historical artifacts on display.

📍 The Parker Library, @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

Internationally renowned for its important collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts, the @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social is a national heritage treasure.

Explore more 👇
bit.ly/40Kgxxh

YouTube video by Lyrixa Cliff Richard - Summer Holiday (lyrics)

"Come on, everybody! We're going on holiday!"

Our reading room for manuscript and early printed books is closed Monday 28 July-Friday 8 August 2025
(also, always closed on weekends and bank holidays)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVYm...

Hundreds of medieval medical manuscripts now accessible Over the course of the last three years, and thanks to the generous support of the Wellcome Trust, the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project has been enhancing the discoverability of medieval m...

190 mss, over 7000 pages of medieval medical recipes, 42000 new images, 7700+ texts, new cataloguing, imaging and conservation treatments - oh my!

We're so pleased to have been part of Curious Cures
Congrats to @theul.bsky.social and everyone who worked on it 🎉👏👏
www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/curi...

Opening from medieval manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 10, fol. 330v) displaying a painting of a bearded and long-haird man with open arms (palms out) on the left, and canon law text on the right. The man is painted on deep blue background with red and partial green frame. A chart of multiple circles (empty) is superimposed on him.

Opening from a medieval manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 66, p. 100) with text on the right, and a painting of a six-winged angel on the left. Small-headed angel has bare feet and legs, and all six wings spread in pairs; first two as a modesty shield, second two at the side, and last pair of two wings over the head. A border with floral motif surrounds the angel, and contains four golden circles, one at each corner of the frame.

Have you ever seen angel's wings used to picture confession? How about a 'tree of consanguinity' drawn on the figure of a man? Perhaps you're a fan of calendars, genealogies, doodles & indexes?

If you missed our exhibition, you can always find it online!
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/parker-libra...

Initial 'I'(n principio) at the beginning of Genesis with six medallions one of which is marked HILE (ὕλη) and refers to matter or stuff.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 048; Bible; c1170 CE; St Albans; f.7v @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

CCCC 178, p. 297, detail

Alert observers may be surprised to see an interlinear gloss on the Old English page and not the Latin; it's usually the other way around! This is the Tremulous Hand of Worcester, working on teaching himself OE. Note e.g. DÆDUM: FACTIS; BEARNA: FILIORUM. Can you pick out others?

Initial 'd'(ixit) at the beginning of Psalm 52 depicting Balaam, his donkey, and the angel with his sword standing in the way:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 075; Glossed Psalter (Glossa ordinaria); 13th century; England; f.95r
@parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

An exhibition of medieval manuscripts at Cambridge's @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social! Curated by Timothy Glover (Richard Rolle specialist and current Parker Library Early-Career Research Fellow).
Do pop in/book a tour if you are in Cambridge - July only!

Sunday afternoon and it's too hot!

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 033; Glossed Gospels of Mark and John; late 12th or early 13th century; ?St Albans; f.2v @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

Splendid initial 'I'(n) at the beginning of John's Gospel

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 033; Glossed Gospels of Mark and John; late 12th or early 13th century; ?St Albans; f.75v @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

Scary hybrids! 😳

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004; The Dover Bible, Volume II.; 12th century; f.33v @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

#solstice #turnedthepages

Outline of Stonehenge in brown ink, standing on green ground: drawn with 14 upright and 14 horizontal stones. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 194, f. 57r

"Stonhenges iuxta ambesbury in anglia sita"

Stonehenge pictured in full circle in a 14th-century chronicle 'Scala mundi' by Martin of Troppau OP (d. 1278)

The ms, now CCCC MS 194, came to us with Matthew Parker's donation
See for yourself: tinyurl.com/36xbvf88
#MedievalMSS

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 199, fol. 1v

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 199, fol. 2r

Another manuscript surprise for Trinity Sunday: CCCC 199 is a copy of Augustine's De Trinitate written by the #Welsh scribe + poet Ieuan ap Sulien c1090. The script is fancy + strangely challenging; I don't know 11c Welsh MSS well & don't have a sense whether this is idiosyncratic or mainstream. 🧵

An ink doodle of a head. The face has carefully drawn eyes, eyebrows and nose; there is a large chin (with a soul patch?? It’s what it looks like), and above this a small, neat smile (reminiscent of an archaic Greek statue). The hair is fair and thick and gathered into a braid at the nape of the neck.

Today’s face gazing out at us from a millennium ago is from the endleaf of MS 221 @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social

Happy International Heraldry Day!

Why not celebrate by reading all about Archbishop Matthew Parker's uses of heraldry in Elizabethan England in this short piece of mine for @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

#coatsofarms #heraldry @theheraldrysociety.bsky.social

A detail of a full page illumination: a golden circle surrounds a galloping centaur while holding a spear with a frindged flag and a green shield Decoration from the Bury Bible, now in the Parker Library as Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 2i, fol. 1v

Galloping to the weekend - have a great one!

Detail from the magnificent mid 12th-century Bury Bible, formerly of Bury St Edmunds Abbey,
now in the Parker Library as CCCC MS 2i, f. 1v
parker.stanford.edu/parker/catal...

#medievalSky #medievalMSS

Medieval manuscript page with two thirds page framed miniature of Pentecost set against a blue ground with gold stars. White dove representing the Holy Spirit spews red inspirational lines to each head gathered around a central figure dressed in blue robe lined in red. Scale of faces is off, with the people in the background having larger faces than the people in the foreground. There is a full border of gold, blue and pink ivy leaves with interlace at the corners. Ornamental initial of three lines with blue and pink ivy leaves. Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 540, folio 159r

The coming Sunday is Pentecost a.k.a. Whitsunday, commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit

1390s artist in Avignon decorated a Book of Hours with the highlight moment; the MS is now in the Parker Library as CCCC MS 540, f. 159r
parker.stanford.edu/parker/catal...

#MedievalSky #MedievalMSS

Digital image viewer showing two pages of a medieval manuscript, each side written with various notes in Latin in multiple hands and inks. Top of the image shows the manuscript shelfmark and a brief title description of the content of the manuscript.

The receipe is a slightly later addition (10thC?) to a 9th-century manuscript, written at the abbey of Saint-Vaast in Arras & now in the Parker Library as CCCC MS 223, p. 2

parker.stanford.edu/parker/catal...

It smells like 👃... well, judge it for yourself!

Join 'Scent and Imagination' workshop "Recreating Incense from the Past", lead by our Director and Fellow Librarian Philippa Hoskin+team, and take a journey to recreate an 11th-century incense recipe

See the first trial
youtu.be/4-D_ek9DUmY?...

11th-century manuscript page: full page of Old English text, single column of long lines in black ink with red initial H near the top. Prickings clearly visible at outer margin near the page edge. Purple arrow added by me points to the line about St. Wigstan nine lines from the bottom.

Today is the feast of the mid-9c. Mercian martyr Wigstan (Wystan), patron saint of the church at Repton, which is a place very dear to me. (I may or may not be writing a novel based on Repton.) For manuscript evidence of Wigstan, let's look at @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social MS 201, p149. 🧵 #medievalsky

The Early Years As we celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the Parker Library On the Web going live, we wanted to get a sense on how it was to work on a multi-year multi-team project between the Parker Library at Cor...

Remember the early years?

We didn't want to lose sight of them & asked our colleague @suzpaul.bsky.social (now @theul.bsky.social) how it was to work on a large-scale digitisation project back in the day

Give her a listen!
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/ear...
#ParkerLibrary #PLOW

The illuminator reflecting on his art: initial 'S'(enior) with a man grinding a blue lump (?lapis lazuli) & man with a palette painting the letter

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004; The Dover Bible, Volume 2; 12th century; f.242v
@parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social

Manuscript page in black ink with very elaborate R initial with biting, interlaced beasts, in the same ink as the main text.

Manuscript page in black ink with long initial I in dark read with beast heads running down the left margin, and heavy black capitals for the top line.

Today is the feast of Aldhelm, d. 709, Abbot of Malmesbury, Bishop of Sherborne, whose over-the-top Latin style powered a revival of extreme Latinity in the 10-11c English Benedictine Reform. This is the opening of his De virginitate (prose version) in @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social CCCC 326, pp 6-7. 🕯️🧵

A big thank you to Professor Philippa Hoskin and Tuija Ainonen at the Parker Library @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social for our CPS visit to this internationally renowned collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts.

Archbishop Parker died on this day 450 years ago. He was Elizabeth I's first archbishop of Canterbury, a dedicated collector of manuscripts, and wearer of a very fine moustache

@corpuscambridge.bsky.social @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social

I discuss his portraiture here
corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/mat...

Full page drawing of a memory aid in a form of an angel coloured in red, blue, green, yellow and gold. Six wings marked in Latin as representing love of god, love of neighbour, purity of heart and of flesh, confession, and satisfaction; each wing has in additon five feathers that highlight different aspects of the main theme. Angel is framed in red and green decorative foliage wtih golden circles in the corners of the frame. The right edge of this image has one column of text in Latin from the next page. Image taken from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 66, p. 100 https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/canvas-939c88d0dd067774e49ce19ba676031b

Medieval angel is up!

Our Research Fellow curated summer-25 display in the Parker Library on 'Ordinary Encounters: Practical Books of Medieval Pastoral Care'

Eventbrite tours organised once a week - book your place now!
www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/parker-lib...
#medievalsky #medievalMSS

Bring on the musical elephant!

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 016II; Matthew Paris OSB, Chronica maiora II; 13th century; f.152v
@parkerlibcccc.bsky.social @corpuscambridge.bsky.social