The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey

This 1908 study compiled and interpreted the surviving evidence about the important, but long-destroyed, medieval library at Westminster Abbey.

Joseph Armitage Robinson (Author), Montague Rhodes James (Author)

9781108027878, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 May 2011

122 pages
21.6 x 14 x 0.7 cm, 0.16 kg

Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858–1933) was an internationally regarded scholar of early Christian texts, as well as an influential churchman, theologian, historian and pioneer of Anglican–Catholic ecumenical dialogue. While he was Dean of Westminster, he collaborated with the outstanding medievalist and palaeographer M. R. James, then Provost of King's College, Cambridge, on this study, originally published in 1908. It documents the history of the library at Westminster Abbey and its accompanying scriptorium from 1060 to 1660, the original library having been dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries and its successor destroyed by a fire in 1694. The authors present surprisingly detailed information, compiled from surviving sources, about the buildings, furniture and holdings of the library, its administration, the budget for buying and restoring books, and acquisitions from gifts and legacies. James even succeeds in identifying some manuscripts once owned by Westminster that have survived in other collections.

Preface
1. On the making and keeping of books in Westminster Abbey, AD 1160–1660 J. A. Robinson
2. The remains of the monastic library of Westminster Abbey M. R. James
3. The manuscripts in the chapter library of Westminster between 1623 and 1694 M. R. James
4. The manuscripts now in the chapter library M. R. James
5. Descriptions of the Westminster chartularies J. A. Robinson
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]