Worcester Cathedral Library contains 277 medieval manuscripts, the largest number of any English cathedral except Durham. Most of them belonged to the pre-Reformation Cathedral Priory and date between the eleventh and late fifteenth centuries. The collection has never been adequately catalogued before, and is consequently little known; much of the contents of the books, their physical features and history, is here described for the first time. The library is rich in late medieval theology and sermon-literature. Many of the books are important because of their connections with Oxford...

William of Malmesbury (c.1090-c.1143) was England's greatest historian after Bede. Although best known in his own time, as now, for his historical writings (his famous Deeds of the Bishops and Deeds of the Kings of Britain), William was also a biblical commentator, hagiographer and classicist, and acted as his own librarian, bibliographer, scribe and editor of texts. He was probably the best-read of all twelfth-century men of learning. This is a comprehensive study and interpretation of William's intellectual achievement, looking at the man and his times and his work as man of letters, and...

Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (History of the English Bishops) is one of the most important medieval texts written c. 1125 by one of England's key historians of the period, William, Monk of Malmesbury. It is a is a vivid narrative on the English Church, its bishoprics and monasteries, from c.600 to William's contemporary era. Conceived as a companion piece to his Gesta Regum Anglorum, this historical work was a unique enterprise, and the result is a substantial book, elegantly written, full of original information, and characterized by intelligent interpretation and judgement.
Gesta...

Founded in 1284 by Hugh of Balsham, bishop of Ely, Peterhouse is the University of Cambridge's oldest college. The earliest surviving version of its statutes, from 1344, declares that its primary function was to forward the study of theology. Before the Reformation it was a small community, the statutes prescribing a master and fourteen scholars. And yet by the late Middle Ages it had built up a substantial reference library, out of all proportion to this small fellowship. Today the college collection contains 277 complete manuscripts; in addition, there are more than three hundred fragments...

The first book-length study of the famous pre-1600 library at Corpus Christi College, one of the few college libraries to survive in its original form and with many of its original books in contemporary bindings.