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For the most part, the manuscripts of the various Colleges are kept in the Libraries of the Colleges which own them, and application should be made to the College Librarian in each case, as early as possible before the intended visit.

Queens' College

The University Library holds a significant proportion of the Queens’ College archives. These records, on deposit at the University Library since 1968, chiefly relate to the College’s foundation in 1447, its estates and household. The records include charters, statutes, deeds of title, estate papers, annual accounts, buttery books and court books from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. There are no student records. 

The Queens’ College archives held at the University Library are not catalogued. However, a listing of the full holdings at the University Library is available to researchers.

The records are available for consultation in the Manuscripts Reading Room on the third floor of Cambridge University Library. Access to some records is restricted for conservation reasons.

For enquiries relating to records at the University Library, please contact: archives@lib.cam.ac.uk

Queens’ College itself retains a quantity of relatively modern material including Conclusion Books (from 1734), College reports, governing body minutes, tutors’ books, records of College clubs and societies, and personal papers of former members. Dr David Butterfield is Fellow Archivist at Queens’: archive@queens.cam.ac.uk.

For further background information, see John Twigg, A history of Queens’ College, Cambridge, 1448-1986 (The Boydell Press, 1987), W.G. Searle, The History of the Queens’ College of St Margaret and St Bernard in the University of Cambridge 1446-1662, 2 volumes (Cambridge Antiquarian Society Publications, Vols. IX, 1967, and XIII, 1981) and the Queens’ College webpages

 

Certain Colleges have deposited their medieval manuscripts in the Manuscripts Department of the University Library as follows.

Pembroke College

The medieval manuscripts of Pembroke College were described by M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905).  A new catalogue by Rod Thomson is forthcoming in 2022. 

Since the 1960s, 312 of the manuscripts belonging to Pembroke College Library have been housed at the University Library.  These are Pembroke MSS 1-250, 250A, and 251-311.  These are mostly European medieval handwritten books containing texts in Latin and a range of vernacular languages, including Greek, Middle English and French, plus a small number of manuscripts written in Arabic.  There are also some early modern European manuscripts.

From 2021, these have been joined by Pembroke College Library's collection of 989 manuscript fragments: these are mostly fragments of European medieval manuscripts removed from either Pembroke's manuscripts themselves or Pembroke's collection of early printed books, as well as the remains of a few bindings.  These are now housed in a series of boxes and folders, bearing the classmark Pembroke MSS 312-330.

Pembroke's manuscripts and fragments are consulted in the Special Collections Reading Room, subject to the usual procedures for the reading of manuscripts.  To make arrangements to examine them, please use the Book A Visit webform.  For further information, please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk

Readers are permitted to photograph Pembroke's medieval manuscripts in the Special Collections Reading Room for their own personal use and on the same terms as those that apply to the University Library's manuscripts.  Please ask the Reading Room staff for further guidance.

Please note: many of these manuscripts have original medieval bindings and must therefore be handled with great care.  Some of these, and others in the collection, may be too fragile to consult.  We recommend that you confirm that manuscripts are available for consultation prior to your intended visit by contacting the Reading Room staff via the e-mail address given above.

Please note that Pembroke's collection of post-medieval manuscripts (described by James, op. cit. pp 277-80) and other post-medieval items, together with the early printed books, are still housed in the College Library.  Application to consult them should be made to the Pembroke Librarian.

A number of Pembroke's medieval and early modern manuscripts have recently been digitised in full.  The images, together with detailed descriptions, are now available to view on the Cambridge Digital Library

Peterhouse

The medieval manuscripts of Peterhouse were described by M.R. James in A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse (Cambridge, 1899).  A new catalogue was recently published: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse, Cambridge by Rod Thomson (Woodbridge, 2016).

All but a handful of Peterhouse's medieval manuscripts are on deposit in the University Library.  They are consulted in the Special Collections Reading Room, subject to the usual procedures for the reading of manuscripts.  To make arrangements to examine them, please use the Book A Visit webform.  

Photography of any kind is restricted.  For further information, please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk.

Please note that Peterhouse's collections of medieval manuscript fragments, post-medieval manuscripts and music manuscripts remain at Peterhouse.  Application to consult them should be made to the Perne Library.

A number of Peterhouse's medieval and early modern manuscripts have recently been digitised in full.  The images, together with detailed descriptions, are now available to view on the Cambridge Digital Library.

Corpus Christi College

For deposited Islamic and Sanskrit manuscripts, see the Asian & Near and Middle Eastern manuscripts page.

King's College

For the Pote collection, owned jointly by King's College and Eton College, see the Asian & Near and Middle Eastern manuscripts page.

Other Colleges

The medieval manuscripts of Selwyn College and Ridley Hall have also been deposited in the Manuscripts Department, and may be consulted there similarly in accordance with the usual procedures.  Descriptions of these manuscripts were published in N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 5 vols (1969-2002), vol. 2, Abbotsford-Keele (1977), pp. 247-49, 255-58 and vol. 5, Indexes and Addenda (2002), p. 7.