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Catalogue of books in the library at Lund Church

 Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10139

Scope and Contents

A manuscript catalogue of the library in the church at Lund (in the East Riding of Yorkshire), made in 1676, listing c. 1900 titles given by Sir Thomas Remington, (c. 1612‒1681). The volume begins with Remington’s 'designe' for the library and goes on to discuss the use of the library, advising readers 'to take notice of the tablet that hands up, wheare he shall finde a catalogue of all the bookes in the library with directions wheare to finde any of them'. It is also recommended that every book should be left 'in its proper place after the use of it'.

The books listed show a great breadth subjects, and include works of history and travel (including Hakluyt's 'Sea voyages' and Contarini's history of Venice), science (Copernicus's De revolutionibus and Sacrobosco's Sphaera mundi), and literature (Herbert’s The temple along with Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruell), alongside works of law, dictionaries, sermons, Bibles, and at least three fifteenth-century printed books.

Accompanying the catalogue is a notebook with loosely inserted late-nineteenth-century correspondence relating to the catalogue.

Dates

  • Creation: 1676

Biographical / Historical

Remington studied at Peterhouse (where he was admitted a Fellow Commoner in 1627), and is likely to have acquired books while at Cambridge which he later presented to the church in Lund.

The church of All Saints at Lund was built in the fifteenth century, but was rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century, and no trace of the library, which must have sat in a second-storey room above the north aisle, survives. The library had evidently been dispersed by at least the 1860s, according to the accompanying correspondence.

Extent

2 volume(s) (2 volumes in 1 box) : Paper

Language of Materials

English

Latin

Custodial History

The manuscript was at one time in the possession of Thomas Kerrich (1748‒1828), from 1797 Protobibliothecarius of Cambridge University Library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased, 2016.

Related Materials

Several church libraries like that once at Lund are now preserved among the collections of the University Library, including the parish libraries of Bassingbourn (Cambridgeshire) and Broughton (Huntingdonshire) and the cathedral libraries of Ely and Peterborough.

Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Cambridge University Library Repository

Contact:
Cambridge University Library
West Road
Cambridge CB3 9DR United Kingdom