Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Trinity College Library: Poems on the Cross, with a new kind of blue

The last of the five manuscripts lent by Trinity College to the British Library’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition is one of the most intriguing and visually appealing manuscripts in the Wren Library. B.16.3 is a collection of poems by one of the most talented writers of the ninth century, a monk named Hrabanus Maurus. Hrabanus (or …

The Conservation and Rebinding of the Pauline Epistles

Copied in Northumbria in the eighth century on leaves of tough, rather crudely finished parchment, the Epistles of St Paul (B.10.5) is the oldest book in the Wren Library.  Although several leaves are missing – some are in the Cotton collection at the British Library – those that remain have survived over 1,200 years of …

Bindings in the Spotlight (8)

This is a fine example of a Parisian binding dating from around 1560. It covers Plutarch’s Vies des hommes illustres which was printed, also in Paris, in 1559. In the early years of the printed book trade the place of printing was not necessarily a guide to where the binding was made. Books were distributed …

Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Trinity College Library: A Domesday Dossier

The Wren Library holds two manuscripts with close connections to the Domesday Book and it is exciting to report that one of them (O.2.41) is now displayed adjacent to Great Domesday itself as part of the British Library’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. Both of the Trinity manuscripts are referred to as ‘Liber Eliensis’ (‘The Book of …