Volume 1

Munimenta Academica, or, Documents illustrative of academical life and studies at Oxford / by Henry Anstey ; published by the authority of the lords commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the master of the rolls.

  • Anstey, Henry, 1827-
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Munimenta Academica, or, Documents illustrative of academical life and studies at Oxford / by Henry Anstey ; published by the authority of the lords commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the master of the rolls. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    that, even putting the halls at the modest number of one hundred, so large a quantity of. MSS. as must have existed should have utterl};- perished: one would suppose that the families of the various principals or the colleges' into whose possession the buildings passed, would have retained the papers of the last principal of each hall as it was in its turn swallowed up in the advancing tide of the colleges, which, as they were successively endowed and gradually extended, enclosed within their limits the sites of by far the larger portion of the old halls. Hitherto, however, no such memorials of the halls have been met with. The present would seem to be no improper place for the mention of other MSS. in connexion with the sub- ject, of which no use has been made by the editor of the present volume, and from which it is possible that matter hitherto unpublished may be derived. And first, to speak of what may still remain at Other possible Oxford unexplored, it is possible that in the Bodleian g^pJored!'' Library something may still be found, more likely, however, in the several colleges, stored in the muni- ment rooms and never seen, or effectually concealed by being bound up with other loose sheets, papers may yet remain which would repay the labour of the anti- quary. The editor, however, believes that the resources of the University in this respect are very considerably overrated by tliose who have had no experience in such investigations; he has himself found little or nothing of value in the places indicated, and is inclined to think that if there are any important original MSS. relating to medieval Oxford, which have not hitherto been published, besides those now edited, or mentioned ' That the muniments of one hall, called Le Bedylhall, passed into the possession of Queen's College ■we know from a note in MSS. Aa., fol. 73. There was also in the School's tower a MS. called by B. Twyne visilationes aularum cum urliculis; which has now been missing since 1818. These ai-e specimens of a large class of MSS.