Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 467: John Grandisson, Vita Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis

purl.stanford.edu/vf901ky7081

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 467: John Grandisson, Vita Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis

Alternate Title:

Ioh. de Grandison. Vita S. Thomae

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 2 + 126

Dimensions:

164 Height (mm) and 113 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1400 - 1425]

Provenance:

On f. iv: Liber Roberti Hare ex dono Iohannis Swyfte auditoris. f. iir-iiv blank.

Table of contents:

Vita Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis

Description:

CCCC MS 467 is a fifteenth-century copy of the Life of St Thomas Becket by John Grandisson (d. 1369), also found in CCCC MSS 275 and 464. It has some decorated initials. The manuscript has an inscription saying that it was given to Robert Hare (d. 1611) by John Swift, auditor (d. 1570). It had presumably passed into the hands of Matthew Parker before 1575. Hare was a recusant - he gave the famous manuscript by Thomas Elmham OSB (d. c. 1427) to Trinity Hall (MS 1) in Cambridge on condition that it was returned to St Augustine's Canterbury if it was ever rebuilt - and his antiquarian links with scholars such as Parker, Arthur Agarde, John Stow, etc, shed an interesting light on the friendly scholarly relations which could exist between Protestants and Roman Catholics at this time.