The Parker Library holds a collection of priceless manuscripts, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the earliest history written in English, to the St. Augustine Gospels, said to have been brought from Rome to England by the Catholic saint in 597.
In a decidedly modern touch, the library’s entire collection, among the most impressive anywhere in the world, is accessible online.
The library was entrusted to Corpus Christi College in 1574 by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I.
It contains more than 600 manuscripts, along with such items as letters from King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn and Protestant firebrand Martin Luther, and the bill for burning Thomas Cranmer in 1556, according to the University of Cambridge.
The Parker Library put its library online in 2010, becoming the first research library to have every page of its collection captured digitally.
One of the key works in the Parker collection is the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, thought to have been commissioned by Alfred the Great as he pushed for greater use of the language through educational reforms.
The Chronicle is considered the single most important historical source of the period in England between the departure of the Romans and the decades following the Norman Conquest.
Much of the information set down in the Chronicle is not recorded anywhere else. In addition, the manuscripts are important sources for the history of the English language.
There are nine surviving versions of the work, but the Parker Chronicle, known as the A-version, is the oldest manuscript surviving, according to the University of Cambridge.
Letter from Anne Boleyn to her father. From the Parker Library Collection.
It is a detailed record of events in English history, year by year, until 892 AD.
Additions to the manuscript include events such as the pivotal Battle of Hastings nearly 175 years later.
The St. Augustine Gospels are said to have been brought to England by St. Augustine at the end of the sixth century on the theologian’s first mission to convert the English.
Its importance is signified by the fact that in 1982 it took the place of honor between Pope John Paul II and Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury and highest-ranking member of the Church of England, during the first papal visit to England since the Reformation.
“It is the oldest illustrated Latin Gospel Book in existence,” said Donnelley Fellow Librarian Christopher de Hamel. “It has been in England longer than any other book. The Archbishops of Canterbury still take their oath of office on it.
“As a symbol of religion, history and literacy, it is one of the most evocative books in Christendom,” he added.
Other works in the Parker’s collection include the Corpus Glossary, England’s oldest dictionary and one of the most important surviving records for the origins of the English language in the digitized collection.
Written in the first half of the ninth century, the work includes definitions of more than 2,000 words in Anglo-Saxon, including ones still recognizable today, such as herring and hazel.
From the frontispiece of the Bury Bible, c. 1135.
Also, there is the Bury Bible, dating from approximately 1135 and noted for being one of the greatest illuminated manuscripts ever created.
It is believed to have been produced by Master Hugo, one of the earliest documented professional artists in England whose works have survived to the present day.
The digitization project took four years and cost nearly $6 million.
It included not only the digitization of the Parker Library’s holdings, but the creation of a new reading room and a vault for the manuscripts at Corpus Christi, one of the University of Cambridge’s colleges.
Access to the Parker Library’s works can be found at http://parkerweb.stanford.edu/.
The site is a subscription-only interactive web application in which the manuscript page images can be used by scholars and students in the context of editions, translations and secondary sources.
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