St John's College S.29 (James 421)

Artificial collection. English, French and Latin, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

An artificial collection, principally consisting of legal or law-related MSS, formerly bound with four items now in K.35 as a single vol., but rebound as three vols in the later nineteenth century to separate the folio items from the quarto. The contents are:

  1. Notes from Dyer and Thomas Sanderson, 8-23 Eliz. where dated (fo. 1r).
  2. Notes on holding a Court Baron (fo. 5r), including (fo. 19r) a list of 'Fees to be taken at a Cowrte Baron extracted out of an olde customarie of Herefeilde in the countie of Middlesex'.
  3. Sir Charles Calthorp (d. 1616), of Lincoln's Inn: notes on his lectures on copyhold and courts baron, 1575 (fo. 20r). Incomplete. Copied in a fine sixteenth-century hand.
  4. Notes on suicide, deodand, and the office of coroner (fo. 44r).
  5. 'A Treatise of Justices of the Peace openings the nature and circumstaunce thereof' (fo. 48r).
  6. Notes on miscellaneous legal subjects, principally the laws and customs governing tenancies (fo. 51r).
  7. 'The Fees of seales in the Chancellour's court of London are as followeth' (fo. 60r).
  8. 'Transcripta quaedam e Libro Stautorum Acad: Oxon: talia praecipue quae ad Historiam aliquo modo pertinent MS Coll: Trin: Cant: Class S.4.8' (later R.15.3). In Thomas Baker's hand (fo. 61r).
  9. 'Prohemye to the Englyssh translation of Tullius de Senectute' (fo. 84v). This copied, again by Baker, from Caxton's edition.
  10. 'Catalogus veterum librorum in Bibliotheca Cant: content:' (fo. 85v), a list of incunables in Cambridge University Library, in Baker's hand, arranged in chronological order.
  11. Renewal of the Ecclesiastical High Commission, issued by letters patent from James I to George Abbot (1562-1633), Archbishop of Canterbury, and other counsellors and officials, 29 Aug. 1611 (fo. 89r). With copies of two apparently associated letters from various commissioners to the sheriff/gentry of Middlesex, Apr. 1612.
  12. 'The Office of the perticuler Surveyor in everie Countye collected out of the letters patentes made by Kinge Henrye the eight in the xxxviiith yeare of his raigne' (fo. 103r). No date, but in an early seventeenth century hand.
  13. Fragmentary notes on various legal topics, including fee simple, courtesy daughter, homage, fealty, and villeinage (fo. 106). No date, but the hand is c. 1600.
  14. 'Commissio Registratus sive Officii Registrarii de Burgo Sancti Petri, by Richard [Howland], Bishop of Peterborough, 9 Apr. 1588 (fo. 117r). On fo. 119v is the inscription in a hand of c. 1600: 'Yf these covenants in the latter ende of the patent be not agreable unto Harve, unresonable or preiudiciall unto me, I cannott subscribe unto them, Rich: Petisbury'.
  15. 'Certain Considerations upon the duties Both of Prince and People'. Beg.: 'Among many intemperances that minister disturbance to the Church and State'; ends: 'in shew make the people, and indeed them selves, the [?] judges of all thinges'. No date.
  16. Three injunctions of George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the clergy, 12 Aug. 1622, no date, 4 Sep. 1622. Endorsed on the original cover: 'For Mr Worthington'.
Manuscript extra information

300x230, 200x155, 210x155 mm. 126, 5, 6 fos (the foliation in the main vol., a mix of contemporary and nineteenth-century, is erratic: it seems that the later foliation has been stretched or condensed to fit the earlier, resulting in several inconsistencies). 'Tho: Baker Coll: Jo: Socius ejectus' on the second folio of 1. College bookplates (nineteenth century) inside front covers.

Several hands, all apparently late sixteenth- or early seventeenth century. Paper, the original covers to 16. cut from a contemporary deed (temp. James I) on parchment. 1. now bound in leather on the original boards; 15. and 16. half bound.