Corpus Christi College : William Worcestre, Itineraria

Corpus Christi College

A note on the display of images:In several places in the manuscript, a single sheet document has been folded in two and placed around the outside of a quire. Some may have functioned as protective wrappers while those quires circulated separately, prior to their binding between covers with the rest of the manuscript. When bound into the manuscript, one half of such a document appears before the first leaf of the quire, and the other after the last leaf of the quire. When the manuscript came into the possession of Matthew Parker, the leaves were paginated in the characteristic red/orange crayon, with only odd numbers appearing on the recto side of each leaf. Since each half of these documents formed a leaf in the manuscript, these too were paginated in the same sequence, as follows: <ul><li>pp. 1-2 + 3-4 [not enclosing other leaves]</li><li>pp. 39-40 + 41-42 [not enclosing other leaves]</li><li>pp. 77-78 + 79-80 [not enclosing other leaves]</li><li>pp. 235-236 + 257-258 [enclosing pp. 237-256]</li><li>pp. 243-244 + 249-250 [enclosing pp. 245-248]</li><li>pp. 299-300 + 311-312 [encloding pp. 301-310]</li><li>pp. 313-314 + 323-324 [enclosing pp. 315-322]</li></ul>When the manuscript was rebound in 1952, all but the last of these folded sheets was released, in order that the text they bore could be read. The fourth, fifth and six of those listed above were placed before the beginning of the quire they had previously enclosed. For reasons that are not clear, the seventh was never released, but remained bound in around pp. 315-322. The manuscript was disbound between 2005 and 2009, in preparation for its digitisation, and these bifolia were photographed as separate leaves and fully opened so that their text could be read across a single image. Once again, the seventh folded document was not given this treatment, and was photographed only as two separate leaves. As of 2012, the manuscript has been rebound in a limp parchment binding, matching the 1953 rearrangement but also releasing the seventh folded document and placing it before the leaves it formerly enclosed. This binding and its accompanying endleaves are recorded in this description but have not been digitised. The display of the images on the Parker Library on the Web is intended to show the manuscript's leaves in their sequence prior to the 1953 rearrangement and rebinding, but also to show the full text of these folded sheets once they have been opened up. The sequence the images follow is: the recto and then the verso of the first half of the folded sheet is shown, followed by the full opening, the rectos and versos of the enclosed leaves, and finally the recto and verso of the second half of the folded sheet. The presentation of pp. 39-40 + 41-42 is more complicated, because the sheet was folded in such a way that its text ran around the back of the sheet (not around the inside), and because the beginning of the text falls on the last page (p. 42) and its end on the first page (p. 39). As explained above, the one exception is the seventh sheet, which was not photographed fully opened across pp. 314 and 323. For the Cambridge Digital Library, it has been decided instead to show the images in the sequence that they now appear in the manuscript. The sequence the images follow is: the recto and then the verso of the first half of the folded sheet is shown, followed by the full opening, the recto and then the verso of the second half of the folded sheet, and then the rectos and versos of the leaves they enclosed. The pagination still follows that written in red/orange crayon, and where an opening is shown both page numbers are given: for example, pp. 42-39, or pp. 78-79. The textual contents of these folded leaves will be described only where the sheet is shown fully opened. Since the seventh folded sheet has been released, images of pp. 314 and 323 are adjacent to one another, and occur before the images of the leaves they formerly enclosed (pp. 315-322). Dr James Freeman Medieval Manuscripts Specialist Cambridge University Library