Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c.888-1600 in London Libraries

This Catalogue, with 285 illustrated entries and 318 original-size photographs, provides an invaluable conspectus of histories and chronicles, legal and medical manuscripts, Livery Companies’ Ordinance Books, as well as literary works, in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English. This pioneering study bears witness to the growth and development of literacy among the medieval citizens of London and Westminster. The Catalogue is the fourth British contribution to an international series of illustrated catalogues of dated and datable manuscript books written in western European handwriting of the medieval and renaissance periods, and complements Andrew G. Watson’s Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c.700?1600 in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library (1979), by covering all other institutional libraries in London.

P.R. Robinson is a senior lecturer in the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.