MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPTS: INTRODUCTION

Summary

The present section of the Pepysian catalogue contains an account of the mediaeval manuscripts and some others of literary interest. In compiling it I have followed the method employed in my other catalogues of manuscripts: the order in which the books are described is simply that of their places on the shelves, an order dictated largely by considerations of size.

The only printed catalogue of the Pepys Manuscripts which professes to give a general view of the collection is that which appears in the Oxford Catalogi Manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (1697 11. 207). It is entitled: Librorum Manuscriptorum viri sapientissimi Samuelis Pepysii, Curiae Admiraliae nuper a secretis, varii quidem argumenti, sed praecipue de re navali, quae est Anglorum gloria ac Praesidium, Thesaurus inaestimabilis.

The numbering (a double one) runs from 6716 (1) to 6848 (129), and the catalogue has these subdivisions:

1. Historical: 6716 (1) to 6730 (15).

2. Political: 6731 (16) to 6749 (30).

3. Religious: 6750 (31) to 6766 (47).

4. Mathematical: 6767 (48) to 6785 (66).

5. Poetical: 6786 (67) to 6792 (73).

6. Mixt: 6793 (74) to 6809 (90).

7. Naval: 6810 (91) to 6848 (129).

(With a sub-heading at 6835 Of Naval Architecture, which, however, does not cover all the items that follow it.)

This catalogue, as has been said, was issued in 1697: it may have been drawn up some years earlier. Pepys did not die till 1703; not all his manuscripts, therefore, need appear in this list.