Merton College, Oxford, the University's oldest, was founded in the 1270s. Its library contains some 325 complete medieval manuscript books (plus several hundred fragments in, or extracted
from, the bindings of early printed books), dating from the ninth until the late fifteenth century. Most of them came to the College before the Reformation, and are the remains of its medieval
collection, part of which was chained in the library, part in circulation amongst the fellowship. Together with the College's surviving medieval archive, which includes no fewer than
twenty-three book-lists, this material provides an important window on intellectual life at the University of Oxford between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and on the manufacture,
acquisition and use of the books that supported it. This first catalogue of the medieval manuscripts since 1852 offers full and detailed descriptions of each item, supported by 157 plates, 50
in colour. Its introduction provides the first detailed history of Merton's medieval library, including an account of the building and design of the College's `Old Library', built in the 1370s,
western Europe's oldest library room still in use today; and the volume is completed with appendices (including a comprehensive set of extracts from the College's medieval account rolls
referring to its books and library) and index. R. M. THOMSON is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Associate in the School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania.
