A Letter sent by William Laud Archbishop of Canterburie with divers Manuscripts to the University of Oxford.

£1,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Wing L590. ESTC lists copies in the USA at Folger, Harvard, Huntington, Newberry, UC-Berkeley, Union Theological Seminary (x 2), UCBerkeley (Bancroft Library), UCLA (W.A.Clark Library), Yale. “Let these be carryed by you, into the Library of Bodley” First printing of a letter from Archbishop Laud to the Bodleian library on the occasions of his gift of 47 manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford.. Laud gave over a thousand manuscripts to the library in his lifetime, the present gift includes: “6. Hebrew , 11. of Greeke, 34. of Arabicke , 21. of Latine , 2. of Italian, and as many of English, and of of English , and of Persian 5. one of which, (being of a large volume) containeth a Historie from the beginning of the World, to the end of ye Saracen Empire, and without doubt, is of great worth, …” Laud’s letter occupies the first two pages after the title and is followed by the Public Orator (and poet and playwright) William Strode’s (?1601-45) effusive letter of thanks on behalf of the university on pp. 3-5. “His great gifts of books themselves constituted a series of donations of manuscripts to the Bodleian Library; between 1635 and 1640 he gave ca.1250 manuscripts, in four installments, comprising European, Greek, central American and oriental texts. They included various celebrated highlights like a 7th-century Greek manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles (ms Laud Gr.35), and the 12th-century Peterborough Abbey copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ms Laud Lat.636), but als

• Printing: first

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