[CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY.]

£4,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

.A most interesting, serendipitous survival a collections of verse, quotes, doodles and a coded text, produced most probably by university students in Cambridge c.1526-35. On fol.2v is the date 1526, in an early hand. The numerous ms invocations such as In nomine dei etc., suggest these notes were written pre-1535, the year when Cambridge University subscribed to the new Reformed regulations. . . ..An early owner, Jhamys Pyckeryge, noted (fol.1r) the price he paid for a book (2s 8d), when these were endleaves. The transaction was witnessed ( teste ) by Nicholas Pylgrame (Pilgrim), perhaps the same Dutchman (d.1545), with an Anglicized name, who was stationer and bookseller for Garrett Godfrey in 1534, and later inherited his business. We have not traced any James Pickering matriculated at Cambridge pre-1535, though early records are not always complete and names were often recorded only when students took their degree. The book once joined to these endleaves changed hands a few times, other early owners including one from 1526 (and, from the handwriting no later than 1540), a Doctor Neveson (perhaps Christopher Nevinson, later Royal Commissioner, B. Civ. L. 1533), who also acquired the book for 2s 8d, and a Master Wally [or Wallis].. . ..A 1530s owner jotted down verse on his fellow students: Wallis Master of Arts , Cay senior fellow of Fys[wick]s [or Fy[swic]ks] hall , Mason batc [i.e., bachelor] of law , Waker good fellow , Ralinson p(?) of [misplaced] Fys[wick]s [or Fy[swi

• Binding: Hardcover

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