The kindness of the Master and Fellows of Jesus College enables me to lay before the public for the first time a Catalogue of the Manuscripts belonging to the College. The only previous attempt is a list of seven volumes in Thomas James's Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis (1600, p. 137): reprinted by Bernard in 1697: there is also a brief note in Halliwell's Manuscript Rarities of the University of Cambridge (1841, p. 173). Uffenbach (Merkwürdige Reisen, iii. 75) was unable to obtain access to the manuscripts.

The collection is mainly the gift of one donor, Thomas Man (B.A. 1674, M.A. 1678, M.D. 1687), Fellow of the College, and Vicar of Northallerton (see no. 8). More than fifty manuscripts were given by him, and a majority of these came from Durham Priory. Other northern monasteries, e.g. Hexham, Rievaulx, and Kirkstall, are also represented. Though not containing anything of surpassing importance, the collection is an interesting one enough. There is little good illuminated work, save in one Bible (no. 11). The Medical MSS. are fairly numerous. Probably the most attractive items in the Library are the early fragments in no. 5, the English passages in no. 13, the palimpsest Anglo-Saxon Homilies in no. 15, the Bury Formulae (no. 18), a French hymn (no. 21), the Psalter (no. 23), the Priscian (no. 28), the Rievaulx Catalogue (no. 34), the French Lapidaire (no. 44), the Story of the Death of Judas (no. 46), the Wycliffite Gospels and New Testament (nos. 30, 47), the Obituary Roll in no. 55, Lydgate and Cato (no. 56), a list of books in no. 57, and the Chronicles (no. 58).