There seem to be only two printed catalogues of the collection of manuscripts at Emmanuel College. The first is to be found in Thomas James's Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis (London, 1600: p. 136). This enumerates nine volumes. The second is in the Catalogi manuscriptonim Angliae of 1697, and contains 137 articles, the first nine being those catalogued by Thomas James: nineteen others (nos. 49–67), in oriental languages, are not included in the present volume. This list was furnished to the Editors of the Oxford Catalogi by Joshua Barnes, and the last six items were gifts of his own to the College: to these he subsequently added many more, the bulk of them being works of his own composition. In H. Schenkl's Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica (1901), II. 2 (nos. 2883–2914), is some account of the patristic manuscripts.

The collection is of very considerable interest. In Greek books it is unusually strong: the copy of the Pauline Epistles (no. 110), the Hippiatrica (no. 251), the Psalter (no. 253), and the Herodotus (no. 30) are all of a certain celebrity, and some of the fragments in no. 236 merit attention.

There is some excellent illuminated work in the Moralia of Gregory (no. 112), in a Bible (no. 116), and in nos. 106 and 252. Among the later texts, the volume of documents on the Council of Basel (no. 142) ought probably to be carefully examined by a specialist: the legend of St Aldate in no. 27 is at least a rare piece, and some of the poems in no. 106 are probably interesting. The Letters of the Martyrs in nos. 260–262 are perhaps sufficiently well-known.