Coláiste Naomh Eoin, Ollscoil Cambridge
St John’s College, Cambridge was founded in 1511 by the terms of the will of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. The College had a library from its inception, initially a chained library in First Court. In the early seventeenth century Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, offered the College an entire gentleman’s library of over a thousand printed books and nearly two hundred manuscripts, which had belonged to his friend William Crashaw, religious controversialist and poet. Both men were alumni of the College. The size of this donation prompted the building of a magnificent new library, completed in 1624. It was the largest library in Cambridge at the time, and is now known as the Old Library. Crashaw’s manuscripts form the core of the College’s medieval manuscript collection. The collection contains a diverse range of subjects and languages, though, as might be expected, works of a religious nature and those written in Latin predominate. The Southampton Psalter (MS C.9) is thought to date from the tenth century, making it one of the earliest in the collection, and is the only one to feature the Irish language.
More information about the Old Library, its collections, and access for readers may be found at The Library's Special Collections.
The images of the Southampton Psalter may be reproduced only by permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge. Applications for permission to reproduce any image(s) or part thereof should be directed to the Special Collections Librarian, St John’s College, Cambridge, CB2 1TP.
