St. Chad's College Books & MSS

The deposit of printed books comprises all the college's pre-1701 books, including 10 incunables (such as the earliest printed book Bonus Accursius's edition of Scriptores historiae augustae (Milan 1475) (SA 0169) and a 1497 Missale Parisiense lavishly decorated with woodcuts (+A.7)), 34 sixteenth-century and 84 seventeenth-century books, and some volumes of later date. There are many Latin and Greek copies of classical texts, history and literature, and works on the bible, with some later works on church history, liturgy and ritual, and more general history. There is also much of provenance and binding interest in the collection.

The manuscripts comprise two medieval manuscripts (a mid 13th-century North Italian Cistercian antiphoner and a mid 15th-century Italian book of hours), a fragment of a 16th-century musical manuscript, a 19th-century Turkish calligraphic manuscript, and a later 13th century Paris gospel fragment. Manuscript fragments also feature as pastedowns on printed books, such as 12th century bible and 15th century grammar fragments on Guillaume Durand's Rationale divinorum officiorum (Lyon 1516) (B.3) and a 15th century Verona legal document on Virgil's Georgica (Verona 1598) (B.20).

St Chad's Hall, Durham, was founded in 1904 and upgraded to St Chad's College in 1919. The college founders were deeply influenced by the ideals of the Oxford Movement, and their purpose was to set up a university college where men of sometimes very restricted financial means could be trained for the Anglican priesthood and also read for a degree in the University of Durham. The college's catholic tradition is strongly reflected in the manuscripts and early printed books, particularly in the emphasis on liturgy and ritual. The books were given by various benefactors, especially L.A. Body, the college's first classical tutor and donor of over 600 works, largely editions of the classics, and including most of the incunabula. The collection formed the focus of the college's Research Library, also rich in such as contemporary writings on the church controversies of the 19th century and publications of the Alcuin Club. It featured in a major exhibition in Palace Green Library ( Pleasure in Books) 18 January to 2 March 1990.

Some of the early printed books are now in the general PGL SA and SB sequences; the rest retain their original alphanumeric sequence, lettered A-K, with ordinary, + and ++ sequences.

Open for consultation.

Deposited by St Chad's College c.1995, with a further manuscript fragment deposited in 2005 (Acc No Misc.2005/6:34).

Printed material is catalogued in Discover

The medieval manuscripts are described in N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries , II, (Oxford, 1977) 512-3, and, more fully, in the Draft Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts in the University Library, available in the search room.

Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Head of Collections (e-mail pg.library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

St Chad's College has its own more modern Williams, Brewis, Wetherall, Fenton and Reserve Libraries on site, all catalogued on the university system.

St Chad's College archive is held mainly in the college but property deeds and some other recent material is held in Palace Green Library at reference UND/F3.