The first Hebrew manuscripts were probably acquired from local pre-expulsion Jewish communities; later, Christian clerics gave an impetus to the study of Hebrew for scholarly purposes. A sounder basis for Hebrew study grew in the University from the 16th century, after the Regius Professorship in Hebrew was founded in 1540, and many significant manuscript collections came from Cambridge scholars who collected texts for their own use.

Notable collectors from early times include the Arabist, Abraham Whelock (who was the first Professor of Arabic before his appointment as University Librarian in 1629) whose efforts brought about significant additions to both the Arabic and Hebrew collections, including the transfer to Cambridge of the Dutch orientalist Thomas van Erpe’s (Erpenius) collection, which contained thirteen Hebrew manuscripts and one written in Judaeo-Arabic.

A second important collection was that of Isaac Faraji (Pragi) whose collection of ten Hebrew manuscripts was purchased by John Selden, the jurist and scholar and a name more often associated with the Bodleian. He was responsible for the acquisition of the collection from the London bookseller George Thomason in 1648.

More manuscripts and books came to the Library in the 17th century from the collections of the scholars Richard Holdsworth (Master of Emmanuel College), Henry Lucas and Edmund Castell (1606–1 685), the compiler of the ‘Lexicon Heptaglotton’ who left nineteen Hebrew manuscripts to the Library. The acquisition by the Library of the Royal Collection of George I in 1715 brought with it a small number of Hebrew volumes including a 14th-century Bible from Spain.

In the early 19th century the missionary Claudius Buchanan (1766–/ 1815) presented twenty-one Hebrew manuscripts, some relating to Jewish communities in South India. During the late 19th century, when the post of Librarian was held by Henry Bradshaw and the Bible scholar William Robertson Smith, the collections of Hebrew manuscripts were greatly increased.

The collection was further enriched over the centuries through the activities of scholarly collectors and skilled librarians, adding more depth to the already impressive range of manuscripts. Yet this extraordinary collection has remained relatively unknown outside Cambridge. Now we hope to draw better attention to its treasures through cataloguing and digitisation. We have collaborated with the Bodleian at Oxford and other research libraries to provide an online catalogue of the collection. We will be offering a selection of digitised manuscripts through the Foundations project and will seek funding for further digitisation.

In this selection, we present the full collection of our earliest Qurʼānic manuscripts copied during the first four Centuries of Islam. With a grant awarded by The Islamic Manuscript Association in 2012 we were able to enrich the content description of each fragment. The style of writing commonly known as “Kufic” has been classified into distinct palaeographic styles. The Suras are clearly indicated and searchable by name and numbering, which will guide the reader through the text. Amongst this collection is a portion of the earliest Qur`an for which an evident terminus ante quem exists. This Qurʼān was made an endowment (waqf) by Amajur the Governor of Damascus in 876 AD/ 262 AH.

From the wider collection of Islamic manuscripts we have included a complete and beautifully illustrated Qur'an and a number of very early fragments dating back to the first centuries of the Islamic calendar. From the rich literature encompassing the Islamic tradition we have chosen the only extant copy of Kitāb al-tawḥīd, the famous theological work by by al-Maturidi, alongside works on science and some richly illustrated examples of Persian Literature.

See also
Fihrist Islamic Manuscripts Catalogue Online
Cambridge University Library Near and Middle Eastern Department
Faith and Fable: Islamic Manuscripts from Cambridge University Library (PDF, 2.5MB)

The Polonsky Foundation Greek Manuscripts Project, a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg, conserved catalogued and digitised the medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts held across Cambridge and those in the Bibliotheca Palatina, which is split between Heidelberg University Library and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. The project took place between 2018 and 2021.

The 427 Greek manuscripts in Cambridge belong to fourteen different institutions – Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and twelve colleges: Christ’ s, Clare, Corpus Christi, Emmanuel, Gonville and Caius, King’s, Pembroke, Queens’, St John’s, Sidney Sussex, Trinity and Westminster. They are all published on Cambridge Digital Library in this collection, the first to bring together items from so many different institutions. Many of the manuscripts belonging to the colleges can also be found in their college collections on the Digital Library.

Conservation attention to each manuscript ensured that they could be digitised safely and helps secure the long-term availability of the collections. Prior to this project, for most of the Cambridge Greek manuscripts, the only published catalogue description dated from the nineteenth or early twentieth century and some had never been fully described.
For more details about the project, see the project webpage.

The history of South Asian studies at the University of Cambridge goes hand in hand with the history of its collections of South Asian manuscripts. In the late 19th century the Library began to acquire Sanskrit manuscripts collected in Nepal and India on the initiative of the Cambridge Sanskritist Edward B. Cowell and his successor Cecil Bendall. The collaboration of other scholars such as William Rhys-Davids and Georg Bühler, as well as of other professionals, enriched the collections with manuscripts hailing from different regions of the South Asian subcontinent and written in a wide range of languages, from Middle Indian (Pali and Prakrit) to Dravidian (such as Tamil and Malayalam).

While the greater part of collection had thus been constituted by 1900, the acquisitions continued through donation or purchase throughout the 20th century. In 1883 Bendall published a catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts in the University Library that included 248 items, and in 1906 Louis de la Vallée Poussin and Caroline Mary Ridding recorded basic descriptions of the remaining manuscripts on paper index cards. However, despite these early efforts, until now the collections have still not been fully catalogued and therefore remain not easily accessible to scholars of premodern South Asia and little known to the general public.

Now the AHRC-funded project “The intellectual and religious traditions of South Asia as seen through the Sanskrit manuscript collections of the University Library, Cambridge” has begun a systematic investigation aiming to produce a full catalogue of the manuscripts and to digitise a substantial proportion of them. These comprise more than 1,600 works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Tamil and other ancient and medieval South Asian languages, produced over a time-span of more than 1,000 years, and written in over a dozen scripts and on different writing materials, such as paper, palm leaf and birch bark.

The project has provided further information on the conventions used in these manuscript descriptions.

Along with doctrinal, exegetical and ritual works issued from the many religious traditions of South Asia—from the Vedic religion to devotional Hinduism and Tantrism, from Theravāda to Mahāyāna and Tantric Buddhism, to Jainism—the Library’s holdings also include texts on a variety of “secular” topics, ranging from works of poetry and drama to treatises on philosophy, mathematics, grammar, astronomy, law, eroticism, medicine, archery, horse breeding, etc.

There is, in other words, a wealth here of cultural and historical information on South Asia of great potential significance for contemporary scholarship.

Though the precise origins of Cambridge University Library are not recorded, we know from the above declaration that a shared collection of books was in place for members of the University by at least 1416. Established before the invention of printing, the Library's earliest collections comprised entirely handwritten books. A small number of these survived dispersal or loss during the Reformation and have remained in the Library ever since. The modern foundations of the collection of western medieval manuscripts were laid later in the 16th century, and it grew through gift, bequest and purchase over subsequent centuries.

What began simply as a working collection thereby evolved into one of the most important repositories of evidence of the literate, artistic and intellectual culture of medieval Europe – a collection that remains of immense significance for study and for research. Cambridge University Library now holds over 2,000 handwritten books, as well as numerous rolls and documents, which altogether range in date from the 4th to the 16th centuries. A selection are shown here – including some of the Library's greatest treasures – and further additions will be made through ongoing and future digitisation and cataloguing projects.

The earliest manuscript in the collection is a bilingual copy of the New Testament and Acts of the Apostles in Latin and Greek, known in modern times as Codex Bezae. The majority of texts in the Library's manuscripts are written in Latin, however every major medieval vernacular language is represented. The University Library holds copies of several texts wholly or in part in Old English, the language written and spoken in England prior to the Norman Conquest, including a bilingual copy of the Psalms. Important pre-Conquest Latin manuscripts include the oldest datable copy of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, made in the late 730s; the Book of Cerne, a devotional compilation made in Mercia in the mid-9th century; and a late 9th- or 10th-century pocket-sized Gospel book known as the Book of Deer, perhaps the oldest surviving manuscript that was made in Scotland. Middle English manuscripts are especially numerous, and include the earliest extant anthology of Geoffrey Chaucer's literary works, poems found in no other surviving manuscripts, and a great variety of manuscripts that contain medical recipes.

Many of the manuscripts are decorated and some are richly illuminated: highlights include two 13th-century bestiaries (MS Ii.4.26 and MS Kk.4.25); the only copy of a Life of St Edward the Confessor, perhaps authored by Matthew Paris, and made in the mid-13th century; a 14th-century breviary owned by Marie de Saint-Pol, founder of Pembroke College; and a guide to a healthy life and diet once owned by Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

Several recent acquisitions are included here: a very early copy of a Latin translation of an Arabic medical text that was perhaps owned by Clare College in the late 14th century; two 15th-century compilations of medical recipes written in Middle English (MS Add. 9308 and MS Add. 9309); and a roll made in the late 13th century that lists the tenants and rents from properties owned by the Augustinian Priory of Holy Trinity in Ipswich.

Digital Photography & Reproductions: While our digitisation efforts are ongoing, we’re pleased to be able to offer on-demand photography of all of our collections.
Prices vary depending upon the format, condition, nature, and difficulty of the request. For a quote and estimated timeline for delivery, please enquire directly via wren.library@trin.cam.ac.uk, or by post, care of the Digital Services Manager.
Image Supply & Licencing: If we have already digitised the image and made it available via one of our three platforms, it is our policy not to charge whatsoever for image supply, and images may be downloaded for personal study purposes directly from the viewer.
For the publication of any of these images, researchers are asked to apply for permission from the library. Prices vary depending upon nature and use of the image; however, we endeavour to encourage the licenced use of our images in work of a scholarly or academic nature. For a quote, please enquire directly via wren.library@trin.cam.ac.uk, or by post, care of the Digital Services Manager.