(old shelfmark **A.34)
| Author: | Thomas Tusser (ca. 1524 – 1580) |
| Language: | English, with occasional Latin |
| Origin: | England, Woodstock (Oxon.) |
| Date: | 19th c., 1812 |
| Material: | Paper (no watermarks visible) |
| Physical Description: | iii paper flyleaves + 386 pages (paginated i – xxxv, 8 unpaginated, 1 – 379) + iii paper flyleaves, 292 x 237 (262 -268 x 164 – 170) mm, 32 – 34 verse lines, ruled in pencil and orange crayon |
| Rubric: | A lesson how to confer every abstract with his month, and how to find out huswifery verses by the pilerow and champion from woodland |
| Incipit: | In every month, ere in aught be begun |
| 2o folio: | The author’s epistle |
| Explicit: | And for the rest, what he thinks best, to suffer here. FINIS. |
| Contents: | p. iii, Dedicatory inscription to Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture, by William Mavor, 1812; pp. iv – xxxv, Sketches of Tusser’s life, with notes on his life and this edition; pp. 1 – 363, Husbandry and housewifery, with notes by Mavor; p. 365, Table of points on husbandry mentioned in the book; pp. 367 – 379, Glossary |
| Script: | Formal cursive hand (copperplate) |
| Scribe: | William Fordyce Mavor (1758 – 1837) |
| Decoration: | None |
| Provenance: | Donald Tait, (1862 – 1932) Archdeacon of Rochester and grandson of William Mavor; his gift to Trinity Hall, 18 July 1932 (letter from Tait to Charles Franklin Angus, (1881 – 1950) Fellow and Vice-Master of Trinity Hall, preserved with MS) |
| Binding: | 19th c., green leather over paste boards, gold-tooled open panel design, brown and cream endbands, edges gilt |
| Notes: | Manuscript copy of Tusser’s work compiled by clergyman and antiquarian Dr William Mavor, Rector of Woodstock. Thomas Tusser studied at Trinity Hall, although did not graduate as the result of ill health. Printed notice of forthcoming publication of an 1810 edition of Tusser’s pasted into p. i; printed title pages of Five hundred points of good husbandryand The Points of Huswifery also pasted into MS. |
| Bibliography: |
© Trinity Hall, Cambridge
