The Master of Trinity Hall, Mary Hockaday, visited the Parker Library this term as part of the annual audit of the remarkable library’s collection.
The audit allowed her to view letters from Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII, and a register including JRR Tolkein’s signature.
Matthew Parker entrusted his library to Corpus Christi in August 1574 and, as specified in his will, the College is required to check the library’s contents every year.
If a certain number of books have been lost, the whole collection is forfeited to Gonville and Caius College. If they should be similarly neglectful, the collection passes to Trinity Hall.
In this way, the three colleges were set to watch over each other – and each was provided with a copy of the Parker Register, the checklist of Parker’s books.
The Master was delighted to view the Royal Letters, a library reader’s register that showed Tolkien had regularly visited the library in 1952 and left his signature as evidence among several other works.
Invaluable texts also in the collection include the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the Northumbrian Gospels, both of which are on display in the library.
