7 - The development of the collection up to 1600

Summary

There are no lists which tell us plainly how or when the individual books on the OL list came into the Library, or what they replaced. Most of them were printed after 1546, and cannot therefore have been inherited from Michaelhouse and the King's Hall, but that is about all that can be said for certain. In order to get some idea of how the collection developed during the second half of the sixteenth century, and of its value to the College, we now consider the seven benefactors who are named as donors of books at the head of the OL list – Filey, Bill, Beaumont, Dodington, Meade, Sledd, and Wroth – and also Christopherson, the Marian Master, who is named elsewhere in the Memoriale as a donor of Library books.

William Filey, a senior member of Michaelhouse who never belonged to Trinity, ‘gave many valuable books to this College in 1549’. Filey, who graduated BA in 1505–6 and DD in 1522, became rector of Somersham, Huntingdonshire, in 1525 and died there in 1551. His will, which was both signed and proved in May 1551, does not specify any bequests to Trinity, but the Junior Bursar's accounts for 1551 recorded payments of 1s.4d. to Thomas Helperbye, a Fellow, ‘for his costs in bringing of Doctor phylowes books’, and of 5s.4d. ‘to hym that caryed the books’. Only one book, OL127, is identified as having been given by Filey to Trinity, but three of his gifts to Michaelhouse are included in the OL list (OL79, OL94, and OL132).