Lost Manuscripts

The ambition of Lost Manuscripts is to build a union catalogue of manuscript fragments in the British Isles. Its principal investigator is Dr David Rundle of the Centre of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Latest News: the online searchable edition of Neil Ker's catalogue of pastedowns in Oxford bindings and its supplements is now available.

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Search for Fragments & Manuscripts

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Highlights

Colchester Harsnett I.b.18(1) offset
The nature of the evidence for this project is that it is incomplete but sometimes it can be little more than a ghost, as this example shows.
Colchester Harsnett K.a.13 front flyleaf recto
Most of the fragments in the Harsnett collection have not been studied, but a few have been. Even when they have, though, there is still more to be found.
Colchester Harsnett I.d.3 back pastedown upright
One of the more unexpected discoveries during the research for the pilot project was a volume with annotations in the hand of the man who was Archbishop of Canterbury when Samuel Harsnett was born -- Matthew Parker (1504-75).