Description by J.S. Ringrose and J.A. Freeman of Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 8581 (Apocalypse)

F.J. Norton (1904-1986) is best known to scholarship as a consequence of his important contributions to the study of post-incunabula in Italy, Spain and Portugal. His substantial personal collection of over 600 examples of European printing from the period 1501-20 is now held at Cambridge University Library as a named collection. Less well-known, however, is the small collection of western medieval manuscripts that Norton assembled alongside his library of early print and which are now also held at the University Library as MSS Add. 8275, and 8581-8589. These fell beyond the scope of recent published catalogues and hitherto little information about the collection has been available publicly. Between 2011 and 2017, Jayne Ringrose prepared full descriptions of the manuscripts, which have now been revised and expanded by James Freeman. They are uploaded here as an accompaniment to a recent publication on Norton’s collecting of medieval manuscripts and in order to make these items more widely known and accessible to researchers. For further information, see: James Freeman, ‘F.J. Norton’s manuscripts’, The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society (forthcoming).