18. Cartulary of the Hospital of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge. Edited by Malcolm Underwood

A prime source for the history of the growth of Cambridge. These records of this important institution in medieval Cambridge contain much information valuable for the history of the media. Translated summary with Latin text of rentals and key early documents.

The Cartulary of the Hospital of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge, has long been know as the prime source for the history of the growth of the town. Its deeds reveal the business dealings of the townsmen, and chart long-vanished names of places and people in the town and in the surrounding countryside. Here are the lanes and hithes of Cambridge and the fields and green ways of Cambridgeshire. Here too is the bustling activity of those who created the environment we have inherited: whether endowing the lights in a local church, or the sheets on a hospital bed.

The cartulary contains a snapshot of urban life seven centuries ago. The records in the cartulary also allow glimpses of later periods; the dietary regime of the hospital in the mid-fourteenth century; the terms of university privileges granted to it in the fifteenth; the formula for enabling a brother to adopt a stricter rule of life. It reveals an institution of considerable importance to the town and university during the course of three hundred years.

The Cartulary entries and marginal notes are in english, however for some of the more unusual documents a transcription of the latin is included.