St John's College S.64 (James 449)

Collection of loose papers re Cyprian's De unitate ecclesiae. English and Latin, eighteenth century

The collection, apparently gathered together by George Smith of St John's College, Cambridge, titular Bishop of Durham in the non-juring Church (1693-1756), consists of:

  1. Letter from Thomas Baker, Fellow of St John's College (1656-1740), to George Smith, at Burn Hall, near Durham; Cambridge, 13 Oct., no year [1724, from the reference to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge recently awarded to George's brother Joseph Smith]. Including transcribed extracts from Cyprian, De unitate ecclesiae, drawn from what were then Pembroke College, Cambridge MSS 45 and 78, now 161 and 154 in M. R. James's Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905). Endorsed by Smith at the foot of Baker's letter. On the flyleaf is the sketch of a Roman artefact, bearing the inscription 'MARTI / AVS[G?] / AVFFIDI / VS AVFI / DIANVS'. Against this is written, again presumably by Smith, 'found at Lanchester spring 1716'. This endorsement appears to be in the same hand as Item 2. The artefact was apparently an extremely thin rectangular gold plate: for this inscription see Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum vii, 94 (no. 436) and Robert Surtees, History and antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham (London, 1820), ii, 306.
  2. [George Smith?], Three extracts from Etienne Baluze, Sancti Caecilii Cypriani Episcopi Carthaginiensis et martyris opera ad MSS codices ... (Paris, 1726). No date, but perhaps mid eighteenth century. All in the same small hand.
Manuscript extra information

Various sizes. 8 fos in total. No record of accession, but these papers may have come to the College after Smith's death in 1756.

Item 1 is in Baker's hand, item 2 most probably in that of Smith. Paper. Loose sheets.