Charles Brent (Librarian of Christ Church from 1713 until his early
death) was responsible for overseeing the reorganisation of the
library that was necessary following the bequest of wide-ranging
collection of the late dean, Henry Aldrich. Christ Church had a
long tradition of collecting, and Brent’s catalogue was indebted
to an earlier one: he was working from and often paraphrasing MS.
690, which he had also annotated. For instance, Edward Hannes in
MS. 690 had recorded thirty-three Roman republican coins, but Brent
noted in the volume that five were missing and added entries for
two more.
Contents: Scribe's inscription (1st upper flyleaf). Scribe's table
of contents (5th upper flyleaf). Greek coins (ff. 1r-2r). Roman
republican coins (ff. 3r-12r). Roman imperial coins (ff. 14r-79r).
A slip of paper sits between ff. 60-61 stating the number of coins
(presumably in the Christ Church collection) from English rulers,
listed by name from Henry II to Charles II (and including
‘Oliver’).
Extent: ff vi + 124. 197 × 160 mm.
Layout: The only ruling comprises three vertical lines, in pencil,
to the left of each recto, the innermost 18 mm from spine, the next
9 mm further right, and the last another 8 mm to the right. Writing
is only on the rectos, with versos left blank.
Hand: Written throughout in one italic script. The scribe
identifies himself at fol. i as Charles Brent.
Binding: White leather over pasteboards, sewn on four thongs, with
strips of marbled paper stuck to each board.
Location note: On deposit at the Ashmolean Museum, Heberden Coin
Archive, as Arch. Coll. 9.
Additional information: For a detailed description by David Rundle
and other recent updates, please see
www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/digital-library.
