The entirety of Corpus Christi's Parker Library of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts has been digitised and made available to the public online for the first time.

The collection, which dates from the sixth century to the sixteenth, was compiled by Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury between 1559 and 1575, an alumnus and Fellow of the College.

The digitisation will serve both professionals researching the history, literature, and religion of the periods the manuscripts cover and members of the public with a more general interest.

The website, which was built by the College in conjunction with the University Library and Stanford University in California, hosts 200,000 individual pages from the manuscripts and books. The project started in 2005 and cost almost $6 million to fund.

Historians are keen to stress the significance of the project. According to History student Edward Gardner, “this will really revolutionise the accessibility to historical documents history students have on an ordinary basis.”

He added, “The manuscripts in the collection are so important in terms of how we see England emerge and transform over time from the Dark ages to the Early Modern Era, and the impact religion had on that.”

The Parker library was donated to the College in 1574, a year before Matthew Parker's death. The collection of some 550 manuscripts represents some of the most important Anglo-Saxon texts in the world, and includes the St. Augustine Gospels from the sixth century.

Historians believe that the Gospels were possibly brought by Augustine on his first conversion mission to Great Britain in 597 AD. The Archbishops of Canterbury must take their oath of office from this book, which has been in England longer than any other.

Also in the collection are writings by the Venerable Bede and the first written history in the English language, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which were commissioned by King Alfred the Great.

The chronicles are the most detailed record of English history during the period, and end in the year 892 AD, with some later additions, including the accession of William the Conqueror in 1066.

The collection also includes the first complete manuscript of polyphonic music in Europe, one of the best copies of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" and the Corpus Glossary, which lists Old English words alongside their Latin equivalents and features some words still in existence, such as "herring".

Many of the works in the Parker Library are notable for the exquisite artwork and illuminations within them, such as the Bury Bible from the early Twelfth century.

Other papers and writings in the collection include the bill to burn Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer in 1556 and letters from Anne Boleyn (who employed Parker as her personal Chaplin) to her father.

Parker Library on the Web was launched on April 27th and can be found at http://parkerweb.stanford.edu.