The library at Hereford Cathedral is famous as one of the few surviving `chained libraries'; but the contents of the books secured to the seventeenth century presses are less well known. There are 227 western manuscripts, of which about half have been at the cathedral since before the Reformation. They range in date from the eighth to the fifteenth century, and include finely-illustrated patristic books of the twelfth century, a large collection of Oxford University legal textbooks, and books of civil and canon law from the end of the thirteenth century. Over half the volumes survive in largely intact medieval bindings.
The catalogue, begun by the late Sir Roger Mynors and completed by Professor Thomson, reflects the particular strengths of the collection. The many glossed books are described using a particularly effective system devised by Sir Roger Mynors. An introductory essay by Michael Gullick describes the medieval bindings, and the plates cover not only illumination and bindings, but medieval pressmarks and ownership inscriptions, as well as examples of scripts.