Paul Meyer, ‘Les manuscrits français de Cambridge. II. Bibliothèque de l’Université’, Romania, 16 (1886)
University Library, P701:2.c.11.15, p. 237

On the occasion of his visit to the Cambridge University Library and the libraries of Trinity, St John’s, and Gonville and Caius colleges, in May–June 1871, Paul Meyer began an extensive survey of Cambridge manuscripts which appeared over the years in an admirable group of articles.

Meyer’s extraordinary erudition allowed him to identify a large number of French texts witnessed in Cambridge collections, and to trace the main lines of their origin and diffusion. This was a difficult task, as Meyer underlines in his article on the St John’s collections:

[…] encore faut-il savoir chercher, et le nombre des érudits qui savent explorer une bibliothèque autrement qu’en jetant les yeux sur la table d’un catalogue est fort limité, surtout parmi les romanistes. Or, à Cambridge, les catalogues des collections manuscrites ne sont pas toujours satisfaisants […]. Tel est probablement le motif pour lequel les romanistes ont jusqu’ici négligé Cambridge pour Oxford.

[…] still, one must know how to search, and the number of scholars who know how to explore in depth a library, other than by casting a glance at the contents of a catalogue, is very limited, particularly amongst Romance philologists. This point is essential, as, in Cambridge, catalogues of the manuscript collections are not always satisfactory […]. This is probably the reason why Romance philologists have thus far neglected Cambridge in favour of Oxford.