Description

'Grace books' were the volumes in which scribes recorded decisions of the administration of the University of Cambridge during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Many of the 'graces' concern the conferral of degrees on individuals, but others refer to more general University business including appointment of teachers and preachers, leaves of absence, inventories and financial records, and the resolution of disputes. Grace Book A covers the period from 1454 to 1488. The Introduction by Stanley M. Leathes explains the medieval terminology and the administrative systems underlying it, and a thorough index is also provided. The Latin documents transcribed and printed in this 1897 publication are a valuable source for those researching fifteenth-century British history and institutions, and this reissue will make them readily available to scholars today.