THE ARCHIVES
OFCHRIST CHURCH, DUBLIN
THE ARCHIVES
OF
CHRIST CHURCH,
DUBLIN
The records of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, which was founded in the early eleventh century, are, not surprisingly, among the most important collections in the country. Like most other Irish archives, they have had their vicissitudes, and in the course of almost a thousand years a great deal has either been lost or dispersed. Nonetheless, much material survives in Dublin, and may be consulted either at the Library of the Representative Church Body (492 3979) or the Cathedral itself, by arrangement.
In the RCB Library is to be found a wealth of Christ Church documentation. Undoubtedly the long runs of chapter records and guard books are the main sources for historians, but the Black Book (1110-1472) and the White Book (1186-1585) are the greatest treasures, compilations of fascinating, if sometimes unreliable, information. The RCB Library also has a remarkable collection of MS music from Christ Church.
The musicologist whose researches are in the field of printed music will find an equally rich vein of material in the Cathedral itself, where there is also to be found a great number of secondary works on its history. The Cathedral has also assembled, either on microfilm or by photocopying, much of the primary material that rests in other repositories.
In the Manuscripts Department of Trinity College Library may be found the Proctor's Accounts of 1564-5, together with papers collected by William Monk Mason for an abortive History of Christ Church. The National Library of Ireland has a remarkable collection of high quality photographs taken during the major restoration work of the 1870s. The National Archives possesses a calendar of Christ Church deeds, all the more valuable because the originals were destroyed in 1922, (although much of the calendar was published in appendices to the Deputy Keeper's Reports).
In Cambridge University library may be seen "The Dublin Troper", a music manuscript most probably originating from Christ Church, while the Bodleian in Oxford has what is probably the most splendid of all the volumes associated with the Cathedral: the richly illuminated "Psalter of Stephen of Derby", also known as "The Christ Church Psalter".
Between now and the end of the century a great deal of this unique material, much of which is without parallel in Ireland, is to be published in edited form, culminating in a full-scale History of Christ Church Cathedral on which a number of scholars are already at work.
Kenneth Milne
Keeper of the Archives
Christ Church Cathedral
