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The has learned more this summer about the origin and ownership history of the College’s collection of over 100 incunabula – early printed books – thanks to a grant from the and a summer placement for Joseph McCarthy.

Joseph, whose name in Irish is Seosamh Mac Cárthaigh, was one of in 2024, and tasked “to catalogue incunabula at �²ʿ���, Cambridge”. He has also received internships at and .

Incunabula are defined as books printed pre-1501. Caius’ collection had already been catalogued as bibliographical items and made available through iDiscover, the University Libraries network, by Library staff. Joseph’s task was to catalogue the incunabula onto a database specifically designed for the recording of evidence of ownership, custodianship, illustration and illumination and binding. Clues come from ownership inscriptions, sales records, catalogue records and hand-written notes within the books.

Joseph says: “Every incunabulum is different; they each have their own sort of personality. It helps bring the past more to life and we can feel more of a connection to the past, beyond the incunabula themselves.”

Joseph has catalogued three quarters of Caius’ collection of 105, some of which were multi-volume works across multiple hundreds of pages. Some of the College collection was donated by William Branthwaite, Master from 1607 to 1619, but Joseph was looking for detail on each incunabulum.

He adds: “I find it very exciting because you don't know what you're going to find next. Lots of the catalogue records will just acknowledge that there are notes in ink or pencil. To get a more of a feel for what exactly is in there and something about the individual who owned it can give a sense of the history in which these things took place. 

“In a copy of the here somebody has crossed out a section on Thomas Beckett and tried to blot out his picture in the manuscript as well, which was probably done around the time of the English Reformation (see below image).

“I had attended a Thomas Beckett exhibition in the British Library a few years ago and see other manuscripts and books in which similar things had had taken place – cutting out pictures or scribbling over the information. Once I saw this, immediately I had this broader context for the historical redaction – I wouldn’t want to say censorship. It was really cool.”

Joseph starts with Caius’ existing incunabula catalogue, looks at the binding and whether the book has been rebound and when, tries to find ownership inscriptions and dates, and then analyses – painstakingly sometimes – handwriting throughout the texts. Sometimes deciphering one letter is the key to understanding more.

He has discovered illuminated capitals cut out of books and handwriting from multiple individuals on some pages, plus some reactions to historical events.

He adds: “I was looking at an English chronicle that was printed in the late 15th century and somebody has gone through and defaced every instance of the word Pope in the manuscript (see below). It's cool to see how these books were received throughout history. Even if just an ink blot doesn’t tell me what happened, I can infer this might be a response to the English Reformation.”

Joseph was pleased to move into cultural heritage and library archiving after his University of Cambridge PhD in Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic. His doctoral thesis corrections were formally accepted in late August – “what better way to celebrate than cataloguing!” – and there is potentially an academic paper or further project from his work at Caius.

“The current catalogue of influencers is coming up to its 100th anniversary. Maybe I'll do an updated catalogue with the centenary with all of my additional notes,” he adds.