John Leland (antiquary) - Collections and Notebooks

Collections and Notebooks

Following Leland's death or (more probably) his descent into madness, King Edward VI arranged for Leland's library (including many medieval manuscripts) to be placed in the custody of Sir John Cheke. John Bale consulted some of them at this time. Cheke fell from favour on the accession of Queen Mary, and departed for mainland Europe in 1554: from that point onwards, and continuing after Cheke's death in 1557, the library was dispersed. Books were acquired by collectors including Sir William Cecil, William, Lord Paget, John Dee and Archbishop Matthew Parker.

Leland's own manuscript notebooks were inherited by Cheke's son, Henry, and in 1576 they were borrowed and transcribed by John Stow, allowing their contents to begin to circulate in antiquarian circles. Antiquaries who gained access to them through Stow included William Camden, William Harrison, Robert Glover and Francis Thynne. The original notebooks passed from Henry Cheke to Humphrey Purefoy, and so (following his death in 1598) to Humphrey's son Thomas, who divided many of them between his two cousins John Hales and the antiquary, William Burton. Burton subsequently managed to recover several of the items given to Hales, and in 1632 and 1642-3 donated most of the collection—comprising the Collectanea, De scriptoribus and several of the Itinerary notebooks—to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where the volumes remain.