Dr. D.G. Selwyn: "Cranmer's Library: Its Potential for Reformation Studi...

While Protestant volumes appear to have disappeared, unsurprisingly, Cranmer had over 100 volumes of Greek and Latin patristic texts, maybe 118 volumes, including grammars, along with the standard names:  e.g. Basil of Caesarea, Cyril of Alexandria, Cyprian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, the two Cappadocian Gregorys, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory 1m John Damascene, Lanctantius, Merlin’s Concilia, and a host of others, helping him on justification, sin, grace, predestination, free will, good works, prayers to the dead, masses for the dead, the church, councils, papal authority, and the eucharistic issues. While rooted in patristic authors, Prof. Selwyn notes that Dr. Cranmer continued to study the standard scholastic sources, e.g., Lombard, Aquinas, William of Occam and others. Prof. Selwyn again notes the utter paucity (about 14 survivors) of Reformed and Lutheran volumes, suggesting that the overall library still is suggestive for other veins of inquiry—16^th century humanism, etc., with “very considerable potential” (72). We wish he had elaborated more fully. He ends by noting that it is remarkable that this much has survived and Dr. Cranmer’s library remains one of the great early Tudor collections.