Subseries 96 - Libri Rationales

GC/BUR/F/96

14 volumes Paper

Account of the sums due to members of the foundation, ie the Master, Fellows and Scholars; recording the name of the recipient, the name of the foundation from which the stipend was derived, the sum due, and in the case of fellows the deductions due for absence.

(See 'College Records', Biographical History, Volume III, pp.264-5, for further description)

Open access - no restrictions.

See also Bursars' Books, Computus and Absence Books (BUR:F).

The Liber Rationalis are accounts between the College and members of the foundation. The Custos is the Master to begin with (CNLB).

There are 3 early books entitled on the fly-leaf as
(i.) “Liber Rationalis 1581 - 93”
(ii.) “Liber Rationalis 1594 - 1608”
(iii.) “Liber Rationalis 1609 - 28”
They contain the Bursars’ ½ yearly accounts at Lady Day and Michaelmas. N.B. The word “Compotus” appears at the head of each ½ year account.
Vols. (i.) (ii.) (iii.) are then followed by a volume of the same character and series entitled. (iv.) “Compotus 1629 - 1661”
as well as at the beginning of each ½ year account. It has been bound as “Compotus”.
Vol. (iv.) is followed by later volumes similarly bound as “Compotus”. The title “Liber Rationalis” does not re-appear until much later (? 19th Century). Confusingly there is a volume bound as “Compotus 1582 - 1625”, but this vol. (v) is a collection of individual sections (bound up in reverse order) of the working copies presented at the ½ yearly accounts meeting and then (according to a note dated 13th April 1624) “Transcribed in Lib. Rat. ejus…”. The entries correspond faithfully with the Liber Rationalis. Some sections are entitled “Prototyp-“ (??) and another section is entitled “The Prototyrons of Liber Rationalis”. N.B. This volume is clearly not a different series from the Libri Rationales, but an incomplete collection of drafts or prototypes – the years from c.1608 to c.1619 are missing. [MJP]