Babel MS 18

All the fragments presently known are small cuttings used as tabs in a range of binding, some of which have the arms of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 until his death on 29 February 1604, while others were clearly made for his successor as archbishop, Richard Bancroft. As Prof. James Carley advises us, Bancroft had a campaign of adding titles to his books by inserting tabs in his books, with the title written on the protruding lip (showing that the books were stored upright with their fore-edge outermost). Clearly, he wanted durable material for these tabs and used waste parchment and turned to what was once probably a rather fine volume. It was being dismembered markedly late, in the second half of the first decade of the seventeenth century -- perhaps it was already damaged beyond repair.