The Palfrey Notebook: Records of Study in Seventeeth-century Cambridge

George Palfrey was a Blundell Scholar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, from 1616-1625. The notebook of his studies, of which this is an edition, is a unique survival. Probably compiled around 1623, it contains of notes on Natural Philosophy: annotations of works by named authors, from Bede to Toletus; notes on particular topics; and notes which are in some sense original and record disputations and discussions of particular quaestiones. The notebook also contains a series of orations; notes on ethics; and astrology and magic. It thus gives a detailed view of an early seventeenth-century university education; it leads to an understanding of which issues were seen as most important or contentious, how they were perceived, and of the type of concepts and arguments that were deployed to explore them.The introduction deals with the historical background and provides a guide to the contents of the notebook, with biographical details of Palfrey and information about Cambridge University, and especially Sidney Sussex, at the time.