About the Catalogue of St. Edmunds
The later library catalogues, 1713-1904, and the present location of books from the 1702 catalogue

There are significant surviving library catalogues of St Edmund's, Paris, following that compiled in 1702 by Benet Weldon. As a result one can trace in these later catalogues books listed by him in 1702, and which are today still with his Community, now located at Douai Abbey, Upper Woolhampton, Reading, England.

Of the later surviving library catalogues, there are:

1. The Library Catalogue of the Society of St Edmund, Paris, c.1750
2. An extensive book list by Dom John Turner, 1786.
3. The Library Catalogue of St Edmund's Priory, Paris, and Douai, France (1818-23)
4. The published catalogue of the auction of the library of St Edmund's Abbey, Douai, France (1904).

At present, one hundred and seventeen works are known to survive from those listed in the 1702 catalogue, either by Weldon himself or by later eighteenth-century monastic librarians. Apart from the copies listed in the 1702 catalogue some thirty-five St Edmund's library books have been traced mainly in English and French libraries. The latter are not included in the following list of present locations. The distribution of the one hundred and seventeen 1702 catalogue works is as follows:


University of Toulouse (ex-Protestant Theology Library of Montauban) 34
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris 34
Douai Abbey,Woolhampton, Berkshire 29
Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire 3
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris 2
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 2
Irish Cultural Centre, Paris 2
St Mary's Abbey, Colwich, Staffordshire 1
Stonyhurst College, Lancashire 1
Pluscarden Abbey, Elgin, Scotland 1
The British Library, London 1
Bibliothèque Daniel et Victor Banse, Fécamp 1
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 1
Bibliothèque de la Cour de Cassation, Paris 1
Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, Paris 1
Bibliothèque de l'Institut Catholique, Paris 1
Bibliothèque Municipale de Troyes 1
Librairie Minet Frères, Brussels (sold in 2004) 1

This is a cautious listing. There will be more volumes added to it as new discoveries are made. For instance, only two books from St Edmund's, Paris, have been identified in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, but there must surely be more. However, until the Bibliothèque Nationale has completed a provenance catalogue of its holdings, books from St Edmund's, cannot easily be identified. Similarly, the library of the Protestant Theology Library at Montauban, which contained a number of books from St Edmund's, was divided in the nineteenth century between the University Libraries of Toulouse and Montpellier. Fortunately, the former has compiled a provenance catalogue, whilst the latter only has a catalogue of the Montauban books it received, but has no provenance catalogue.

© Trustees of Douai Abbey, Registered Charity No. 236962.