Medieval manuscripts donated by the sons of Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803).

The Hamilton manuscripts are believed to have belonged entirely to monasteries in Erfurt. Many certainly formed part of the library of the ancient Benedictine monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, secularized in 1803, and some of that of the Carthusian house of St. Salvator founded in 1372.

They were purchased by Count von Bülow following the destruction of the monastic libraries in 1806; after his death (probably in 1836) some of these were bought by Mr. John Broad, who presented them to Sir William Hamilton, his former mentor at Edinburgh. After Sir William Hamilton's death in 1856 the manuscripts were given to the Bodleian in 1857 by his sons, Sir William Stirling Hamilton and Hubert Hamilton.