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INTRODUCTION The College of Saints Peter and Paul in Lisbon, usuallyknown as Lisbo College , Lisbon College or, more recently , the English College , Lisbon, opened in 1628 and dispersed its last students to other seminaries in 1971. Despite its long history and the enduring hold it has had on the affections of its members, the College is not well known even to those interested in post-Reformation English Catholic history. Although the College preserved extensive archives, few scholars could contemplate a journey to Lisbon to consult them . The only person to become thoroughly familiar with the archives was James Barnard : his work in tidying up the extant documents has been of lasting value . But he left the College in 1782 and most of the knowledge he had acquired died with him, since he never used it in published works . Canon Croft's Historical Account of Lisbon College ( 1902 ) is largely a reprint of articles by John Kirk in the Catholic Magazine of 1834-5. Kirk derived his articles from the volume I have edited here (and from a ' continuation , which I shall describe below), but his articles provide only a sketch enlivened by anecdotes rather than anything approaching full history. In an appendix (169-275) Croft published a Register, compiled by Joseph Gillow : its scope and limitations are described below . In 1974-5 the archives of Lisbon College, along with 2,000 books from its libraries , were deposited at Ushaw College . The books and archives, with portraits and other memorabilia , form the Lisbon Collection, housed in the Lisbon Room in Ushaw's Library Wing. The books were soon catalogued by the late Mgr Bernard Payne. have described the archives in The Lisbon Collectionat Ushaw , Northern Catholic History, Autumn 1978 , 30-36 (reprinted in Catholic Archives 1 ( 1981) , 36-39 ) . The cardcatalogue of the archives is now nearly complete . The more important series have been calendared: for instance, each of the 2,000 letters in Correspondence ( 1620-1918) is summarised on a typewritten card ; have described this series in North West Catholic History 11 ( 1984) , 22-26. Several articles , some of them listed below under Abbreviations, have appeared, mostly in the Ushaw Magazine . Those who have taken an interest in this work, and others too, have frequently asked when a full history of the College is likely to appear . My answer has been, and is , that the first step should be to publish essential documentation . The most important document is the book published here: Annales Collegii. What follows explains the nature of this record , its inadequacies and the consequent necessity of supplementing its contents with other archival
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The volume is covered in limp vellum and its pages are in gatherings of 48 and measure 29.5 by 20.5 cm . For a home -made volume that is three and a half centuries old it has survived reasonably well, partly because for considerable periods it was neglected, mislaid or simply ignored . It owes it origin and many of its early entries to EdwardPickford , one of the students who came as founder-members from Douai College