In May 1503 the award of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and three other arbitrators was agreed to and signed. This covenant between the town and University contained special references to stationers, and enacted that only those stationers and binders who had always practised their trade should be considered under the jurisdiction of the University, a certain number, then in business, being exempted. Our knowledge of early Cambridge bookbinding is curiously different from what we know of Oxford. There our knowledge of fifteenth-century work is full, and of early sixteenth almost a blank. For Cambridge there is a splendid series of early sixteenth-century work, while fifteenth-century specimens are almost unknown or at any rate unidentified. Mr G. J. Gray’s excellent monograph, lately published by the Bibliographical Society, has fully put on record what is known about Cambridge binding, and has the advantage of being well illustrated. The earliest examples facsimiled in his work are ornamented by means of the roll-tool, but there is a series of bindings ornamented with dies in the earlier manner produced probably about 1500, which may with considerable probability be ascribed to a Cambridge binder. These bindings are very distinctive in appearance and may easily be distinguished from others of the same period. One peculiarity enables us to identify this binder’s work even when on the shelves. He always ruled two perpendicular lines down the back. The leather used is nearly always the red-tinted variety which seems peculiar to Cambridge. The scheme of decoration of the sides consisted of a large centre panel divided by diagonal lines into a kind of diamond-shaped lattice work, and in each division thus formed a die was stamped. These dies, mostly square or diamond-shaped, contained conventional flowers or strange animals and birds. The best two, which are very finely engraved, have two cocks fighting and a pelican feeding her young. This binder also made frequent use of a small tool of a spray of foliage, plain and not enclosed in a frame, and this he used to build up borders and to finish the ends of the bands, a noticeable peculiarity. The boards were usually lined with vellum. When Dr James prepared his catalogue of manuscripts in the library of Pembroke College, the librarian, Mr Minns, added an appendix containing an account of the early printed books and a plate of facsimiles of stamps used on some of the bindings. Those numbered 21 to 32 belonged to this binder and occur on four bindings. Three of these are on printed books ranging between 1478 and 1490. The fourth specimen is more important as affording a definite clue to a Cambridge origin, for it is on the second volume of the college register. A search for and examination of such bindings as remain in Cambridge might result in the discovery of some inscription or other evidence which might enable us to identify the binder.