Professor Raymond Page - Telegraph While at Corpus he served, from 1965 to 1991, as Fellow Librarian of the college's Parker Library, which houses an outstanding collection of medieval manuscripts and early printed books bequeathed by the 16th-century Protestant Archbishop Matthew Parker. Parker had stipulated that his legacy to Corpus be audited annually and that if "six large, or 12 small" books were found to be lost, the entire collection was to pass to Corpus's rival college, Caius. Representatives from both colleges gather every so often to conduct a ceremony of inspection and, understandably, Page was determined not to see the manuscripts fall into the hands of eager librarians at Caius. He established a conservation studio which made the library a flagship for new techniques and led to the setting up of a Cambridge Colleges Conservation Consortium. His duties also included accompanying one of its most precious manuscripts, the sixth-century Gospels of St Augustine, to Canterbury so that it could be used during the swearing-in ceremonies of Archbishops Coggan and Runcie. After he retired, Page negotiated the use of a small office in Corpus, up a series of narrow staircases; he called it Paradise, as it was so hard to reach. There he continued his research until a few years before his death. Books produced during this period include the second edition of his Introduction to English Runes (2006), and his monograph Matthew Parker and his Books (1993). Page remained true to his Yorkshire roots, refusing to allow red roses in the garden of his house in Wensleydale. Always extremely good company, he was known for his love of real ale and single malt whisky. On his 70th birthday in 1995 he was presented with an oak box of the sort used to conserve medieval manuscripts, the spine of which was embossed with the legend "The Runes of Jura." Inside nestled a bottle of the whisky in a custom-made cradle. "Let us consult the runes of Jura," Page would say. His other books include an edition of Gibbon's Saga (1960); Life in Anglo-Saxon England (1970); Norse Myths: Reading the Past (1987); and Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths (1995). Ray Page married, in 1953, Elin Hustad, who survives him with their two daughters. A son predeceased him. Professor Raymond Page, born September 25 1924, died March 10 2012