TRIBUTES have been paid to an expert on ancient manuscripts, who has died aged 81.

Martin Snape was an authority on Durham Cathedral’s medieval archive, among other texts.

Patrick Mussett, a former work colleague, said: "He was enormously generous in using his knowledge to help those who came to work on the archive and he was a careful and gentle trainer and mentor of younger colleagues who sometimes came to the work knowing nothing about it.

"His many friends will miss him."

An expert on English church history, when asked how he could be an agnostic rather than Anglican Christian, Mr Snape asked whether the questioner would expect a zoology lecturer to be a gorilla.

Mr Snape was born in Essex and studied History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he rowed in one of the college eights.

He moved to Durham in 1952, a year before becoming the first assistant keeper in the Palaeography and Diplomatic department - an archivist in the Durham University-run record office - where he was responsible for many North-East historic documents.

He became a member and tutor at the university’s St Cuthbert’s Society and coached rowing.

In 2002, he published two volumes of Durham Episcopal Acta, the official documents issued by the bishops from 1153 to 1237.

Mr Snape died on Sunday, March 28, following a short battle with cancer and is survived by two sons and two daughters. His wife Marjorie died in 2008.

Mr Snape’s funeral will be held at Durham Crematorium on Friday, April 9, at 2.30pm.