A new book in the Bodleian

I spent a considerable part of this morning and afternoon attending an online symposium at the Bodleian Library. It was devoted to a book the Library has recently acquired. Now there is nothing unusual in that - as Bodley’s Librarian pointed out in his opening remarks the Library takes in something like a thousand books every day. This one however is exceptional.

An illuminated manuscript French translation of the New Testament produced to the highest standards of the day in the Parisian ateliers during the last quarter of the thirteenth century it was acquired before 1350 by the future King Jean II, who inscribed his name in it as a sign of ownership. It may have come to England as a result of the King’s captivity after the battle of Poitiers in 1356, or, perhaps more probably, with his granddaughter Queen Joan of Navarre, who married King Henry IV in 1403. The application of ultra-violet light has revealed the erased names of later English owners - Thomas, later Duke of Clarence, his stepson Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain and later Duke of Somerset, who then gave it to his stepfather’s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Duke Humphrey - or Humfrey - was, of course, a seminal figure in the development of what became the Bodleian Library, and a significant patron of learning and literature both established Latin and French texts and the latest Italian Humanist versions. The volume appears to have disappeared after Duke.Humfrey’s death in 1447 before reappearing in the eighteenth century. Thanks to a government ban on its export it has now been acquired and given a permanent home in the library its last royal owner so clearly supported and valued.

The symposium offered a series of fascinating talks about the book, which is on show in the Weston Library, and, as of today,  also available in digitised form online at Bodleian Library MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1

The full Bodleian catalogue entry with the various recovered inscriptions can be seen at MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1 - Medieval Manuscripts

The Bodleian website illustrates two of the miniatures and lists the impressive array of contributors to the symposium at From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey

The book itself and the symposium provide and provided a fascinating insight into the cultivated literary tastes and patronage of princes either side of the Channel between the last years of St Louis and the mid-fifteenth century.

Wikipedia has an illustrated biography of the Duke at Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

 

Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Fifteenth century portrait by an unknown artist Library of St Vaast, Arras

Image: Britannica

 

Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Today is the 570th anniversary of the death at Bury St Edmunds of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (1390–1447), prince, soldier, and literary patron.

The excellent concise life of him by G.L.Harriss in the Oxford DNB can be accessed here,
and there is another illustrated account here.  The full length biography Humphrey Duke of Gloucester by K.H.Vickers from 1907, which is still useful, can be viewed on Project Gutenberg here.

Humphrey Duke of Gloucester
A sixteenth century copy by J.Le Boucq in a manuscript at Arras

Image:luminarium.org

The youngest son of King Henry IV he received his Christian name as a tribute to the family of his mother Mary de Bohun.

I have posted previously about the Duke and the events of 1425 in particular in Stand off on London Bridge.

On Matt's History Blog The Fall of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester there is a useful account of the Dukes death and place in the events of the time 

One of the recipients of Humphrey's patronage was the abbey at St Albans, and it was there that he had chosen to be buried:

Duke Humphrey sponsored by St Alban before the Blessed Sacrament and Christ as the Man of Sorrows circa 1430-40

Image:luminarium.org

Duke Humphrey and his second wife Eleanor Cobham
From the Benefactor's Book of St Albans 1431

Image: Wikipedia  

Duchess Eleanor was disgraced and imprisoned after a witchcraft scandal in 1441. Her life and downfall are set out, again with skill and economy, by G.L. Harriss in the ODNB at Eleanor (c.1400–1452). Her alleged principal necromancer Roger Bolingbroke was an Oxford man, principal of St Andrew's Hall. He may well fit in with the contemorary Oxford tradition of astrology - and the risk of serious charges ensuing if politics, let alone the succession to the Crown, was addressed.  There is an account of him and the prosecution at Roger Bolingbroke and a more detailed one with extracts from a contemporary chronicle at  ExecutedToday.com » 1441: Roger Bolingbroke, “hanged, hedyd, and quartered" Eleanor herself, divorced from the Duke, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment died at Beaumaris castle in Anglesey in 1452.

Humphrey lived in the style appropriate to the son, brother and uncle of Kings, and some hint of that can be seen not only in manuscripts he owned but also in the rare survival of a piece of plate from his collection:

 

A cup bearing the arms of Duke Humphrey and his Duchess Eleanor,

now in the possession of Christ's College Cambridge

Image: Project Gutenberg

Duke Humphrey from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book 1443-45

BL Royal MS E VI f.2v.

Image: Wikimedia 

It was Humphrey who built the first royal residence at Greenwich in the years after 1428 and which was to be taken over by his nephew King Henry VI and his Queen Margaret. renamed the Palace of Placentia and rebuilt under King Henry VII it was to remain an important royal residence until the Civil War, and then, after the Restoration and possible plans for a new royal palace there, to become eventually the great Naval complex we see today. 

Greenwich Palace

Image: National Maritime Museum

St Saviour's Hospital Bury St Edmunds
The hospital built in 1184-5. This is the lower half of the west range, which was 100ft long

Image:geograph.org.uk

St Saviour's Bury St Edmund's where Humphrey died was the largest of the six hospitals in Bury

and there is the VCH Suffolk account of it here.  A small part of the buildings survive near Bury St Edmunds railway station.

The tomb of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester at St Albans, adjacent to the shrine of the saint

Image:churchmonumentssociety.org




The coffin and crypt of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester at St Albans
The painted crucifix is of great interest. Whether it still survives I do not know.

Image:churchmonumentssociety.org

Thre is an illustrated article about the Duke's tomb, and something about the circumstances of his death and burial, in the article about it as Monument of the Month in May 2010 for the Church Monuments Society here 

He has another enduring monument in Ocford - Duke Humfrey's Library, which still uses the older spelling of his name. A book collector and patron of Italian humanists Humphrey made two substantial gifts to the University of  Oxford. In 1439 he gave 129 manuscripts and in 1444 another 134. Oxford responded by adding an extra storey to the Divinity School they were building to house these and their other books and named it in the Duke's honour. The building was not completed until 1488, but it still retains his name. There is more about it, with links, at Duke Humfrey's Library.
The remainder of his library had been promised but went instead to King Henry VI's foundation in Cambridge of King's College. Humphrey's interests and importance in this reception of contemporary culture are considered in the life by Harriss in the ODNB linked to above.

Interior of Duke Humfrey's Library today, as refitted and arranged by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1598

Image: Bodleian Blogs



John Capgrave presents his Commentary on Exodus to Duke Humphrey c.1440
This is one of the three surviving books from the Duke's gift still in the Bodleian Library

Image: Bodleian/Wikipedia 

The Duke of Cambridge in Oxford

I gather from the Internet through a post on the Royal Central site that the Duke of Cambridge was in Oxford today.

The post, slightly adapted and with some of my comments and explanations added in [ ] reads as follows:

" On Wednesday, the Duke of Cambridge travelled to Oxford to open Magdalen's completed Longwall Library which has been under construction for more than two years. His Royal Highness also opened the Blavatnik School of Government [ an ugly circular  creation in glass between the Woodstock Road and Jericho ] and the Weston Library [ that is, what used to be the New Bodleian. this is an excellent resource for Library users, and for visitors, having permanent exhibition spaces, and a tea room. It has been open for use for about a year]

This library renovation was a multi-million pound project with a new wing added and the interior was gutted and tore out to make more room for reading areas and to let in more natural light. During this time, students have been using a tent they've lovingly named the “Marquee."

Renovating Longwall has been a project of hard work and long hours of dedication by many; donations from alumni and telethons held by current students and administrators to raise the £10.5 million necessary to see this project completed. The construction company contracted to work on the building put in thousands of hours as well. So with a project of this scope and magnitude, there is bound to be controversy.

There are some who don't think the Duke should be the one to open Longwall. First-year musician student from Magdalen Ted Mair is one isn't pleased with this idea.

He said: “Prince William has made it to his current position simply by being born to a certain father. This appears to me as exactly the kind of cultural elitism that Magdalene, as part of the University of Oxford, should be discouraging. As an institution trying to open its gates to students from as many walks of life as possible, this choice of guest seems like a step backwards."

Another source told Oxford Student Paper, Cherwell: “We have a great many Magdalene alumni who have achieved far more through their own endeavors than Prince William has by accident of birth. Why didn’t the college choose one of them?"

[ It always surprises me - well to some extent at least why it is that reporters bother to record such miserable little whiners on these occasions...]

There are those though, who believe it quite fitting for the Duke to have this honour. Oliver Baldwin is one such student who said: "This is an honour for the school. “I’m very excited about The Duke of Cambridge coming to open the new library. The Queen is a symbol of Britain and The Duke of Cambridge, as the future king, is a symbol of where Britain is going, always remaining relevant to each new generation."

[ Much better! ]
Sam Sherburn, the current Magdalen JCR President hopes the Duke will see the value of the building.

He said: “I’ve talked about Magdalen's New Library Project to more alumni than I care to remember across several Telethons It is a fantastic project and it is great to see it open at long last. I hope that the Duke of Cambridge will be able to see for himself the hard work and dedication of those involved in the project– and those revising for their exams, for whom the New Library is a much-needed asset!” "

The Clever Boy will add that he, and he suspects many others in Oxford, were not aware in advance of this visit. As I, and others indeed, have pointed out before, the  University does not publicise these things well. I did see some preparations at the Weston Library the other day, but there was nothing to draw attention to what was scheduled.

New research on the Gough Map

I recently saw on the Bodleian website a piece about the latest research into the Gough Map - about which I have posted before in 2011 with The Gough Map on display - and which is a remarkable example of mid-fourteenth century cartography showing Great Britain and neighbouring coasts, with cities and towns together with the principal routes and rivers in England, and useful information that "Hic habeundant Lupes", together with a drawing of a wolf, in the Scottish Highlands. There is an online introduction to the map, its date and sources at Gough Map.

The new report can be viewed at Scientific analysis helps team explore mysteries of medieval Gough Map

The Gough Map - a modern reproduction of the original

Image:geog.port.ac.uk

Secondary relics of King Charles I

Today is the anniversary of the regicide of the Royal Martyr, King Charles I, in 1649.

 

 

 Image: The Mad Monarchist

 

My previous posts about this anniversary can be seen at The Royal Martyr , at Post Mortem Patris Pro Filio , at "Remember" and at  Commemorating the Royal Martyr

 

It seems therefore an appropriate day on which to share the news published last month by the Bodleian Library who have recently acquired the travelling library owned by the King when he was Prince of Wales. It is a fascinating insight into his intellectual formation as heir to the throne. The announcement of this acquisition can be read at the illustrated post  Bodleian receives Charles I's travelling library

  

 

Bodleian acquires manuscript of Hopkins' 'Binsey Poplars'

The Bodleian Libraries have recently acquired at auction a late autograph draft manuscript of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'Binsey Poplars'.

Image: Oxford Mail website

The last known major Hopkins manuscript to have been in private hands, ‘Binsey Poplars’ is the most significant Hopkins item to have come to the market in over forty years.

Image:Bodleian Library 

The acquisition was made possible by strong financial support from a number of individuals and funding bodies, including the Friends of the Bodleian, the Friends of the National Libraries and the V & A Purchase Grant Fund.

A Balliol man who converted to Catholicism whilst at Oxford, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) is regarded as one the Victorian era's greatest poets. Very few of his poems appeared during his lifetime, and he owes his posthumous reputation to his friend the poet Robert Bridges, who edited a volume of Hopkins' Poems that first appeared thirty years after his death in 1918. His revolutionary ‘difficult’ style, characterized by new rhythmic effects, influenced the work of Modernist and later writers.

 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Image: Wikipedia

'Binsey Poplars' was written in response to the felling of trees running alongside the Thames in Binsey, a village on the west side of the city of Oxford. Hopkins was a curate at St Aloysius Church in the city when he wrote the poem. The trees were replanted after the poem was first published in 1918 (the poem seems to anticipate the ravages of the Great War), and there was an outcry which I recall when they were felled again in 2004. The poem formed part of the successful campaign to replant the trees. The poem has a very particular local meaning but speaks to a much broader audience in its plaintive evocation of spiritual desolation through the destruction of nature.

The only other known manuscripts of ‘Binsey Poplars’ survive in four copies kept in the Bodleian. The Library stresses that the textual importance of this newly acquired manuscript cannot be overstated. It has never been properly studied and presents critical evidence of the evolution of one of the most celebrated poems in the modern English literary tradition. It includes important unrecorded and unpublished reconsidered readings, with extensive autograph deletions, revisions and repetitions.

Dr Christopher Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, said: "The Bodleian holds the world’s most important collection of manuscripts by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is wonderful to be able to add this draft of one of his most celebrated works to that collection. The various revisions in the draft, particularly when studied alongside the other drafts, give us a remarkable insight into how the poet crafts his passionate lament on man's disregard for the sanctity of nature. It’s an enduringly relevant poem everyone should know."

Adapted from the Bodleian website 

I studied Hopkins for A-level English, and whilst I did not get a lot out of him then I recognised that in him and T.S.Eliot were the two amongst the poets we studied in whom I was aware of something powrful and insightful. I am still, forty years on, meaning to return to studyin them properly... Occasionally I do a little, and find them to be a very rich vein to explore. Anyway, worshipping at Hopkin's former church and a member of a college adjacent to Eliot's Merton I really have no excuse - other than laziness - for not looking further at these two writers.

Queen Victoria goes online

The Bodleian Library has announced a joint venture with the Royal Archives at Windsor to make Queen Victoria's complete journals available online.

There is an account of the project and the material being made available which can be read at HM the Queen launches online resource of all Queen Victoria's Journals. 

 

Queen Victoria  - the official photograph from her Diamond Jubilee in 1897

Image:Wikipedia

The Romance of the Middle Ages

As today is National Libraries Day ( go on, hug a librarian...) it seems an appropriate one on which to publicise the new exhibition at the Bodleian here in Oxford, which I have not so far visited.

The Romance of the Middle Ages celebrates the stories of medieval romance and how they have influenced our culture, literature and art over the last thousand years. It includes the dramatic love stories about King Arthur and Tristan and Isolde as they are illustrated in sumptuous medieval manuscripts, alongside works of art and draft papers by J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman and Monty Python, the last on public display for first time.

The exhibition draws on the Bodleian’s outstanding collection of manuscripts and early printed books containing medieval romances. These range from lavishly-illustrated volumes to personal notebooks and fragments only saved by chance. Alongside these will be works of art from across Europe that illustrate romance legends; these include ivory carvings, jewellery and caskets, on loan from national museums and collections.

Romance writing developed in Britain after the Norman Conquest and flourished as a form of storytelling right through to the Middle Ages, forming the basis for many kinds of later drama, poetry and prose fiction. This colourful exhibition tells how these compelling medieval stories have inspired writers and artists across the centuries; from the early modern period (including Shakespeare, Ariosto and Cervantes) through to medievalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (including Walter Scott, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris) and, finally, to contemporary versions and adaptations (including manuscripts and drafts by J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman and the Monty Python team). From the Knights of the Round Table to the Knights that say ‘Ni!’, The Romance of the Middle Ages exhibition tells the fascinating story of medieval romance across the ages.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• The Song of Roland – the earliest copy of France’s national epic (mid-12th century)
• Exquisite ivory carvings from France (14th century)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – One of the most precious manuscripts of Middle English poetry. On loan from the British Library (c.1400)
• The Red Book of Hergest – amongst the most important books written in Welsh, containing The Mabinogion and many other texts, on loan from Jesus College, Oxford (c.1400)
• William Caxton’s The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye – a copy of the first book ever printed in the English language (1473/4)
• A draft illustrated page from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1946)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail – Terry Jones’s own working copy of the screenplay for the film, never shown to the public before (1973)

An online exhibition (http://medievalromance.bodleian.ox.ac.uk) with the same title was launched on 29 January. It features nearly all the items on display in the exhibition room, along with many additional items. A 12-min video with the curator of the exhibition and scholars from the University of Oxford introducing the exhibition and the ideas behind it is also available. Twitter hashtag is #BODromance

Events accompanying the exhibition include lunchtime talks, special school activities and a show A Love Like Salt inspired by the exhibition to be held in the Divinity School, Bodleian Library on 20 April.

The companion volume of the same title, The Romance of the Middle Ages by Nicholas Perkins and Alison Wiggins is published by Bodleian Library Publishing and can be purchased in the Bodleian Shop or online at www.bodleianbookshop.co.uk Paperback, 152 pp, 70 colour illustrations, ISBN: 9781851242955I, £19.99

The exhibition is free and is located in the Schools Quad of the Old Bodleian. It is open Monday to Friday 9-5, Saturdays 9-4.30 and Sundays 11-5. It will be closed on Easter Day.

Adapted from the Bodleian website

The Gough Map on display

Going into the Bodleian this morning I found that the Gough map, the oldest road map of Britain, and dating from 1355-66, is on display in the Proscholium until June 26th. The map depicts Great Britain and its off shore islands, the east coast of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the coast of Europe from Denmark to France.

The Gough Map
Scotland is to the left, East Anglia and Kent to the top right

The exhibition entitled “Linguistic geographies: three centuries of language, script and cartography in the Gough map of Great Britain” is a rare public display of the map, together with a copy of Richard Gough’s ‘British Topography’ and its engraving of the map that gained his name. It was Gough who bought the map for 2/6 in 1774 and presented it to the Bodleian in 1809.

This display provides visitors with a valuable opportunity to see close-up the fine details of the map, and in particular the writing that appears on it. The map’s script is a key to understanding its making and use, and the exhibition will offer new interpretations based upon the on-going “Linguistic Geographies” research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The evidence indiactes a retouching of the map in the early fifteenth century, suggesting a contemporary awareness of its importance.

The Bodleian map room's illustrated description of the map can be read here, and there is an article about the map from Oxford Today available here which provides a good introduction and discussion as to how it was made. The modern task of conserving it is described here.

The map is a wonderful insight into the world of the mid fourteenth century, of the relative importtance of cities and towns, of the extent of geographical knowledge and miscellaneous information. Thus Brutus' landing at Totnes is recorded, as well as the fact that in the Scottish Highlands "Hic habundant lupes"is written alongside a drawing of a wolf. I remember buying an Ordnance Survey copy as a boy and poring over it, identifying places and appreciating the extent of the knowledge which had created it.

One explanation for the creation of the map is that it was made for the Council chamber at Westminster as a reference work - which once more is a reminder of the sophistication of English medieval government.

Detail showing the area around Oxford.
Oxford is at the bottom left, with Abingdon to the right.
Wallingford is between and above them, with Reading at the top.
The rivers are shown in green, and roads or distances by the red lines.

If you are in Oxford this display of this great national treasure is well worth seeing - and in the same set of buildings as the major exhibition Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible, which is on until September 4th. I have not got in to see that yet but will post about it whenI have done so. There is meanwhile a way to Visit the exhibition online.

John Aubrey

Last Saturday I finally got round to visiting the Bodleian exhibition "My wit was always working: John Aubrey and the origins of experimental science." This is part of Oxford's celebration of the 350th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Society, itself a development from the academic clubs of the University in the 1650s.

The exhibits provide a fascinating insight into the intellectual world of the later seventeenth century, and is accompanied by a book:

What emerges is the wide range of Aubrey's interests, far beyond his Brief Lives and his antiquarian and historical works. Aubrey and the world of his friends - Antony Wood, Robert Hooke et al - is made visible in his books and notes.

The portrait on the book cover is from 1666, and is now in the Ashmolean collection. it shows a considerably more elegant figure than the one depicted by Roy Dotrice in his famous one-man play about Aubrey from 1967.

There is a biography of Aubrey here. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen here in Oxford, and there is a modern memorial plaque inside the church.

The exhibition, to which admission is free, is open until October 31st, and is to be found in the exhibition room in the quadrangle of the Old Bodleian. It is well worth visiting.