The clergy and their library
/Canterbury Cathedral Librarian Sheila Hingley studies the development of Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library from before the dissolution through the Early Modern Period. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1997-1998.
Many people, when they visit a cathedral, are puzzled by the existence of a library within the precincts. If one were designing a brand new cathedral from scratch, one would include provision for a library, given the educational rôle which is now seen as such an important part of any cathedral's mission, but it would probably contain a very different collection of books from those which adorn the shelves of most cathedral libraries.
When the members of the Archbishops' Commission on Cathedrals were carrying out their enquiry in 1992 and 1993, the Cathedral Libraries and Archives Association (CLAA) was asked to submit a paper describing the role and function of a cathedral library. This caused much discussion and some dissent, and eventually the secretary produced a skilful summary of a number of different views. Several things became obvious from this exercise. Most evident, was the variety that exists among cathedral libraries. This ranges from large collections of older, rare books, which are often attached to a nearby university library, such as Durham, York and Exeter, to collections of modern theological books as at St Albans, and, indeed, the modern part of Rochester Cathedral Library.
The function of a modern theology collection is easy to define, but the retention of older books is harder to justify. I believe, along with my fellow librarians in the CLAA, that whatever the size and content of the older book collections in a cathedral, they provide a unique record of the intellectual development of their institution, and hence of the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic Church and of the post-Reformation Anglican church, and they are as important a record of the past life of our cathedrals as are the architecture, monumental sculpture and stained glass. At all stages of a cathedral's development, the books in the library have reflected the life, activities and concerns of those who have administered the cathedral, carried out its cycle of worship and cared for its fabric and contents.
The pre-Reformation history of most cathedrals has been reasonably well-documented, and this is also true of their libraries - many people have had an interest in reconstructing the collections of manuscripts books scattered at the Reformation and gathered up into college, university and national libraries. In the case of Rochester's medieval collection, Canon Mackean, and, recently Canon Welsby, have written up the medieval history in their general accounts of the Cathedral Library, and Katherine Waller and Mary Richards have studied the contents in depth'.
The books in the medieval library of Rochester very much reflected the life and work of the Benedictine priory. There was a copy of the Rule of St Benedict, which laid down the pattern of monastic life in a Benedictine house. This was supplemented by a copy of Archbishop Lanfranc's Constitutions, a directory compiled for the monastic community of Christ Church Canterbury intended to set out the changes in offices and ceremonial throughout the year. Although little of the daily, domestic routine of the monks is detailed, the Constitutions give the fullest extant account of monastic life in the period immediately after the Norman Conquest. The most interesting section relevant to the library, describes the return and checking of library books, an annual event held on the first Monday of Lent in accordance with the Rule of St. Benedict. Each monk was given one book to read each year, and on this Monday had to return that book and be given another by the librarian. Any monk who had not read his book was to confess his fault, prostrate himself and ask for pardon'. This must have been more fun than charging fines!
Books issued to the monks could be a work by one of the Fathers of the Church, such as St. Augustine or St. Jerome, of which the library held a large number; a history book such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History or a work by Josephus on Jewish history. If the monk could read Anglo-Saxon, there was King Alfred's translation of St Gregory's Pastoral Care available. There was a large variety of sermons and homilies to choose from and also books of the Bible, such as the Epistles of St Paul, with glosses to aid study. There were one hundred and sixteen volumes listed in the 1130 library catalogue in the Textus Roffensis, many comprising more than one work. A further catalogue of 1202 showed an expansion of the library to include more histories, works of canon law and lives of the saints. These books, with the addition of liturgical books, reflected the daily needs of the monks in a Benedictine house.
The dissolution of the priory at Rochester in 1540 caused the scattering of the medieval library, as in other religious houses. In Rochester's case a large number (about one hundred and forty titles) have survived in other libraries: Of these, the largest group are the manuscript books taken into the Royal Library, now in the British Library. What is interesting within the surviving books from the medieval library is the small group of printed books which were acquired before 1540, during the first ninety years of printing. That the monks were still acquiring books at a time when their numbers were in decline, and in a house not particularly famous for its scholarship, is worthy of note.
The four early printed books which have survived from the pre-Dissolution library are: St Augustine's Sermo super Orationem Dominicam, printed in Cologne about 1474, and now in the British Library; a collection of st Augustine's sermons, printed in Paris by Ulrich Gering and Berthold Rembolt about 1499, now in All Souls' College Library, Oxford; De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum, attributed to lamblichus, printed in Venice in 1497, and a commentary on the Psalms by Ludolphus de Saxonia, again printed in Paris, by Gering and Rembolt, in 1506. The Augustine books and the Ludolphus seem to fit well, in terms of subject matter, with the earlier manuscript books, but the acquisition of De mysteris seems a little strange. lamblichus who died in about 330 AD, was the chief Neoplatonist of the Syrian school. Neoplatonism was a strand of philosophy which ran through the teachings of many of the famous medieval philosophers, so it is not surprising that the Cathedral Library should have a book by lamblichus, but this particular work was a defence of ritualistic magic and a guide to superstitions, and has been described as of no philosophical importance. An unusual acquisition for the last of the Rochester monks; or was there a closet necromancer in their midst?
Another insight into the life of the pre-Dissolution priory comes from a court case of 1528, when William Mafelde, Precentor, and, as Mackean says probably the Librarian too, appeared before his Bishop, John Fisher, accused of possessing the Bible in English. The Bible in question was William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, which Tyndale and his amanuensis had begun printing in Cologne in the autumn of 1525. They fled to Worms, bearing with them the partly completed sheets from Cologne, after Tyndale was betraved to the Roman Catholic authorities, whom he had been dodging tor over a year. The printing was completed at Worms at the end of February 1526, and the first copies of Tyndale's translation arrived in England about a month later. The Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, within a few months began organising the collection and burning of all copies. Sir Thomas More, well. known for his Kentish connections, was a leading light in the campaign against the work of Tyndale and he wrote his Dialogue concerning Tyndale in 1528 i6 counter rumours about the suppression of the works of Tyndale and his New Testament. These rumours held that the reason the English New Testament had been burned was to hide the truth from the eyes of laymen. Tyndale's answer to More is included in a collection of Tyndale's work re-published in 1859, and held in the Cathedral Library.
Anyone who read the Scriptures in his own tongue was assumed to be a Lutheran and therefore a heretic, with the threat that implied, of stakes and burning faggots. What therefore was the Precentor of Rochester Cathedral doing with the heretical text of the New Testament, especially given that his bishop was such a staunch opponent of Protestant reform? Those who wish to sample the views of Bishop John Fisher can find in the Cathedral Library contemporary editions of several of his works - De veritate corporis et sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia, in two different editions published in Cologne in 1527, De unica Magdalena published in Paris in 1519, Assertionis Lutheranae confutatio published in Cologne in 1523, and two copies of his collected works, one bublished in 1597 and another in 1876.
Mafelde appeared before Bishop Fisher on the 15 June 1528 charged with possessing the Bible in English. In an attempt to save his own skin, he mplicated William Patenson in the case, saying that he had bought the New Testament from Patenson, who had taught grammar at the cathedral. Patenson, by then teaching at Tonbridge, was hauled before the bishop on the 18 June, and he in turn told how he had purchased the offending book in London from a "student" called Silvester, who had acquired the book in the University of Louvain. Mafelde had split up the unbound volume into Gospels and Epistles, and had sold one of these parts to Hugo, a lay chorister of Rochester. For Bishop Fisher, this evidence of the proliferation of heresy in his own cathedral must have been somewhat alarming. The story of the publication of the Bible in English is full of ironies, but the cruellest was that only months after Tynedale was burnt at the stake as a heretic, Henry VIlI was licensing the first official English translation of the Bible, that of Tyndale's colleague John Rogers, which incorporated all of Tyndale's translation'.
While these events, centred on the possession of a book, present a cameo of the English Reformation, for the post-Dissolution period the Cathedral Library more straightforwardly reflects the interests and activities of the cathedral clergy. These are evident in two ways: one is in the books written by cathedral clergy which are now in the library, and the other is in the books owned by the clergy which they donated to it.
Not all the bishops of Rochester were as learned as lohn Fisher, but severa whose works are present in the library were important national figures, or had unexpected areas of scholarly interest. Nicholas Ridley, who was burned for his faith in 1555, was bishop from 1547 to 1550, before his translation to see o London, and is represented by two nineteenth -century editions of his wrings.
John Buckeridge, bishop from 1611 to 1628, delivered a sermon at the funeral in 1626, of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, renowned preacher and one of the principal influences in the formation of Anglican theology. This sermon can be found in a collection of Andrewes's sermons published in 1641, held in the Cathedral Library.
In 1684 Thomas Sprat was consecrated Bishop of Rochester, a preferment he held until his death of an apoplexy at Bromley Palace in 1713. As a young man Sprat was known for his satirical verses, as well as a poem on the death of Oliver Cromwell published with others by Dryden and Waller in 1659. After the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, his political views changed and he was ordained priest. He published later work in which he used his satirical abilities, notably defending the English against the calumnies of Samuel de Sorbière, in Relation d'un Voyage en Angleterre. Sprat's interest in science was reflected in his fellowship of the early Royal Society and his History of the Royal Society of London was published in 1667, only seven years after its foundation, being reprinted many times down to 1764. He was described by John Evelyn in his Diary in the autumn of 1679 as 'that great wit, Dr. Sprat' who preached with 'a readiness of expression in a most pure and plain style of words, full of matter, easily delivered'. Sprat survived a false accusation that he was plotting to restore James II to the throne in 1692, and after his release published a narrative of the plot against him, which is in the Cathedral Library, along with a collection of his sermons and several other works.
Other, later, bishops whose works are present in the library include the controversialist Francis Atterbury, consecrated bishop in 1713. By 1700
Atterbury had become well-known as a supporter of the rights of the lower clergy in convocation against the latitudinarian bishops. Later in his life he became more and more attached to the Jacobite cause and after being imprisoned in the Tower, and deprived of all his ecclesiastical preferments, he went into exile on the Continent 1723, never to return to England. Aside from his polemical works, Atterbury was regarded as the best preacher of his day but also was intimate with many of the great writers of Queen Anne's reign, including Swift, Pope, Addison and Sir Isaac Newton. Several of his controversial works are in the Cathedral Library as well as collections of his sermons.
Zachary Pearce was bishop from 1756 to 1774. His early works were editions of classical texts, such as Cicero's De Oratore (1716) and De Officiis (1745). both of which through several editions. His edition of Longinus's work first published in 1724, reached a ninth edition in 1806. He was a protagonist in controversies provoked by the work of Thomas Woolston and Convers Middleton, and a two volume commentary on the New Testament, which was published in 1777 is present in the library.
A final example of a Bishop of Rochester whose works are represented in the Library is Samuel Horsley (bishop 1793-1802). Like Sprat, Horsley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767, and was its Secretary from 1773 to 1784, displaying an early interest in astronomy and geometry. Between 1778 and 1790 Horsley was involved in the controversy provoked by Joseph Priestley's writings on the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ's divinity. Horsley's contributions to this controversy were gathered together and published: amazingly this ran to a third edition in 1812, of which the Cathedral Library has a copy. In addition Horsley published over twenty separate works on science, theology and philology as well as sermons and episcopal charges. An impressively wide range of scholarly work, which is represented in the Cathedral Library by copies of his sermons, visitation charges, speeches in Parliament and some biblical criticism.
I have selected just a few of the bishops connected with Rochester to show how the books in the library can illustrate the intellectual activities and interests of past clergy. On the surface the former clergy of Rochester can seem ininteresting: these sketches of a few of the bishops show how much lurked neath that surface. The list could extend into deans and canons, especially ose prebendaries of the fifth stall who, from 1714 onwards, were also Provost Oriel College, Oxford, or, from 1877 onwards, Oriel Professor of the terpretation of the Holy Scripture. A selection of the Rochester clergy whose orks are on the shelves of the library are: Godfrey Goodman (dean 1621-4);
Tenry King (dean 1639-42); Nathaniel Hardy (dean 1661-70); Samuel Pratt lean 1706-23); Joseph Butler (canon 1736-40); John Denne (Archdeacon of ochester 1728-67); John Eveleigh (canon 1781-1814); Anthony Grant Archdeacon of St Albans 1846-82); Edward Hawkins (canon 1828-82) and obert Scott (dean 1870-87), joint author of the famous Greek lexicon known imply as "Liddell & Scott".
catalogue of the pre-1901 printed books in Rochester Cathedral Library, will he published this year on microfiche by Adam Matthew Publications, along With Canterbury Cathedral Library's catalogue of pre-1801 books. The provenance index in this catalogue provides a pointer to the tastes and interests of those who used, and had regard for, the Cathedral Library. It records the names of previous owners of the books, so that we can build up a picture of the collections of those whose books have ended up in the Cathedral Library. The provenances reveal that Rochester Cathedral's library is a much more homogenous collection than Canterbury's. It represents far more the tastes of the cathedral clergy than does Canterbury's, which includes substantial and varied donations of books by local worthies, such as Stephen Hunt, a Canterbury physician. Rochester's clergy donated books, individually or in batches, to their Cathedral Library, with the result that the ideas and tastes of their contemporaries are reflected in its collections.
As archaeologists dig down through layers of occupation on a site, so the reader can see the stratigraphy of the history of the Church of England in cathedral libraries such as that at Rochester. Here are the thoughts and aspirations, and the controversies, of the men of the Cathedral of Rochester.
Sheila Hingley
Canterbury Cathedral Librarian
Footnotes
1. W.H. Mackean. Rochester Cathedral Library: its fortunes and adventures through nine centuries.
Rochester: 1953. Paul Welsby The Cathedral Library' in Faith and fabric. A history of Rochester Cathedral 604-1994. Ed by N. Yates and P. Welsby. Woodbridge: 1996. Pp.217-23. K. Waller
'Rochester Cathedral Library: an English book collection based on Norman models' in Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. 1984 pp.235 ff. M.P. Richards
'Texts and their traditions in the medieval library of Rochester Cathedral. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Ixxviii/3. 1988.
The monastic constitutions of Lanfranc. Trans. from the Latin by David Knowles. London: 1951.
Constitutions p 12.
N.R. Ker Medieval libraries of Great Britain. 2nd edn. London: 1964. pp. 160-4.
For an account of William Mafelde's trial see J.F. Davis Heresy and Reformation in the South-East of England, 1520-1559. London: 1983. p.43. For the publication of Tyndale's New Testament see Tyndale's New Testament. With an introduction by David Daniell. New Haven and London: 1989.
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