 | a bibliographical newsletter Issue 30 Easter 2023  |
Gatekeepers to Heaven
In 1602 more than eighty manuscript volumes were removed from Exeter Cathedral Library to Oxford. This has been seen as inflicting grievous Bodley harm on the literary world of Exeter. Now that half a dozen of the manuscripts are returning to Exeter for the first time in more than four centuries for the exhibition Gatekeepers to Heaven: Religion, knowledge and power in medieval Exeter which RAMM will host from 3 June 2023 to 3 September 2023, it it time to reassess this verdict and perhaps consider whether some of this heritage could be returned to Exeter more permanently.
First let us take a look at the manuscripts that, after much negotiation, we will be enabled to wonder at.
The Leofric missal (Ms Bodley 579), is a collection of three texts written between around 970 and 1042 put together for Leofric, Exeter's first bishop. The earliest section was written in Glastonbury around 970. Contained on folios 38-59, it includes an English calendar in Latin with calendrical tables and ornamentation. It is located in the middle of the main part of the missal, which was written in Cambrai or Arras around 1040 and includes a Gregorian sacramentary, benedictions and prayers the canon of the mass, proper of time, proper of saints, common of saints, votive masses and a manual with litany, benedictions and prayers. Interspersed with this and written in several different hands in Exeter between 1050 and 1072 are miscellaneous masses, benedictions, exorcisms and also important historical matter: fifteen manumissions granted in Exeter and Tavistock dating from 970 and 1050 in Old English, a list of sureties for land at Stoke Canon, a Latin note on bishops and a list of relics at Exeter, chiefly given by Athelstan. Bishop Leofric’s ownership inscription includes his curse: This missal was given by Bishop Leofric to the church of Saint Peter the Apostle for the use of his successors. If anyone carries it away from here let him be eternally cursed. FIAT FIAT FIAT.
A second volume linked to Leofric is the Leofric Gospels (Ms. Auct.D.2.16), containing the four gospels, preceded by the prefaces of Jerome and Eusebius, written during the tenth century, probably in Landevennec, Brittany. Folios 1-2 verso contain a long list of the lands recovered by Leofric for Exeter as well as of his own donations of lands, church furniture and books. Folio 6 verso lines 1-7 contain an inscription in Latin and Old English recording the gift of the book to Exeter by Leofric together with his curse. There is also a list of relics given to the monastery of Exeter, chiefly by Athelstan. There are musical neumes which also appear to be in the Exeter style.
Also linked to Leofric is a volume containing the works of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, a Roman Christian poet (348-413), born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis in Northern Spain (Ms. Auct. F.3.6), written in England between 1020 and 1070. It has coloured capitals and copious notes and glosses to the poems, some in Old English, and all were probably written before the volume was presented by Leofric to Exeter. Musical neumes are present, and also two Old English charms. Once again Leofric's donation inscription includes his curse in Latain and Old English. In Leofric’s donation list of 1072 it is listed as: liber Prudentii sicomachie.
Later than Leofric's time is Jerome's commentary on Isaiah (Ms. Bodl. 717), which was probably produced in a Norman scriptorium for Osbern (bishop 1072-1103) or William Warelwast (bishop 1107-1137). The volume contains the whole treatise in eighteen books with a prologue. It also contains a 14th century ownership inscription: liber ecclesie Exoniensis. Jerome (347-420) was one of the four great fathers of the Latin Church. His works are represented by eleven volumes in the 1327 inventory as against nine for Ambrose, fourteen for Gregory and 25 for Augustine. The volume contains well executed illuminations and on folio 287 verso is the colophon: Explicit liber beati Iheronimi sup[er] Ysaiam. Above it is: Imago pictoris & illuminatoris huius operis", a miniature of the illuminator of the work, Hugo Pictor.
From the same period, the early 12th century, and probably produced for the same bishops is Augustine's De civitate dei (MS. Bodley 691). At the head of the first page is an ownership inscription: Liber ecclesie Exoniensis. The volume has several miniatures in capitals by at least two artists. A few of the 14th century annotations apply sentences in the treatise to events in England, for example "sic fraters Coneweye et ei adherents" (folio 186 verso). This is probably the most influential of Augustine's works. It treats theology in relation to the history of mankind and God's action in the world is explained.
The last manuscript, a Psalter, with gloss of Peter Lombard (MS. Auct. D.2.8), is somewhat later, probably dating from the late 12th century and written in England. It includes illuminated initials, mostly in the marginal gloss by Peter Lombard, which makes up the bulk of the text, the text of the psalms themselves often occupying a mere few lines in a larger minuscule hand. The ownership inscription on folio ii verso: "Liber Sancti Petri Exoniensis. Si quis illum subtraxerit aut alienauerit, eterne subiaceat maledictioni" is in a 13th century hand threatening anyone who removes the book with eternal malediction. The binding is stamped white sheepskin, added about 1602 over older sewing and boards, rebacked and repaired, and the leaves are discoloured by damp at beginning and end. In fact a number of the manuscripts that reached Oxford in 1602 required similar remedial work. They had clearly not been well cared for in Exeter, and were much cherished when they arrived in Oxford to form part of the foundation collection of the Bodleian Library.
Nor were these the first manuscripts have left to Exeter. In the 16th century a number of the earliest manuscripts in the library had reached the hands of Archbishop Matthew Parker. A scholar of Old English, he published in about 1566 the work of Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham, Sermo de sacrificio in die Pascae in English and Anglo-Saxon under the title A testimonie of antiquitie, shewing the auncient fayth in the Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached, and also receaued in the Saxons tyme, aboue 600 yeares agoe. For this the printer John Day commissioned the casting of the first Old English font ever produced. These manuscripts are now preserved in Cambridge, mainly in the library of Corpus Christi College.
So, Parker and Bodley were performing a great service in rescuing these treasures, as very few items from the medieval Cathedral Library remain in Exeter today, which is perhaps why the curses of Leofric and his successors had so little effect on the looters. In fact an unusually high proportion of the medieval library survives. Of the 576 volumes listed in the 1506 inventory almost one quarter have been traced in libraries today.
Work and turn: an early Exeter printer presents a bibliographical puzzle.
In 1716, after James Francis Stuart had left Scotland, the Swedish envoys in London and Paris, Carl Gyllenborg and Count Sparre, plotted with Jacobite agents to secretly loan money to Charles XII, the last of the Vasa kings in Sweden, in exchange for Sweden’s help in a new Jacobite enterprise against the Hanoverian King George I. In Britain rumours circulated that James, commonly referred to as the Old Pretender, had been offered money and 12,000 Swedish soldiers by France.
Letters which passed between Count Gyllenborg, the Barons Gortz, Sparre, And others; relating to the design of raising a rebellion in His Majesty’s dominions, to be supported by a force from Sweden. Published by Authority. London : printed by S. Buckley in Amen-Corner, 1717 in a slim folio volume of some 40 pages, as parallel French and English texts with an initial imprimatur leaf to show that it was authorised.
The publishing of these diplomatic secret documents had an explosive effect, as the usual practice of the times was to ask for a ministerial recall, and generally excluded the confiscation and publication of state papers. Buckley published a second authorised edition of the English texts in an octavo of 51 pages, and there were at least two unsigned London editions the same year. It was twice reprinted in Dublin and once in Edinburgh. The French text was also reprinted in Dublin: Lettres entre le comte de Gyllenborg, & les Barons de Gortz, de Sparre, & quelques autres; Touchant le Dessein d’introduire une rebellion Dans les Etats de sa Majeste, Et de la soutenir par des forces de Suede, and a version with a slightly different title bears the imprint: Londres : chez Samuel Buckley, 1717, but his was almost certainly a false imprint and was produced on the continent.
A copy of one of the English editions came into the hands of Joseph Bliss whose printing office was "a little without the East-Gate". Provincial printers in the early 18th century were very reliant on the publication of a newspaper to prevent their presses from standing idle and generate a regular source of income, and Bliss was no exception. From 1705 to 1708 he was in partnership with Samuel Farley but in 1708 he set up on his own behind the Exchange Coffee House in St Peter's Churchyard, moving to his location outside Eastgate in 1711. His series of newspapers appeared twice weekly, the Exeter post boy from 1709, and the Protestant mercury between 1715 and 1718. His press was also kept active with a series of pamphlets covering the lengthy religious dispute between John Agate and John Withers.
Bliss clearly saw an opportunity in this piece of fake news that was going viral and produced Five of the Letters which passed between C. Gyllenborg & B. Sparre, an eight page pamphlet with at the end: N.B As this meets with Encouragement, I shall publish more of these Letters on Saturday next, and shall continue the Publication thereof until all are re-printed.
The copy in the Westcountry Studies Library is the only one to survive, and it is not known whether Bliss did complete the series as intended. No other provincial printers seem to have seized the opportunity, although fugitive pieces such as this often disappear with out trace. At first glance it also provides something of a bibliographical puzzle.
Over the years I have been searching out grey literature for the Devon bibliography and in issue 29 I bemoaned the lack of coverage by the Westcountry Studies Library over the past decade of the wealth of local material that is not picked up anywhere else. After a quick check to confirm that there are still none of the sixty Devon neighbourhood plans in the catalogue, I have started to download PDF documents, so that there will at least be some sort of a digital archive for these somewhere. I have discovered that several of the URLs have changed, even over only a couple of years, so an archived file is the best solution as PDFs are not always included in digital archives. Hopefully someone will take this gargantuan task off my hands, or a funded project can be initiated to build up and sustain such an archive. Exeter does not fully deserve the accolade of UNESCO City of Literature if it cannot maintain an adequate record of the county's documentation.
This issue of the newsletter covers many centuries and several countries and gives glimpses of the richness of Exeter's written heritage and its links to the wider world - Holland, Germany, France and Sweden are mentioned. Let us hope that this heritage can be recorded as well for the 21st century as it has been since the 10th century - but not by me. Personal circumstances mean that I am confined to barracks for the foreseeable future, so my involvement will be much diminished, and the current situation in Devon and the wider world means that the disastrous decisions made for local studies libraries when austerity kicked in a decade ago are unlikely to be reversed. Any noise I make will be the sound of one hand clapping - a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
