15th century – Hertford College Library & Archives Blog

While the rare books are stored off site during Hertford’s major library re-development, rare books expert Sophie Floate takes a further look into our manuscript collection, most of which are currently housed at the Bodleian Library. Several of the items there are on broadly astrological or alchemical themes, some of which are quite strange. Ranging in date from the 15^th to the 18^th centuries, and given by various alumni, they cover an eclectic mix of subjects!

MS 3: 15th century Arabic texts in translation

MS 3 is a collection of Latin translations of mainly Arabic texts; the manuscript was probably written in the second half of the 15^th century but is of uncertain origin. The texts themselves are mainly those of the polymath Thābit ibn Qurra, born in Mesopotamia in approximately 826 or 836 CE. He wrote extensively on mathematics, medicine and astronomy, though only a few of his works have survived. The texts in this manuscript are some of his own work and some based on Ptolemy and al-Farghani’s theories relating to astronomy, including discussion of celestial lines, the distances and sizes of the heavenly bodies. Some of the texts (for example De motu octavae spharae on the now-obsolete theory of the oscillation of the equinoxes) may in fact have been written by others, including his own grandson Ibrahim ibn Sinan. The other texts are on similar subjects, including tables used for computing the position of the sun, moon and planets relative to the fixed stars.

Hertford MS3 f19r: part of ‘Regulae astrologicae de motibus caelestibus’

The manuscript is written on parchment and seems to consist of several different hands, so perhaps were collected together at a later date. The manuscript has an inscription at head and foot of the first folio:

“Liber Aulæ Magd: Oxon: 1673. Ex dono Nath: Freind de Westerly in agro Glocestrensi”.

Hertford MS 3 f1r: donation note in the standard early modern Magdalen Hall style

Hertford MS 3 record in Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries catalogue

Nathaniell Freind is probably the same man who was schoolmaster of Westerleigh Endowed School in Gloucestershire from 1662-1687.¹ He doesn’t appear to have matriculated at Oxford, though he is listed as subscriber to the publication of Anthony Wood’s Athenae Oxoniensis, printed in 1692. He wrote a brief life of his brother John, detailing how he and John had fought for the Parliamentarians at Cirencester and were taken prisoner and held at Oxford. He also wrote some touching memorials to his son (also John) and one of his daughters, Sarah. The words he wrote about Sarah are particularly moving since she died aged only 5 years old. His son John had matriculated at St Edmund Hall in 1672 and Freind has pasted into this book cut-out signatures from John’s letters to him, which he has reproduced in manuscript, as John also died young. The volume is now in the Bodleian Library (MS. Top. Oxon. f.31).² A few books from Freind’s library are now in other institutions, for example, a copy of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (“On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres”) in John Ryland’s library.

Hertford MS 4: astrology and urine

MS 4 is another collection of texts, in different hands, and all probably copied in the 15^th century. They are broadly astrological in content, including Johannes de Sacrobosco’s De sphaera mundi (On the sphere of the world), William Rede’s Canones tabularum and a catalogue of constellations by Bernard of Parma. The third work is by William of Marseille – De urina non visa (On unseen urine). William was a physician at a time when a popular way to diagnose illness was to examine urine. However, William’s treatise suggests checking the configuration of the sky at the time of the consultation instead. It proved to be a popular work and much copied.

Hertford MS 4 f44v: William of Marseille’s De urina non visa

This volume is unusual for its quire guards, also know as sewing guards. 14 leaves of parchment have been palimpsested in order to be used as quire guards to protect the paper manuscripts, as discussed by Hannah Ryley in her article ‘Constructive Parchment Destruction in Medieval Manuscripts’.³ This is a process of re-using parchment by removing the text written on it – usually by scraping the ink off with a knife. Sometimes parchment treated in this way would be used again for writing, but in this case, the now-blank leaves were used as guards to protect the manuscript texts (which are written on paper) within the volume.

Hertford MS 4 f42v: palimpsested parchment

Hertford College MS 4 record in Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford’s Libraries catalogue

Hertford MS 7: 18^th century alchemy

MS 7 is a curious item. Written much later than the two previous manuscripts, possibly in a juvenile hand, this work entitled Coronatio Naturae (Crowning of Nature) is an alchemical work probably compiled in the 18^th century.

The text of the Coronatio Naturae had been circulating since the 16^th century, usually accompanied by illustrations depicting an alchemical vessel, various symbolic figures (lions, toads, birds, angels, trees, moon and star) shown dissolving, evaporating and in various ways transforming into different substances.⁴

Handwritten title page in black ink beginning 'Coronation naturae / sive / doctrina de suma medicina / 67. Hieroglyphicis expliocator per / anonymum.' — Hertford MS 7 (click each image to expand)

Book opening showing a hand drawn image of 7 circles surrounding a yellow star. At the centre of the start are two concentric grey and white circles. The surrounding 7 circles each contain a red circle and yellow stars with many zodiac symbols and notes in Latin. At the top of the page is a banner with Cha[x?]s Veterum written in black ink. To the left of the image is a book weight running from top to bottom. — Hertford MS 7 (click each image to expand)

Frustratingly, we do not know at present how this manuscript came to Hertford, but further work into the history of the library collections may throw up clues.

Footnotes

1. For another example of a book owned by Nathaniel Freind see: Hartshorne, Steven. “A Revolution in Print” Rylands Blog (blog). 19 February 2023, https://rylandscollections.com/2023/02/19/a-revolution-in-print/.

2. Record for MS. Top. Oxon. f.31 in Manuscripts and Archives at Oxford University: https://marco.ox.ac.uk/ark:29072/x02r36tz006q

3. Ryley, Hannah. “Constructive Parchment Destruction in Medieval Manuscripts”, Book 2.0, 7(1) (2017): 9–19, https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:89b3c490-c489-4952-82c1-18d162fd25bf.

4. For another example of a ‘Crowning of Nature’ at Cambridge see: Type & Forme. “Alchemy at Cambridge University Library: The Crowning of Nature.” Accessed 27 May 2024. https://www.typeandforme.com/index.php/2021/05/03/alchemy-at-cambridge-university-library-the-crowning-of-nature/.

Links

Information about our upcoming Library renovation project

Rare Books and Archives at Hertford

Hertford Archives’ guide to the history and records of Hart Hall, Magdalen Hall and Hertford College

The Secretum Secretorum of Louis the Great

Cataloguing at Hertford College Library

Hertford College Library’s Michaelmas Term 2023 rare books display included a selection of items that have recently been worked on by the library team. Over the past year the team have also been preparing the collection for the library’s renovation project, packing up material for specialist storage.

The display was curated by Sophie Floate (Rare Books Cataloguer), Alice Roques (Librarian) and Katherine Knight (Assistant Librarian).

Guard book of 15th century fragments, Hertford College MS 41

Two page opening of MS41 showing part of Versor's commentary on Aristotle. Two columns of manuscript text per page with an illuminated letter on each. Additional marginalia surrounds the columns.

Examples of different sized items attached via guards to the guard book

This is a guard book – a book with ‘guards’ or stubs that various loose sheets are attached to. Bound in 1954, this guard book contains various manuscript (i.e. handwritten) fragments from works made in the 15^th century. Some of these pieces were treated as scrap material and recycled, probably in Oxford, into later bindings for other books. Finally, at a later date, they were rescued from these bindings and preserved in this guard book.

Thanks to the work of Sophie Floate, Hertford’s rare book cataloguer, and the Bodleian Special Collections team, information about this guard book is now available in the free public website that lists manuscripts in Oxford. This means it will be easier for researchers from all over the world to discover.

The volume includes a beautiful section of Johannes Versor’s 15th century Commentary on Aristotle and other works in Latin, German and Italian. There are a number of illuminated initials at the beginnings of columns in Versor’s work, showing very finely detailed and colourful patterns with gold.

View the record for this manuscript in the online Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries catalogue

Cyrano de Bergerac, The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun, trans. Archibald Lovell, (London, 1687)

Book open to show printed title page and engraved title image of the Comical History.

Close up of page showing text and music score

Hertford’s rare books cataloguer, Sophie, has also been working on the college’s early printed book collections to create online records that meet modern standards. This means that information is being added to the SOLO website about each book, including descriptions of bindings, additional handwritten notes (marginalia) and details of previous owners (provenance). The data is publicly available and searchable, making it easier for our collections to be discovered by researchers.

This book is an English translation of a set of works first published by Cyrano de Bergerac in French. They are recognised as some of the earliest works of science fiction and an influence on authors like Hertford alumnus Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s Travels).

The book was owned by Katherine Blount, who has recorded her name, a date and the price at the front of the book. Sophie’s cataloguing uncovered this previously unrecorded information and she shared her findings further in a blog post for the Early Modern Female Book Ownership project. Subsequent work by other researchers has uncovered further books owned by Blount in other collections, including a manuscript collection of sermons by John Donne (a Hertford alumnus) now housed in the St Paul’s Cathedral Library.

View the record for this book in the online SOLO library catalogue

Set of Astrological Works, 17-18th century

Handwritten contents list of 11 items in bound volume.

Title page of 'Magick & Astrology Vindicated' (1651)

Hertford’s early printed book collections contain a very wide array of subjects. Along with standard theological and classical works, there are also many scientific, geographic and popular texts. Many of the books were owned by other people before they became part of Hertford’s collections. It was common for multiple short works to be gathered together and bound into a single book. Sometime booksellers intentionally sold sets of works bound together but many others were bought individually and bound in an entirely unique combination by their owner. This item is a collection of books about astrology. Each item has its own individual description on the SOLO library catalogue.

The book includes a fold out item showing a hand-coloured, illustrated timeline of the world that goes back to biblical times and into the future. This is a particularly rare item. One other copy is known to exist in the British Library according to the English Short Title Catalogue website.

As well as cataloguing items on SOLO, relevant information about Hertford books is also added to the internationally shared English Short Title Catalogue, which includes works from over 2,000 libraries around the world.

See all items in this volume in the online SOLO library catalogue

Thomas Hyde, De Ludis Orientalibus Libri Duo, (Oxford, 1694)

This history of chess and other games was written by Thomas Hyde (1636-1703), who was a scholar and translator of Asian and Middle Eastern languages and the Bodleian’s Librarian. It has engraved and woodcut pictures and diagrams and is written primarily in Latin but includes excerpts in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Sanskrit and Chinese. The book was made in Oxford, on printing presses in the basement of the Sheldonian Theatre.

This copy of the book was loaned to the Oxford University Press Library by Hertford College, along with many other books printed in Oxford. As a result, these books were missed out of the previous printed catalogue of the Hertford collections that was made in the mid-20^th century. These books were catalogued as a priority in the library’s current cataloguing project and records for them are now available in Oxford’s online catalogue, SOLO.

View the record for this item in the SOLO library catalogue

Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, (London, 1613)

Illustrated frontispiece to Poly-Olbion showing a seated woman decorated in a map of England and with sea in the background.

Page of Poly-Olbion with a poetic description of the illustrated frontispiece.

Poet Michael Drayton (1563-1631) collaborated with engraver William Hole and historian John Selden on this 15,000-line poem. The poem tells the story of England and Wales in a series of songs dedicated to counties. The history, legends and geography of the counties are described by transforming natural topological features into characters in a story. Hole contributed engraved maps and Selden provided notes to explain the verses.

Selden (1584-1654) was a student at Hart Hall (a forerunner to Hertford College) and was in his twenties when he wrote the Poly-Olbion’s annotations. He went on to have a career as a lawyer, MP, linguist and historian. Selden was a major collector of books and bequeathed 8,000 books to the Bodleian Library.

View the record for the Poly-Olbion in the online SOLO library catalogue

What has happened to Hertford’s rare books?

Hertford’s rare book collections (and most archives) are temporarily being stored offsite in specialist conservation storage as part of the library building project. Every book sent offsite over the past 12 months has gone through a special process to prepare it for storage. This work has been done by the library staff, with additional support from a brilliant team of trained student employees and volunteers.

Items have been:

Graded for condition and categorised by size.
Gently cleaned using a brush to remove surface dust and dirt.
Details recorded in a temporary database.
Title pages and other unusual features photographed.
Tied using cotton tape (ribbon made out of cotton, not sticky tape!) if parts were damaged.
Wrapped in archival tissue paper.
Placed in a suitable acid-free archival box. Larger books had custom-made boxes that fit them individually.
Securely transported to the specialist storage.

Whilst in offsite storage the use of these resources will be minimised to reduce the risk of damage during transport. Cataloguing and a small number of research consultations and displays will continue.