Rare Books Cataloguer, Sophie Floate, shares some of the highlights of another year’s work cataloguing the early printed books (ca. 1450-1800) held at Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre.
The cataloguing project here at the Historic Collections site is continuing despite being delayed a little over the last few years by Covid and the University migrating to a new library management system. Current focus is on the smaller format books so this has a bearing on the subject matter covered. I have found plenty of copies of editions of the classics, prayer books and other theological works, with the odd slightly more unusual work here and there!
Some of the more unusual items so far catalogued include a copy of “Les guerres de Nassau” printed in Amsterdam in 1616. This rare work has over two hundred engraved plates depicting battle scenes and army movements during the Eighty Years’ War (Dutch War of Independence). The work was written by Willem Baudartius (1565-1640) who, although born in Flanders, spent much of his early life in Sandwich, Kent. This book has provenance relating to two Balliol men. The first indication of previous ownership is the gold stamped armorial crest of Thomas Wendy on the binding. Wendy bequeathed approximately 2000 books to Balliol, and although not all them have his armorial stamp, the entire library was listed in the library donations register. However, this book also has a manuscript inscription on on the endpapers:
There were several John Harris’s listed in the matriculation registers at Balliol but it is probable this is the John Harris who was Fellow at Balliol in 1634 (having been an undergraduate at Merton) and it is conceivable that Thomas Wendy may have known him since he matriculated in 1631 at Balliol and perhaps gave the book to Harris.
Another book with an interesting provenance is a copy of a work supposedly by Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, a 4th century theologian and is a poetic paraphrase of the Psalms in Greek. Printed by the French scholar and printer of Greek books, Adrien Turnèbe in 1652, this copy ended up in the possession of Mildred Cecil, second wife of William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Mildred Cecil was highly educated in Latin and Greek and owned a great number of books, as testified by her husband in his memorial to her. This book is typical of the sorts of Greek texts she owned, and contains her inscription at the foot of title page: “Μιλδρεδα Κεκιλια …”. She often wrote her name in the language of the book or had her initials incorporated into the binding of her books. Her remaining books are now scattered amongst a variety of institutions, including Hatfield House, Westminster Abbey and St John’s College, Oxford. The book has come to Balliol via the bequest of George Coningesby https://balliollibrary.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/george-coningesbys-books/, though it is not known where he obtained it. Coninesgby’s bequest continues to provide interesting links to other family members, including more early women book owners. At least six books in Coningesby’s collection appear to have once belonged to his mother, Chrysogen (1666-1753) – a few devotional works by the cleric Jeremy Taylor, and a burlesque on Virgil’s Aeneid. Other books have come from his aunts, uncles, brothers and cousins.
Finally, an unusual book which is perhaps an unexpected find in an Oxford College Library: “Artificiall embellishments or Arts best directions how to preserve beauty or procure it”. This odd little volume was apparently written by Thomas Jeamson (though the dedication is signed “M.S.”), a doctor practicing in Oxford, who published it anonymously in 1665. It contains many recipes for home remedies for beautification (mainly aimed at women) including some which sound fairly gruesome:
According to William Munk, who wrote biographies of Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians (of which Jeamson was a member) the publisher revealed the name of the author and Jeamson was much ridiculed for his work. This book was given to Balliol in 1683 by a John Newman, who is as yet unidentified but the donation is recorded in the Library donations register for that year.
Additions in 2022 to the Swinburne collection of Rikky Rooksby at Balliol College
In November 2022 Balliol acquired two letters by the Victorian poet and critic A. C. Swinburne from Rikky Rooksby’s remaining collection, the bulk of which came to the college in 2013.
The first letter (March 1867) is addressed from the Arts Club to George Meredith, with Swinburne playfully referring to Bradshaw’s Railways Timetable as ‘the present writer of double acrostics’. The second from 1907 (Swinburne died in 1909), written at ‘The Pines’ in Putney, is addressed to his last surviving sister, Isabel. It accompanies a facsimile edition of Coleridge’s poem Christabel which Swinburne has signed. The four-page letter has comments about Coleridge, the book, and descriptions of nature from one of Swinburne’s daily walks on Wimbledon Common.
Additional gifts by Rooksby are recent editions of Swinburne by Alex Wong and Francis O’Gorden; a collection of essays Swinburne: Unofficial Laureate (with a note from one of the editors Catherine Maxwell); Margot K. Louis’ study Swinburne and his Gods (with a letter from Louis); Jerome McGann’s study Swinburne An Experiment in Criticism (with a letter from McGann); a letter from John D. Rosenberg to go with his 1968 Selected Poetry and Prose of Swinburne (already in the collection); Swinburneiana (1974) signed by its author John S. Mayfield and with a second presentation signature from Terry L. Meyers to Rooksby; Karl Beetz’s Secondary Bibliography of Swinburne Criticism (1981); a second US edition of The Tale of Balen; and a new paperback of Swinburne’s early French skit La Fille du policeman in the Petite Bibliotheque Ombres series (2007).
A further gift of two signed Swinburne biographies mean that the Rooksby Swinburne collection at Balliol now has biographical works signed by Sir Edmund Gosse, Clara Watts-Dunton, Georges Lafourcade, Humphry Hare, Jean Overton Fuller, Philip Henderson, and Donald Thomas. Signed copies of Henderson’s 1974 Swinburne: The Portrait of a Poet are rare, and this one is special because it was presented to Cecil Y. Lang, editor of the six-volume The Swinburne Letters and founding father of modern Swinburne studies.
Swinburne books given to Balliol College by Jeremy Mitchell
In 2019 independent scholar Jeremy Mitchell gave his collection of books relating to A. C. Swinburne to the college. Mr Mitchell has an MA in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford. Formerly the Director of the UK National Consumer Council, he is the author and editor of a number of books and articles, including a 1965 essay (later reprinted) on Swinburne in Yale French Studies. His wife Janet Powney has a PhD from the University of East Anglia and is an educational researcher and published author.
Based in Edinburgh, over many years they researched the life of Swinburne’s cousin Mary Gordon (later Mrs Disney Leith, 1840-1926) and her family, authored her DNB entry, and published articles about her in journals such as The Victorian and Hampshire Studies. In June 2019 their article “Romance, Death and other Predicaments: Guidance for the Young in the Fiction of Mary Gordon (Mrs. Disney Leith)” was a chapter in The Lure of Story-Books: Scottish Children’s Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Sarah Dunnigan and shu-Fanh lai. (Copies of most of these were donated by Mitchell.)
Mary Gordon became widely acknowledged as a central figure in Swinburne’s life following a 1959 PMLA article ‘Swinburne’s Lost Love’ in which Cecil Y. Lang identified her as the probable inspiration for the poem ‘The Triumph of Time’. A manuscript of this poem is part of Balliol’s original Swinburne archive. With only three years difference in age, Swinburne and his cousin had known each other since childhood. It seems to have come as a shock to the poet when late in 1864 he was told she would be marrying Col. Robert Disney Leith, a retired soldier 17 years older than her. This caused a break in contact between the cousins, though Swinburne maintained a correspondence with Mary’s mother. When her husband died early in the 1890s Mary and Swinburne resumed their contacts.
From the 1960s onwards Swinburne researchers strove to find out more about Mary, who published a dozen or so novels, three volumes of poetry, several books about Iceland, a country she visited many times later in life, and a small selection from the Swinburne family letters to which she had access. Mary’s books are very difficult to find. Consequently, in the course of their research Janet Powney had to spend many hours reading them in the National Library of Scotland (fortunately, the Bodleian Library has examples of most of them.)
Mitchell’s Swinburne-material features one fine association copy: J. C. Atkinson’s Forty Years in a Moorland Parish (1891) signed by Swinburne to his mother Lady Jane Swinburne. In Terry L. Meyers’ edition of Uncollected Swinburne Letters (III, 145) a note of February 20, 1899 has Swinburne asking Mary if she has ever read this book.
There is a good run of most of the original works Swinburne published during his lifetime via Edward Moxon, John Camden Hotten or Chatto & Windus, and a selection of critical and biographical studies. It starts with the poet’s second book Atalanta in Calydon in a blue Moxon binding (1865), a rebound Hotten edition from 1866, and red and blue bindings of the 1868 edition. There are two examples of the American printing. There are four copies (two bound) of the paperbound Tauchnitz Atalanta and Lyrical Poems later edited by William Sharp. His third book Chastelard is represented by an unopened 1865 Moxon first edition in blue; an 1868 edition by Hotten also in blue; and two of the 1878 Chatto & Windus printing.
Swinburne’s fourth volume, the controversial Poems and Ballads (1866) is present in three 1866 first editions by Moxon; four second issues by Hotten, and two American editions (re-titled Laus Veneris), from 1866 (in brown cloth) and 1868 (in green cloth). These examples of Swinburne’s works of 1865 and 1866 will be valuable to any scholars exploring the as-yet fully documented history of their printings and textual variants. Also present are first editions of Swinburne’s defence of his poems, Notes on Poems and Reviews, and William Michael Rossetti’s essay on them.
Of Swinburne’s later publications, the Mitchell gift includes most of the Chatto titles after Songs Before Sunrise (F.S.Ellis, 1871), including Bothwell in single and two-volume forms, Erechtheus (1876), Studies in Song (1880), Song of the Springtides (1880), a second edition of Locrine (1896) signed by Edith Sitwell, Astrophel (1894, bookplate of Michael Sadler), the second and third series of Poems and Ballads, and an American edition of The Sisters (1892), and others.
It was amusing to discover that Mitchell’s copy of the pale orange pamphlet of Swinburne’s Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic (1870) is unopened, as was the example in my collection. Either this was a poem some purchasers were not eager to read, or they were keen to preserve the future value of a pristine copy. (The poem was reprinted in Songs of Two Nations in 1875). Another limited pamphlet is the poem A Word for the Navy in the ‘popular edition’ (George Redway, 1896).
The world of private press Swinburne is represented by Songs Before Sunrise (Florence Press, 1909, in a white/gold Heinemann binding); Laus Veneris,Atalanta in Calydon and Tristram of Lyonesse in turn-of-the-century limited printings by Thomas Mosher of Portland, Maine; and Albert Wainwright’s 1926 printing of the poem Cleopatra. The limited edition Riccardi Press Atalanta of 1923 and the OUP facsimile of 1930 are present; The Springtide of Life and a Selected Poems have illustrations by Arthur Rackham and Harry Clarke respectively. There are also a number of other smaller private press printings in a separate folder.
The famous Swinburne collector John S. Mayfield is represented by the limited edition Hide and Seek (1975), a printing of Swinburne’s Le Prince Proletaire (1963) and an issue of the Syracuse Courier which has Swinburne’s undergraduate On the Duties of a University Toward the Nation.
The publishing of Swinburne’s works in America is also marked by a volume of Swinburne dramas edited by Beatty (Crowell, 1909), David MacKay’s Swinburne Works vol 1, and the selections in the Home Library edited by A. L. Burt (1904).
A great many of Swinburne’s poems and essays first appeared in Victorian periodicals such as The Nineteenth Century and the English Illustrated Magazine. The Mitchell collection has a few of these, either as cuttings or the original issues. With publication dates between 1879-1895 the poems ‘Les Casquettes’, ‘A Ballad of Sark’, ‘The Interpreters’, ‘An Autumn Vision’, ‘The Union – a song’, ‘Astrophel’, ‘Elegy’, and ‘Trafalgar Day’ are present. The Gentleman’s Magazine for August, 1879 contains Swinburne’s ‘Note on the Historical Play of King Edward III’. A Mermaid edition of the plays of Thomas Middleton edited by Havelock Ellis and an edition of Pericles edited by Sidney Lee (1907) have prefaces by Swinburne.
Two final items. A possibly unknown anonymous review of Swinburne’s pioneering William Blake appears in The Broadway Annual, a miscellany of poetry and prose (Routledge, 1868) alongside such writers as Clement Scott, Robert Buchanan, W. S. Gilbert, W. M. Rossetti and G. A. Sala. A very unusual piece of Swinburneiana: a parody ‘Algernon Charles Swinburne. An Ode, Apparently to Freedom by ACS’ which carries the footnote: ‘This valuable unpublished MSS, has been kindly contributed for publication in Indian Ink. The Indian Imperial War Fund Annual, Xmas 1918, Calcutta.’ This parody was written by W. C. Wordsworth, about whom Mitchell has provided a biographical note. As he commented to me, “Perhaps this is the only surviving copy in the world, unless there is one in the University of Calcutta library.”
Rikky Rooksby
ACS editions
Atalanta 7 copies; 4 Tauchnitz ed by Sharp two bound and two unbound, 1905 new edition rebound, Rebound 1866 small size Moxon blue 1865 ads Nov 1865, 3rd edition Hotten 1868 blue and red
Golden Pine 1928
ACS contributions to:
Mermaid edition of Thomas Middleton ACS / Ellis bkpl David Garnett Hilton Hall Huntingdon n.d
Shakespeare Pericles ed Sidney Lee NY George D Sproud MCMVII intro by ACS
1879-1895 original periodical publication of Les Casquettes, A Ballad of Sark, The Interpreters, An Autumn Vision, The Union – a song, Astrophel, Elegy, Trafalgar Day, some cuttings some original magazine.
Selections
Beatty Dramas Crowell 1909 vol 1 (same as RR?)
David MacKay Works vol 1 rebound n.d.
A L Burt Selections The Home Library poems arr in alphabetical order USA n.d. circa 1904?
Heinemann anthology The windmill includes poem ‘Love’ and facsimilea ‘What boots us to have heard’
Miscellaneous
Broadway ori miscellany of poetry and prose Routledge 1868? With contrib by Clement Scott, R Buchanan, W S Gilbert, W M Rossetti G A Sala
Includes anon review of ACS Essay on Blake which takes a critical view of ACS
Pierce Arrow Susan Howe poems New Directions 1999?
Anon parody footnoted ‘This valuable unpublished MSS, has been kindly contributed for publication in Indian Ink The Indian Imperial War Fund Annual Xmas 1918 Calcutta
‘With reference to the Swinburne parody in Indian Ink, you will see that I have loosely inserted a note about the author. Perhaps this is the only surviving copy in the world, unless there is one in the University of Calcutta library.’
Gent Mag Aug 1879 note on Hist play of King Edward III pt 1 ACS parody?
Prince Napoleon by Justin McCarthy
R Hughes ? 21 March 1955 Tunbridge Wells
Anthea Ingham Dreams of Impossible Pangs 2014 novel about ACS (a kind of biog)
The Dark Angel Fraser Harrison Aspects of Victorian Sexuality 1878 ACS not in the index
The Pines Sothebys auction March 22 1939
C WD death ? 17 1938
Bonchurch Biliog vol separate
London Mercury Dec 1920 Goss on ACS and Kirkup
Nov 1920 2 new poems A Feb Roundel ‘the heavy day hangs’ and A reminiscence ‘the rose to thr wind has yielded
Writings and speeches of R Monckton Milnes Lord Houghton in the last year of his life signed by his sister H Galway 1888 presented to Lady Mollam pr prin Chiswick Press 1888
Horizon 95 Nov 1957 H Hare article also Stravinsky as Symphonist; 114 June Hare article
Jeremy Mitchell has an MA in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford. Formerly the Director of the UK National Consumer Council, he is the author and editor of a number of books and articles. Janet Powney has a PhD from the University of East Anglia and is an educational researcher and published author. They have published a number of articles on the life and works of Swinburne’s cousin Mary Gordon (Mrs Disney Leith 1840-1926)
DNB article on her
Published on ACS and MG in the Victorian (2013); Yale French Studies 1999; Hampshire Studies 2014
3rd edition of the Children of the Chapel in 1910 was the first to acknowledge ACS as joint writer?
Their book: The catchy title is “Romance, Death and other Predicaments: Guidance for the Young in the Fiction of Mary Gordon (Mrs.Disney Leith)” in The Lure of Story-Books: Scottish Children’s Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Sarah Dunnigan and shu-Fanh lai. Edinburgh: Association of Scottish Literary Studies, June 2019.
Romance, Death, and other Predicaments: Guidance for the Young in the Fiction of Mary Gordon (Mrs Disney Leith) (Janet Powney and Jeremy Mitchell)V: Fairytale and Fantasy
THE LAND OF STORY-BOOKS:
Scottish Children’s Literature in the Long Nineteenth Century
Occasional Papers series No. 23
Edited by Sarah Dunnigan & Shu-Fang Lai
Published in: Paperback.
By: Scottish Literature International, 2019.
‘Her younger son, Robert Thomas Disney Leith, died of the plague on 21 April 1898 while serving as an officer in India. Her elder son, Alexander Henry (Alick), by then Lord Burgh, died a few months after she did, on 19 August 1926. My understanding is that at the time he was living at North Court, but I cannot lay my hands on any definitive evidence of this. Come to think of it,I may be wrong, as there were big sales of the contents of North Court at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in June and July that year, so perhaps he had moved out.’
‘Janet performed the Herculean task of reading all the Mary Gordon novels in the National Library of Scotland, attracting sidelong glances from readers at neighbouring tables as she wept quietly at the death of yet another young child. The originals are almost impossible to find. We have only come across a couple in the last 40 years or so. There are some reprints, but I have come to be sceptical about these. We bought one of one of her books of poems only to find that the whole thing was nonsense, with whole poems run into each other and no line breaks. Not a novel, but we do have a spare copy of her Three Visits to Iceland, which is actually very readable and gives a good insight into the way she observed her surroundings and what she thought was important.
Doing work experience at Balliol College Library has been hugely interesting and valuable. I have really enjoyed learning more about how a college’s library and archives function, and the different tasks and roles involved in being a librarian. Throughout this week, I have done a wide variety of things both in the library and in Balliol’s historic collections centre.
On Monday, I learned about the classification in libraries and helped to shelve books, and with an ongoing project to tidy the shelves in the library. I also saw the library’s blog and Facebook page and put together a display in the library of some summer reading for students. I then created a Facebook post to inform people about the display. I really enjoyed this creative aspect of the job, and it was fun picking and arranging the books.
On Tuesday, I helped to decide which books could been withdrawn from the library, a task I have continued throughout the week. I also collected books for withdrawal and helped with the process of withdrawing them. I learnt more about cataloguing books and helped to order, process and catalogue some new books for the library.
On Wednesday, I went to the historic collections centre, where I learnt about the archives and how they are stored. I also attended a workshop about handling historic collections properly in order to reduce damage to them. It was interesting to learn about the ways very old and rare books need to be handled differently to protect them. One of my favourite parts of the work experience was looking at the medieval manuscripts and the rare books kept in the historic collections centre. I got to see manuscripts made in the 11th to 15th centuries, and I found it fascinating to see the beautifully illustrated pages, especially the illuminated ones. I also really enjoyed seeing the early printed books, and finding about more about how they were made, and I found it interesting to see how they still looked very similar to the manuscripts.
On Thursday, I helped with some filing in the archives. In the afternoon, I helped to clean some of the rare books in the library. I enjoyed seeing what techniques were used to protect the books and seeing some of the techniques I saw in the class earlier in the week being used in the library.
On Friday, I learnt more about the upcoming exhibition happening at the historic collections centre, and the work that goes into putting together an exhibition. I found out about how books can be displayed in different ways and saw some of the artefacts going into the exhibition.
Overall, I have really enjoyed my week and I think I have learnt a huge amount about the job of being a librarian, and about the books and artefacts Balliol has, which has been fascinating. I am hugely grateful for the experience, and the opportunity to discover a career that I might want to pursue in the future.
Hester Perry (work experience placement from Oxford High School, 4th-8th July 2022)
This 50-minute film has been produced to coincide with the Slavery in the Age of Revolution exhibition and to serve as a discussion tool for the associated teachers’ project. The film narrates the story of the transatlantic slave trade through interviews with the exhibition’s co-curators alongside some of the exhibits. It also includes interviews with the Master and a member of Balliol’s Black and Minority Ethnic Society about what the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and the racial injustices associated with it mean for members of the College today. The exhibition and film are part of the ongoing Balliol and Empire project.
As Halloween approaches and we look around for tales of the uncanny to send shivers down spines, we might turn to Charles Dickens. There are supernatural happenings aplenty in the complete run of Household Words that Balliol has acquired through the generosity of alumnus, Michael Rhodes (matriculated 1958). Harry Daniels, studying for a DPhil in English at Balliol, reflects on the significance for our times of Dickens’ journal, both homely and unheimlich:
Balliol College Library has recently been gifted a complete run of Household Words, the weekly magazine edited and jointly owned by Charles Dickens from 1850 to 1859, which published works by Dickens himself, Elizabeth Gaskell, Leigh Hunt, George Meredith, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Harriet Martineau, amongst others. Though we must regret we cannot yet see the volumes in person, the sentiments behind Dickens’s venture might still afford us pause for reflection on our new life in ‘households’ within College.
Run of Household Words at Balliol College Library
In recent weeks and months, the word ‘household’ has become a more familiar acquaintance of our lips, ears, and eyes than ever before. In the works of Shakespeare as much as Dickens (both authors being, of course, two of the most obvious examples of household names), the word stands for the most familiar. In Shakespeare’s play, King Henry V exclaims to his troops outside Agincourt that their ‘names’ will become ‘familiar in [the] mouth as household words’ after they succeed in France. But now, like the face of a childhood friend long forgotten when encountered by chance upon a street corner, the word ‘household’ has taken on a strange, uncanny guise as it now greets us out of the televised mouths of government. In Oxford, as in many places elsewhere, the necessary restrictions to deal with the coronavirus pandemic have grouped and divided us into corridor and staircase ‘households’. Perhaps like Pip at the end of Great Expectations, we find ourselves in a quasi-familial position to persons we had not quite expected to earlier in the year.
Detail from the front page of Household Words from October 27 1855, published exactly 165 years ago.
But we might turn to the pages of Dickens, and in particular the sentiments behind Household Words, to work through the harder times of the period we’re now living through. While many of us have been barred from extensive travel (with many conferences cancelled and far-flung holidays forgone), Dickens teaches us to find pleasure and interest in the everyday, in what is already familiar to us. Dickens hoped that the magazine would ‘show to all, that in all familiar things, even in those which are repellent on the surface, there is Romance enough [sic], if we will find it out’, as he wrote in his ‘Preliminary Word’ to the publication.
Ghost-Music, a poem by Edmund Ollier, published in Household Words, September 29 1855.
Interest in all aspects of the everyday, as embodied by Dickens’ journal, is also reflected in the breadth of study and research that occupies members of the College. This set of books will be with the College community, to inspire and inform us, long after the current crisis is history. Just as Harry sees relevance today in Dickens’ nineteenth-century endeavour, future members of the College ‘household’ may find consolation, interest and amusement in these words and those of the other books kept in the Library for posterity.
This virtual exhibition is inspired by the work of Balliol Fellow Roger Mynors, whose 1963 catalogue listing and describing the College’s celebrated manuscript collection has provided a gateway to the medieval world for generations of scholars.
Most of Balliol’s medieval books have been together in the College, read and used by academics and thinkers at Balliol since the Middle Ages. This exhibition brings together for the first time the history of the collection with the processes and the people involved in uncovering it, and in doing so, hopes to build upon Mynors’ work in opening up the collection to an even wider audience.
We were due to host the exhibition at the Historic Collections Centre at St Cross Church during the forthcoming Michaelmas Term, but since we are unable to do so at the moment, we thought we would give everyone a sneak peek into the world of our medieval manuscripts via the beautiful catalogue. We hope to put up the exhibition at a later date, and look forward to seeing everyone again soon!
Rare Books Cataloguer Sophie Floate introduces Balliol’s new project to make all of Balliol’s c.20,000 early printed books fully discoverable, and shares some of the highlights so far.
A new project to catalogue the early printed books collection at Balliol to a high standard began in January 2020. Over the years many books have been catalogued onto the University’s shared catalogue, SOLO, but very often these were lacking in the information now considered standard for early printed material, such as more detailed bibliographic information, provenance and binding descriptions. Following on from the Wellcome-funded project to catalogue the library of Nicholas Crouch, it is hoped that the cataloguing of the remainder of the extensive holdings at Balliol will bring new information to light on many aspects of the collection.
As with Crouch’s books, many of the historic bequests to the Library are now dispersed amongst the collection; while there are many sources relating to these bequests in the archives, such as the donations register, it will be much easier to bring this information together once the books are catalogued, allowing the collection to be researched more thoroughly.
Beginning with some of the smallest items in the library I have already encountered books which cover a wide variety of subjects, bindings and previous owners, the latter indicative of many of the discrete collections within the shelves. Books from the collections of Nathaniel Crynes (-1745), George Coningesby (1693-1766) and Henry Norris (whose son, also Henry, matriculated at Balliol in 1828 and who donated the collection) are much in evidence, as well as those given by Edwyn Birchenough (Balliol 1929) and his father, Charles (Balliol 1902) to name but a few. Interesting details are appearing relating to these previous owners: many of Coningesby’s books have manuscript notes and inscriptions by other members of his family, including his mother. He wrote extensive notes on the texts of many of his books, which is another useful way to identify them where they lack more obvious identification such as bookplates.
Tracing the ownership of a book prior to its donation to Balliol also throws up interesting connections, often linking now long-dispersed collections. For example, the Library has a volume (30 a 36) previously owned by Edward Gwynn, whose books have very distinctive bindings and have been reported by many other libraries across the world as detailed by the Folger Library.
Working along the shelf, book by book, can provide a fascinating glimpse into the wide range of subjects within the collection, since in many early printed collections the books have remained shelved by size, rather than by subject. You might find travel in Jerusalem in the 17th century next to a tract about Waldensian Protestants, or a curious collection of religious texts that purport to have been found inside a fish, John Frith’s Vox piscis:, or,, The book-fish : contayning three treatises which were found in the belly of a cod-fish in Cambridge Market, on Midsummer Eue last, anno Domini 1626. (London, 1627) [30 a 30].
A Journey to Jerusalem: or, a relation of the travels of fourteen English-men, in the year, 1669. : From Scanderoon, to Tripoly, Joppa, Ramah, Jerusalem, Bethlem, Jericho, the River Jordan, the Dead Sea; and back again to Aleppo. (London, 1672) [30 a 22]Even within the first hundred or so books catalogued, a wide variety of bindings is already apparent, from the plainer sheepskin or calfskin, to more ornately decorated goatskin. Or this example of gilt brocade paper with a design of birds and foliage:
Somewhat incongruously, inside these covers are two theological works by the controversial Scottish Archbishop Patrick Adamson, printed in the late 16th and early 17th century, but bound a little later and given to the College by Coningesby (30 a 62).
An important part of the cataloguing project is contributing to the ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue) database. The ESTC is a union catalogue which aims to cover letterpress items printed before 1801, in British Isles, Colonial America, USA (1776-1800), Canada or territories governed by Britain in all languages. It also includes items printed in any other part of the world wholly or partly in English (or other British vernaculars) and items with false imprints claiming publication in Britain or its territories.
Any item catalogued which fits into any of the above categories is checked against the catalogue and any discrepancies reported. In the first few months of our project, six items were found not to have Balliol holdings reported, and one item not previously listed on the ESTC at all. This was the third part of the French writer and Protestant exile Pierre Bayles’ “Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jesus-Chrit [sic] contrain-les d’entrer; Troisiéme partie …” (30 a 16) printed a year after parts 1 and 2 in 1687. Although this part was not reported until now to the ESTC, there are a few other copies worldwide though apparently none in the UK. Its inclusion in the ESTC relates to the false imprint of “Cantorbery” which is probably why it has not appeared until now, as it is not an obviously “English” item. It has apparently long since been considered scarce, as the Balliol copy has a note in a 19th- or early 20th-century hand:
“Very rare 3rd part to go with my other 2 parts in one vol”.
The library also has parts 1 and 2, so is the only library in Oxford to hold a copy of this important work on religious toleration.
Another rare item is a volume of three bound tracts by religious and political controversialist William Sedgwick. Sedgwick studied at Pembroke College in the 1620s and went on to become rector of Farnham, Essex during the civil war period. Although he had impressed Cromwell with his evangelical style, there were doubts relating to his sanity in the following years, leading to his nickname “Doomsday Sedgwick”. However, his tracts about the outbreak of war were fairly balanced in assigning blame to both sides, though some accused him of being a Royalist. The tracts in this volume record his reflections on the whole period of the Civil War and Protectorate but copies are fairly scarce now, with the second bound item “Inquisition for the blood of our late soveraign, in an humble addresse to His most sacred Majesty” (printed in 1660) being one of only three known copies listed in the ESTC.
As the project progresses, it will be fascinating to see what other discoveries lie on the shelves and what we can learn about the history of the collection.
This post is a digital version of Balliol’s exhibition from spring 2019. Entitled ‘Balliol in Europe, Europe in Balliol’, it examined the relationship between Balliol College and the continent over the College’s seven centuries.
Introduction
This exhibition is about Balliol’s relationship with Europe. Balliol’s own foundation is essentially European. The College’s founder, John de Balliol, came from a French family, enriched by French lands. The very fabric of the College incorporated European materials. European students, from kings to refugees, have made it their home for centuries. Balliol graduates have travelled the Continent as tourists, diplomats and ambassadors, and shaped foreign policy at home. Balliol members and their families lived through and influenced significant European events and movements. Perhaps even more fundamentally, the movement of people, ideas, and materials has been crucial throughout Balliol’s history. This exhibition therefore explores how ideas about, of and from Europe have shaped not only the College’s history, but its Historic Collections, from medieval manuscripts commissioned in Europe by an English bishop, and anti-Protestant propaganda smuggled in from abroad, to maps, drawings and diplomatic communiques. We’ll look at how the collections embody the curiosity, sense of duty, tension, strife, and collaboration that have exemplified Balliol’s ever-changing relationship with Europe—and ever-changing ideas of what Europe is and what it means to be European.
European Roots: ‘The Ancient Castle of the Family of Balliol’
The Balliol family possessed extensive lands in England and France. They originated in Picardy, taking their name from Bailleul-en-Vimeu. No superstructure of the original castle survives, but earthworks may still be seen in the woods of a nearby estate. The College participated in an expedition to survey and study the site in 1923-1925.
Balliol Archives. Misc. 95.2A
European Fabric: Balliol in 1675, by David Loggan
Shortly after this engraving was published, the College embarked on a major improvement project for its Chapel. A fundraising appeal attracted about £250 from Old Members. The College Benefactions Book shows that this helped pay for a new ceiling of oak imported from Flanders, with painted beams.
Balliol Library. 30 g 62
European Students: The Kings of Norway at Balliol
Portrait of HM King Olav V, by Jan Thomas Njerve, 1981. Balliol Portrait No. 105
Balliol has attracted foreign students for centuries, promoting the international exchange of ideas and fostering enduring links of friendship and shared identity worldwide. The relationship between Balliol and the royal house of Norway is unique, having endured for nearly a century. King Haakon wished his son, Crown Prince Olav, to attend Balliol in the 1920s. The King admired Balliol’s ‘reputation as a working college … because there must be a very definite understanding that the Prince is being sent to an English University to work’. Haakon was aware of Balliol’s left-leaning reputation, admitting that ‘perhaps the boys got very socialistic ideas there’, but even the election of the Labour-supporting A.D. Lindsay as Master did not deter the King. For his part, Prince Olav came to hold Lindsay in high regard. The Prince, later HM King Olav V, resided at Balliol 1924-1926, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1937. Olav’s son, now HM King Harald V of Norway, followed in his father’s footsteps, attending Balliol 1960-1962, and becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1983.
Ideas of Europe: ‘It Begins with a Myth’
Engraving of Europa astride the bull, from Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished by George Sandys
In Greek mythology, Europa was the daughter of the King of Tyre, a city in modern day Lebanon. She was abducted by the god Zeus in the form of a bull, and carried off to Crete where she bore him three children on the continent which bears her name. To what exactly she lent her name has changed a lot throughout history. For the ancient Greeks, Europe denoted Hellas, the lands around the Aegean Sea. Under the Romans the name was given to a province in Thrace, incorporating parts of modern Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. For the Greeks and their Roman successors, ‘Europeans’ were the peoples of the Mediterranean. The people to the north were considered barbarians, brave but unthinking. Those in Asia were deemed intellectually equal but subject to despotic leaders. These ideas had a profound influence on visions of the continent into the modern period.
George Sandys. Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished. London, 1640.
Europa’s abduction is recounted by Roman poet Ovid in Book II of the Metamorphoses, an epic poem chronicling the history of the world from creation to the death of Julius Caesar. George Sandys’ loose English translation was originally published in 1626. Balliol’s copy is a later, more elaborate edition which includes the engravings of Francis Cleyn and Salomon Savery, and Sandys’ extensive commentaries and anecdotes, expressing his concerns about the growing friction between King Charles I and Parliament.
Sandys had previously made his name with his influential travelogue, A Relation of a Journey Begun an. Dom. 1610 (1615), recounting the author’s adventures through Europe into the Levant. After passing through Europe, he describes his arrival in Constantinople where he was impressed by the moderate and tolerant nature of the Ottomans. In his description of the Ottoman Empire, Sandys makes one of the first references to coffee in English. Diarist John Evelyn (Balliol 1637) claimed coffee was introduced to England by the Cretan refugee Nicolas Konopios (Balliol c.1639): ‘He was the first I saw ever drink Coffè, which custom came not into England til 30 years later.’
Balliol Library. 645 b 11
Somerset de Chair. The Impending Storm. London, 1930.
Europa is commonly used as a symbol of victimhood, particularly for satirical effect. The illustration on the cover of Balliol alumnus Somerset De Chair’s book shows an uncertain Europa who has just realised her God-bull has turned out to be a rubber cow. The cow in question is the League of Nations, an organisation created after the First World War to resolve international disputes. Its failure to fulfil these pacifist aims is one of the many contemporary political problems discussed by de Chair in his book The Impending Storm, which anticipated the Second World War nine years before its outbreak. De Chair demonstrated his prescience again in Divided Europe, published a year later, which predicted the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe.
Balliol Library. 1 c 111
From Victim to Queen
Sebastian Munster. Cosmographia. Basel, 1572.
Munster’s map of Europe is closer to our conception of the continent than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Yet there are striking differences: it is orientated south and much of the north seems to be missing. The Cosmographia is a six-volume encyclopaedia of European knowledge, first published in Germany in 1544 during the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The map of Europe shows Spain at the head and Bohemia at the centre, both ruled by Charles. Balliol’s copy is a Latin edition from 1572 and was donated by John Malet (Balliol 1588).
The boundaries of Charles V’s empire extended across the ocean to the Americas. For Europeans this consolidated their belief in the continent’s exceptionalism, and was embodied in the Europa Regina. a map first printed in 1537 which reconfigured Europe as queen. It appeared in all copies of the Cosmographia after 1588. It depicts Europa with the Habsburg orb and crown looking down on Asia at her feet. Surrounded by water in an allusion to Zeus’ consort Europa, she connects the rise of 16th-century Europe to her roots in classical antiquity.
Balliol Library. 575 e 8
Ideas of Europe: Christendom
What remained of the cultural networks created by the Roman Empire were maintained by the Christian Church after the imperial retreat from Western Europe. Spiritual primacy over the Empire had been granted to the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) in the 5th century after the Empire’s conversion to Christianity in the 4th century. Later re-alignments of power, however, caused the Papacy to seek protection against the Lombard kingdoms from the Empire’s Frankish successor state in the north, rather than its continuation, the Byzantine Empire, controlled from Constantinople (Istanbul). This led to a schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Pope claimed spiritual authority over much of Central and Western Europe and this crystallized in the notion of a shared ‘Christendom’.
The rapid expansion and continuing dominance of Islamic powers around much of the Mediterranean from the 7th to 18th centuries, weakening and eventually eliminating the Byzantines, further consolidated this identification. The idea of Europe as ‘Christendom’ formed the backdrop to the foundation and early history of Balliol, and would have shaped much of its intellectual life.
Vulgate Bible. 13th Century. Opening to Genesis with illumination depicting the Creation of the World
If one text underlay the unity of Christianity in Europe it was the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible made by Saint Jerome in the 4th century. It quickly became the standard Latin Bible, and its ubiquity is demonstrated by the existence of numerous copies in Balliol’s collections, dating from several different centuries. There are three medieval copies amongst the manuscripts, and several printed versions. The image on the right is from the beginning of Genesis and shows a schematic illumination of the creation story and the ultimate redemption of the world through Christ’s suffering. It dates to the 13th century but later versions include one of the College’s earliest printed books of 1481, and a version authorised by the Catholic Church from 1650.
Balliol Manuscript. Ms 2
‘We Went Out Full … But Return Empty’
Thomas Fuller. The Historie of the Holy Warre. 4thedition. London, 1651.
The frontispiece to the first modern history of the crusades could be read as a diagram of the embattled mindset of European Christendom which persisted into the 17th century. It shows the armies of ‘Europe’, ‘promiscuously blended’ in terms of language, class and nation, marching to Jerusalem only to be scattered and dismembered by ‘the Angel, Turk and Death’. The two purses at the head of the image indicate a process of depletion, perhaps spiritual as well as economic. The ultimate failure of the crusades and the continued strength of Islam under the Ottomans from the 15th century are portrayed as a continuum of divine judgement up to the time of publication. Balliol’s copy was part of the fourth edition in twelve years. It has been part of the College’s collections since at least the 18th century.
Balliol Library. 550 e 8
John Holwell. Catastrophe Mundi, or, Europe’s Many Mutations until the Year 1701. London, 1682.
In these apocalyptic predictions of the late 17th century, Europe is still being viewed through the prism of Christendom and its trials mapped onto a Christian eschatology. The Ottomans are predicted to continue their inexorable rise. The Sultan’s armies will sweep through Europe deposing the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, laying the ground for a ‘Great Conqueror’ who will unite the world and convert the heathen. In fact, the 1683-1699 war between the Turks and the Austrians ended in defeat for the former, with significant losses of territory in Europe, anticipating their decline as a major power.
John Holwell was a respected practical mathematician with expertise as a surveyor, working for John Ogilby on his pioneering road atlas, and maintaining the friendship of Edward Halley. But he also had a double life as an astrologer with a penchant for controversial prognostications. His end is shrouded in legend, involving the drinking of poisoned coffee whilst surveying in America.
Balliol Library. 910 h 14(5)
Ideas of Europe: Nationalism
The emergence of various nation states in the early modern period might have been expected to work against the notion of a European identity. Romantic nationalism from the 18th century onwards claimed roots in local, tribal identities as opposed to classical civilization, and in various folkloric traditions with pagan overtones as opposed to Christian culture. In practice, however, the collections of folk tales and rediscovered (or reconstructed) national epics often had a popularity that spread far beyond their countries of origin. The resulting national awareness bred a pan-European milieu emphasising national and individual self-determination. Fittingly for a College with connections to Scotland two key works anticipating Scottish romanticism are to be found in Balliol’s collections.
Famiano Strada. De Bello Belgico. Rome, 1640. Engraved title page with map shaped as the Belgic Lion.
The origins of the idea of the nation state seem to have emerged during the 17th century in Europe as a result of the diplomatic settlements reached following the devastation caused by the dynastic and religious wars of the period. Holland emerged from its conflicts with the Catholic Habsburgs as an independent confederal republic with a flourishing mercantile economy, and a consciousness of a nation bound together by symbols such as the heraldic lion.
Balliol Library. 15 sa 7
Fingal, an Ancient Epic poem, in Six Books. London, 1762.
The aged bard, Ossian, sits centre-stage voicing tragic tales on a rock set in a melancholic wilderness of blasted trees. Tucked between this vignette and the title is the name of the translator, James MacPherson. He re-packaged tales he’d heard in Gaelic as a Scottish farmer’s son as a lost epic poem. It wasn’t long, however, before there were suspicions regarding its authenticity, with claims that the entire thing was MacPherson’s own fabrication. On the continent, where such sensitivities were a distant concern, the poem was received enthusiastically. It became a major influence on European romanticism, inspiring the composition of other national epics from folkloric collectionssuch as the Finnish Kalevala, and works in other media, notably Mendlessohn’s Hebrides, or Fingal’s Cave, Overture.
Balliol Library. 535 c 4
Robert Burns. Poems Chiefly in a Scottish Dialect. Kilmarnock, 1786.
Whilst MacPherson’s Ossian poems drew upon a lost Gaelic past to express a sense of Scottishness, later in the century another farmer’s son drew on lowland Scots dialect and folklore to produce some of the most celebrated poems penned in Scotland. Robbie Burns had this, his first volume of verse, printed locally in Kilmarnock in order to fund his passage to a job as an overseer of slaves on a Jamaican sugar plantation. His bags were all packed when the immediate success of the volume saw him throw over his plans, borrow a pony and ride to Edinburgh to embark on a career of literary celebrity. Burns and his works went on to become Scottish cultural icons, and a continuing focus for Scottish national identity. In spite of the fact that he wrote in English as well, his use of the Scots dialect was seen to represent the authentic voice of a people.
Balliol Library. 30 c 254
Mapping a Continent
Willem Blaeu. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Amsterdam, 1635. Map of Europe, with the costumes of the different nations and depictions of key cities in the borders.
In the latter half of the 16th century Abraham Ortelius initiated a revolution in map-making, publishing the first atlas, in Antwerp. By the early 17th century the focus of this flowering of cartography in the Low Countries had shifted to Amsterdam. This had emerged as the chief city in the newly independent Dutch Republic and the centre of an increasingly global maritime trading empire. In the 1630s map production in Amsterdam was powered by the ongoing competition between two publishers, each attempting to outdo the other in the coverage, quality and splendour of their atlases. On the one hand were the Hondius dynasty, who had re-established Mercator’s reputation by re-publishing his atlas. On the other were the Blaeu family whose atlas of 1635 is displayed here. This competition eventually culminated with the publication of the Blaeu’s Atlas Maior in 11 volumes, printing of which began in 1662, and which was the largest and most expensive book produced in the 17th century.
Around the borders of Europe contemporary costumes for each nation are displayed. A modern viewer is hard-pressed to see much difference between them, except for the odd item of headgear, but the vignettes demonstrate an increasing awareness of regional characteristics and differences in culture, making them simultaneously exotic and familiar.
Balliol Library. 535 f 4
Networks of Books: William Gray’s Manuscript Collection
Balliol College has one man to thank for more than half of its surviving medieval library: William Gray, who gave or bequeathed nearly two hundred manuscripts by the time he died in 1478. The younger son of an aristocratic family from Northumberland, Gray was wealthy, intellectual and cosmopolitan. He led a distinguished diplomatic and clerical career, including becoming Bishop of Ely. He came up to Balliol around 1431, A decade later he travelled to the University of Cologne, and then Italy to pursue humanistic studies. Renaissance humanism, the study of classical antiquity, was itself a European movement, spreading outwards from Italy in the 14th-16th centuries. Gray brought two other Balliol fellows on his travels, and commissioned multiple books in philosophy, theology, and other subjects along the way. We know this from the memoir of a Florentine bookseller called Vespasiano, and from the books themselves.
Domenico Bandini of Arezzo. Fons Memorabilia Universi. Cologne, c 1445.
This is one of six volumes of an encyclopaedia made for William Gray during his travels. It reflects the international collaboration that characterised both scholarship and bookmaking in the later middle ages. Its author was an Italian humanist, it was commissioned by an Englishman, and copied in Cologne, Germany by Dutch scribes. The scribes and illuminators display an international range of influences: Dutch, Italian, English, even Spanish. There are over one hundred small pen-drawings in the margins of the volume, representing persons, allegorical figures, or incidents mentioned in the text. The drawing at the base of the page on the right side shows Venice, a centre for humanism.
Balliol Manuscript. MS 238E, folio 71r
English book, European scribe
Thomas Docking. Commentary on Deuteronomy. Oxford, c 1442.
This book was probably written to order for Gray while he was still in Oxford, just before he left for Cologne. Docking was a Franciscan friar and theologian writing in Oxford in the 13th century. His work was enjoying a revival when Gray commissioned this manuscript, but was uncommon outside of England. Indeed, some of the decoration, like the blue and red capitals and flourishes, was probably done by an English illuminator. However, it was signed by a Dutch scribe, Tielman Reynerszoon of Geertruidenberg in North Brabant. It is possible that Tielman accompanied Gray from Oxford to Cologne and finished some other volumes there.
Balliol Manuscript. Ms 2
Bookmaking and European Networks
As we saw with William Gray’s library, medieval books in England commonly boasted international origins and features. They were often commissioned from European workshops, while those manufactured in England used imported materials and the work immigrant scribes and artists who contributed the styles of their own countries.
Even the spread of papermaking technology and, later, printing moved westward across the Continent, the latter reaching England about twenty years after Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany in the 1450s. William Caxton, like William Gray, spent time in Cologne, where he learned the art of printing. Later, when he was a merchant living in the Low Countries, Caxton honed in on the commercial potential of printing technology and brought it back to England with him, setting up shop in Westminster.
The first book printed in England
Single leaf of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Printed by William Caxton. Westminster, 1477.
This first edition of this most English of books is printed on paper in a type probably cut and supplied from Louvain, Belgium, by Johann Veldener. Caxton worked with Veldener during his stay in Flanders. The typeface, called bastarda, is a later version of that originally used by Gutenberg. Space has been left for initials (larger decorated letters introducing important sections of text), which a client could have hand-painted to order. This book did not belong to William Gray, but he and other 15th-century Balliol Fellows did donate some incunables (books printed before 1501) to the Library, a few of which are still here today. Almost all of these have European provenance.
Balliol Library. 30 d 146
Printing, Propaganda, and Reformation: A Social Network for Extremists?
The Protestant Reformation, too, was a pan-European movement which evolved in different ways in each country. European towns provided refuge for English Protestants and Catholics (depending upon who was on the throne at the time), and the continent’s printing presses enabled the spread of propaganda. Banned books were smuggled back to England, providing edification and comfort to co-religionists. This was an extraordinarily dangerous undertaking, since being discovered in possession of forbidden texts meant arrest and frequently execution. Sometimes propaganda went beyond the circulation of heretical ideas or anti-Protestant polemic to directly attack the monarch, and even encourage their overthrow.
‘Dr Slander’: An Oxford Catholic in Exile
Nicholas Sander. De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis Anglicani (Of the Origin and Progression of the English Schism). Rheims, 1585.
Nicholas Sander, from a Surrey Catholic family, graduated from New College, Oxford in 1551. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth I, he fled to Rome, where he was ordained a priest. A few years later, he had settled with other Catholics in Louvain, the very city where William Caxton’s associate, Veldener, had held his printing business.
From abroad, Sander used his connections with leading Catholic churchmen to attempt to persuade European leaders to depose Elizabeth. He even participated in a failed papal invasion of Ireland, where he ultimately died of starvation. Somehow he also found the time to write this Catholic version of the history of the Reformation, intended as a counterpoint to the more famous Book of Martyrs by John Foxe. Highly critical of Elizabeth and her parents, it is the source for rumours that Anne Boleyn was disfigured by a sixth finger.
This version of the Schismatis Anglicani was published posthumously during Elizabeth’s reign by Jean de Foigny, printer to the Cardinal of Guise, who also printed favourable propaganda about Elizabeth’s rival, Mary Queen of Scots.
Balliol Library. 570 d 18
Balliol’s Reformation
Balliol’s most famous medieval Master was John Wyclif, the early reformer whose followers, the Lollards, were persecuted as heretics. Yet by the 16th century the College was notorious for its Catholic leanings. It was the only corporate body to add a reservation to its acknowledgement of Henry VIII’s supremacy over the Pope. James Brookes, Balliol’s Master during the reign of Queen Mary, presided over the persecution of the Oxford Martyrs.
During Elizabeth’s reign, several Balliol men fled to the Continent, trained as Jesuits and returned as Catholic missionaries, only to be arrested and even martyred. Robert Persons, a Balliol Fellow forced to resign for his beliefs, returned from Europe a Jesuit and printed Catholic propaganda—including Nicholas Sander’s De Schismate Anglicano—illegally. He may have been active at Holywell Manor (now Balliol’s graduate centre), where the Catholic Napier family was known to harbour priests.
The former Broad St gate to Balliol College rumoured to retain scorch marks from the burning of the Protestant martyrs. It now resides in the Library Passage.
Amongst the most infamous executions of Bloody Mary’s reign were the burnings of Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley in 1555 and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1556. The sentences were carried out in Broad Street (‘in the town ditch’) just outside Balliol’s main gates, and legend has it that scorch marks are still visible on the doors today.
By the 1580s, Balliol’s Catholic tendencies had subsided. The College’s original 13th-century charter derived its authority from the Church. Balliol’s leadership sought to put things right with the Queen by soliciting a royal charter, establishing the College anew with her as Foundress. You can see this charter on the north wall of the nave in the Historic Collection Centre in St Cross Church.
The Oxford Martyrs
John Foxe. Acts and Monuments, better known as the Book of Martyrs. London, 1576.
John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is the famous Protestant history and martyrology that inspired Nicholas Sander to write his Catholic counterpoint. Foxe charts the history of the persecution of Protestants under Catholic regimes in gruesome detail. The woodcut in the image above shows Archbishop Cranmer thrusting his hand into the fire. Interestingly, elsewhere in the volume there is noticeable defacement to illustrations of the Oxford Martyrs and of Henry VIII with his feet on the Pope, suggesting this copy may have been read by a disgruntled Catholic.
Balliol Library. 30 e 63
Travel in Europe
In his diary from 1702, Balliol Fellow Jeremiah Milles records reading works on geography, history and science, while for light relief he enjoyed travellers’ tales. At that time the Library already counted among its collection many notable works of travel literature, such as George Sandys’ A Relation of a Journey Begun an. Dom. 1610 and Thomas Coryat’s Crudities. Filled with descriptions of cities, local history and customs these works helped to popularise the idea of European travel, and encouraged interest in a Grand Tour, a custom which saw wealthy young men travel through European cities as an educational rite of passage. This had a profound influence on Britain’s cultural, political, social and artistic evolution. Several Balliol alumni partook, including John Evelyn (Balliol 1637) whose diary records his visit to Provence to see Roman ruins, and his year spent studying anatomy in Padua.
Thomas Coryat. Coryat’s Crudities. 1611.
The Crudities is an exhaustive account of Thomas Coryat’s 1,900 mile journey across Europe in 1608, much of which he made on foot. A mixture of anecdotes and observations on local customs, history and architecture, among other things the Crudities introduced the fork to English readers. The self-deprecating title probably refers to the glut of travel books on the market at the time, described scathingly by a contemporary writer as ‘unseasoned crudities’, dull and void of knowledge. The self-deprecation is reflected in the mock-heroic vignettes on the title page: we see Coryat being seasick on the boat from Calais to Dover; he is pelted with eggs by a Venetian Courtesan while he escapes in a Gondola; and he narrowly escapes attack after stealing grapes from a vineyard in Germany. We also see his well-worn, lice-ridden travelling outfit, and in the centre the allegorical Germania vomits on the author’s portrait.
Balliol’s copy of Coryat’sCrudities was donated by Henry Jeffereys who also gave the College a copy of Shakespeare’s Second Folio in 1656.
Balliol Library. 575 b 6
‘If I Have Seen Further …’ : Scientific Networks
The 16th century was a time when the strange ideas of an astronomer living on the Baltic coast could spread across Europe to the shores of the Mediterranean and cause a major upset in Rome. A whole set of intellectual and linguistic networks allowed the ready transmission of thoughts between scientists in different locations, enabling them to share facets of knowledge about the physical world. Latin remained an intellectual lingua franca, allowing thinkers to speak across borders. Most scientific works appeared in the language until the later 17th century, when Sir Isaac Newton was amongst the last to use it in print. Printing itself enabled the dissemination of multiple copies of the same text across the continent. During the 17th century learned societies formed to promote the systematisation of scientific approaches. Such widespread communication led not only to collaboration, but also to conflict in the process of discovery.
Isaac Newton. Analysis per Quantitatum Series, Fluxiones, ac Differentias. London, 1711.
Although not mentioned by name anywhere in Newton’s volume, it is stalked by the spirit of the German scientist and polymath, Gottfried Leibniz. Newton and Leibniz had been in dispute over which of them had invented calculus for a decade. Leibniz had been publishing on it since 1684, although he claimed that he’d had the initial insight in 1673. Newton began publishing using his notation in 1693. Both men were aware of the other’s work but their relations remained cordial until an allegation that Leibniz had plagiarised Newton surfaced in 1699, and anonymous reviews (probably by Leibniz) of Newton’s work in 1704 made the reverse claim.
With this volume Newton made his case for priority, including in it a tract on infinite series he had written in 1669, and which he had shown to others, notably the mathematician John Collins. At the time Newton had refused to publish, but Collins circulated the tract in manuscript. It is possible that Leibniz had seen a copy through Collins during a visit to London in the 1670s when he demonstrated a calculating machine that encouraged the Royal Society to make him an external member, but Leibniz refuted this. The ‘Priority Dispute’ rumbled on into the 18th century and demonstrates the self-regulation and co-ordination of scientific networks across Europe through learned forums, such as the Royal Society.
Balliol Library. 470 f 2
Newtonian Astronomy, Ancient Wisdom
David Gregory. ‘Part of a Letter from Dr. David Gregory to Dr. Sloane, Dated Oxford, October 12. 1699. Containing His Observations of the Eclipse of the Sun on the 13th of September Last’, from vol. 21 of The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. London, 1699.
An early admirer of Newton, to whom he submitted his first publication, David Gregory started his career in Marischal College in Aberdeen. From there he moved to Edinburgh, then finished his education at Leiden before roving through Rotterdam and Paris, and eventually ending up in London. As Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh he became known as the first teacher to incorporate Newtonian theory into his public lectures. He also wrote effusive praise of Newton’s Principia on its publication in 1684.
Balliol Library. 790 f 1
Balliol in Europe: Diplomacy
Balliol counts among its alumni many diplomats, several of whom left their papers to the College, including Louis du Pan Mallet, ambassador to Turkey at the outbreak of the First World War, and the diplomat and diarist Harold Nicolson, as well as the Morier family.
TS copy of letter from RBD Morier to M E Duff, St Petersburg, 31 December 1888.
Sir Robert Burnett David Morier (1826-1893) was up at Balliol in the 1840s and spent his diplomatic career in Europe, becoming Ambassador at Madrid and St Petersburg. In a letter to a Balliol contemporary Morier addresses ‘the great 25 year duel between Bismarck and me’. At the root of their feud lay a fundamental ideological opposition: their respective conceptions of Europe as a political entity. Morier’s views were representative of the liberal elite of the 19th century. His ‘outlook was as much European as English… [he] was at home in almost any continental country’, says his biographer Agatha Ramm (1973, p.5). Conversely, Bismarck was associated with an assertive Prussianism characterised by militarism and discipline.
Their antipathy towards each other came to a head when the German press falsely accused Morier of sending Prussian military secrets to the French during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Morier published correspondence that conclusively established his innocence. He gives his opinion of the matter in his letters.
RBD Morier came from a long and distinguished line of diplomats, including his father David, and uncles John Philip (Jack) and James Justinian, whose letters, journals and drawings from their journeys in the Ottoman Empire are also included in the Morier Family Papers. The sketchbooks displayed in the exhibition date to 1804-1806, when Jack, the eldest Morier brother, was joined by younger brother David on a diplomatic mission into the Ottoman Empire’s European territories. At the time, the Ottoman Empire extended well to the north of Greece, where Jack was sent by the Foreign Office to persuade the Ottoman-ruled Greeks and Albanians not to sympathise with the French. The British Government feared a French invasion in the wake of Bonaparte’s occupation of Egypt in 1798, in which conflict the British had intervened.
EPSON scanner image
EPSON scanner image
Jack and David spent two years travelling the area. Their sketchbooks, letters and dispatches betray the imperialist and orientalist perspective of the age, displaying at the same time both a fascination and a denigration of the culture and country ‘that seems strange and barbarous’.
Balliol Personal Papers. Morier Family Papers. N. Manuscript Volumes. N3.2
Balliol in Europe: The Chalet
The Châlet des Mélèzes, or Chalet des Anglais, as it became known, is an Alpine retreat near Saint-Gervais, France, once owned by legendary Balliol Fellow, Francis Fortescue ‘Sligger’ Urquhart, 1868-1934. Beginning in 1891, Urquhart took parties of students from across the University to the Chalet in the Long Vacations to read, walk and play sports. After his death, the Chalet was bequeathed to his friend, Balliol Fellow Sir R. A. B. Mynors, and is now held in trust. The tradition to holiday in Europe has continued ever since, securing the French Alps in the memories of generations of Balliol students.
The Chalet Book 1891-1908.
The Chalet Books provide us with an excellent record of the parties, containing the autographs of the guests, accounts of their hikes, dinners and activities, and a great number of photographs. The first volume in the series gives the details of the hikes taken in 1898. Also included is a poem sent to Urquhart, which conveys the affection he inspired among his students.
Balliol Personal Papers. Chalet Papers. I. 1. 1. 1
Letter from Meredith Starr giving an account of using the Chalet during the Second World War.
The Chalet’s position in the Alps made it a perfect hideaway for an escaped British soldier in the Second World War. A letter from Meredith Starr recounts his journey evading German forces in Italy and subsequently France where towards the end of the period, he was advised to use the Chalet for five weeks.
In his letter to the Chalet’s owner after the event he writes:
‘I hope you will forgive us for trespassing on your property! I was one of 3 out of 37 English & American subjects who escaped being caught by the Germans… though we had several narrow escapes.’
Balliol Personal Papers. Chalet Papers. III/1/1
‘The Perfect Chalet-ite’
A little pamphlet from around 1934 provided a humorous guide to life at the Chalet, rules of conduct, how to get there, its history and details of some walks on the Prarion.
Balliol Personal Papers. Chalet papers. IV/2/2
Strained Relations: The First World War
When war came to Europe in 1914, it touched the lives of all of Europe’s inhabitants. Members of Balliol were no exception. Balliol had always attracted an international membership and the College sent men to both sides of the conflict.
Minute Book of the Hanover Club. May 1911-April 1913.
The Hanover Club was a University society with many prominent Balliol members, which aimed to ‘promote the course of good-feeling between Germany & England, by giving Englishmen and Germans in the university opportunities of meeting and discussing topics of interest & importance to both nations’. Their minute book describes the debates during the meetings, which were generally of a political nature. It shows members’ awareness of impending war. A particularly prophetic motion was tabled for debate on 27 February 1912: ‘That under the present situation of European politics a rapprochement between England and Germany is an unrealistic ideal’. The motion was carried by seven to six.
Balliol Archives. Societies. 1
The College War Memorial Book. Oxford, 1924.
In addition to the war memorials found in the Chapel Passage on Balliol’s main site and on the south wall in St Cross Church, a two-volume set was produced by the College in 1924 to commemorate the Balliol casualties. It contains an account and photograph of each, together with selections of their verse, musical notation and sketches. It includes an entry for Raymond Asquith, the Prime Minister’s son, who died at the Battle of the Somme; though none for the German Chancellor’s son Friedrich von Bethman Hollweg (Balliol 1908) who was also killed in action.
Balliol Library. 88 d 13/12 and 88 d 13/13
The Club at War: War Edition of the Balliol Club Magazine. No. 4. Oxford, May 1917 and No. 8, May 1918.
Another Balliol club to be shaken by the impact of the War was the Balliol Boys’ Club. Formed in early 1907 as a result of changing attitudes towards social responsibility and widening access to education, it was run by undergraduates for local working class boys. Based in the underprivileged area of St Ebbe’s, it offered the boys activities such as boxing, football and camping. It remained open during the course of the War, though its numbers were much reduced. The Club also played an important role in the wartime experience of many of its Old Members, of whom 250 in total saw active service. The Club’s trench magazine was devised as a way for Old Members to keep in touch with one another. It circulated from 1916 to 1919 and mostly comprises brief letters.
The Boys’ Club War Memorial board is on the south wall of Balliol Historic Collection Centre in St Cross Church, listing the members who fell, Oxford boys and Balliol men together.
Balliol Archives. The Balliol Boys’ Club. 4bii
Rhodes Scholar and Member of the German Resistance: Adam von Trott zu Solz (1909-1944)
A German aristocrat, Adam von Trott came to Balliol in 1931 as one of the first German Rhodes Scholars since the First World War, attracted by Balliol’s already-famous Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree. Von Trott was politically active during his time in Oxford, joining the Labour Society and the Jowett Society. Many Germans studied at Oxford between the two World Wars, but von Trott’s participation in the failed July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler earned him an inscription on Balliol’s War Memorial and an international legacy still felt today. This was not always the case in his own time. As a patriot who loved his country but detested Hitler, he was frustrated by the tendency of his English friends to equate Germans with Nazis.
After leaving Oxford, von Trott returned to Germany to complete his legal training – and clandestinely seek allies in the resistance to Hitler’s regime. He even met with the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, in 1939. Unable to mention the plot to overthrow the dictator, he was suspected of working for the Nazis. In 1940 von Trott stepped up his role in the resistance movement, guided by his vision of European cooperation. He exploited his position in the German Foreign Office, making journeys to Switzerland, Sweden, the Low Countries and Turkey. On 20 July 1944 a bomb exploded next to Hitler. Believing Hitler dead, von Trott said to a colleague, ‘I won’t have to sign under that horrible greeting any more’.
Letter from Adam von Trott to Diana Hubback, February 1933.
Von Trott wrote to his friend Diana Hubback after reading in a newspaper in the Balliol Junior Common Room that Hitler had become Chancellor. Unlike some German students in Oxford, von Trott expressed his disgust at Hitler’s rise to power, resolving not to join the Nazi party unless it became necessary to do so to resist from within. Von Trott wondered if revolution would break out, foreshadowing his later vision of radical social reform in post-war Europe.
Over 700 letters between von Trott and Hubback survive. They discuss everything from social engagements and academic progress to their most personal feelings. They also comment on the situation in Europe in the 1930s, and the rising tensions between Germany and the United Kingdom, which von Trott feared would ‘estrange my few friends’ in England. Von Trott and his friends often used code when discussing political subjects, to evade German censorship.
Balliol Personal Papers. Von Trott Papers. I.iii.T36
Trial, Execution and Legacy
Adam von Trott commemorative service, 2013.
Adam von Trott was arrested a few days after the failed conspiracy to kill Hitler. At the trial the judge dubbed him a ‘spineless intellectual’ on account of his years at Oxford and his travels around the globe. Von Trott was hanged in Berlin on 26 August 1944.
In the post-war years, von Trott and his fellow conspirators were portrayed as Nazis in the press. His Balliol friend, David Astor, devoted himself to refuting this. Von Trott’s name can now be found inscribed on the plaque outside Balliol College Chapel alongside other members who lost their lives in the Second World War. The addition of five German names was not without controversy, but in the end their shared identity as Balliol men transcended war.
In 2013, the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power, a seminar on British-German relations in the European context, organized by the Adam von Trott Memorial Fund at Mansfield College, was followed by a commemorative service in Balliol Chapel.
Europe in Balliol: Refugee Scholars
Conceived as a College for poor scholars, Balliol has offered support throughout its long history to students of limited means. In the 20th century this was extended to systematically provide refuge to those who, for whatever reason, could not study in their home country. Begun as a personal campaign by the Master to help out a friend, the Refugee Scholarship programme was revived at the request of the College’s students and continues to this day.
Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy
In October 1933 the Nazi government dismissed Jewish academic Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy from his chair of International Law at the University of Hamburg. His close friend Balliol Master Alexander Dunlop Lindsay secured funding from the College and benefactors for a three-year fellowship for Bartholdy, which lasted from 1934 until his untimely death in 1936. By all accounts Albrecht, who was the grandson of composer Felix Mendelssohn, was a most gregarious man. Professor Hugo Wach presented Balliol College with a manuscript memoir of his friend in 1937. Its description is included in the catalogue of Balliol’s manuscripts written by R. A. B. Mynors, a Fellow of Balliol at the same time as Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The record is brief but stands out for its personal embellishment.
Balliol Manuscripts. Ms 425
Hungarian Refugees
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide uprising against the Soviet-led government that left 200,000 people as refugees. In Oxford, students were the first to take the initiative to provide relief, establishing two chairitable funds. The Balliol Fund was set up to provide general aid to those affected by fighting. With £20 worth of medicines that they had funded themselves, Robert Oakeshott (Balliol 1953) and Ian Rankin of Christ Church College left Oxford on 25 October and made their way to refugee camps in Hungary. A little after, the student committees throughout Oxford University established the Refugee Scholarship Fund to allow Hungarian students to continue their studies at English universities.
The Refugee Scholarship was continued at the request of the students. The JCR committee meeting minutes record the formation of a refugee sub-committee whose role was to bring forward candidates and to collect funds via a student levy. The Fellows of the College covered the candidates’ tuition and lodging. In the intervening 58 years this collaboration between students and senior members of Balliol has provided support to refugee scholars from South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Tibet and Syria.
Balliol Archives.JCR. Accounts & Minutes
In, Out, Shake it all About: Britain & the European Union
After the devastation of 1939-1945, leaders across the continent looked for ways to work together and avoid a resurgence of the extreme nationalism that had led to war. Winston Churchill was the first to moot the notion of a ‘Council of Europe’ and this body was inaugurated in 1949. The Council focuses mainly on ethical and legal issues administering such bodies as the European Court of Human Rights. In the 1950s a group of six states pushed towards a closer union focused on economics and trade, forming the European Economic Community in 1957 at the Treaty of Rome. This organisation continued to add new members, including Britain in 1973, and re-founded itself as the European Union at the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993. Britain has never seemed at ease in the Union and in 2016 a referendum result registered a desire to leave. The terms of this exit continue to be negotiated.
Alumni from Balliol have been prominent at key junctures in this fraught membership, from its beginnings under the premierships of Harold Macmillan (Balliol 1912) and Ted Heath (Balliol 1935), to negotiating Britain’s exit under Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Balliol 1983).
‘We have lost everything …’: Harold Macmillan and Britain’s First Application
Photograph of Harold Macmillan being presented with his portrait in Balliol Hall, January 1963
At the start of the final year of his incumbency, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan attended a dinner in Balliol to receive the portrait that now hangs in the Hall. 1963 opened badly for the PM with news that Britain’s first application for entry into the EEC had been rejected, due to the veto of President De Gaulle of France. Britain, the President felt, was not European enough and might act as a Trojan horse, allowing the Americans to disrupt the community. Although he was by no means overly enthusiastic about the prospect of entry, worrying about its impact on the UK’s agriculture and relations with the Commonwealth, Macmillan was deeply disappointed, feeling that America might sideline Britain for the Europeans.
1963, however, had more to throw at him: the firing of a third of his cabinet in the Night of the Long Knives, the Profumo affair, and a prostate problem which led to his premature resignation as Prime Minister in October. Whether his trip to Oxford was a welcome respite amongst all this is difficult to say. Macmillan had been one of the few survivors of the generation whose education was cut short by service in the First World War, and, although he retained fond memories of the era, found returning to a ‘city of ghosts’ difficult.
Balliol Archives. PHOT. 8
Ode to Joy: Ted Heath and Britain’s Entry to the EEC
Ten years after its first application failed, Britain was admitted into the EEC. In May 1971 President Pompidou had renounced De Gaulle’s veto. In October the House of Commons had approved the proposed membership. That night the Conservative Prime Minister, Ted Heath, who had made entry a priority of his tenure, returned to Downing Street and played Bach on the clavichord to his intimate circle.
Where Macmillan had had his time at Oxford cut short, Heath had had his extended to four years after he secured the organ scholarship at Balliol. The son of a builder and a parlour maid from Broadstairs, this funding was no small matter and allowed Heath to settle more fully into Oxford life, joining societies and buying books and records. The former included musical and dramatic societies, and those of all the main parties. Heath was also able to travel during his vacations and his experiences left him with a dislike of fascism and extreme nationalism: on one trip he inadvertently ended up attending one of the Nuremberg rallies and shaking hands with Himmler, on another he narrowly escaped a bloody assault on Republican Spaniards by Franco’s forces.
European Competition
Entry form for the Third Millenium Games
During the course of 1992 while the Maastricht Treaty was being signed and the EU was born from the EEC, a competition was held to ascertain the most knowledgeable students in Europe. Described as a Knowledge Olympiad, the Third Millennium Games saw teams from universities across the continent compete for the title. The competition used a computer simulation that engaged the teams in running a European business. A team from Balliol College emerged as the winners, although there was some consternation in the press that it didn’t contain any British members, and that the student judged the most knowledgeable over all, Frederick Paul (Balliol 1991), was a German PPE student hailing from Nuremberg.
Balliol Archives. MISC 164
‘Stealing Brexit’: Boris Johnson and the EU Referendum
On the 23rd June 2016 the population of the United Kingdom voted in a referendum on continued membership of the EU. 52% expressed a preference to leave, 48% to remain. Whilst the result was non-binding the Conservative Party had expressed a commitment to implement the decision, although this came at the cost of losing the incumbent Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Amongst those who looked set to benefit most from the outcome was the colourful ex-mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who had returned to Parliament to become a leading figure in the ‘Brexit’ campaign. He might reasonably have expected to become PM if, a few days later, one of his key backers, Michael Gove, had not unexpectedly withdrawn his support and launched his own leadership bid. Although later appointed Foreign Secretary by Theresa May, Johnson resigned over the terms of the deal she had negotiated with the EU. After May resigned in May 2019, Johnson was appointed Prime Minister and in December 2019 he led the Conservatives to their biggest election win in over thirty years.
Johnson came to Balliol via Eton and was not entirely comfortable with the left-wing milieu in Balliol JCR, tending not to broadcast his political views inside the College. He was less inhibited in the broader University, joining the notorious, and exclusive, drinking society, the Bullingdon Club. Like Heath before him, he became President of the Oxford Union. He also edited the satirical Oxford paper The Tributary. Within Balliol he played for the Balliol Rugby XV and was President of the Arnold & Brackenbury Society, a comedic debating club.
What do cardiology, the Armenian language, early saints’ lives and Matthew Arnold have in common? They are some of the current research topics which Balliol’s graduates challenged library staff to find in the collections in advance of their visit to our Historic Collections Centre last week.
Here are some of the research topics with the material that staff picked to match. It’s an amazing selection.
‘I wish I could tell you half the thrilling things that happened after you left…’
Letter to Louis du Pan Mallet, British Ambassador at Constantinople (1913-1914) from Blanche Ovey, wife of William Ovey, member of Embassy staff in Constantinople, dated Athens, 19 November 1914. It describes the departure of Embassy staff and British subjects from Constantinople after the outbreak of World War I. Ovey makes frequent reference to Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and Talaat Pasha, Ottoman Minister of Finance at the time.
[Mallet Papers IV 11.10]
Research interest:
Cardiology or cardiovascular medicine
Richard Lower’s Tractatus de Corde, London, 1669, is an extension of William Harvey’s ground breaking work on blood circulation, De Motu Cordis [Balliol’s copy: 820 c 12]. Lower was part of an Oxford based group performing laboratory experiments during the interregnum. His work included the first successful blood transfusion, between two dogs. His book also documents his observation of the differences in colour between arterial and venous blood and his hypothesis that this was due to its interaction with air supplied by the lungs.
[820 b 15]
Research interest:
Saints’ lives 600-1100
This book of saints’ lives was originally written by 14th-century Venetian, Petrus de Natalibus. This early printed version was made in Paris in 1514, less than 100 years after the birth of European printing. It is highly illustrated with woodcuts some of which have been reused many times for different saints, others, like the martyrdom of Saint Agatha, were less transferable.
The final pages reveal contemporary graffiti and a page from an older book recycled by the binder to make the end papers.
[Arch B 7 4]
Research interest:
Matthew Arnold (Balliol 1841) & Arnold Toynbee (Balliol 1875)
This collection of letters from Arnold Toynbee to his family include quite a few to his childhood nurse Mrs Sheppard. The one on display is from a trip Toynbee made to Margate. It was donated by Arnold’s niece Margaret Toynbee in 1982. Arnold Toynbee was a social reformer and political economist who was committed to improving working class conditions. After gaining his MA he stayed on at Balliol as lecturer in Economic history from 1878-1882. Although only 30 when he died, Toynbee’s liberal reformist ideas inspired many others. Toynbee Hall, the site of the first university settlement which encouraged closer relations between the working classes and those educated at the universities, was named in his honour and still stands at Whitechapel in London.
[Toynbee Papers 1]
This Brown leather-covered notebook stamped in gilt on front cover, “Rugby School. Fifth Form. 1837”, begins with a Latin prose essay for which 14-year-old Matthew Arnold won first prize at Rugby school in 1837. A few pages in, however, it erupts into a visual feast of fairy tales and domestic scenes of games and dancing. The drawings were contributed mostly by Matthew’s sister Frances and his daughter Eleanor from 1846-1879. On display is a riddle accompanied by a helpful visual aid, and a joke: Why is an ironmonger the most likely person to make the alphabet quarrel? Because he can make A pokeR & shoveL.
Balliol’s Historic Collection Centre houses the personal papers of many of the Arnold Family including Matthew’s brother Tom and his niece the celebrated author and social reformer Mary Augusts Ward.
[Arnold Family Papers. Wode 1.I.3]
Research interest:
Medical imaging, ultrasound, inspection of the human body
A Series of Engravings, Accompanied with Explanations, which are Intended to Illustrate the Morbid Anatomy, London, 1812 is considered the first systematic study of pathology. It is illustrated with detailed engravings of problems inside the body. An inscription in the front of the book explains that the author, Matthew Ballie (Balliol 1779) gave ‘the whole of his most valuable collection of Anatomical Preparations to the College, and £600 for the preservation of the same; and this too, (after the example of the illustrious Harvey) in his life time’. The Anatomical Preparations were passed on to another institution but Ballie’s portrait still hangs in Balliol’s Library Reading Room.
[615 e 11]
Research interest:
Biochemistry and/or cancer
A Compleat Treatise of Preternatural Tumours by John Browne, London, 1678, depicts early modern operations to remove cancers. The author was surgeon-in-ordinary to Charles II and a surgeon at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.
[300 i 11 (1)]
Research interest:
Imperial and colonial narrative building (histories, philosophies, mythologies)
A View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun by Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Beatson, late Aide-de-Camp to the Marquis Wellesley, London, 1800. Tipu Sultan, known as the Tiger of Mysore, clashed with the British East India Company. A series of wars ended in his death whilst defending his fort of Seringapatam in May 1799. This contemporary narrative, written by a soldier on the winning side, looks like it has been rushed through the printing press with the text askew in places.
[2050 c 1]
Research interest:
Armenian language manuscripts or early printed books
A handwritten Armenian compilation of prayers and teachings, the Treasury of Truth. The binding, complete with metal clasps to hold they book shut, looks early modern but this manuscript is nineteenth-century.
[MS 375]
An early printed Psalms of David in Armenian that belonged to a 17th-century Fellow of Balliol, Nicholas Crouch. We catalogued the rest of Crouch’s library during a Wellcome Trust funded project in 2016-17 but staff did not have the language specialism to catalogue this. We still don’t know exactly when or where it was printed.
[Arch c 10 10]
Research interest:
Woman Philosophers (Mary Astell & Catharine Macaulay) in 17th and 18th century Britain and the relationship between moral and political philosophy
An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War in this Kingdom: In an Examination of Dr. Kennett’s Eermon, Jan. 31. 1703/4. And Vindication of the Royal Martyr by Mary Astell, London, 1704, deplores the execution of Charles I. As a Tory, Astell believed in the necessity of a citizen’s absolute obedience to a monarch.
[905 i 10 (9)]
Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France: in a letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope by Catharine Macaulay, London, 1790 is an impassioned republican response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. This publication gave rise to a correspondence and mutual admiration with Mary Wollstonecraft and in Balliol’s volume, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men is bound next to Macaulay’s work.
[60 h 19 (01)]
Research interest:
Infections, microbiology, penicillin
Anatomia seu Interiora Rerum : cum animatarum tum inanimatarum, ope & beneficio exquisitissimorum microscopiorum detecta… by Antonio à Leeuwenhoek, Paris, 1687. The largely self-taught author was a pioneer of microbiology. He used single-lensed microscopes of his own design to experiment with microbes, which he originally referred to as ‘animacules’ or tiny animals. He was also the first to document microscopic observations of muscles fibres, bacteria, spermatozoa, red blood cells and blood flow in capillaries.
[825 d 10]
Research interest:
Electrical power grids (specifically power electronic converters, power management, DC microgrids, solar power)
De Magnete by William Gilbert, London, 1600, coined the word electricitas (derived from the Greek word for amber) and expanded the range of electric and electrostatic experiments.
We are pleased to announce our Michaelmas 2019 exhibition and catalogue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the admission of women students to Balliol.
This exhibition delves into Balliol’s historic collections to illuminate the fundamental contribution of women to the College’s history.
The first female students matriculated at Balliol in 1979, but a very much longer history of women’s influence and agency at Balliol can be found in the College Archives. Beginning with the College’s joint founder, Dervorguilla of Galloway, who gave Balliol its Statutes in 1282, this exhibition tells the stories of the benefactors, educationalists, reformers, wives, writers, domestic staff, sisters and friends who over seven and a half centuries helped to shape the College we know today.
The exhibition will be open to the public during Oxford Open Doors on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 September 2019. The Library’s Exhibition and Outreach page has details of more opening times.
The exhibition catalogue is available as a PDF or in hard copy (£5, contact the Library to order).
The exhibition will also be open to Balliol alumnae attending Balliol Women: 40 Years On, on Sunday 29 September, 10.30am-12.00pm. All event attendees will receive a free copy of the catalogue.
![Title page of Pierre Bayles’ “Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jesus-Chrit [sic] contrain-les d'entrer; Troisiéme partie …"](https://balliollibrary.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/30_a_16_titlepage_small.jpg?w=412&resize=412%2C691#038;h=691 "30_a_16_TitlePage_small")
The frontispiece to the first modern history of the crusades could be read as a diagram of the embattled mindset of European Christendom which persisted into the 17th century. It shows the armies of ‘Europe’, ‘promiscuously blended’ in terms of language, class and nation, marching to Jerusalem only to be scattered and dismembered by ‘the Angel, Turk and Death’. The two purses at the head of the image indicate a process of depletion, perhaps spiritual as well as economic. The ultimate failure of the crusades and the continued strength of Islam under the Ottomans from the 15th century are portrayed as a continuum of divine judgement up to the time of publication. Balliol’s copy was part of the fourth edition in twelve years. It has been part of the College’s collections since at least the 18th century.
The aged bard, Ossian, sits centre-stage voicing tragic tales on a rock set in a melancholic wilderness of blasted trees. Tucked between this vignette and the title is the name of the translator, James MacPherson. He re-packaged tales he’d heard in Gaelic as a Scottish farmer’s son as a lost epic poem. It wasn’t long, however, before there were suspicions regarding its authenticity, with claims that the entire thing was MacPherson’s own fabrication. On the continent, where such sensitivities were a distant concern, the poem was received enthusiastically. It became a major influence on European romanticism, inspiring the composition of other national epics from folkloric collections such as the Finnish Kalevala, and works in other media, notably Mendlessohn’s Hebrides, or Fingal’s Cave, Overture. 
This book was probably written to order for Gray while he was still in Oxford, just before he left for Cologne. Docking was a Franciscan friar and theologian writing in Oxford in the 13th century. His work was enjoying a revival when Gray commissioned this manuscript, but was uncommon outside of England. Indeed, some of the decoration, like the blue and red capitals and flourishes, was probably done by an English illuminator. However, it was signed by a Dutch scribe, Tielman Reynerszoon of Geertruidenberg in North Brabant. It is possible that Tielman accompanied Gray from Oxford to Cologne and finished some other volumes there.
and supplied from Louvain, Belgium, by Johann Veldener. Caxton worked with Veldener during his stay in Flanders. The typeface, called bastarda, is a later version of that originally used by Gutenberg. Space has been left for initials (larger decorated letters introducing important sections of text), which a client could have hand-painted to order. This book did not belong to William Gray, but he and other 15th-century Balliol Fellows did donate some incunables (books printed before 1501) to the Library, a few of which are still here today. Almost all of these have European provenance.
The Crudities is an exhaustive account of Thomas Coryat’s 1,900 mile journey across Europe in 1608, much of which he made on foot. A mixture of anecdotes and observations on local customs, history and architecture, among other things the Crudities introduced the fork to English readers. The self-deprecating title probably refers to the glut of travel books on the market at the time, described scathingly by a contemporary writer as ‘unseasoned crudities’, dull and void of knowledge. The self-deprecation is reflected in the mock-heroic vignettes on the title page: we see Coryat being seasick on the boat from Calais to Dover; he is pelted with eggs by a Venetian Courtesan while he escapes in a Gondola; and he narrowly escapes attack after stealing grapes from a vineyard in Germany. We also see his well-worn, lice-ridden travelling outfit, and in the centre the allegorical Germania vomits on the author’s portrait.
Although not mentioned by name anywhere in Newton’s volume, it is stalked by the spirit of the German scientist and polymath, Gottfried Leibniz. Newton and Leibniz had been in dispute over which of them had invented calculus for a decade. Leibniz had been publishing on it since 1684, although he claimed that he’d had the initial insight in 1673. Newton began publishing using his notation in 1693. Both men were aware of the other’s work but their relations remained cordial until an allegation that Leibniz had plagiarised Newton surfaced in 1699, and anonymous reviews (probably by Leibniz) of Newton’s work in 1704 made the reverse claim.
RBD Morier came from a long and distinguished line of diplomats, including his father David, and uncles John Philip (Jack) and James Justinian, whose letters, journals and drawings from their journeys in the Ottoman Empire are also included in the Morier Family Papers. The sketchbooks displayed in the exhibition date to 1804-1806, when Jack, the eldest Morier brother, was joined by younger brother David on a diplomatic mission into the Ottoman Empire’s European territories. At the time, the Ottoman Empire extended well to the north of Greece, where Jack was sent by the Foreign Office to persuade the Ottoman-ruled Greeks and Albanians not to sympathise with the French. The British Government feared a French invasion in the wake of Bonaparte’s occupation of Egypt in 1798, in which conflict the British had intervened.
The Hanover Club was a University society with many prominent Balliol members, which aimed to ‘promote the course of good-feeling between Germany & England, by giving Englishmen and Germans in the university opportunities of meeting and discussing topics of interest & importance to both nations’. Their minute book describes the debates during the meetings, which were generally of a political nature. It shows members’ awareness of impending war. A particularly prophetic motion was tabled for debate on 27 February 1912: ‘That under the present situation of European politics a rapprochement between England and Germany is an unrealistic ideal’. The motion was carried by seven to six.
Another Balliol club to be shaken by the impact of the War was the Balliol Boys’ Club. Formed in early 1907 as a result of changing attitudes towards social responsibility and widening access to education, it was run by undergraduates for local working class boys. Based in the underprivileged area of St Ebbe’s, it offered the boys activities such as boxing, football and camping. It remained open during the course of the War, though its numbers were much reduced. The Club also played an important role in the wartime experience of many of its Old Members, of whom 250 in total saw active service. The Club’s trench magazine was devised as a way for Old Members to keep in touch with one another. It circulated from 1916 to 1919 and mostly comprises brief letters.
After leaving Oxford, von Trott returned to Germany to complete his legal training – and clandestinely seek allies in the resistance to Hitler’s regime. He even met with the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, in 1939. Unable to mention the plot to overthrow the dictator, he was suspected of working for the Nazis. In 1940 von Trott stepped up his role in the resistance movement, guided by his vision of European cooperation. He exploited his position in the German Foreign Office, making journeys to Switzerland, Sweden, the Low Countries and Turkey. On 20 July 1944 a bomb exploded next to Hitler. Believing Hitler dead, von Trott said to a colleague, ‘I won’t have to sign under that horrible greeting any more’.
Historic Collections @Balliol 