Six years ago, William Sherman, pioneer of early modern marginalia
studies, and Heather Wolfe, Curator of Manuscripts and Archivist at the Folger
Shakespeare Library, lamented in a joint article published in the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
that not only are manuscripts and printed books treated as distinct categories,
but it is also necessary to examine them in separate rooms in the Cambridge
University Library.[1] Sherman and Wolfe argued that for scholars such as
themselves, looking at manuscript notes in printed books, or studying authors
whose written legacy is divided between published and unpublished texts, such
an arrangement is impractical. They find themselves ‘dreaming of a special
reading room […] devoted to books that sit somewhere between script and print
[…] for scholars working at the interface between the oral and the written’.[2]
Scholars of early modern sermons certainly fall into this category of
researchers examining the relationship between oral and written culture, and this
blogpost centres on the discovery of manuscript sermons within printed books
which are not listed in manuscript catalogues. While previous GEMMS blogposts
have concentrated principally upon the content of intriguing sermons catalogued
in our database and the prominent figures who created these texts and owned
these manuscripts, this contribution joins a growing literature which scrutinises
the book-historical and material aspects of early modern sermons.[3] Indeed, in
the current scholarship focusing on early modern English manuscript sermons,
printed books have seldom been cited as a potential place in which they can be found.[4]
It will also be argued that, in an unprecedented time which has necessitated an
increasing reliance on virtual collaboration, Twitter is a medium via which
more of these rare printed books containing manuscript sermons can be shared
and subsequently studied.
Investigation of these particular sermons prompts important questions
regarding the cataloguing of rare books and manuscripts. Should manuscripts
bound with printed books be provided with a shelfmark reflecting its scribal
status, as is the case with an exquisite manuscript witness of the First Book
of Official Homilies, bound with a partial copy of Sternhold and Hopkins’
Psalms, or a compilation of late seventeenth-century sermon notes by a minister
based in Buckinghamshire, similarly attached to a 1638 edition of the same work?[5]
Alternatively, if found within a substantial collection of printed material,
should the manuscript work be given a ‘printed books’ shelfmark?
 |
| Figure 1: ‘A Sermon Preached att ye Funerall of Ms
Lee, att Threekingham, Aprill ye 4. Anno Dom. i682’. British
Library, General Reference Collection C.175.i.16.(4). |
Moreover, how do we find manuscripts if they are hidden away within rare
printed books? Such discoveries may be entirely serendipitous. In July 2018,
when ordering up a printed sermon for my own research, I found two handwritten
funeral sermons dating from the 1680s, in addition to other manuscript material
within this unassuming octavo Sammelband, which were uncatalogued on the
British Library Main Catalogue.[6] These items were also not discoverable on the
Manuscripts Catalogue. The two sermons represent significant contributions to
our source bank of sermons preached in the parishes and for women. The first
sermon, delivered at the funeral of a Ms Lee (d. 1682) in Threekingham,
Lincolnshire, can be linked to a monumental slab in the middle aisle of
Threekingham Church, and may therefore be of value to genealogists and local
historians studying this particular village (see Figure 1).[7] The second text
is a rare example of a surviving manuscript sermon by theologian and nonjuring
clergyman Richard Brocklesby (1634/5–1714), also based in Lincolnshire,
remembered today for a monumental theological treatise of over 1,000 pages
concerning the Trinity (see Figure 2).[8]
 |
| Figure 2: ‘A Sermon Preached att ye Funerall of our Deceased
Friend, and Neighbour, Mr Longlands, att Walcott; By Mr.
Brocklesby, January the 30. 1684/5’. British Library, General Reference
Collection C.175.i.16.(5). |
These two sermons, along with the other manuscripts within this volume,
were recently added to the British Library Main Catalogue, but not the Manuscripts
Catalogue. Under ‘Physical Description’, the cataloguers have added a note
stating that the sermons are ‘manuscript’ and ‘manuscript (transcript,
handwritten)’, respectively. By using these specific search terms in the
British Library Main Catalogue, I was able to find several manuscripts which
would otherwise have been overlooked, and which are all available for
consultation in the ‘Rare Books and Music’ reading room only. One full
transcript of a printed sermon by John Tillotson (1630–1694) appears within a
volume of theological tracts and treatises all published in the years 1687–1689.[9]
Most interestingly, the scribe of the sermon has identified ‘C: Alston’ as the
licenser of this sermon, whereas only the initials are specified on the title
page of the printed copy (see Figure 3).[10] Therefore, this manuscript witness
is not only suggestive of Tillotson’s wide-ranging influence in print, but also
connects the text with Charles Alston (d. 1714), a prebendary of St Paul’s who
licensed texts on behalf of his ecclesiastical patron, Henry Compton, Bishop of
London (1631/2–1713), and is of potential interest to researchers studying ecclesiastical
press censorship after the Restoration.
 |
| Figure 3: Manuscript witness of a printed sermon by John Tillotson.
British Library, General Reference Collection 222.e.5.(9). |
While these examples illustrate the possibility for unearthing
manuscripts within Sammelbände which comprise miscellaneous material, it is important
to note that manuscript sermons can also appear as companion pieces to the
printed works with which they are bound. A manuscript witness of a printed sermon
by John King (d. 1621), bound with other published sermons by the bishop,
adopts the specific mise-en-page as the printed texts, indicating the aesthetic
sensibilities of the anonymous scribe.[11] An anonymous manuscript sermon
commemorating Charles I, entitled ‘In nomine Crucifixi’ and dated 1648, is
bound in a copy of the Eikon Basilike.
It is conjectured by Helen W. Randall that this presentation volume, stamped
with a royal crest and a death’s head, was intended as a gift for Charles II.[12]
However, it was not necessarily the case that such companion pieces were always
written with a view for presentation. In a folio volume of sermons by Jeremy
Taylor (bap. 1613, d. 1667), the last, uncatalogued item is a plain
transcription of Taylor’s sermon preached at the funeral of the Royalist, Sir
George Dalston (c. 1581–1657).[13] All of these items exhibit the varied
contexts in which manuscript sermons could complement, and co-exist with,
printed material.
Moreover, it is not only full sermons which are discoverable alongside
printed texts, but also sermon notes and reports, which can be found either interleaved
or as marginalia within printed books. Three Bibles, held at the Bodleian
Library and categorised as part of the Rawlinson Manuscripts collection, are
interspersed with manuscript sermon notes dating from the second half of the
seventeenth century. All three contain valuable documentations of sermons
preached at funerals and occasions such as the anniversary of the Gunpowder
Plot.[14] Looking ahead to an even later period, Katherine Acheson gives a
detailed analysis of the so-called Newby Bible held at the Folger Shakespeare
Library, in which it is possible to uncover a woman’s experience of the world
of Methodism in the late eighteenth century.[15] Within the Bible, there are
over 600 annotations made by one Elizabeth Boggis (fl. 1780s), recording the
dates of each sermon, the speakers, the biblical texts and occasionally the
locations in which the sermons were delivered.
In addition to Bibles, copies of printed sermons could also carry
substantial marginal annotations providing details of preached texts. Opposite
the title page in a folio volume of sermons by John Frost (1625/6–1656), pastor
of St Olave, Hart Street, London, John Rippon records a sermon on Exodus 17:7 delivered
by ‘Mr Evins’ at ‘the Association at Prescott’ in 1746 (see Figure 4).[16]
The most likely candidate for ‘Mr Evins’ is Hugh Evans (c.
1713–1781), a Particular Baptist minister connected with Bristol Baptist
Academy. The genealogical notes within the volume indicate that ‘John Rippon’
was the grandfather of John Rippon (1751–1836), who published the first Baptist
hymnbook to gain widespread acceptance in England.[17] As the scrawled notes on
the title page indicate, this copy of Frost’s sermons was kept within this
Baptist dynasty. Further research may expose the extent to which Baptists
consumed the teachings of Church of England clergymen which had been published
almost a century beforehand. Although the reports within the Newby Bible and
the Frost sermons fall outside the remit of the GEMMS database as they date
from the mid-1700s and beyond, all of these specimens pave the way for yet more
discoveries of earlier sermon reports which can subsequently be catalogued.[18]
 |
| Figure 4: Eighteenth-century sermon report in Henry E. Huntington
Library, Call # 432609. |
And it is towards Twitter that we might turn for help. Sjoerd Levelt has
shown us the ways in which Twitter creates and solidifies a community of scholarly
sharing, in the manner of ‘a virtual chat at the coffee machine’.[19] After a
Tweet about my aforementioned discovery at the British Library was published,
Anna-Lujz Gilbert informed the GEMMS team about an incunable which originally
formed part of the parish library at Marlborough, Wiltshire. According to the
Bodleian Library SOLO Catalogue, this rare incunable, which appears to be
represented in only three libraries in Britain and Ireland, is bound in Oxford
blind-tooled calf dating from c. 1570 and features thirty-nine leaves of
manuscript sermons in Latin and English, written in a single sixteenth-century
secretary hand.[20]
To revisit Sherman and Wolfe’s article in the midst of the COVID-19
pandemic, scholars of early modern literature and history find themselves
dreaming, in fact, of any reading
room whatsoever, grateful for any opportunity to handle rare books and
manuscripts, however they are catalogued. For much of the past year, the GEMMS
team has had to work remotely, cataloguing sermons from digitised manuscripts;
for example, making use of the Cambridge Digital Library Scriptorium, in
addition to lesser-known sources for digitised manuscripts such as the Wellcome
Library in London. One of the primary objectives of GEMMS is to foster an
online community of sermon scholars with our open access, group-sourced
bibliographic database, supplemented with our presence on social media
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With the rise of remote working, the
GEMMS database has the potential to serve a greater range and number of
researchers than previously imagined, as scholars are required to become more
and more efficient when choosing which items to order up to reading rooms within
extremely restricted timeframes. Virtually, we remain open to suggestions,
discoveries and discussions regarding early modern manuscript sermons and
sermon reports, whether found in printed books as full texts or as marginal
annotations, and would welcome further opinions on their categorisation within
the libraries and archives which are, at present, inaccessible to us.
References
[1] William Sherman and Heather Wolfe, ‘The Department of Hybrid Books:
Thomas Milles between Manuscript and Print’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 45.3 (2015), 457–85.
[2] Sherman and Wolfe, ‘The Department of Hybrid Books’, p. 457.
[3] Catherine Evans, ‘Early Modern Sermons and Annotations’, <https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/jrri-blog/2020/08/07/early-modern-sermons-and-annotations/> [accessed 27
December 2020].
[4] See, for example, Ian M. Green, Continuity
and Change in Protestant Preaching in Early Modern England (London: Dr
Williams’s Trust, 2009).
[5] See Christ Church Library, University of Oxford, MS 150
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001340); William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, MS.1952.004
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001308). See also Hannibal Hamlin, ‘“Very Mete to be Used of
All Sortes of People”: The Remarkable Popularity of the “Sternhold and Hopkins”
Psalter’, The Yale University Library
Gazette, 75.1/2 (2000), 37–51.
[6] British Library, General Reference Collection C.175.i.16
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-000880, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=880> [accessed 11 January 2021]).
[7] W. A. Cragg, A History of
Threekingham with Stow, in Lincolnshire (Sleaford: W. K. Morton & Sons,
1913), p. 105.
[8] Richard Brocklesby, An
Explication of the Gospel-Theism and the Divinity of the Christian Religion (London,
1706).
[9] British Library, General Reference Collection 222.e.5.(9)
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001285, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=1285> [accessed 11 January 2021]).
[10] John Tillotson, The
Indispensable Necessity of the Knowledge of the Holy Scripture, &c. (London,
1687).
[11] British Library, General Reference Collection 4476.bb.98.(2)
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001284, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=1284> [accessed 11 January 2021]).
[12] Henry E. Huntington Library, Call # 102338
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001198, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=1198> [accessed 11 January 2021]); Helen W. Randall, ‘The Rise and Fall of a
Martyrology: Sermons on Charles I’, Huntington
Library Quarterly, 10.2 (1947), 135–67 (p. 141 n. 5).
[13] British Library, General Reference Collection 479.e.6.(3.)
(GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001286, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=1286> [accessed 11 January 2021]). This manuscript is described in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts
1450–1700 (CELM), <https://celm-ms.org.uk/repositories/british-library-rare-books.html> [accessed 28
December 2020]. The sermon was first
published individually as J[eremy]. T[aylor]., A Sermon Preached at the Funerall of that worthy Knight Sr. George
Dalston, &c. (London, 1658).
[14] Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. C. 1 (GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-000468, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=468> [accessed 11 January 2021]); MS.
Rawl. C. 2 (GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-000333, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=333> [accessed 11 January 2021]); MS. Rawl. C. 3 (GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-000334, <https://gemms.itercommunity.org/view_record.php?table=manuscript&id=334> [accessed 11 January 2021]).
[15] Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 2129; Katherine Acheson, ‘The
Occupation of the Margins: Writing, Space, and Early Modern Women’, in Early Modern English Marginalia, ed. by Katherine
Acheson (Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019), pp. 70–89 (pp. 80–82).
See also Peter Stallybrass, ‘Books and Scrolls: Navigating the Bible’, in Books and Readers in Early Modern England:
Material Studies, ed. by Jennifer Andersen and Elizabeth Sauer
(Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 42–79 (pp. 61–63).
[16] John Frost, Select Sermons
Preached upon special occasions, &c. (Cambridge, 1658) (Henry E.
Huntington Library, Call # 432609).
[17] Ken R. Manley, ‘Rippon, John (1751–1836)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn (2008), <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/23666> [accessed 27
December 2020].
[18] As a teenager, John Winthrop the Younger (1606–1676), future
Governor of Massachusetts, made notes of sermons preached in Suffolk, England,
in his copy of a 1620 almanac by Richard Allestree (d. 1643). See Karl Josef
Höltgen, ‘Two Francis Quarleses: The Emblem Poet and the Suffolk Parson’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, 7
(1998), 131–61 (p. 154); Richard Calis and others, ‘Passing the Book: Cultures
of Reading in the Winthrop Family, 1580–1730’, Past & Present, 241.1 (2018), 69–141 (p. 86).
[19] Sjoerd Levelt, ‘Early Modern Marginalia and #earlymoderntwitter’,
in Early Modern English Marginalia,
ed. by Katherine Acheson (Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019), pp.
234–56 (p. 239).
[20] Pope Gregory, Incipit prefatio Gregorii pape in omeliis super ezechielem prophetam (Paris:
Georg Wolf, [c. 1489–91]). See also National Library of Scotland, Inc.252.3;
Marsh’s Library, Dublin, <https://www.marshlibrary.ie/catalogue/Record/13930> [accessed 23
December 2020]. I have not investigated its representation in other parts of
the world. We are grateful to Anna-Lujz Gilbert, PhD candidate at the
University of Exeter, for drawing our attention to this incunable via Twitter.
~ Hannah Yip
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