MS 293 & William Smallwood
MS 293: Psalter (England, mid-15th century)
Most medieval manuscripts at St John’s College were donated within the first hundred years after the College’s foundation. By contrast, this highly decorated psalter was purchased relatively recently in 1952. The College must have bought the manuscript for the same reason why it opens this exhibition: its provenance provides an intriguing glimpse into the College’s earliest history.
The Foundation
Thomas White (1492-1567), a Catholic cloth merchant and prominent member of London’s Merchant Taylors’ Company, founded St John’s College in 1555 during the reign of Queen Mary I (1516-1558). Religion was a key motivation for White as he wanted his foundation to provide education for Roman Catholic clerics in support of the queen’s efforts to bring England back into the Catholic fold.
Unsurprisingly, the succession of Mary’s Protestant half-sister Elizabeth I in 1558 had repercussions for St John’s College. It brought about the removal of the first two presidents, Rev. Alexander Belsyre in 1559 and William Eley in 1560, for ‘maintaining papal authority’ (Shepard 2004). In 1566 four scholars were removed from the College; three of them ‘semi-conforming Catholics’ (Parsons 2016, p. 61). The psalter displayed here belonged to one of them, William Smallwood.
Attributed to John Taylor (before 1775-c.1841), Portrait of Sir Thomas White (1492-1567) [Oil on canvas]. St John’s College, Oxford.
William Smallwood
William Smallwood is named as one of eighteen scholars in residence in the College’s second foundation charter from 5 March 1558. He had become an ‘original scholar’ (Foster 1891) of St John’s College after his transfer from Magdalen College in 1557.
Smallwood’s time at St John’s appears to have been troubled. He had been ‘temporarily deprived’ of his fellowship for ‘grievous offences’ in 1563 (Hegarty 2011, p. 134) before he was permanently removed from College three years later. In a letter from 12 December 1566, Thomas White states that Smallwood was ‘removyd & discharged […] of all the right, tytell, comodyty, profytes & fellowshipe […] for that he hathe absented hym selfe from my sayd college’.
The Psalter
In the case of William Smallwood, this psalter has been taken as proof of his Catholic convictions. A late 16th-century note, now partly cropped, in the top margin of folio 109r reads ’the honor of thys [book] y[s and] hathe bene and shall be (the) popes owne derlynge’ (Hegarty 2011, p. 134); honor ‘owner’, derlynge ‘favourite, beloved person. Parsons (2016, p. 61) presents this note as Smallwood’s autograph description of himself.
MS 293, folio 109r: English inscription in top margin
The volume also contains a Latin note, now cancelled, on folio 152r, which is evidently an attack on Smallwood’s religious believes: ‘Inter natos papistarum non surrexit maior Guielmo Smallwoodo’ (‘Among the offspring of the papists there has arisen none greater than William Smallwood’, Hegarty 2011, p. 134). This note appears to be signed with the initials P.M. and twice dated 1551. If the initials and year are contemporary, this would put the annotation into the reign of the Protestant King Edward VI (1537-1553), the half-brother of both Mary I and Elizabeth I. Hegarty (2011, p. 134) deliberates whether both annotations are later additions to the psalter.
MS 293, folio 152r: Latin inscription
The psalter contains several ownership inscriptions of William Smallwood, some of them accompanied by a date, of which the earliest is 1553 (folio 31v), thus later than the Latin note on folio 152r, if the date of 1551 is indeed contemporary with the Latin annotation about Smallwood.
A further ex libris note on folio 1r dates from the year Smallwood joined St John’s: ‘Liber Guielmi smalwoode socii collegii diui Iohannis Ba\p/tiste Oxoniae 1557’(‘Book of William Smallwood, fellow of the College of St John the Baptist, Oxford, 1557’).
Religious Turmoil
Whatever the story is behind these annotations, it is clear that Smallwood’s Catholic convictions, which had been welcomed when he joined the College, became a liability less than two years later. Incidentally, William Smallwood was at St John’s College at the same time as the more widely known Catholic martyr Edmund Campion (1540–1581), who joined St John’s in 1558.
The College’s troubled adjustment to the new realities continued after the Founder’s death in 1567. By 1574 the College withdrew the fellowship of another twelve scholars for religious reasons (Shephard 2004).
Illuminations from MS 293
Top left: Psalm 26, crowned David in a wood prying open a lion’s mouth (folio 31v); top right: Psalm 52, three women (Faith, Hope, Charity) emerging from a castle towards David brandishing Goliath’s head on a sword (folio 57r); bottom left: Psalm 51, David enthroned gesturing at a fool playing with two pointed sticks or swords (folio 56r); bottom right top: A bishop marrying(?) David and Michal (folio 80v); bottom right bottom: Musical stave with drawings of human and animal heads (folio 63r)