Case 1: Significant Textual Witnesses
The manuscripts in this case (MS 13, MS 154, MS 175, and MS 238) are all significant textual witnesses. These are all important in some way – they might be unique copies of a text or have significant additions or edits. By digitizing these examples of texts, the Digitization Project will make their contents accessible to a wider audience.
One of the most exciting things about this case is the opportunity to witness the improvements in imaging technology over time. The three images of MS 154, fol. 18r on display here were taken thirty years apart. You can really see the transition from black and white to colour, and from grainy and blurry photos to a crisp and clear reproduction. Until the latest project, the limits of technology have not allowed for a faithful rendering of the textures of the page. While these images can never truly replace the experience of handling the manuscript, you can now almost feel the page.
MS 154
MS 154 contains the earliest and most complete copy of Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary. Over 1,000 years old, it was written by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Ælfric of Eynesham (c. 950-c. 1010).
The Grammar begins with brief discussions of the sounds of speech, letters, syllables, and diphthongs. Ælfric then devotes the remainder of the work to the eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, participles, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
He introduces each of these with its respective Latin term and English equivalent followed by further explanations and copious examples (which include comprehensive lists of noun declensions and verb conjugations).
Towards the end of the 11th century, another text was added on the last folio of St John’s MS 154. Now difficult to read, this is an extract from the prose version of Book 3 of Abbo of St Germain’s De bellis Parisiacae urbis together with a continuous Old English gloss. Originally a poem, the first two books provide an eye-witness report of the Viking siege of Paris (885-886), while the third book places the events into a theological context by aiming to educate young clerics in morality.
David Porter supports a proposition first made towards the end of the 19th century, namely that all of the early 11th-century texts in St John’s MS 154 ‘were first combined by Ælfric Bata and have been transmitted together wholesale’ (Porter, ‘Anglo-Saxon Colloquies’, p. 475).
Thanks to surviving booklists, we know the manuscript was still at Durham Cathedral in 1391 and 1416. The next known event in its history is the donation to St John’s College: Liber Collegii Sancti Iohannis Baptistae Oxon ex dono Christopherj Coles Artium Bacchalaurej ejusdem Collegii conuictoris 1611 (‘Book of the College of St John’s the Baptiste Oxford from the donation of Christopher Cole, Bachelor of Arts, fellow of the same College 1611’).
It is not clear whether the book was donated in 1611 or whether the otherwise unknown Christopher Cole obtained his degree in that year. We can safely assume, however, that the manuscript was added to College’s book collections in the 17th century. The latest stage in the history of MS 154 was its rebinding in the 2010s. In 2010 the Library applied for and received generous funding from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust to conduct major repairs on the manuscript including a complete rebinding. The work was undertaken by the expert conservators of the Oxford Conservation Consortium and completed in 2014. This new binding can be seen below.
MS 13
The copy of Thomas Hobbes’s Behemoth or the Long Parliament held by St John’s College is a significant textual witness. This ‘presentation copy’ (Seaward, p. 13) was written down by James Wheldon, the steward of the Earl of Devonshire and Hobbes’s amanuensis, with whom he had worked before (Seaward, p. 72).
It even includes corrections and deletions by Thomas Hobbes himself, such as ‘fo. 4r, on the jure divino powers of the bishops; fos. 33v–34r, on parliamentary assemblies and on the Lords and the impeachment of Strafford; and fo. 45r, on the government of Egypt in the time of Moses’ (Seaward, pp. 72-3).
It was difficult for Hobbes to publish Behemoth. The king’s refusal to consent to its publication is well documented (Seaward, pp. 13-14). Indeed, this refusal appears to be the very reason why the copy now at St John’s exists.
In any case, the work was first published without Hobbes’s approval before his death in December 1679 and then “officially” posthumously by his publisher, the London bookseller William Crooke, in 1982 (Seaward, pp. 14-16).
Behemoth discusses the English civil war in four sections, called dialogues in St John’s copy, covering the timespan from 1637 to 1660:
1. The causes of the civil war.
2. The preparation for the war of both sides.
3. The rise of Oliver Cromwell and the fall of Charles I.
4. Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorship, its demise under his son Richard, and the restoration of the Stuart monarchy with Charles II.
According to the editor of the works modern critical edition, Paul Seaward, Behemoth is Hobbes’s “only composition to address directly the history of the events which formed the context of his writings on sovereignty and the government of the Church” and as such “closely reflects the personal and political uncertainties of the period of its composition” (Seaward, p. 1).
Petra Hofmann
MS 238
A Course of Chemistry (MS 238) is a unique textual witness from the 17th century. It includes notes on ‘a course of chymistry perform’d in ye Labaratory at Oxford 1692/3’, which was attended by the physician John Merrick, M.D. (c. 1705 – 1757), who was a Fellow of St Johns College. Merrick’s ownership inscription is still extant at the top of folio 1v.
Merrick donated over five hundred books to St John’s College, mostly printed books on medicine, science, and chemistry. These are identifiable from his ownership inscriptions and bookplates.
A Course of Chemistry is bound in a contemporary limp vellum binding. Many of the notes are written on the rectos (right), possibly because the paper is thin, and the ink would have bled through the page, making the notes difficult to read. There are a few examples of notes being written on both the versos and the rectos.
The manuscript’s content is typical of a physician’s notebook of this period. It includes a list of ’Chymicall Characters’, consisting of alchemical symbols and their meanings. These symbols acted as a precursor to the modern periodic table and were used to represent elements. Several can be seen in Merrick’s list, such as aqua, spiritus, and sulphur. The manuscript also includes instructions on chemical processes, such as how to make a ‘Dr Willis’s Syrrup of sulfur’.
Sophie Bacchus-Waterman
