The Minster’s Historic Chapter Library link to the Theological Library
- The Minster Centre
- Church Street
- SOUTHWELL NG25 0HD
- ( 01636 817810 / 812649
- search the historic librarye-mail:
Early history
It is certain that the Canons of Southwell Collegiate Church had a library before the Civil War although we know very little about it. Four Southwell manuscripts, from the C12th and C14th, are listed in N.R. Ker’s Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books (2nd ed., 1964); none is still at Southwell. In 1548, in a valuation made for the Chantry Commissioners of Edward VI, ‘certaine books in the librarie’ were recorded as being worth about £12 or £14. Whatever the Library contained in the period from the Reformation until the Civil War was largely lost with the scattering of books and charters in the churchyard by Scottish soldiers in 1645, so that nothing survived except for a few precious remnants of manuscripts.
After 1660, the Chapter was re-established, and by 1690 a start was made in creating a library. A fine collection of books was given by a certain Edward Lee of Norwell, a nearby village which also provided two of the prebendal livings. Many of Edward Lee’s books are still identifiable since they have his signature or ex dono inscription. As provenance of library material is increasingly recognised as an important addition to knowledge, we are looking to compile full provenance records for the historic library before long.
The restored collection was housed in the old Grammar School chamber at the west end of the south aisle eastwards from Booth’s chapel. Lee’s collection was augmented from time to time by gifts from the canons and vicars and by a few books bought by the Chapter in the C18th. In 1784, Booth’s chapel and the library were pulled down and the books were housed in a new room built to the east of the south transept. This building was pulled down in 1825 and the books removed to the music school and vicars’ vestry (now the Airmen’s Chapel) where they remained until well into the C20th. Finally the books were put into the old treasury where they are at present. The historic archives, however, were until recently housed in the parvise over the north porch. In 2003, following a Chapter decision, the manuscripts and archives were deposited at Nottinghamshire Archives in Nottingham.
The present library
The present historic library has some 1200 titles, dating mainly from the late C16th to the C19th. Many contain the names of the donors. The earliest printed book dates from 1505, though several years ago several leaves of a 1493 edition of the Codex Juris Civilis were discovered during the re-binding of another book. The Chapter was glad to collect books on any subject: history, geography, law, science and music are all represented, as well as bibles, sermons, and the writings of church fathers and theologians.
Besides the printed books there are a number of manuscripts. These include the White Book of Southwell, the Cartulary of Thurgarton Priory, one pre-Reformation register of chapter acts, two post-Reformation registers, four volumes of Chapter decrees, several volumes of the records of the ecclesiastical court, and a volume of leases from the time of Henry VIII. There is also a copy of the Liber Festialis, which dates from the end of the C15 th.
The complete collection was put on an electronic inventory in 1997. All the books printed before 1701 are included in the new Cathedral Libraries Catalogue (British Library, 1984-98, 2 vols.), which makes them better known to historians and scholars, and it is both a local and a national priority that these precious books are adequately conserved for posterity.
The significance of the collection
The history of Southwell Minster is, in many ways, unique amongst English monastic houses and collegiate churches. It remained a collegiate church continuously between the C11th and the C19th, managing to escape dissolution at the Reformation. Despite its collegiate status being withdrawn in the reign of Edward VI, this was swiftly restored by Mary; and while there was a brief interlude in the Commonweath, at the Restoration in 1660 a Chapter of Canons was re-established. At this time the Canons set about repairing the church and also began the library as it is seen in its current form.
The library, therefore, reflects the unique history of the unreformed community that served the Minster church in the period from the late C17th to the mid C19th, as well as representing the interests of the provincial priesthood. It is worth noting that in the golden age of Anglicanism which immediately preceded this period, the Chapter had two great Caroline Divines among its prebendaries, Lancelot Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor. To a lesser extent it also represents the interests of the Cathedral Chapter and local clergy of the past 120 years; extant loan records run from the early C19th to the present day.
Cathedral libraries contain much primary research material for the theologian, ecclesiastical historian, musicologist and student of humanities, and they are havens for book-lovers. Our main purpose is to help to preserve the existing books and records from deterioration and neglect, in a constant and expensive battle against the ravages of time.
Importance of the Collection
There are two key factors which give this collection its importance.
First, there are the few significant manuscript books which it contains, many of them containing crucial documentary evidence:
- The White Book of Southwell has copies of papal bulls, royal letters, archiepiscopal letters and orders, property charters for the chapter, the chauntries and the vicars choral, and a list of the chauntries. The book begins with C14th and ends with C16th handwriting. It is a highly important source for the history of the Minster.
- The Thurgarton Cartulary is similar to the White Book, and contains records of the extensive estates of Thurgarton Priory.
- The Registers of Chapter Acts record the admissions of canons, vicars choral, chantry priests, choristers and other records including payments. Some of these volumes include leaves taken from manuscript books presumably in the medieval library.
- The Ecclesiastical Court volumes are full of interesting items concerning the jurisdiction of the chapter. After the Reformation they also list, annually, all incumbents and churchwardens by parishes.
- The Liber Festialis, a book of sermons for Sundays and Holy Days, written originally by one John Mirk, a Canon of Lilleshall Priory. The Southwell copy dates from the mid C15th and is one of the best extant manuscripts of this work (see Görlach’s The South English legendary, 1972). It was presented by a late C17th vicar choral, Henry Raper.
- A 13th-century manuscript Bible with ornamented initials, of French origin but from the medieval library of the Newcastle Dominicans, presented to Southwell by Edward Lee.
Secondly, there is the historic collection itself, some 1200 volumes, reflecting the efforts of two centuries or more of Chapter activity, still intact as a Library, and ideally to be seen as such.
The Directory of Rare Books and Special Collections (2nd ed. by B.C.Bloomfield, 1997) gives the following breakdown of the early printed books:
- 79 STC [English printing before 1641]
- 259 Wing [English printing 1641-1700]
- 118 continental pre-1600 printing
- 142 continental printing 1641-1700
Among the early titles are:
- A volume of Aristotle, printed in Venice by Filippo Pincio in 1505, the earliest actual book in the Library, of which very few copies are known.
- A 1519 Paris edition of the Decretals of Gregory IX, in original oak boards.
- A volume of early legal Year Books (of the reign of Henry VIII); some of the contents are unique and are listed in the Addenda to the 2nd edition of the Short-Title Catalogue (vol. 3, 1991).
- Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, printed by Robert Toye, probably in 1550.
- Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1575), containing one or two maps not found in other copies.
- The first editions of Lancelot Andrewes’s Tortura Torti (1609) and Responsio ad apologiam Cardinalis Bellarmini (1610), important works by one of the more famous prebendaries of Southwell, in a contemporary limp parchment binding containing an unrecorded fragment of Middle English verse.
- There is a significant music collection including early editions of Handel, and choir books with annotations by lay-clerks and choristers.
Altogether it is a fine collection of handsome leather-bound volumes, and while there are relatively few notable books as such the cumulative effect is very impressive.
The Archive collection, deposited with Nottinghamshire Archives, is significant as it holds the complete run of Bishop’s transcripts of Nottinghamshire parish registers from c.1598 to 1850.