The Library has launched a newsletter with information about its collections and recent activities.
Click on the attachment, right, to download the latest issue.
The third episode of the BBC series ‘Seven Ages of Britain' entitled ‘Age of Power' saw David Dimbleby viewing a Great Bible from the Library's collection, in the Great Hall of Lambeth Palace.
The Great Bible was the first authorised version of the Bible in English, and was authorised by Henry VIII to be read aloud in the services of the Church of England. The first edition was published in 1539, and Lambeth's version dates from 1541.
'Building on History' is an AHRC-funded Knowledge Transfer project involving The Open University, King's College London, the Diocese of London (Church of England) and Lambeth Palace Library. Our aim is to contribute to the self-understanding of the church in London by transferring the insights of historical research and stimulating fresh historical enquiry amongst participants. It will make the religious history of the Diocese available to the wider public through:
The project aims to draw on modern religious history to inform contemporary discussion and activity: it focuses especially on how Anglicans in the current area of the Diocese of London responded to social changes and pastoral challenges in the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the Second World War, a period in which there are striking parallels with the present situation in London.
During this time churches were obliged to respond, at a leadership level and in the parishes to rapid urbanisation and heavy migration both within and to the London region. The Church of England sought to adapt to the changing face of the metropolis by building and extending places of worship and through what is now called church planting. Building on History will transfer historical insights on these themes, providing a long-term perspective on contemporary concerns. As the project develops we plan also to share insights and develop engagement with other Christian churches in the London area, and with other Church of England dioceses.
We encourage you to visit our website [4] for a list of forthcoming events.
For all enquiries please contact Dr John Maiden:
building-on-history-project@open.ac.uk [5]
tel: 020 7556 6143
The records representing the Library's printed book collection are now available on Copac [7], a freely-available catalogue of the merged holdings of the major research libraries in the UK.
This has been made possible through the Library's successful application to the Copac Challenge Fund, an initiative funded by the Consortium of Research Libraries (CURL), the Research Information Network (RIN) and the British Library.
The aim of the Challenge Fund is to expose more of the wealth of UK library holdings for the benefit of researchers of all types in the UK and beyond.
Lambeth Palace Library is one of the earliest public libraries in England, founded in 1610 under the will of Archbishop Richard Bancroft. In celebration of its 400th anniversary in 2010, the Library organised a fascinating public exhibition in the Great Hall of Lambeth Palace.
The exhibition drew upon the Library's incomparably rich and diverse collections of manuscripts, archives and books, some of which were displayed for the first time. It revealed how the collections developed since 1610 and explored the history surrounding the people who owned, studied or used them as aids to prayer and devotion.
Highlights of the exhibition included:
A new book 'Lambeth Palace Library: Treasures from the Collection of the Archbishops of Canterbury' has been published by Scala Publishers, to coincide with the 400th anniversary exhibition, and featuring sixty items from the Library's collections.
Included are illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages; manuscripts from the Tudor and Stuart eras, including the execution warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots; early printed books, among them a Gutenberg bible with English illumination, possibly the first printed book to come to England; Elizabeth I's own prayer book showing her portrait; medical reports on the madness of George III and the Golden Cockerel Press Four Gospels, one of the masterpieces of Eric Gill.
For hardback copies (£35), please contact Jenny McKinley, Scala Publishers, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London, EC1V 0AT, jmckinley@scalapublishers.com [8], 020 7490 9900
The print run of softback copies has sold out. Further copies are now in production and will be available through this website in due course.
This prayer book, as well as the first prayer book of Queen Elizabeth I's reign dating from 1559, are among the treasures on display in the Library's 400th Anniversary Exhibition, open until 23rd July.
Elizabeth I, who ruled for 44 years, is a figure of enduring fascination and this treasured possession acts as a tangible link with the great Queen. This is her personal prayer book, as we can see from this amazing frontispiece which portrays her kneeling in prayer. It is effectively a Protestant Book of Hours, printed by John Day in 1569, and its beautiful decoration including woodcuts is unrivalled by any other prayer book of the age.
Most of the prayers were taken from Henry Bull's Christian Prayers and Holie Meditations (1568), however some are original. Although she may not have written them herself she would certainly have approved and used them. In one, she asks for the same wisdom as Solomon: ‘how much lesse shall I thy handmaide, being by kinde a weake woma[n], have sufficient abilitie to rule these thy kingdomes of England and Ireland, an innumerable & warlike nation'. The words seem to have inspired her when she needed to give a heroic message: her Armada speech in which she contrasted her ‘body but of a weak and feeble woman' with her ‘heart and stomach of a king'.
The pink and green palette indicates that the book was hand-coloured by artists in the workshop of Archbishop Matthew Parker at Lambeth Palace. Inscriptions on flyleaves enable us to chart it being passed between family and friends until it was gifted to the Library by Archbishop Thomas Tenison.
This image shows one of the beautiful volumes from Lambeth Palace Library's set of the Aldine Aristotle, which belonged to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a collector of books and patron to several bookbinders.
The five volumes, bound as six and containing tracts by Theophrastus, Philo and others, were printed in Venice between 1495-8, by Aldus Manutius (with the assistance of Alexander Bondini). The superbly decorative bindings were made for Dudley, by a shop that bore his name. The brown calf boards are tooled in gold and feature Dudley's large badge of a bear holding a ragged staff, between his large set of golden initials.
The title pages of these volumes contain a manuscript cipher which is thought to have been used by Dudley and Queen Elizabeth I, as the two were rumoured to have been lovers. This, as well as many other remarkable manuscripts, archives and books, can be viewed as part of the Library's upcoming exhibition, "Treasures of Lambeth Palace Library", which celebrates the Library's 400th anniversary and runs from 17th May - 23rd July 2010.
The summer of 1910 saw one of the most significant religious events in the former Russian Empire: the translation of the relics of St Euphrosyne (1110-1173) from Kiev to her native Polotsk. Euphrosyne is the only East Slav virgin saint, and is especially venerated in her native Belarus. The translation attracted crowds of pilgrims from all parts of the then Russian Empire.
The event is documented by a series of glass slides, which forms part of a wider collection presented to Lambeth Palace Library in 2008 by the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association. Some of the photographs may have been taken or collected by the Revd. H.J. Fynes-Clinton, founder of the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches Union, when he was in Russia before the 1917 revolution, serving as a tutor to a Russian noble family.
The photographs of the Imperial Family may have been provided by his friend Sidney Gibbes, later Archimandryte Nicholas Gibbes, who was English language tutor to the Tsesarevich Alexei and the Grand Princesses. However, most of the collection features images of churches, monasteries and other examples of Russian secular and church architecture. There are also scenes of everyday life and religious practice, creating an interesting and often captivating insight into the last days of pre-revolutionary Russia, a state which at the time stretched from present day central Poland in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east.
The register of Cardinal Reginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1556 to 1558, opens with a large initial R, beginning the word Registrum. The scribe-artist has decorated the letter with strapwork, and within and around it he has illustrated a scene which appears to show the deaths of two lovers. The significance of this secular image, and its appearance in so prominent a position in an ecclesiastical register, have long been puzzling. The scene has now been identified by Elizabeth Danbury and proves to be a representation of the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe.
This legend, recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, transmitted to medieval Europe by Boccaccio and translated into English by Chaucer, was a popular subject in art and literature for many decades before its use by Shakespeare. The dead Pyramus, the dying Thisbe, the lion and the mulberry tree with the berries which, according to legend, were turned from white to red by the lovers' blood, all figure in the decoration of the letter ‘R'.
The reason for the inclusion of the image is not immediately apparent. It may have been an acknowledgement of Cardinal Pole's patronage of Renaissance learning, an allegory representing the blood of Catholic martyrs under Edward VI, or simply the caprice of the artist. Decoration of administrative records, for whatever reason, could provide pleasurable diversion both for the artist and for the reader.
This image is taken from the cover of Shall we go to the Pictures? Some Thoughts about the Cinema and Ourselves, a pamphlet produced for the Mothers' Union by Lilias Edwards around 1955.
The influence of the cinema on society was a recurrent concern for the Mothers' Union. By the 1930s, a ‘Cinema Sub-committee' had been created under the auspices of the Watch and Social Problems Department. The aims of the committee were to give guidance on the content of films to prospective viewers, to discourage the industry from portrayals of immoral behaviour and to stimulate debate on censorship. ‘Cinema Visitors' were dispatched to their local picture house to report on the latest films; their warnings and recommendations being disseminated via the society's journal.
Verdicts such as those on James Bond films (seen to glamorise crime and ‘create incentives to murder, violence and promiscuity') and apprehension regarding depictions of marriage and divorce may suggest an unenthusiastic response to developments in the cinematic world but the society's attitude could be very positive. In fact in the 1930s the Union found itself denouncing not the films but the criticism levelled at them by the general public, which it felt to be exaggerated and founded on inadequate observation. Shall we go to the Pictures? extols the virtues of the medium, which, the author argues, offered opportunities to learn anything from fruit-preservation and surgery to swimming technique and sex education.
The interest of the Mothers' Union in the media was part of the society's wider concern in public morality and a desire to safeguard family life. These aims led the society to work in the fields of education, healthcare and the reduction of poverty on behalf of some of the least fortunate communities worldwide.
June 2009 marks the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's coronation. Renowned for his defiance of papal authority, his matrimonial trials and considerable stoutness, Henry is seemingly a very familiar historical figure. However the idea that he was also a highly educated and widely read monarch is less well known and sometimes overlooked.
Henry had his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled in 1533 on the grounds that she had been the wife of his late brother Arthur. In order to formulate the theological and legal arguments against his first marriage he accumulated a vast library that reflected the burning questions of the day.
Lambeth Palace Library holds Invicta Veritas (1532) by Thomas Abell, which once belonged to the King and is currently on display at the British Library as part of the exhibition, ‘Henry VIII: Man and Monarch'. On the title page, shown here, Henry has written in his distinctive hand, ‘Fundamentum hujus libri vanum est' - the basic premise of the book is worthless. In several places throughout the volume he has made marginal annotations, expressing his disapprobation with the text. He is particularly concerned with Thomas Abell's interpretation of the matter of consanguinity, which is at the heart of the annulment question. It is perhaps unsurprising that Abell, who was also one of Catherine of Aragon's chaplains, was eventually convicted of high treason, hanged, drawn and quartered in 1540.
The King's tendency to make notes in the books he owned indicates that not only did he read the text carefully, he also thought critically and engaged in the arguments that they presented. Therefore the books that filled the royal shelves have the potential to provide us with a more intimate insight into his desires and whims, as well as a deeper understanding of the revolutionary changes in ideas that took place during his reign.
May marks the anniversary of the death of Nicholas Brady, who co-wrote the ‘New Version of the Psalms of David' with Nahum Tate. This image shows the beginning of Psalm 98, exhorting the faithful to Sing to the Lord a new-made song, set to music by J.Z. Triemer for use in the English Church at Amsterdam.
Brady was born into a Protestant family in Bandon, co. Cork, on 28 October 1659. After being educated at schools in Ireland and England, he began his university career at Oxford in 1678, but was sent down in 1682 for reasons that, unfortunately for lovers of scandal, are now unclear. He later graduated MA from Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained priest in Cork in 1687, and looked set for a quiet career in the Irish Church. However, thanks to his support for the Glorious Revolution of 1688, events soon led him to England. Nicholas Brady became a popular and fashionable London preacher, and remained in England until his death on 20 May 1726.
Brady published large numbers of his sermons, and also produced a play. However, his most enduring work came from his collaboration with the Poet Laureate and ‘improver' of Shakespeare, Nahum Tate. Together, they created a new metrical version of the Psalms better suited to newly-Enlightened taste than the existing ‘Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalter, which had been written in the early days of the reign of Elizabeth I. Tate and Brady, as the ‘New Version' is often known, hit the shelves in 1696, and became a runaway success, leading to more than 300 subsequent editions. It remained in use as the semi-official Anglican hymn book for 150 years until public worship was revolutionized in the Victorian era.
21st April 2009 is the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Anselm, theologian, pastor and defender of the Church's freedom from state intervention. Anselm was probably the greatest theologian ever to have been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Apart from his meditations, letters and a treatise on grammar, he is best known for three works: the Monologion, the Proslogion with its ‘ontological' proof of the existence of God, and Cur Deus homo, a brilliant defence of the doctrine of the Incarnation.
This image shows the opening of Cur Deus homo in a 12th century copy of Anselm's works in Lambeth Palace Library. Much of the text, including this section, seems to have been written in the clear, elegant, hand of the historian William of Malmesbury, with some contemporary and later additions by other scribes.
Two hundred years after Anselm's death Dante placed him, with Donatus the grammarian, Nathan the prophet and St. John Chrysostom the preacher, among the stars garlanding St. Bonaventure in the twelfth Canto of the Paradiso. In our own day, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, speaking to the monks of Bec in 1967 said of Anselm "One great theme was constantly in his mind, the consistency of the truth of Christian doctrine with human reason. Reason indeed cannot create the truth, reason cannot discover it: the order must always be ‘fides quarens intellectum' [faith seeking understanding]. But because reason in man is a God-given faculty theology must be capable of commendation to reason. And all those who through the centuries have understood the role of reason in theology can hail Saint Anselm as a guide and father."
This month we remember an Archbishop of Canterbury's visit to Ireland in the late 19th century.
The photograph shows Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (1829-1896) on the left on his tour of Ireland in September/October 1896. In the centre is William Conyngham Plunket, fourth Baron Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin (1828-1897) and on the right is William Alexander, Archbishop of Armagh (1824-1911).
On 13th September 1896, Pope Leo XIII had issued the bull ‘Apostolicae curae' which declared Anglican orders null and void. Benson began to work on a reply as he conducted his tour of Ireland, and on his return journey he met William Gladstone at Hawarden on 10th October 1896 to discuss it. He died the following day, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral on 16th October.
Benson was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge. He later taught at Rugby School and served as headmaster of Wellington College, and among his six children were the writers A.C.Benson, E.F.Benson, Nelly Benson and R.H.Benson.
After serving as Bishop of Truro from 1877 he was appointed to Canterbury in 1883. His archiepiscopate saw the famous trial in 1889 of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, who was accused of ritualism, for which Benson revived the archiepiscopal court, which had only sat once since the Reformation. The trial took place in part of Lambeth Palace Library, and this, together with its dubious authority, led William Stubbs, the historian and Bishop of Oxford to describe it not as a court, but as ‘an archbishop sitting in his library'.
Three hundred years ago the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued from the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile, where he had survived for several years stranded and alone. His return to England in February 1709 is said to have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719).
Selkirk's celebrity contributed to the rise of travel writing as a literary genre, however its origin can be traced back further, to the publication of The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan in 1678, and this engraving (Ref: Sion A 62.4/B88 (1775)) depicts its dramatic opening scene.
It shows the pilgrim, who becomes known as Christian, in the foreground, dressed in rags with a burden on his back as he leaves the City of Destruction. The long twisting road that stretches out into the distance threatens to be hazardous and abound with challenges.
It is thought that Bunyan composed the The Pilgrim's Progress to allegorise his religious experience as a guide to others. He gravely advises his readers to ‘Beware of the by-paths and crooked Paths, Paths in which Men go astray, Paths that lead to Death and Damnation' suggesting that life is a pilgrimage and the progress is psychological rather than geographical.
Although the British Museum was established in 1753, it first opened to the public 250 years ago this month in January 1759, in Montagu House, Bloomsbury. One of the original Trustees of the Museum was Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1758 and 1768, whose portrait is featured here.
Archbishop Secker took a keen interest in the details of the Museum's foundation, with the Secker papers at Lambeth Palace Library including a printed copy of the first Orders of the Trustees, interleaved with extensive annotations from the Archbishop himself. Ever conscientious, Secker raised doubts about the constitution as it stood, complaining that the "aristocratic" form of government it proposed could turn out to be the "very worst" if future Trustees lacked the integrity of the present ones.
He did note however that, "if the Principal Librarian has a tolerable share of discernment and a good heart, he will be in himself a better system of Law than will easily be contrived". Such attention to detail is entirely in keeping with Secker's episcopacy; extremely industrious, he aimed to have a thorough grasp of the minutiae of both diocesan business and of interests relating to his wider role. According to Jeremy Gregory in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "If there is a central feature of his occupation of the see it was perhaps his near obsession with paperwork" and he is remembered as a distinguished administrator. He even initiated a reordering of the printed and archival collections of his predecessors in Lambeth Palace Library, carried out by the Librarian Andrew Coltée Ducarel.
The involvement of Archbishops of Canterbury in the role of Trustee continued throughout subsequent years. The papers of Edward White Benson contain letters from the Principal Librarian and the Director of the British Museum, as well as from the bibliographer Richard Garnett, who had occasion to petition the Archbishop on the subject of immoral books within the Museum library. Later, Archbishop Lang played a key role in the famous Codex Sinaiticus being deposited in the Museum.
The Library's Annual Review, which includes the Annual Report of the Friends of the Library provides a comprehensive account of the Library's work throughout the year, as well as details of new accessions.
Click on the attachments, below right, to download recent Library Annual Reviews.
Links:
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8687308.stm
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYm4f5oeGaU
[3] http://www.cofe.anglican.org/podcast/previouspodcasts.html
[4] http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/building-on-history-project/index.html
[5] mailto:building-on-history-project@open.ac.uk
[6] http://journal.ccedb.org.uk/archive/cce_n2.html
[7] http://copac.ac.uk/
[8] mailto:jmckinley@scalapublishers.com