Rare Books @ NLS

We have recently bought an incunable. Incunabulum is Latin for “things in the cradle”, and the term means an item that was printed before 1501, i.e. during the infancy of printing with movable type.

A book’s title page as we know it, with title, subtitle, author’s name, publisher’s name, and date and place of publication, was only fully developed by 1500. Before that, the author’s name and the title of the book usually appeared in the heading of the first page and then the printer launched straight into the text. This is also the case with our new acquisition:

We don’t often buy incunables because there are no Scottish ones: printing in Scotland did not start until 1508. The reason why we purchased this one has to do with its topic. The book is by the Roman historian Tacitus (AD 56-117) and it contains the first printing of his biography of Agricola. Agricola was Tacitus’ father-in-law, and, more importantly, the Roman general and governor of Britain who extended Roman occupation northwards into Scotland. So, in this incunable we find the first substantial historical account of events in what is now Scotland! It also gives the first published account of a battle on Scottish soil: the Battle of Mons Graupius.  There is even a mention of the “objectionable climate with its frequent rains and mists”!

This incunable was printed in Milan in 1487. The text was edited by the famous Italian Renaissance scholar Francesco Dal Pozzo (Franciscus Puteolanus) (d. 1490), a professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Bologna.

I am Marta Ameijeiras Barros, a Postgraduate Intern working in the Rare Book Collections Department, and today I ‘am making my debut’ on the Rare Books blog. The subject I chose belongs to one of the saddest chapters of the history of the book: its dissection, as if it were a laboratory specimen, at the hands of collectors, antiquarians, book dealers and even librarians.

On one of my first days in the department, an exquisite Latin catechism published in 1635 fell into my hands, the Catechismus Ex Decreto Sancrosancti Concilii Tridentini (Paris: Martin Durand, 1635) (NLS shelfmark: Cassidy.1746), belonging to the Cassidy Collection. What grasped my attention was that the woodcut had been cut out of the title page, leaving the next page visible as if through an open window. So somebody had thought that what was represented there was interesting and had decided to extract it.

What today would always be seen as vandalism was not always considered such. From the 17th until the beginning of the 20th century incunabula, illuminated manuscripts and early printed books, were victims of a fashion in collecting, in an effort to create varied compilations of pages and woodcuts from books of different origin, size and date; or a desire to make good defective copies.

This activity was so widespread between the antique dealers, that it is well known that even a bibliophile like John Ruskin (1819-1900) did not have any doubt about cutting a page if this was pleasing to him. A diary entry in which he records spending an evening cutting up a missal is reported by David Pearson in Provenance Research in Book History, pp.5-6.

This phenomenon can also be seen in the current exhibition of the National Library Beyond Macbeth: Shakespeare in Scottish Collections  in the figure of James Orchard Halliwell-Phillips (1820-1889), a scholar of Shakespeare who for his studies, made a series of scrapbooks with excisions from early printed books with references about the life and works of Shakespeare.

Coming back to our catechism, I think that this was a victim of the first wave of these collectors and its cutting would form part of those varied collections. But there is the chance that there could be another reason. Title pages frequently appeared signed indicating the ownership of these books, so could this missing piece have been extracted for covering up a possible inscription, perhaps of a previous proprietor?

However, as we all know, something incomplete or damaged is more vulnerable to destruction, as happened with a number of rare books. Luckily, this was not the destiny of this catechism, which is now kept resting on the shelves of the National Library bearing the scar of a dark time of the history of the book which we can not neglect.

Further reading:

• William Blades, The Enemies of Books (London, 1880) NLS shelfmark Bg.10/2, chapter IX
• David Pearson, Provenance research in book history: a handbook NLS shelfmark NRR (3.11 PEA) (Ruskin reference pp. 5-6)

The Cassidy Collection is not currently listed on the NLS online catalogue, but this book can be ordered by phone or email, or by filling in a slip in the reading room.

Until Sunday January 8th, you can see original editions of both the King James Bible of 1611 and the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays from 1623 on display at NLS – not quite side by side, but close enough to compare, in their two separate exhibitions. The King James Bible is at the centre of our Treasures display, which Anette blogged about in November, and which will close on Sunday, and the First Folio is in our Beyond Macbeth exhibition, which runs until the end of April. Both are surrounded by other early editions – the translations which preceded and rivalled the King James Bible, and the quarto playbooks in which individual plays were published.

It’s very interesting to compare the circumstances under which the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare were published in early modern Britain, and the similarities and differences in the appearance of the final printed volumes. A whole book could be written about this subject, but in this blog entry I just want to mention a couple of things which strike me – one way in which they are similar and one in which they are very different. Continue reading Shakespeare and the King James Bible

In September 1561, a major debate took place in Poissy, France between the Protestant Théodore de Bèze, whom many reformers had met when they were exiled in Geneva, and the Catholic Cardinal Lorraine, the uncle of Mary Queen of Scots. This debate is now called the Colloquy of Poissy: it was the last major debate between the Protestant and Catholic sides during the Reformation, and for at least some of the participants represented an opportunity to try to reconcile the two. For others, it was an opportunity to drive home their own case, and the Colloquy ended without any reconciliation.

Naturally, with the strong personal connections on top of the general religious ones, Scots on both sides followed the debates with interest. The text of these debates was recorded and circulated throughout Europe. Within a month of the debate, the English Ambassador to Scotland, Sir Thomas Randolph, was sent a copy of a book containing one of de Bèze’s speeches translated into English. He circulated it at court, and arranged for it to be printed by Robert Lekpreuik, who was fast becoming the Protestants’ printer of choice.

John Baron, an Edinburgh Protestant who had been one of the Geneva exiles and now was back in town, was ‘driven … with a more fervent desire’ to translate another speech by de Bèze into Scots so that his countrymen could read it. This book was also published by Robert Lekpreuik, in 1562, and this book is on display in our exhibition.

When Randolph brought de Bèze’s speech to court, Mary Queen of Scots asked him about her uncle’s part in the debate: would this be printed too? Randolph replied diplomatically – but in fact the Catholic side of the debate was never printed in Scotland. Among the court elite, diplomats could communicate the latest news about religious debates, so that the Queen and her courtiers could hear both speeches. Printing could ensure that this news reached the widest possible audience – but if only one side of the story was printed, only that side was heard by a wider audience. Continue reading A European debate

Both Catholics and Protestants used print to spread their message in the 16th century, and we wanted to make sure this exhibition told the Catholic side of the story. Two items which show how the still-Catholic church in Scotland responded to the pressures of reform are Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism and the Twapenny Faith. These two texts have sometimes been confused – but the Catechism was a substantial book, published in 1552, and the Twapenny Faith was a four-page pamphlet, published at the opposite end of the decade in 1559.

Both were printed for the Archbishop of St Andrews, John Hamilton. Hamilton and his fellow bishops agreed on the need for reform within the Scottish church, still Catholic, at a series of provincial councils in the 1550s. Today we often associate the use of the vernacular with the Protestant reformers and the use of Latin with Catholicism, so it may be surprising that both of these texts were in Scots, not Latin. In fact, the Catechism is one of the most substantial prose texts in Scots of the period.

The use of Scots was to make sure that the people clearly understood the Church’s beliefs, and also were aware of the difference between sound Catholic doctrine and heresy. Every parish priest was to own a copy, and read them aloud to their parishioners.

 Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism

Woodcut of the Transfiguration from the Catechism

The Catechism, or to give it its full title, The catechisme, that is to say, ane co[m]mon and catholik instructioun of the christin people in materis of our catholik faith and religioun, quhilk na gud christin man or woman suld misknaw (shelfmark Ry.II.f.29), was the first book printed in St Andrews, by the printer John Scot in 1552.  Parish priests were told firstly to learn from this guide to church doctrine themselves, and secondly to read it to their congregations on Sundays.

• You can read more about the Catechism on this NLS webpage, see a fully-digitized copy in our Digital Archive, or read about its place in printing history in our Spread of Printing web feature.

The ‘Twapenny Faith’

This text got its nickname from its price, two pence: its actual title was Ane Godlie Exhortatioun Compylit and Sett Furth be the Maist Reuerende father in God, Johane Archibischope of Sanctandrous (shelfmark BCL.S104). It was also printed by John Scot, probably by now back in Edinburgh. We have displayed the only surviving copy of this pamphlet – but it was produced and sold cheaply, and sold around the country by hawkers and chapmen. It proclaimed the key Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and was to be read aloud during Mass.

Appropriately enough, this unique copy survives in the collection of Blairs College Library,  the library of St Mary’s College, Blairs, Aberdeen, which was a Catholic seminary. We are grateful to the Trustees of the Blairs Museum Trust for permission to display this and other items from their collections in our Reformation display.

 Although the Church intended these two books to be used throughout Scotland, there was no distribution network in place to make sure that they did reach every parish in the country, and so they never had the effect that was intended. If the Church had managed to distribute them properly, and to make sure that they were read aloud as intended, so that they reached every parishioner, perhaps the history of religion in 16th-century Scotland would have been entirely different.

Music was one of the most valued tools of the early Reformers across Europe. Reformers from Luther to Coverdale insisted on the importance of singing psalms and other religious songs. Their vision was of everyone from ploughboy to housewife singing simple vernacular Scriptural songs as they went about their daily lives, in contrast both to the idea of church music consisting of polyphonic Latin texts sung by a choir, and to the popular songs of the day which they thought saw as immoral and rude.

In Scotland, this idea found expression in the book commonly known as the ‘Gude and Godly Ballatis’ (although the contemporary editions are titled Ane Compendious Booke, of Godly and Spirituall Songs), which begins with a preface hoping that these ‘spirituall sangs’ will replace ‘bawdrie and unclein sangs’, ‘specially amang yong persons’. Inside is a collection of metrical psalms, translations of Lutheran hymns, and ‘spiritual songs’ which are sung to the tunes of popular secular songs, or parody their lyrics. Love songs, for instance, are turned into songs where the ‘lover’ becomes Christ. There are also songs which reflect the turbulent times of the 1540s and 1550s, when the Protestants felt threatened by the Catholic authorities, and asserted their own independence from the Pope.

Downe be yone River I ran,
Downe be yone River I ran,
Thinkand on Christ sa fre,
That brocht me to libertie,
And I ane sinful man.

Quha suld be my lufe bot he,
That hes onlie savit me,
And be his deith me wan:
On the Croce sa cruellie,
He sched his blude aboundantlie,
And all for the lufe of man.

It is an important and popular book, everyone agrees, but one which has a somewhat mysterious story. Who compiled it, and when? And when was it first printed?

Continue reading Good and Godly Ballads

The latest display in our Visitor Centre has just opened: throughout September and October, a small exhibition of rare books and manuscripts will mark the 450th anniversary of the Scottish Reformation. We plan to blog about some of the items here during the run of the exhibition, which will give us a chance to tell their stories in more detail than the limits of an exhibition label permit.

At the centre of the exhibition, of course, is John Knox, and copies of The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women and some of his other books are on display.

But we also hope to show other aspects of the Scottish Reformation such as its strong links with what was happening in Europe. For instance, books by earlier reformers – Patrick Hamilton’s theology and the Wedderburn brothers’ poetry – show how quickly Luther’s ideas had an impact on Scots. We wanted to show the other side of the story too, so there are books produced and used by the still-Catholic pre-Reformation Scottish church, and items which illustrate the debates between Catholics and Protestants in the 1560s.

Of course, for us as a library, one of the most interesting points is the way that the history of printed books and the history of the Reformation are inextricably linked in Scotland. Had printed books not existed, the history of the Reformation would have been very different; had the Church not needed to distribute books like the Bassandyne Bible across the country, the Scottish book trade would never have developed as it did.

The first Bible printed in Scotland

Look out for more about the items in this exhibition over the next two months – meanwhile, here are some links to media coverage of the display:

• BBC Scotland news story
• Deadline Press news story 
• The Herald news story

And finally, this BBC website has a good basic introduction to the history of the Scottish Reformation.