As we have previously noted, the Book of Common Prayer is one of the books most likely to have been owned by a woman. As of the writing of this post, eight other examples have been featured here. A cornerstone of religious life, Books of Common Prayer were often sumptuously bound with hand-colored illustrations (see here and here) and gilt-tooled covers. Lucy Burman’s Book of Common Prayer is among them.
Her Book of Common Prayer is encased in gilt-stamped red morocco binding with black morocco inlay, silver clasps, and silver furniture. The center plate bears the initials “A B,” presumably another member of the Burnham family. Colorful Dutch gilt endpapers cap off the book’s visual appeal. The bookseller notes that style of the binding is similar to the so-called “cottage-roof binding” employed by the Restoration-era binder Samuel Mearne and may have been done by one of his apprentices.
As the bookseller observes, the binding was likely commissioned in or around 1703, that being the date of the Book of Psalms bound with the Book of Common Prayer. It is easy to find things to say about this striking binding, but less so A.B. and Lucy Burnham, who—like so many owners profiled on this blog—have been swallowed by the centuries.
Here again, the bookseller gives a lead, noting that A.B. and Lucy were likely members of the Stratford-upon-Avon Burman family, who lived in the village of Shottery, where Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway resided as a child. In fact, Burman’s Farm is located directly behind the cottage and has since been renamed Hathaway Farm, the most popular tourist attraction in the area next to the cottage and Shakespeare’s Birthplace. As Katherine West Scheil notes, “connections between the Burmans and Hathaways stretch back to the fifteenth century.”
There are a few strong candidates for Lucy’s identity. The first is Lucy Walford Burnam (ca. 1660–1719) who married Stephen Burnam (1651–1709) in 1694. Their son Hugh Burnam (1696–1761) and his wife Hester Hurdis Burnam (1696–1766) of Shottery had seven children, only one of whom, Lucy (1732–1787), outlived her parents. The younger Lucy married the Reverend William Daniel of Stretton-on-Dunsmore in 1762 and “was a considerable heiress,” according to her descendant John Burman. Lucy and Stephen also had a daughter called Lucy, born in 1702 and married in 1728 to William Hurdis.
A.B. is harder to pin down. The A may stand for Ann(e) or Anna. An Anna Burman was born to a Thomas Burman in December 1639 and baptized at Stratford-Upon-Avon, while an Anne Burnam was born to Richard and Joice Burnam of Packwood sometime after 1665. Packwood was a civil parish about 15 miles north of Stratford. If she was the person whose initials are engraved on the silver furniture of the Book of Common Prayer, then she would have been in her late 30s at the time the book was bound.
Opposite Lucy Burman’s signature on the title is a religious poem, which can be viewed here. It bears similarities, though is not an identical match, to her signature, reading in full: “Faith in God that self denyes, / Wisdom with her self supplyes: / Filling the soul with th’ Eternal Good / When she wills not what she Would.” It is a poem about denying one’s own will and desires in order to obtain wisdom and Divine favor. Together, the book and the religious inscription provide interesting insight into the devotional life into a probable Stratford family in the early to mid-18th century.
Source: Book sold by WoodPaz Books Ltd on 25 February, 2024. Images used with permission.
Further Reading Burman, John. The Burman Chronicle: The Story of a Warwickshire Family (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1940), p. 28-29. Libby Shade’s Page of Family Trees. “Burman: Sixth Generation” (https://www.shade.id.au/Burman/Burman6.htm) and “Burman: Seventh Generation” (https://www.shade.id.au/Burman/Burman7.htm). Updated May 2008.
Today we feature a 1682 Bible printed in Oxford and jointly owned by husband and wife Thomas and Mary Buswell in the 18th century.
The reversed calf binding is intricately blind-tooled, with an ownership statement in the center “Tho:s & Mary Buswell. 1758.” The blank front endpaper is signed “Mary Buswell 1772.”
Mary and Thomas remain unidentified, though they may be the Buswells/Boswells who resided in colonial Maryland. If they are, then Thomas was born in 1711, married a Mary Chaney/Cheney/Chanley around 1752, and died in 1797.
The date on the binding may signify an acquisition date of what would have been an important centerpiece of the family’s life or it may represent the couple’s marriage date. If it was an acquisition date, why would Mary have signed the book some 14 years later rather at the time of purchase? Or is it possible that Mary—who may not have been Mary Chaney mentioned above—signed the book the year it was acquired and had the binder date the book with the year she and Thomas were married? Why is there such a wide gulf between the printing date of the book and the approximate date the couple acquired it, and what can it tell us about the import of books from England to the colonies?
Regardless, like most Bibles, it was clearly a cherished and significant book to Thomas and Mary.
This post adds another physical book owned by Katherine Blount to her ever-expanding library list and also reveals a manuscript that demonstrates her reading practices in action. Previous posts by Sarah Lindenbaum, Sophie Floate, William Poole, and Mary Ann O’Donnell have brought the total number of books inscribed by Katherine Blount to twelve, but additional discoveries by Martine van Elk and Sarah Lindenbaum have expanded that list further to 40 titles. As research by Lindenbaum and O’Donnell outlines, Katherine Blount was the daughter of James Butler and Grace Caldecott of Amberley Castle in Sussex. Born in 1676, she married Sir Thomas Pope Blount, 2nd Baronet in 1695.[1] When I started researching the miscellany of Katherine Butler (St. Paul’s Cathedral Library MS 52 D.14) around 2010, I proposed a few branches of the Butler family to which she might have belonged, including the Butlers of Amberley Castle, but I wasn’t certain.[2] Now that I have compared Katherine Butler’s signature and handwriting to those of the printed books identified in the other posts, I can confidently say that the Katherine Butler who inscribed a manuscript collection of sermons by John Donne and Joseph Hall in 1693 and who used the blank pages in that same manuscript to compile a miscellany from 1696 onwards is the same person as Katherine Blount. I can also confirm that the marginal notes written in the book described by Floate (Cyrano de Bergerac’s The Comical History) and the identifications of characters in the manuscript key and the text of the book described by Poole (Samuel Garth’s The Dispensary) are indeed in Blount’s hand. But readers of this post can judge for themselves.
The manuscript collection of sermons by John Donne and Joseph Hall
A manuscript collection of five sermons (four by John Donne and one by Joseph Hall), now St. Paul’s Cathedral Library MS 52 D.14, is inscribed “Katherine Butler Given me by my Father May 1693” (fol. 1r). The donor of this manuscript was James Butler of Amberley Castle, who died on 11 July 1696.
Fig. 1. Katherine Butler’s inscription from 1693, fol. 1r.
The sermons were transcribed by Knightley Chetwode in 1625 and 1626 or shortly thereafter. [3]
Fig. 2. The title page of the sermons, fol. 2r.
Exactly how this early seventeenth-century sermon collection came into the hands of James Butler and what occasion prompted him to give it as a gift to his daughter, Katherine, in 1693 are unclear.
Katherine Blount’s manuscript miscellany in verse and prose
Butler signed her name only once in St. Paul’s Cathedral Library MS 52 D.14, two years before her marriage in 1695, after which she would have signed her married name of Blount. But she was already Katherine Blount in 1696 when she began using the blank pages of the sermon manuscript to create her own miscellany. On fol. 178r, after the sermons, she wrote the heading “1696” and began a collection of verse extracts, and sometimes complete poems, ending at fol. 195v.
Fig. 3. The first page of the verse section of the miscellany, fol. 178r.
Facing that first page of poetry is an inscription on fol. 177v in which she explains her motivations for her selections: “The reason why I wrote severall of these following Verses, was not that I thought them all good, but the subjects was – what, I had occasion to make vse of.”
Fig. 4. The inscription on fol. 177v.
Blount does indeed make use of her chosen poems and extracts, consistently identifying them by theme or title, and favoring topics like friendship, virtue, and the importance of moderation, among others. Her “subjects” were not narrowly moralistic, however. As we can see from fol. 181r, she transcribes all of Abraham Cowley’s poem “Drinking” (which ends with the rousing couplet, “Should every Creature drink but I / Why, Men of Morals, tell me why?”).
Fig. 5. A sample page from the verse section, fol. 181r.
At the bottom of this page she includes two passages from different plays by John Dryden that disparage the state of marriage; it is a “Curse of Life,” “Loves nauseous cure,” and “but ye Pleasure of a Day.”[4]
Blount also began writing a second section of her manuscript in the year 1696. She took the manuscript and turned it upside down, making a new first page from the end of the volume and beginning a section of prose, which runs from fols. 276v, reversed to 230v, reversed. In the image below, you can see that she has headed this section, “A Common Place Book 1696.” Though I have called her manuscript a miscellany (since it is primarily a collection of miscellaneous extracts in verse and prose), it could equally be called a commonplace book, as she has labeled the prose section, since it is largely organized thematically.
Fig. 6. The first page of the prose section of the miscellany, fol. 276v, rev.
It is this heading that convinced me that Katherine Butler was Katherine Blount since, though the main hand of the miscellany is messier than any of the inscriptions in her printed books, the upper case “B” looks very similar to all of the “B”s each time she signs “Blount.” The upper case “P” looks similar to that in the word “Pope” in the inscription in O’Donnell’s post. And the date “1696” on both pages in the St. Paul’s manuscript replicates the number forms in all of her dates on her printed books. Blount died in 1753, and so she may have continued writing in this manuscript well into the eighteenth century. The final item in the verse section can be dated to 1719, though a later edition is possible, while one of the final items in the prose section in Blount’s hand appears to have been taken from a book published in 1736.[5]
More books from Katherine Blount’s library?
Not only does Blount identify many of her chosen passages by topic, but at several points in her manuscript she has written authors’ names, works, and page numbers beside passages, and many of those transcribed passages match specific editions.[6] Here is a list of works in which her transcriptions and page numbers match known editions; these are volumes she is likely to have consulted—and perhaps owned—from the verse section of the manuscript, rearranged into alphabetical order:
Boyle, Roger, Earl of Orrery. Tryphon,in Four New Plays (1670) or Six Plays (1694)[7]
Brome, Alexander. Songs and Other Poems (1668)
Charron, Pierre. Of Wisdome, Three Books, translated by George Stanhope (1697)
Cowley, Abraham. Works (any edition between 1668 and 1693)[8]
Denham, John. Poems and Translations (1668, 1671, or 1684)
Dryden, John. An Evening’s Love, or, The Mock-Astrologer (1691)[9]
Dryden, John. Aureng-zebe, A Tragedy (1685)
Dryden, John. The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1687)[10]
Dryden, John. The Hind and the Panther. A Poem (1687)[11]
Dryden, John. The Indian Emperor, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (1686 or 1692)
Montaigne, Michel de. Essays, three volumes, translated by Charles Cotton (1685-86)[12]
Norris, John. A Collection of Miscellanies (1687 or 1692)
Philips, Katherine. Poems (1667, 1669, or 1678)
Plutarch’s Morals Translated from the Greek by Several Hands, vols. 1 and 2 (1691 or 1694)[13]
Reynolds, Edward. A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (1656)
Suckling, John. Works (1676)
Tuke, Samuel. The Adventures of Five Houres: A Tragi-Comedy (1671)
Waller, Edmund. Poems (1694)
Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester. Poems on Several Occasions (1680 or 1685)
In the prose section, Blount lists two page references tied to works that match the following printed texts:
Marana, Giovanni Paolo. The First Volume of Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1691, 1692, 1693, or 1694) or the eight-volume edition (1694)
Sprat, Thomas. The History of the Royal-Society (1667, 1702, 1722, or 1734)
Interestingly, one of the books described in Lindenbaum’s post, Reynolds’ A Treatise of the Passions (1656), is in the above list. It was the first book that Blount used in the verse portion of the miscellany. She inscribed the Reynolds book on July 10, 1696, and I wonder if then or shortly thereafter she wrote the heading “1696” in the St. Paul’s manuscript and began transcribing. Visible in the marginal notes beside the second entry in figure 3, above, you can see the note “Reynolds saith in his Tre: of ye Pa: & Faulties of ye Soul Page ye 228.” This short passage on grief (the only passage in prose in the verse section of the manuscript) is indeed from p. 228 in Reynolds’ book. But Reynolds’ treatise is also the source for the rest of the passages on this first page, those she has attributed to Ovid, Lucretius, and Euripides; of three on the following page (fol. 178v), which she has attributed to The Iliad, Ovid, and Homer; and of one on fol. 186v, which she has attributed to “A Greek Poet,” which Reynolds identifies as Euripides. In these seven passages (which appear in Reynolds, pp. 228, 179, 122, 89, 284, 297-98, and 265), Blount obscures Reynolds as the source and instead highlights his own marginal references to classical authors and their works, no doubt capitalizing on the cultural cachet of these ancient sources.[14]
As Lindenbaum and Van Elk have discovered, Blount owned books written by Ben Jonson (The Works, 1692, which she purchased in 1699), Edmund Waller (The Works, 1729, which was given to her by the editor in 1730), and Francis Bacon (The Essays or Counsels, 1673, which she inscribed in 1697). Though extracts or complete works by each writer appear in Blount’s miscellany, those precise editions were not her source. A marginal note indicates that the eight-line passage from Jonson’s translation of Horace’s De Arte Poetica appeared “In a Translation of Hor:” (fol. 187v). This suggests that Blount’s source was The Poems of Horace, Consisting of Odes, Satyres, and Epistles Rendered in English Verse by Several Persons, which included Jonson’s translation in the editions of 1666 and 1671. There are four extracts from Waller, from The Maid’s Tragedy Altered (fol. 178v), “Of Divine Love. Six Cantos” (fol. 179r), “A Panegyrick to my Lord Protector” (fol. 179r), and “Upon the Earl of Roscommon’s Translation of Horace” (fol. 180v). Two of the four extracts have page numbers beside them, and these line up with Waller’s Poems of 1694 but do not match the 1729 edition.[15] Since Blount began compiling her manuscript in 1696, and since the Waller extracts appear near the beginning (fols. 178v, 179r, and 180v), the Waller edition she received in 1730 is not her source. Finally, the Bacon item she includes in full, “The Character of Queen Elizabeth” (fols. 257v, rev.-247v, rev.), is the English translation that was first printed in the 1696 edition of The Essays or Counsels; the 1673 edition she owned does not include that work.[16] Blount might have used editions from 1696, 1701, 1706, or 1718, all of which included the version she transcribed.
Blount’s sources are even more plentiful than the above list since many more rhyming couplets, prose and verse extracts, and complete poems and prose works appear in her miscellany, only sometimes identified by author. Though the exact works and editions are not always clear, in addition to those already mentioned she includes passages or complete works from the following authors in her compilation: Edward Baynard, Thomas Browne, Colley Cibber, John Cleveland, Jeremy Collier, Thomas Creech, William Davenant, John Donne, Richard Fanshawe, Charles Gildon, Matthew Morgan, John Oldham, John Philips, Samuel Pufendorf, Charles Sedley, Jeremy Taylor, William Walsh, and John Webster.[17]
Katherine Blount’s miscellany gives us a rich opportunity to see one woman from the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth century engaging with her reading material. It is likely that more books owned by Blount from the above lists will surface, so let’s all keep our antennae out.
Source: St. Paul’s Cathedral Library MS 52 D.14. Photos by Graham Lacdao, St. Paul’s Cathedral, reproduced with permission.
Works Cited
Booker, John M. L., ed. The Clough and Butler Archives: A Catalogue. West Sussex County Council, 1965.
Burke, John. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. 4 vols, London, 1836-38.
Burke, Victoria E. “The Couplet and the Poem: Late Seventeenth-Century Women Reading Katherine Philips.” Women’s Writing, vol. 24, no. 3, 2017, pp. 280-97. Special issue: Katherine Philips: Form and Reception, edited by Marie-Louise Coolahan and Gillian Wright. Reprinted in Katherine Philips: Form, Reception, and Literary Contexts, edited by Coolahan and Wright, Routledge, 2018, pp. 151-68.
Burke, Victoria E. “‘The disagreeable Figure of a Common-Place’ in Katherine Butler’s Late Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany.” Manuscript Miscellanies in Early Modern England, edited by Joshua Eckhardt and Daniel Starza Smith, Ashgate, 2014, pp. 183-99.
Potter, George R., and Evelyn M. Simpson. “General Introductions: II. On the Manuscripts.” The Sermons of John Donne, 10 vols., edited by Potter and Simpson, University of California Press, 1962, vol. 1, pp. 33-45.
Van Koughnet, Jane C. E. A History of Tyttenhanger. London, 1895.
[1] See sources by Van Koughnet, Crook and Henning, and others in the posts by Lindenbaum and O’Donnell.
[2] This research culminated in an article on Butler’s manuscript miscellany, “The disagreeable Figure of a Common-Place” (2014). See note 6, in which I used John Burke’s Commoners, vol. 3, p. 517, to suggest her possible link with the Butlers of Amberley Castle; I used the birth and death dates from Booker, The Clough and Butler Archives, pedigree facing p. x.
[3] For a description of St. Paul’s Cathedral Library MS 52 D.14, see Potter and Simpson, vol. 1, pp. 41-42. For editions of the four Donne sermons in this manuscript, see The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne Project website: https://donnesermons.web.ox.ac.uk/st-pauls-cathedral-library-ms-52d14
[4] The first passage is from Dryden’s play The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards; the 1687 edition matches Blount’s marginal reference of p. 88 (the reason for the cross-reference to p. 67 on the right of the passage is unclear). The second passage is from Dryden’s Aureng-zebe, a Tragedy, and Blount’s page reference of 46 matches the 1685 edition of that play.
[5] The final item in the verse section, the first 13 lines from the verse prologue of Dr Edward Baynard’s Health: A Poem, must be from the 1719 edition (the first to include the verse prologue) or later editions. An item from the later pages of the prose section in Blount’s hand (fol. 259r, rev.) appears to have been extracted from The Counsels of Wisdom, Or a Collection of Such Maxims of Solomon as are Most Necessary for the Prudent Conduct of Life … by Monseigneur Fouquet …, vol. 1 (1736), p. 28. While two seventeenth-century volumes with similar titles from 1680 and 1683 contain the passage, Blount’s wording matches the 1736 edition.
[6] My thanks to Shane Hawkins, who matched many of the references to digitized copies of books in Early English Books Online (EEBO), which catalogues books printed from 1475-1700, and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO).
[7] Though Orrery’s Two New Tragedies (1669) also contains this extract on the page listed by Blount (p. 45), she later quotes (without a page reference) from Orrery’s Mustapha, a play which appears in the 1670 and 1694 volumes but not the 1669. It is thus more likely that she used the 1670 or 1694 edition for the extracts from both plays.
[8] Blount’s page numbers line up with the editions of 1668, 1669, 1672, 1674, 1678, 1680, 1681, 1684, 1688, and 1693. Though the page numbers also match Cowley’s Poems (1656), she later quotes (without a page reference) from a work that does not appear in the 1656 edition, making it more likely that all of her Cowley quotations come from an edition of his Works.
[9] Blount’s page number matches the 1691 edition of An Evening’s Love, or, The Mock-Astrologer, but also the version of the play found in the three-volume 1695 collection of Dryden’s works. Only one other Dryden work in this list fits the pagination in the three-volume 1695 edition (The Hind and Panther); since none of Blount’s page numbers for Aureng-zebe, The Conquest of Granada, or The Indian Emperor match the three-volume edition, it is not likely the source for her Dryden extracts. A final play by Dryden, All for Love, or, The World Well Lost a Tragedy, is quoted by Blount, but her edition is uncertain since the Prologue from which she quotes is unpaginated in all editions (1678, 1692, 1696, and the three-volume 1695 edition of Dryden’s works).
[10] The quotation appears on pp. 87-88 in the 1678 edition, but the only edition in which it appears on p. 88 (Blount’s reference) is the 1687 edition.
[11] Blount must have extracted from one of the three editions Jacob Tonson printed in 1687, since her reference of p. 14 lines up with those editions only (not with the other two editions printed in 1687, by James Watson and by Andrew Crook and Samuel Helsham, whose pagination is different).
[12] Though Blount gives a page reference for only one of her eleven quotations from this source (p. 327 from vol. 1), the quotations come from all three volumes.
[13] Blount quotes nine times from volume 1 or 2 of this work, but only gives a page number once (p. 37), which matches volume 1 of the 1691 and 1694 editions.
[14] For a discussion of Blount’s use of classical sources in her miscellany see Burke, “The disagreeable Figure of a Common-Place,” pp. 193-94. Blount also obscures Samuel Pufendorf’s Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1703) as the source of thirty classical quotations.
[15] The page reference given by Blount for the extract from “Of Divine Love. Six Cantos” (p. 281) matches both the 1694 and 1705 editions, but the page reference for The Maid’s Tragedy Altered (p. 10) matches the edition of the play first printed in 1690, and then in the Poems of 1694, but not the 1705 edition, suggesting that Blount likely used the 1694 edition for her Waller extracts.
[16] Two different English translations were printed earlier in the century: one in 1651 in The Felicity of Queen Elizabeth: and Her Times (pp. 1-42) and one in 1657 in the collection Resuscitatio (pp. 181-93). This latter translation by William Rawley was praised as superior in Baconiana, or, Certain Genuine Remains of Sr. Francis Bacon (1679), pp. 52-53, by “T. T.” The Latin text seems first to have been printed, also by Rawley, in the Latin collection entitled Opuscula varia posthuma (1658), pp. 175-94.
[17] Later material that may be in a different hand includes a sermon by John Scott, letters by John Tillotson and James Radcliffe, and “Mrs Cowlings Thoughts upon Time.” (The last may be the Mrs. Couling referred to by Van Koughnet as a friend of Blount’s sister, Grace: p. 68). For additional work on Blount’s reading material and strategies see the two articles (and forthcoming work) by Burke.
By Ynys Convents, Ellen Gommers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Emma Ten Doesschate, and Patricia Stoop (University of Antwerp)
Women’s contribution to the literary culture of the early modern Low Countries is still very much underexposed. Fascinating research done in recent years has not yet reached the general public. Many other sources have not been studied thus far. Therefore, students of Dutch at the University of Antwerp studied seven early printed books from the seventeenth century that are preserved in the library of the Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp (https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/ruusbroec-institute/library/). Each of these religious books can be linked to women in at least two ways. They dealt with women’s exemplary lives, were written or printed by or dedicated to them, and, at a later stage, found their way to female owners. In this blogpost we present the students’ findings.
Theresa of Ávila as a Source of Inspiration
The works of the influential Spanish mystic, saint, and Doctor of the Church Theresa of Ávila (1515–1582) became widespread across Europe soon after her death, partly under the influence of the Counter-Reformation. Her reformed ideas that led to the foundation of the Order of Discalced Carmelites in 1562 also reached the Catholic part of the Netherlands. Several of her texts were translated — sometimes indirectly via French — into Dutch. The Bibliography of the Hand Press Book in Flanders (STCV: Short Title Catalogue Vlaanderen; https://vlaamse-erfgoedbibliotheken.be/en/dossier/short-title-catalogue-flanders-stcv/stcv) lists seventeen different Dutch-language books, some of which were printed multiple times. In addition, several of her texts in Spanish, French, and Latin were also distributed in the Southern Netherlands.
Figure 1: Theresa of Ávila inspired by the Holy Spirit. Hand-colored engraving by M[aria?] Volders (active in Antwerp between 1669 and 1688) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG–PC H1: Theresa of Jesus (unnumbered)).
The Bruydegoms vrede-kus oft Bemerckingen vande liefde Godts (Bridegroom’s Peace-Kiss or Reflections on the Love of God), in which Theresa described various sorts of prayer, was printed in 1647 by the widow of the Antwerp printer Jan Cnobbaert (1590–1637). The work was annotated by the Spanish Carmelite Jerónimo Gracián (1545–1614), Theresa’s spiritual mentor. The Discalced Carmelite Antonius of Jesus produced the Dutch translation at St Joseph’s Convent in Antwerp (as he did for many of her other works). He dedicated the translation to Françoise de Bette (1593–1666), who was the abbess of the Benedictine convent in Vorst near Brussels from 1637 until her death.
In 1687 Hieronymus Verdussen V (1650–1717) printed Den catechismus van S.te Theresia (The Catechism of St Theresa) in Antwerp. According to the title page, Petrus Thomas a S. Maria (1611–1686), a Discalced Carmelite from Normandy, gathered the spiritual teachings “uyt de Schriften ende eygen Woorden vande selve Heylige” (“from the writings and own words of the same saint”). He published the result in French in Rouen in 1672. His French version was translated by a person who only left his initials M. AE. S. in the Antwerp edition and therefore cannot be identified.
Additionally, the library of the Ruusbroec Institute keeps a Dutch translation of Theresa’s biography by the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537–1591). The Spanish version (La vida de la madre Teresa de Iesus) was published in Salamanca in 1590. The anonymous Dutch translation, entitled Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus fundaterse vande barvoetsche carmeliten ende carmeliterssen (The Life of the Holy Mother Theresa of Jesus, Founder of the Discalced Carmelites), was printed in Antwerp thirty years later by Joachim Trognesius (between 1556 and 1559–1624). Whether the translation was made directly from Spanish or, as in the previous example, from French is not clear. It is certain, however, that a French version by the Carmelite Jean de Brétigny (1556–1634) and the Carthusian Guillaume de Chèvre circulated in the Netherlands: the 1607 edition of La vie de la mere Terese de Jesus was published in Antwerp by Gaspar Bellerus (fl. 1606–1617).
The Lives of Spiritual Virgins
Some inspirational women from the Low Countries also helped shape literary and devotional culture. We know a great deal about them because they documented their lives and religious experiences extensively in diaries and correspondences with their confessors. Based on this auto-biographical documentation, their Lives were written. The Jesuit Daniël Huysmans (1643–1704), for example, wrote biographies of Agnes van Heilsbagh (1597–1640) and Joanna van Randenraedt (1610–1684), who were both spiritual daughters — unmarried women who wanted to lead a religious life, often under the spiritual guidance of Jesuits, without joining a convent. Both Agnes and Johanna lived in Roermond in Limburg (nowadays located in the Netherlands) and were involved in education and the promotion of Christian values. Their biographies in Huysmans’s versions were printed in Antwerp shortly after each other. Kort begryp des levens ende der deughden vande weerdighe Joanna van Randenraedt (Short Account of the Life and Virtues of the Honorable Joanna van Randenraedt) was published and printed in 1690 by Augustinus Great (fl. 1685–1691); Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh (Live and Virtues of the Honorable Agnes Heilsbagh) appeared a year later and was printed by Michiel Knobbaert (fl. 1652–1706). Huysmans integrated the letters of both spiritual daughters into his Lives, which allowed the voices of these women to resonate distinctly in his texts.
Figure 2: Title page of Daniël Huysmans, Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh with her Portrait (Antwerp: Michiel Knobbaert, 1691) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 4050 A 12).
Finally, the Carmelite tertiary and mystic Maria Petyt (1623–1677) wrote an autobiography and corresponded with her spiritual counsellor Michael a Sancto Augustino (1621–1684). He published Maria’s texts posthumously in Het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a S.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt, Vanden derden Reghel vande Orden der Broederen van Onse L. Vrouwe des berghs Carmeli (The life of the honorable mother Maria a Sancta Teresa, (alias) Petyt, from the Third Rule of the Order of the Brethren of Our Lady of the Mount Carmel), which came out in Ghent in 1683. Michael claims not to have modified any of Maria’s words in his four-volume publication of no fewer than 1,500 pages. He, however, added a short introduction to each chapter.
Books in Women’s Hands
These works by and about women were often destined for a female readership. This is evident from the many ownership inscriptions we discovered. Most of the books ended up in female communities. Theresa of Ávila’s Bruydegoms vrede-kus, for instance, belonged to Catrijn de Roos, who lived “opt groodt begijn hof” (“in the large beguinage”; fly leaf at the front) of an, unfortunately, unspecified town. Some of the books belonged to Alexian sisters (“zwartzusters”). The Life of Agnes van Heilsbagh was owned by her namesake Agnes Vandervloet, who lived in the Alexian community in Antwerp. Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus was kept in the convent of Alexian sisters in Ypres for no fewer than 175 years. It was donated to the community by Nicolais Reynier in 1624 (Figure 4). There, Sister Catalijn van der Bogaerde owned it. A note at the end of the book further shows that in 1788 it was still in the convent, now being kept by Sister Theresia Verbeke.
Figure 3: Ownership inscriptions on the title page of Francisco Ribera, Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus (Antwerp: Joachim Trognesius, 1620) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3053 C 20 gamma).
Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-haghe der verstervinghe (Enclosed Garden, the Inner Prayer Bordered with the Thorny Hedge of Mortification) (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) is associated with two female communities. It is dedicated to Maria van Praet (d. 1668), who at the time of publication was “hooftmeestesse” (“grand mistress”) of the beguinage of Antwerp. Later, the book ended up in a women’s convent (possibly of Discalced Carmelite nuns) in Willebroek, a little town south of Antwerp. The ownership inscriptions at the fly leaf at the front show how the book was passed from person to person within the convent, presumably after the previous owner died. Under Sister Theresia Helman’s name the inscription “Requiescat in Pace” was added, and Sister Joanna van Luijtelaer’s name was followed by the abbreviation “R.I.P.”. Presumably Sister Anna t’Kint, who wrote her name at the top of the page, was the book’s new owner.
Figure 4: Title page of Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-hage der verstervinghe and ownership inscriptions of three sisters (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3079 D 14).
Some books were more likely owned by secular women. Den catechismus van S.te Theresia, for instance, is said to have been in the possession of “Joanna Chaterina Roovers woonende in de Copper straet inden wieten engel” (“Joanna Chaterina Roovers living in the Copperstraet in the White Angel”; fly leaf at the front). Unfortunately, it is not clear where the Copperstraet was. The third volume of Het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a s.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt can be located more precisely. It was owned by Joanna Francisca van der Eijnde who lived “op den tribunael tot Mechelen” (“at the tribunal in Mechelen”; fly leaf at the front). She probably belonged to a family of painters whose members lived and worked as porters in that same tribunal (the court of justice). Remarkably, Arnold Frans Van den Eynde (1793–1885), a possible family member of Joanna Francisca, painted the Carmelite convent in Mechelen where Maria Petyt lived as an anchorite in the last phase of her life.
Towards an Inclusive Literary History
Our exploratory research in the library of the Ruusbroec Institute shows the importance of research into handwritten inscriptions in printed books. It shows that there is still a world to discover when it comes to the relationship between women and (religious) book culture in the early modern period. Both religious and secular women participated in the production, reception, and circulation of seventeenth-century printed books in many different ways. In several books, women’s spiritual ideas were passed on by men who wanted to make their voices heard. Books were dedicated to women or put out to print by them. Many copies reached female audiences. In some cases, we find that books were passed down from woman to woman for generations.
Our work also underlines again the importance of enhancing access to heritage collections and making material evidence in individual copies available. A systematic exploration of early printed book collections will bring visibility to large numbers of women. Provenance data in early printed books can teach us which women read and wrote or were otherwise involved in the book culture of their time. Such data can also be used to discover what women read, for what reason, and in what context. It is this type of research into women’s books that will help us eventually to construct an inclusive history of early modern Dutch literature.
Note: This blogpost was developed within the module “Women and early modern literature” of the BA-course “Dutch Studies in Practice” (“Neerlandistiek in de praktijk”) of the Language and Literature program of the University of Antwerp. The research was carried out by Noah Claassen, Ynys Convents, Kevin De Laet, Ellen Gommers, Ingeborg de Heer, Eline Heyvaert, Joran Jacobs, Anouck Kuypers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Jade Simoens, Emma Ten Doesschate, Cynthia Thielen, Lotte Van Grimberge, and Jens Van Reet, under the supervision of Tine De Koninck and Patricia Stoop. The text was written by Ynys Convents, Ellen Gommers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Emma Ten Doesschate, and Patricia Stoop.
Source: Books held by the Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, Antwerp. All images reproduced with permission.
Printed books studied
Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-hage der verstervinghe (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG 3079 D 14).
[Daniël Huysmans], Kort begryp des levens ende der deughden vande weerdighe Joanna van Randenraedt (Antwerp: Augustinus Graet, 1690) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3054 H 3 gamma).
[Daniël Huysmans], Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh (Antwerp: Michiel Knobbaert, 1691) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 4050 A 12).
Den catechismus van S.te Theresia (Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussen V, [1687]) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3018 I 23bis).
Francisco Ribera, La vida de la madre Teresa de Iesus, fundadora de las Descalças, y Descalços Carmelitas (Salamanca: Pedro Lasso, 1590).
Francisco Ribera, La vie de la mere Terese de Jesus, Fondatrice des Carmes dechaussez (Antwerp: Gaspar Bellerus, 1607).
Francisco Ribera, Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesusfundaterse vande barvoetsche carmeliten ende carmeliterssen (Antwerp: Joachim Trognesius, 1620) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3053 C 20 gamma).
Michael a Sancto Augustino, Derde deel van het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a S.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt, Vanden derden Reghel vande Orden der Broederen van Onse L. Vrouwe des berghs Carmeli (Ghent: heirs of Jan vanden Kerchove, 1683) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3017 C 1 2/1).
Theresa van Ávila, Bruydegoms vrede-kus oft Bemerckinghen vande liefde Godts (Antwerp: Weduwe van Jan Cnobbaert, 1647) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG 3018 C 18, 1e ex).
This copy of the best-selling sermons of the “silver-tongued” Henry Smith (c.1560-1591) joins the copies of his Twelve Sermons (1629) and Foure Sermons (1617) with early modern female provenances posted on this site on April 23, 2020 and February 8, 2022 respectively. As the February 8, 2022 post suggested, Smith’s frequently published and repackaged works are notorious for their bibliographical complexities, complexities often reflected in individual copies. In this case, the signatures of “Mary Hockmore” on sig. T5v and “Rich. Norris” on sig. C8v both appear in a copy of Smith’s collected Sermons (1604), STC 22725. This copy of that publication, however, is missing its title-page and all leaves preceding C8, the leaf that contains the signature of Rich[ard] Norris. This missing section has been replaced in this volume with a copy, complete in itself, of Smith’s Foure Sermons (1605), STC 22750, a collection not usually found as a separate publication but instead issued with Smith’s Two Sermons (1605), STC 22753.
It is impossible to tell when these two Smith sermon collections were conjoined in this volume—and the joining is quite literal, as the verso of the final leaf of Foure Sermons (1605) is glued to the recto of what is now the opening leaf of Sermons (1604). The two collections were published by different stationers and the book is in a modern binding, so the pairing could be a recent attempt to salvage a damaged copy of the substantial Sermons (1604). But the appearance of the “Rich[ard] Norris” signature around the title of the sermon that begins on sig. C8v could indicate that the book was already missing its initial section when Norris signed: his signature mimics one common way of positioning signatures on title-pages, framing the title. The opening section missing from Sermons (1604) is not a sermon but Smith’s “Preparative to Marriage”: possibly the book was customized early on, removing this initial “Preparative” and adding a group of sermons not in the larger volume to “complete” it as a collection of Smith’s sermons.
“Mary Hockmore” (sig. T5v)
“Rich. Norris” (sig. C8v)
The combination of signatures (Norris and Hockmore) strongly suggests that the “Mary Hockmore” who signed her name at the bottom of the leaf on which Smith’s sermon “The Arte of Hearing” begins is the Mary Hockmore who married a Richard Norris in Combeinteignhead, Devon in 1658; she is probably also the Mary Hockmore who subsequently died and was buried in Combeinteignhead in 1671. Richard Norris is more difficult to identify with confidence, other than this 1658 marriage record. Mary Hockmore evidently owned the book before her marriage, and her inscription indicates that the book had been a bequest: “Mary Hockmore, her booke, Wich was bestowed uppon her at the Deth of the vertuos and …”. The final words are unfortunately trimmed, but her use of the frequently gendered term of praise “vertuos” makes it likely that she inherited the book from another female owner, probably her mother or another relation. The presence of her husband’s signature at what is now the beginning of the book might suggest that he laid some degree of claim to Mary’s books upon their marriage (or after her death); on the other hand, it might simply indicate a shared interest with Mary in the sermons of Master Smith.
A photograph of the title-page of Foure Sermons (1605) with which this book now opens is included above; Sermons (1604), the text in which these two signatures actually appear, lacks its title-page in this copy and is a scarce edition: few copies are complete and accessible, and the quality of the image on EEBO is too poor to reproduce.
Source: book in private ownership. Photos by Joseph L. Black, reproduced with permission.
Another Bible is featured today, containing the wonderful calligraphic signature of Ann Lightfoot. This edition was printed by the shop of Robert Barker, who issued the so-called ‘Wicked Bible’ in 1631 in which the word “not” was omitted from the Commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Barker and his co-printer Martin Lucas were subsequently each fined the then enormous sum of £300 for the sacrilege and Barker died in a debtors’ prison four years later [1].
In this copy, the recto of the leaf before the title page is boldly signed “Ann Lightfoot. 1769” in elaborate calligraphic script.
Though Ann’s signature brims with personality, it is not possible to definitively identify her, absent any additional information. A candidate may be Ann Lightfoot (1745–1807), who is buried in Berks County, Pennsylvania. An inscription on the first flyleaf verso opposite her signature, “T.H. Judson”, is dated 1882. Judson’s bookplate is also affixed to the front pastedown. Cursory research shows that T.H. Judson was Physical Science Postmaster at Merton College, Oxford, elected in 1875.
The paneled binding may provide some clues to Ann’s status, as it appears to be contemporary and is carefully tooled, suggesting that some money was expended in its commission.
Source: Book offered for sale by Journobooks in April 2022. Images used with permission.
In July 2021, Jay Moschella of the Boston Public Library (BPL) posted on Twitter about a seventeenth-century manuscript in their collection: see here for the original post, and here for the manuscript’s BPL catalogue record. Signed “Anne Thistlethwayte” and dated 1690, the manuscript is a copy of three treatises translated by John Locke from Pierre Nicole’s Essais de morale (1671). Locke made the translations during a stay in France in the 1670s and presented a copy to the Countess of Shaftesbury in about 1679; that presentation copy is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library.[1] Locke’s translations were first published in 1712, under the title Discourses on the being of a God, and the immortality of the soul; of the weakness of man; and concerning the way of preserving peace with men.[2] In addition to the three translated treatises by Locke, the manuscript copy in the BPL concludes with a five-page list of Anne Thistlethwayte’s books grouped by format (folios and then “quartos,” but this second group includes smaller formats as well) followed by a single-page inventory of Thistlethwayte’s possessions, including some additional “uninventory’d” books not included in the preceding list.
At the time of the original post, the BPL had no other information about the Anne Thistlethwayte who had signed the manuscript copy of Locke and included in the manuscript the record of her substantial library. With permission from the BPL, I edited the booklist for inclusion in the Private Libraries in Renaissance England database (the edition is drafted, but at the time of this posting is not yet available on PLRE’s public site). In the course of editing the booklist, I noticed a reference in the concluding inventory of possessions to “Winterslow,” which identified her as Anne Thistlethwayte (1669-1741) of West Winterslow, Wiltshire. Identifying the owner of this manuscript transformed an interesting record of female provenance into a much richer story. First, Anne’s father, Alexander Thistlethwayte (1636-1714), was a Member of Parliament and political ally of the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Locke’s patron: see here for Alexander Thistlethwayte’s biographical listing in the History of Parliament site. Anne Thistlethwayte’s copy of the Locke manuscript consequently appears to derive from her father’s social-political network: additional evidence survives indicating that the Countess of Shaftesbury allowed copies of the manuscript to circulate within her circle.[3]
Anne was 21 in 1690, when the manuscript was copied. Her booklist, however, was compiled later: about 1712, based on identifiable publication dates represented in the list. The personal inventory is dated May 1714, soon after Anne’s father died (History of Parliament says he died in 1716, but the will reproduced on Ancestry.com is dated 1712 and underwent probate on February 9, 1714). Around this time of personal transition, Anne Thistlethwayte became a member of another high-profile circle: she is traditionally identified as the “Mrs T[histlethwayte]” who was a friend and correspondent of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762). The discovery of Anne Thistlethwayte’s library confirms the strong plausibility of the identification. Five letters survive from Montagu to Thistlethwayte, plus one summary.[4] Between August 1716 and September 1718, Montagu writes her friend from Ratisbon, Adrianople, Constantinople, Lyons, and Paris, her chatty, detailed, confiding accounts following the long arc of Montagu’s Turkish embassy voyage. Montagu assumes that her friend is curious to hear what camels really look like, and how the design and construction of houses differs from what she has “read in most of our Accounts of Turkey” (Letters, 1:341). Montagu appears to refer specifically to dismissive passages in Sir Paul Rycaut’s Present State of the Ottoman Empire, first published in 1667: Anne Thistlethwayte indeed owned a copy of this book.
The booklist recorded in this manuscript represents a snapshot of Anne Thistlethwayte’s library up to the age of about 40, a collection created in the second half of the Restoration up to the death of Queen Anne. The library encapsulates the interests—philosophical, literary, historical, theological—we might expect of a young woman interested in John Locke who would subsequently join the circle of the witty, daring, curious, educated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The collection is a substantial one: the list comprises 145 records, but one record lists five bound-together volumes of plays, which could represent dozens of titles. Most of Anne’s books are in English but she did own a half dozen books in French, and the presence of history and poetry suggests her French was more than aspirational. More than a third of the library can be categorized as literature (including classics in translation: Horace, Juvenal, Ovid), with most of the remainder comprising theology, history, philosophy, courtesy, and ethics (including Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus, and Plutarch) and practical books in related fields (geography, education, law, arithmetic, medicine).
Opening pages of the booklist
Pages 3-4 of the booklist
Final page of the booklist with inventory facing (with additional books)
What most stands out is Anne’s interest in the creative and intellectual work of her female contemporaries: she owned books by Mary Astell (Serious Proposal and Six Familiar Essays), Aphra Behn (Histories and Novels and Love-Letters), Katherine Philips (one of the folio Poems), Mary Chudleigh (Poems), Anne Wharton (“The Temple of Death” is probably the 1695 anthology Temple of Death that includes the first publication of Wharton’s poems), Delarivier Manley (Secret Memoirs), Judith Drake (Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, also occasionally attributed to Astell), Madame de La Fayette (Princess of Cleves) and Mary Pix (The Inhumane Cardinal). Thistlethwayte also explored female creativity in the devotional as well as the literary realm, owning a copy of Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon’s Short and Easie Method of Prayer, a radically Quietist guide for which Guyon had been imprisoned by Catholic authorities. Early modern booklists seldom contain the books that literary scholars hope to find, but Anne Thistlethwayte had almost eerily prescient tastes: a reading list based on her collection would form the basis today for an excellent seminar on women writers of the period.
Katherine Philips, Thomas Sprat, “Five volumes of plays”
Lady Chudleigh, John Milton
Mary Astell, Aphra Behn (one of two entries), “French poems”
Unpacking her library further we encounter George Herbert, John Oldham, Thomas Carew, and John Cleveland; Richard Blackmore’s egregious epic Prince Arthur and Milton’s History of Britain (but not his Paradise Lost); Poems on Affairs of State, The Tatler, both parts of Marvell’s Rehearsal Transprosed; and sixteen works of prose fiction. This last cluster reminds us of the later seventeenth century surge in the popularity of novels, many translated from the French. Three novels in Anne’s library do not survive but exist now only in bookseller advertisements: The Illustrious Parisian Maid; The Inchanted Lover; and Memoirs of the Adventures of a French Lady. These entries reveal the role of booklists in confirming the existence of now lost books.
Anne Thistlethwayte also owned an additional title by John Locke (Two Treatises of Government) and the Earl of Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks as well as Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, Montaigne’s Essays, Fontenelle’s Plurality of Worlds, Malebranche’s Treatise Concerning the Search after Truth, Sprat’s History of the Royal-Society, current surveys of world history and world religions, and a variety of works by other writers still read and studied today, such as Richard Allestree, Robert Boyle, Gilbert Burnet, Hugo Grotius, Joseph Hall, James Howell, the Marquis of Halifax, Jeremy Taylor. Browsing this entire booklist, we see in Anne Thistlethwayte a reader who is educated, curious, open; interested in the world, in history, in new ideas; a lover of literature; devout but not prudish, committed to the established church but on the side of toleration against absolutism (hence Marvell); a monarchist (possibly explaining the absence of Paradise Lost) in favor of the Protestant succession (hence Oldham’s satires against the Jesuits). In short, her reading aligns her with John Locke, whose work she encountered as a young woman of 21: Locke and her father’s ally the Earl of Shaftesbury supported constitutional monarchy, Protestant succession, civil liberty, and toleration in religion. To these, Anne adds her interest in the work of her female contemporaries; in current fiction and drama; and a Restoration passion for the wit, satire, and contemporary commentary that would enable her to hold her own in correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. This list in itself, a snapshot of her bookshelves situated in place, time, class, and cultural environment, tells a rich story. An edited version of the full list is forthcoming on the Private Libraries in Renaissance England (PLRE) website.
Source: Boston Public Library MS q Eng.551. Images reproduced with permission.
[1] For a description of this manuscript and a parallel-text edition of Locke’s translation based on this presentation copy, see Jean S. Yolton, John Locke as Translator: Three of the Essais of Pierre Nicole in French and English (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000). A new edition of the Discourses is under preparation for the Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke.
[2] Only one copy of this edition is known, now in the Bodleian Library: for a description, see M.R. Ayers, “Locke’s Translations from Nicole’s Essais: The Real First Edition,” The Locke Newsletter 11 (1980), 101-03. I owe this reference to Locke specialist Craig Walmsley, who kindly read a draft of this post and who confirmed the political links between Alexander Thistlethwayte and the Earl of Shaftesbury, the association of Anne Thistlethwayte and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and evidence for the manuscript circulation of Locke’s “Discourses.”
[3] See Ayers, “Locke’s Translations,” 102, and the October 1689 letter from Jane Stringer to Locke, in Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E. S. De Beer, 8 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), 3:705-07 (letter 1192). I owe the reference to Locke’s Correspondence to Mark Goldie (via Craig Walmsley).
[4] See Robert Halsband, ed., Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965-67), 1:256. For a list of the letters to Thistlethwayte, see Letters, xxvi. The identification was made by W. Moy Thomas in his 1861 edition of the letters. Halsband notes the possibility that “Mrs Thistlethwayte” could be Anne’s sister Catherine (d.1746) or sister-in-law, Mary Pelham Thistlethwayte (c.1660-1720). But the identification with Anne seems generally accepted in scholarship on Montagu. Unmarried women were often accorded the title “Mrs” in the period. Another sister Halsband mentions, Mary (b.1663), is not named in the father’s 1714 will and was likely deceased by the time Montagu was writing.
Today’s book is a 1653 edition of minister Joseph Caryl’s exposition on chapters of the book of Job and contains several inscriptions of colonial American owners from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century.
Caryl was a Puritan minister later removed from his post by the Church of England during the Restoration. Before his ejection, he had several sermons published in the 1640s. His work on the Book of Job began in 1643. The multi-decade “exposition with practical observations” on the Old Testament book eventually came to encompass all forty-two of its chapters. This particular copy concentrates on the fifteenth through the seventeenth chapters.
Job is a prosperous, pious Biblical figure whose wealth, children, servants, and health are obliterated after Satan suggests to God that he would not be so devout in the face of extreme adversity. At first Job accepts his suffering and continues to praise God, but as he continues to suffer with no change in circumstance, he becomes angry and questions him. Eventually, he acknowledges that God is all-powerful and all-knowing and declares his repentance, whereupon his prosperity is restored.
The front flyleaf contains four inscriptions. The one that first draws the eye is Joseph Emerson’s acquisition note in the center of the page: “bought by J. Emerson of the Rev.d Mr. Chandler of Rowley Octo. 2. 1747.” The bookseller identifies Emerson (1724-1775) as a minister in the town of Groton, Massachusetts, later renamed Pepperell. He married Abigail Hay and had six children with her, and was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s great-uncle. The Community Church of Pepperell asserts that he “delivered the prayer on Cambridge Common before the combined militias marched to Breed’s Hill, now called Bunker Hill, in Charlestown” [1]. He contracted dysentery at the onset of the Revolutionary War and died in late October of 1775. His signature, dated 1747, also appears on the upper part of the flyleaf as well as the title page.
Reverend James Chandler (1706-1789), from whom Emerson purchased the book, was the minister of the first church in Georgetown, Massachusetts [2]. One wonders whether Chandler could have been a mentor to the young Emerson, in his early twenties when he purchased the book from Chandler. Additionally, there are two expunged inscriptions on the page. The uppermost one appears to read “Tho.s E. Christian & Jo[…?].” The one beneath Emerson’s signature is too obliterated to read. The inscriptions are circled with three numeral 5s and an apparent monogram on the lower portion of the page.
Another flyleaf contains three more inscriptions: “Sam.ll Chase Book . . .”; “Anna Chase Book Chase”; and “Samuel Chase / Boston / 1826.” The bookseller identifies these owners as Samuel Chase, Sr. (1768-1808), his wife Anna Longley Chase (1776-1866), and Samuel Chase, Jr. (1801-1876). The Chases were also from the Pepperell area and presumably acquired the book there.
Less knowable is how the book found its way to the colonies, whether Abigail Emerson and Mary Hale Chandler (who did not sign the book) used it alongside their husbands, and what significance the story of a Job—a man suffering for his faith—would have had in the lives of the Chandlers, Emersons, and Chases.
Source: Book offered for sale by eBay seller mantosilver in April 2022. Images used with permission.
[1] “Commemorating 100 Years: Historical Moment: Our First Pastor.” Community Church of Pepperell (April 14, 2019). https://tinyurl.com/2p9xt4na
On this blog we have largely featured English examples of female book ownership, but we aim to include examples from many different countries, so we are always grateful when a non-English example comes our way. This sixteenth-century publication combines two works by the French Dominican preacher and author Pierre Doré (c. 1500–1559). This particular copy does not have the original title page, so someone, at some point, wrote the title and some biographical details on a flyleaf, but the entire book, including the original title page of this edition, has been digitized and put online by University of Gent, here.
Someone has also written the title on the spine of the book (which is missing a substantial number of pages), but Isaiah Cox points out that the title mistakenly gives the date as 1586, even though this is the 1540 edition.
Les allumettes du feu divin (The Matchsticks of Divine Fire) and Les voyes de paradis (The Roads to Paradise) are, in Andrew Pettegree’s words, “works of Catholic edification and forceful refutations of heresy” (114) that were published when Calvinist ideas were spreading. Malcolm Walsby notes more generally that Les allumettes “sought to encourage Catholics to use the life of Christ as an example of piety” (32). Placing a signature on a work like this announces one’s religious stance and identity to others in a potentially volatile religious climate.
An early reader named Marianne Godarde has written her name in the book three times, spelling her name in various ways.
Additional notes in the book may also be hers although they are difficult to decipher.
While we have no way of identifying this reader more precisely, it is important to look at practices for marking one’s name in different countries and considering both placement and handwriting as modes women used to present themselves to their immediate family and household but also to larger circles of contemporary and future readers.
It is possible that Godarde wrote her name on the title page and on other missing pages of the book. She may have been practicing writing her name as the decorative “d” and the double name on the two pages in the book next to each other suggest. However, the more deliberate placement of her name next to “La seconde voye de paradis” (the second path to paradise) rather than in the bottom or top margin potentially indicates a special interest in that section of the book. Once the lettering under her name and the annotations on the other pages are looked at more closely, more may become clear about this particular French book user.
Source: book offered for sale by RareTome.com. Images reproduced with permission.
Further Reading
Andrew Pettegree, The French Book and the European Book World (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
Malcolm Walsby, “Promoting the Counter-Reformation in Provincial France: Printing and Bookselling in Sixteenth-Century Verdun.” Books in Motion in Early Modern Europe: Beyond Production, Circulation and Consumption, eds. Daniel Bellingradt, Paul Nelles, and Jeroen Salzman (Cham: Palgrave, 2017), 15–37.
John Donne’s Devotions appeared in five editions from 1624 through 1638—the most popular book Donne published in his lifetime. This copy of the second edition (1624) is the first to appear on this site, though the two copies currently recorded in the Private Libraries in Renaissance England (PLRE) project were also both owned by women: the diarist Elizabeth Isham (d. 1654) and Frances (Stanley) Egerton, Countess of Bridgewater (d. 1636).
This copy of Devotions, currently in a private collection, contains a variety of names, sayings, ownership rhymes, and pen trials inscribed in the early hand of one Elizabeth Richardson, who laid claim to the book in four places: “Elizbath Richardson Har Book god gave Har graes therin to look Amen” (second front flyleaf verso); the same inscription repeated on the third front flyleaf verso; “Elizbath Richardson Har Book god made man and man man [error for “made”] mony god made Bees and Bees made hony a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weedes fare god and keep his Command” (second rear flyleaf recto, top); “Elizbath Richardson Har Book god gave Har Grace ther In to Look not to look bot tak good hed that god may help har In Har ned and when the bell for Har doth tol lord Jesus Chris receved Har sole” (second rear flyleaf recto, bottom). “Elizbath Richardson” without an accompanying inscription also appears twice: among other names on the first rear flyleaf recto, and oriented vertically in the outer margin of N7v alongside the conclusion of Expostulation 12.
Second front flyleaf versoThird front flyleaf versoSecond rear flyleaf rectoFirst flyleaf recto
Other names scattered across the front and rear flyleaves include John Richardson, Nicholas Richardson, Jane Richardson, William Watson, Thomas Watson, Jane Watson, Mary Watson, Jone [Joan] Watson, and “The older Mary Richardson.” These are not the names of additional owners: all seem to be inscribed in the hand of Elizabeth Richardson and likely represent family and relations.
Second rear flyleaf verso
Unfortunately, the name Elizabeth Richardson is too common to identify, even with the contextualizing help these other names provide. In addition to a profusion of pen trials, the copy features a large decorative calligraphic ‘K’ (third front flyleaf recto), a charming sketch of what looks to be a peacock (second front flyleaf verso), and a passage inscribed on the first rear flyleaf verso, “Now sence our frend Most ly foll deep With in the silent Grave Let us Not Wep bot be content That god Hes [illegible] Will shall Have.”
Third front flyleaf rectoSecond front flyleaf versoFirst rear flyleaf verso
The verses Elizabeth Richardson inscribes were all circulating in the mid-seventeenth century. One of her ownership rhymes appears in a 1640 edition of Dorothy Leigh’s popular The Mothers Blessing posted on this site on February 11, 2019. Held by the Folger Shakespeare Library, this copy of Leigh contains two short inscriptions by Elizabeth Bewe that identify the book as her own; the second reads, “Elizabeth Bewe her Booke God Give Grace therin to looke and when the bell for her doth toll Lord Jesus Christ Receve her Soule Amen” (A6r). A manuscript notebook associated with the Jeffreys family of Acton, Denbighshire held by the Folger Shakespeare Library (V.a.489) contains iterations of two of Richardson’s other verses, “God made man and man made money God made bees and bees made honey” (39v) and “A man of words and not of deeds” (68v); both were copied in the mid-seventeenth century. Other versions of both rhymes appear in the Folger Union First Line Index of English Verse.
The book remains in its original binding, which features blind fillets around the perimeter with a gold fillet frame and centerpiece ornament.
A final noteworthy feature of this copy illuminates a condition—and danger—of early modern reading. One leaf (Z2) in the middle of Donne’s Expostulation 21 is missing because it has been burned away; other leaves on either side of the missing leaf are charred. Evidently an early reader, possibly Elizabeth Richardson, was reading Donne by candlelight, got too close to the page, and set the book on fire. The scorched pages provide an apt metaphor for the experience of reading Donne’s passionate extremity: “Thou kindlest thy fires in us,” he writes in Expostulation 13, “and yet doest not alwayes burne up all our drosse.” But they also remind us of the importance of candles to the early modern reading experience.
Source: Book in private collection. All photos reproduced with permission.
The sex of a book-owner is easy enough to determine with a full name. However, plenty of owners throughout Western book history have used initials or a first initial followed by a surname to sign their books. Oftentimes we assume these owners are men, but we sacrifice a more accurate and nuanced picture of book ownership and reading in the early modern period when we default to assumptions of maleness or whiteness.
There are several examples of early women book owners signing books and other documents using only initials. Discussing Elizabeth Puckering (1621/2–1689), David McKitterick says, “More often, and more consistently, she placed her initials ‘EP’ just above or to the side of the beginning of the first line of the text — either the main text or sometimes the preface.” Likewise, Anne Wolferstan, granddaughter of famous bibliophile Frances Wolfreston, initialed her copy of the Satires of Juvenal and Persius “A W” on the title page. Other initialers include Mary Astell, Mary Bankes, Frances Egerton, Sophia Hamilton, and Anne Hyde, Duchess of York (Book Owners Online). Mary Dormer, Countess of Carnarvon (1655–1709), utilized armorial bindings with her initials MC and also inscribed books “M Carnarvon” (BOO). Still other owners like Anne Fanshawe had armorial binding stamps, sans any initials. Elizabeth Talbot Grey’s bindings are distinguished by a Talbot hound with a lolling tongue and smartly curling tail.
In February 2022, I was browsing antiquarian books on eBay when my eye was caught by an unassuming copy of Henry Hammond’s Annotations on the Psalms. As far as seventeenth-century books go, it is common. Dozens of 1659 copies are reported to the ESTC Online and at any given time a copy or two can usually be found for sale on eBay or AbeBooks.
What drew my eye was the inscription on the half-title page: “L Huntingdon. April 1st 1666.” It tickled my memory. For no reason that I could discern, I thought, This is a woman’s inscription. I bought the book, convinced I’d stumbled on something important and unwilling to let it disappear.
It wasn’t long before I recalled Rosalind Smith and Kathy Acheson’s “Women and Marginalia in English Printed Books” seminar at the 2021 virtual Shakespeare Association of America conference. Diana Barnes had presented a wonderful paper on Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon’s elegiac manuscript poem from her copy of Lachrymae Musarum, a volume of poetry which commemorates her son Henry Hastings, heir to the earldom.
Lucy Hastings was born to Eleanor (née Touchet) and John Davies in 1613. Davies was a politician and poet whose works won the attention of Queen Elizabeth I, while Eleanor was an ardent Protestant who became infamous for publishing pamphlet prophecies from 1625 to her death in 1652. One, From the Lady Eleanor, Her Blessing, to Her Beloved Daughter the Right Honorable Lucy, Countesse of Huntingdon (1622), was addressed to Lucy. With such parents, it is not surprising that Lucy was well-educated. The famed educator and writer Bathsua Makin was her tutor and instructed her in divinity and languages, which included “Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish” (Stevenson & Davidson 246).
In 1623, Lucy was married to fourteen-year-old Ferdinando Hastings when she was approximately eleven years old. The marriage was probably not consummated until she was around seventeen, as Henry, their first child, was not born until ca. 1630.
Lachrymae Musarum, consisting of 39 elegies by male poets minor and major, including Andrew Marvell and Charles Cotton, was published after Henry died of smallpox in 1649. Notably, John Dryden’s first published poem also appears in the volume. The Huntington Library’s copy of the book (RB102354) belonged to Lucy and once contained her manuscript poem on a front flyleaf, which is now detached and stored separately. The poem is in italic script and signed “L H.”
This manuscript’s significance as a poem by Lucy Hastings in her hand was first noted in 1952 by H.T. Swedenberg. In it, she laments her son’s death through imagery of bowels, clay, canker, and dust.
Other examples of Lucy’s writings survive in the Morgan Library, which holds her handwritten bond for £200 dated 3 September, 1667, and the University of Edinburgh Laing manuscript 444, which the Perdita Project describes as “Poems compiled by or for Lucy Davies (c. 1630).” Other manuscripts are held by the Huntington, which has over 50,000 items in its Hastings collection.
Lucy Hastings’ signature on the bond, Morgan Library MA 1475.16 [above]. This more formal version of her signature is similar to the one on her 1656 will at the Huntington Library [below].
The final page of MS Laing III. 444, which features two manuscript poems about a “Blackmoor” woman courting a white boy. The screenshot is from the manuscript digitized through the Perdita Project and is used only for educational purposes.
The University of Edinburgh’s manuscript, described in the Laing handlist as “The first Fifty Psalms in Verse, translated by Sir John Davies, 1624, with other Poems,” contains transcriptions of over fifty Psalms and dozens of poems by John Davies such as “A Maid’s Hymn in Praise of Virginity.” Only two poems in the volume break the Davies pattern. They are on the final page in an apparently different script, one much like Lucy’s, and indeed the initials “L H” appear in the right margin. The uppermost is Henry Rainolds’ “A Blackmoor Maid Wooing A Fair Boy” and the lowermost Henry King’s “The Boy’s Answer to the Blackmoor,” and the pair have been the subject of scholarship by Dr. Brandi K. Adams.
HAF, Box 20, Folder 8, the second of two religious “memoranda books” by Lucy Hastings at the Huntington Library. Her daughter’s ownership inscription “Eliza: Hastings” is in the center of the blank front wrapper, while Lucy’s effaced inscription “Lucy Huntingdon” is beneath. The books contain detailed notes on Bible verses from Proverbs, Ephesians, John, etc. and are in keeping with someone who would be interested in deep reading on the Psalms.
So was the L. Huntingdon who inscribed Hammond’s Annotations Lucy Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon? Huntingdon is often a peerage title, though some individuals from the early modern period like preacher John Huntingdon make clear it was surname, as well. It is also possible that Huntingdon is an alternative spelling of Huntington, a commoner surname, which could make the owner of the book L. Huntington, not Huntingdon.
However, if the Huntingdon is a peerage title rather than a last name, then it is harder to see who besides Lucy could have signed the Hammond. The Huntingdon title attaches only to the earl, his spouse, and his direct male heir (note in the image above how Lucy’s daughter signs her name Eliz: Hastings, not Eliz: Huntingdon). The book was published in 1659 and the inscription dated 1666. The only peerage-linked L. Huntingdon in 1666 would appear to be Lucy. Her husband Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon, died in 1656 and was succeeded by their son Theophilus, born 1650, who did not begin having children himself until the 1670s. His direct heir, also named Theophilus, was not born until 1696.
If the Hammond did belong to Lucy, it is a rare example of a book owned by her; I know of no surviving specimens in institutions besides the Lachrymae Musarum. What understanding does the book bring to her life and work? Was she interested in the Psalms because of her father’s translation, piety’s sake, or both? Her memoranda books, after all, consist of detailed notes on Bible verses. Could her reading of them be connected to her son Henry’s untimely death 17 years earlier?
While the book is not heavily annotated, there are a few marginal references and corrections toward the front of the book, suggesting a close reading. What might such marginalia suggest? Is it in Lucy’s hand or one of her children’s?
The contemporary calf binding of the Hammond is worn, but close inspection reveals a blind rule with stamped corner-pieces on each board, as well as blind-tooled spine compartments. While not a fine binding by any stretch, it would have suited a woman of Lucy’s station.
I welcome readers’ thoughts on whether they believe the book was owned by Lucy Hastings and, if so, how they might contextualize it.
UPDATE: Since this blog went live, I have received some interesting feedback. Dr. Beatrice Groves, who has published on Biblical marginalia in the early modern period, notes that the M2 and E2 marginalia “mean that the reader is marking up the psalms that were used in the BCP readings – a psalm read at morning prayer on the second day of the month and at evening prayer on the 1st day of the month. So s/he is either using this as a psalter (interesting!) or, if it doesn’t have texts, using it to compare across – also interesting!” Thank you for the great note, Beatrice!
Source: Book in ownership of blog author. Other images featured with permission. My thanks to Martine Van Elk, Philip Palmer, and Danielle Clarke for assisting in my research for this blog.
Further reading
Brink, Jean R. “Royalist Correspondent: Lucy Davies Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 5 (2–3: Renaissance Studies), 1992: 61–63.
“Lucy Hastings, née Davies, Countess of Huntingdon (b. 1613).” In Early Modern Women Poets: An Anthology, edited by Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, 246–247. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
O’Donnell, Mary Ann. “Hastings Family Tree, 1381-1874” in “A Survey of the Poetry Collection in Manuscript of the Noble Family of Huntingdon.” Harvard Library Bulletin 28 (3), Fall 2017: v–vi.
In 1638 the French Jesuit Paul de Barry (1587–1661) published his third book, entitled La Solitude de Philagie ou l’adresse pour s’occuper avec profit aux Exercices spirituels une fois tous les ans durant huict ou dix jour.[1] It was printed in Lyon in the printing house of Claude I Rigaud (1583–1628), which at that time was operated by his widow and his son-in-law Philippe Borde (d. 1669). De Barry, who was rector of the Jesuit colleges of Aix and Nîmes and later provincial of Lyon, was an esteemed preacher, but first and foremost a prolific author. Carlos Sommervogel, who composed the Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, attributes no fewer than twenty-five works to him. La Solitude de Philagie, which was first printed in 1638, must have been quite popular as it was reprinted no fewer than fourteen times until 1692 and new editions appeared half-way through the nineteenth century (in 1854 and 1859).[2]
Eight years after its publication, the text was translated into Dutch by Guilliam van Aelst, who, as is mentioned on the title page, was “gheboortigh van Antwerpen” (“born in Antwerp”). Van Aelst, who passed away before 1646, was an active translator with a strong connection to the Jesuits.[3] Before he translated De Barry’s La Solitude de Philagie into De eensaemheydt van Philagia, Dienende tot Gheestelijcke Oeffeninghe in eensaemheydt. Van acht ofte thien gheduerighe daghen ’s Iaers, Van Aelst published De Thien eerste Boecken Der Nederlandtsche Oorloge in 1645, which was a translation of De bello Belgico decades duae, 1555–1590 (Antwerp, 1635) by the Roman Jesuit Faminio Strada (1572–1649). In 1651 he translated the Traité de l’Amour de Dieu (De Liefde Godts), which was colloquially known as Theotimus (Lyon, 1616), by St Francis de Sales (1567–1622), who was educated by the Jesuits, later bishop of Geneva and a renowned mystic and reformer, as well as an inspiration for many members of the Society of Jesus, including De Barry.
Figure 1: Title page of the first edition of Paul de Barry, De eensaemheydt van Philagia (Antwerpen: Jacob van Ghelen, 1646). Copy owned by Marijken de Raedt, an Alexian sister in Aalst. University of Antwerp, Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 13. Reproduced with permission.
Like its French counterpart, De eensaemheydt van Philagia was quite successful. After the first edition was published in 1646 by Jacob van Ghelen, whose printing house was located at the Eiermarkt in Antwerp, three more editions (in four versions) were printed.[4] The second edition (“Den II Druck”) was printed again by Van Ghelen in 1649. In 1655 his colleague Arnout I van Brakel (1606–75) reissued this print, in identical form—even Van Ghelen’s 1649 colophon is present—but with a modified title page. That is to say, the printer’s name was altered and the date of publication was changed to 1655. In 1664, Van Brakel, whose shop was located at the other end of the Antwerp cathedral at the Wijngaardbrug, produced the third edition in a new lay-out. In 1711, the text was reprinted once more by Joannes Paulus Robyns, again in Antwerp.
Solitude as the Road to Holiness and Spiritual Perfection
With his Solitude de Philagie De Barry wanted to provide a tool for people who strive to make progress towards spiritual perfection and serve God, both within monasteries and in the world. In order to help these lovers of holiness—hence the word Philagia, a combination of φίλη (philè) and ἅγία (hagia) in, in the title—go through the three stages of the contemplative process (the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways), the Jesuit wrote spiritual exercises that should be done in eight or ten days. During this period the readers should act as if they were living in a large desert and personify solitude to talk to only with God and their own soul. In this way, they can overcome their evil inclinations and arrive at great purity of conscience and peace of mind.
After a short introduction containing the intentions of the author, a long list of general notes to be read in preparation for the eight- or ten-day exercises follows. Before starting, one must, for example, complete or suspend all one’s work, provide oneself with appropriate literature (apart from Thomas a Kempis’s Imitatio Christi, De Barry recommends works by fellow Jesuits), and contemplate on past sins in preparation for confession. Once these eight pages of instructions are mastered, the devotee can start the eight or ten days of meditations, the maintaining (‘onderhoudinghe’) of inner attitudes and devotional acts (e.g. the intimacy of the heart, the preparation for the yearly confession and the examination of conscience in preparation), and investigations (of the virtues for example).
On the first day, one should contemplate the reason why one is created. The second day is dedicated to repentance for the sins of the previous life. On the third day, faint-heartedness and sluggishness in the service of God take center stage. Next, one must consider what happens to one at the end of life. On day five to seven one should imitate Christ in the three stages of his life: in his youth, during his apostolate, and during his passion and death. The last three days of the process revolve around love owed to God, the unity with God, and the love for the Holy Sacrament. Once that whole process has been completed and readers have worked their way through nearly seven hundred pages of text, they are prepared for the New Year.
The Dedication by Catharina van Aelst
De Barry dedicated his original French La Solitude de Philagie “au glorieux S. Joseph, le plus aimable et le plus ayme de tous les Saincts, apres Jesus, & Marie’ (“to the glorious St Joseph, the most lovable and most loving of all the Saints, after Jesus and Mary”). The German translation by Martinus Sibenius also dedicated the text to Joseph, “der Mutter GOTtes allerwürdigstem Bräutigam, und allerweisesten Regierer des Worts, das Fleisch worden ist” (“the Mother of GOD’s most worthy Bridegroom, and most wise Ruler of the Word that became flesh”). With a general dedication like this, the book was aimed at all readers, men and women alike. In the Dutch version, however, the original dedication was replaced by a text by Catharina van Aelst, the daughter of the translator. Her father had passed away at the time that she wrote the dedication, “op den Voor-avont van’t Jaer 1646” (“on the Eve of the Year 1646”; fol. a6v):
Desen soo kostelijcken Lust-hof, van mijnen goeden Vader saeligher tot alghemeyn gherief van ons Nederlandt uyt de Fransche sprake overgeset, ende met meer andere sijne Boecken aen my als erfenisse ter handt ghekomen zijnde, alsoo hy aen een eighelijck van ons even nutbaer ende dienelijck is. (fol. A5v)[5]
(This so precious Garden of Delight has been translated from French by my good late Father for the general benefit of our Netherlands, and has come to me as an inheritance, together with more of his other Books, so that it is as useful as it is serviceable to all of us).
In her signature to the dedication, Catharina added the letters G.D. to her name. They can also be found after her initials on the title page of the 1646 edition: “[De eensaemheydt van Philagia] Wordt aen alle Gheestelijcke Dochters voor een Gheluck-saeligh Nieuw Jaer ghegunt Door C.V.A.G.D.” (“[The eensaemheydt of Philagia] is presented in kindness to all Spiritual Daughters for a Happy New Year by C.V.A.G.D.”). The abbreviation means that Catharina identified herself as a “Geestelijke Dochter” (“Spiritual Daughter”) or filia devota. She was one of the many single, Catholic women in the early modern Low Countries—often called “kloppen” or “kwezels”—who chose a chaste life dedicated to God outside monasteries and in secular contexts, often under the spiritual guidance of and in obedience to secular priests or, as in this case, Jesuits.
Catharina dedicated her father’s translation of De Eensaemheydt of Philagia to “alle gheesteliicke dochters. Beminde mede-Susters” (“all spiritual daughters, Beloved fellow Sisters”; fol. a2r). She encourages them to follow the example of Solomon in the Song of Songs 4. 16, who took his bride to the garden of delight. This can be done, she states referring to the eensaemheydt of De Barry’s title, by seeking the pleasure garden of solitude. It is there “dat onsen aldersoetsten Bruydegom Jesus noch alle daghen onse Zielen trouwt” (“that our most sweet Groom Jesus marries our Souls every day”; fol. A2v), in order to pull them “uyt de slavernije des duyvels, te weten, uyt het wereldts leven” (“out of the slavery of the devil, namely, of worldly life”). Subsequently, she explains that the “aldermeest gheachten Lust-hof van onsen Hemelschen Bruydegom, inden welcken hy sijnen aldermeesten lust heeft” (“most esteemed Pleasure-ground of our Heavenly Bridegroom in which he takes the most pleasure”; fol. a3v) is the bonus hortus virginitatis (delightful garden of virginity). In order to see to what exalted holiness and spiritual perfection of the soul solitude could lead, Catharina encourages people to look especially at
de heylighe en Lofweerdighe Societeyt Jesu, de welcke inden selven Lust-hof uyt Godt ontfanghen ende voort-gebraght, met het selve sogh onderhouden ende op-ghevoedt zijnde, tot alsulcke overvloedighe Heyligheydt ende volmaecktheydt ghekomen is, dat sy de heele wijde wereldt, ende onder andere oock ons haere Gheestelijcke Kinderen soo rijckelijck, als wy tot ons groot voordeel ende gheluck daghelijcks bevinden, vande selve is mededeelende. (fol. A5r–v)
(the holy and Praiseworthy Society of Jesus, which, received and brought forth from God in the same Garden of Delight, being nurtured and educated with the same milk, has come to such abundant Holiness and perfection, that it lets the whole wide world and also, among others, us its Spiritual Children, share the same so richly, as we experience to our great benefit and happiness every day).
Catharina’s dedication, which encourages the mystical wedding and the virginal matrimony of the soul with Christ, is written as a New Year’s wish. The fact that it is composed by a spiritual daughter of the Jesuit order and addressed to other spiritual daughters shifts the intended audience of De Barry’s devotional treatise. Rather than at a general audience, the text is now aimed at female addressees, and more specifically, female religious addressees. But which readers did the text actually reach?
For the Love of Holiness: The Readers of De eensaemheydt van Philagia
Not all the extant copies I have seen contain ownership inscriptions.[6] A good number of the ones that do, however, indeed belonged to women. In many cases the ownership inscriptions point out that the books were owned by individuals, albeit all members of religious communities. One copy of the 1646 edition, for example, was owned by Marijken de Raedt, who was a zwartzuster (Alexian sister) in the community in Aalst in East Flanders, which had been founded there in 1475 in order to take care of the sick (especially the plague victims) and continued to exist until 2020, when the remaining sisters moved to a neighbouring residential care center (Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 13; see Figure 1). A second copy (Kontich: Museum voor Heem- en Oudheidkunde, no shelfmark) made its way to Maria Theresia Peeters, who was a “beggijntien op het vermaert beggijn hof tot Lier” (“beguine in the renowned beguinage of Lier”), located some twenty kilometers southeast of Antwerp. When Marijken and Maria Theresia lived is not clear.
When Sister Josephine Vanherberghen, who was a hospital sister in the Sint-Janshospitaal in the Brabantine city of Tienen (near Louvain), lived is not clear either. She owned a copy of the 1649 edition and left the mark of her ownership on the flyleaf of her book (Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 14 bis): “Gasthuis Thienen Suster Josephine Vanherberghen.” Another copy of the same, second edition, however, was owned in the nineteenth century by a grey sister (grauwzuster), likely of the Third Order of St Francis. On the flyleaf at the front she wrote that she owned the book during the time of Sister Ida: “Van zuster MariAnna Spillebijkx grouw zuster geproffest den 7 october 1834 als zuster Ida overste was ende die is gestorven den 13 Mert 1839” (“Of Sister MariAnna Spillebijkx grey sister professed on 7 Oct 1834 as sister Ida was superior, who died on 13 March 1839”; Museum Plantin-Moretus, A 3446). Unfortunately, the book does not mention in which community the women lived. Interestingly, at another (later?) point in time the book was owned by a man. In the lower margin of the title page, a certain Frederic Verachter wrote his name.
A copy of the 1655 edition (i.e. the second edition as it was published by Arnout I van Brakel) also switched hands, but this time from woman to woman (Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 15). Judging from the location of the ownership inscription on the flyleaf as well as the handwriting, which is considerably older than the other signature, the book was initially owned by Maria Barbara Melijn and later transferred to Maria Bal who owned it in 1796. Both women indicate that they kept the book with the permission of their superior (“met orlof van haer oversten”). This indicates of course that these women were also members of a religious community. Possibly they lived in the female Dominican convent of Antwerp. The State Archives in that city own a donation deed that states that after the death of Peter Melijn (a building contractor who supervised fortification works in and around Antwerp between 1660 and 1680) six hundred gulden should be transferred to the Dominican convent where his daughter Maria Barbara Melijn was professed in 1670.[7]
Figure 2: Title page of Paul de Barry, De eensaemheydt van Philagia, in the second edition issued by Arnout I van Brakel(Antwerpen, 1655). Copy owned by Maria Barbara Melijn and Maria Bal. University of Antwerp, Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 15. Reproduced with permission.
A second copy of the same 1655 edition also contains two ownership inscriptions (Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, F 88500, flyleaf at the front). Initially, the book was owned by someone who noted down two little verses: “Het is een vremdt gemoedt / Dat noch mint, noch minnen doet” (“It is a strange disposition / That neither loves nor enables to love”) and “En houdt voor geenen vriendt / Die verandert als den windt” (“And regard as no friend / Who alters like the wind”). In between likely the same person added an emblem with the initials A.M.V. and the date 1730. Subsequently Sister Coleta Bouckaert added her name under the verse lines. Again, she is difficult to identify. A beguine with this name passed away in the Groot Begijnhof in Ghent on 27 or 28 February 1832 at the age of sixty-two.[8] However, around the same date a Sister Coleta Bouckaert was prioress of the convent of St Trudo in Odegem near Bruges (canonesses regular of the order of St Augustine).[9] This makes it impossible at this stage to establish whether the book was located in Ghent or in Bruges in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The last edition that was published by Van Brakel in 1664 also found its way into women’s hands. The copy that is currently kept in the Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience in Antwerp (shelfmark F 126879) belonged, according to a note on the front flyleaf, to Sister Francoise Schrijnmaeckers in 1704. Whether she owned it earlier or later than Sister Tresa Boon, who left her ownership inscription at the back of the title page, is impossible to say. In any case Tresa was very concerned about her soul’s post-mortem well-being. She explicitly asked the readers of her inscription to pray for her after her death: “Tot behoef van suster Tresa Boon. Bidt voor mijn siel naer mijn doot op dat ick sondaers mach bevrijdt woorden van de eeuieghe doot” (“For the sake of Sister Tresa Boon. Pray for my soul after my death that I, sinner, may be freed from the eternal death”).
All the aforementioned copies of the Eensaemheydt of Philagia were owned by individual women who were members of religious communities. Two other books also circulated in women’s convents but were destined for common use. The 1655 edition that is nowadays at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp (A 2221) explicitly mentions on the front flyleaf that the book is meant “Voor het gemeyn van Blyenberch” (“for common use of Bleyenberg”), a community of Victorines in Mechelen. The Norbertine sisters in Antwerp kept their copy (of the first edition of 1646) according to a note on the title page in their church: “Ecclesia Norbertinarum Antw[erpiensis]” (Museum Plantin-Moretus, A 3443). The third book (1649 edition) did not belong to a female community, but rather to the professed house of the Jesuits in Antwerp: “Dom[us] Prof[essa] Soc[ietatis] Jesu Antverpiae” (Ruusbroecgenootschap, 3060 E 14, 1e ex).
The last three books with ownership inscriptions I have found thus far probably belonged to lay people. On the flyleaf at the front of a copy held by the Museum Plantin-Moretus (A 3437), we read that “Dezen boek hoert toe aan Jozephina Lammens” (“This book belongs to Jozephina Lammens”). As Jozephina did not add “Sr” to indicate a religious profession to her name, we may assume that she was a lay woman or perhaps a spiritual daughter like Catharina van Aelst. The book with shelfmark BIB.ACC.012562 in the Universiteitsbibliotheek in Ghent (a copy of the 1649 edition) seems to have belonged to a couple: a note on the cover page expresses the hope that “Jehan en Marie wordt den besten trost” (“to Jehan and Marie the best consolation will come”), presumably in the hereafter. The 1664 version that is now in the Universiteitsbibliotheek at Ghent (BIB.158T008) has an ownership inscription on the front flyleaf that shows it belonged to a man: “Hic liber pertenet ad me Carolum Tileman anno 1762” (“This book belongs to me, Carolus Tileman, anno 1762”). He can be tentatively identified as the student who was mentioned in the Album studiosorum of the University of Leiden in 1756 and was born in The Hague in 1736.[10] If this identification is correct, this specimen is an outlier in many respects. It is not only the sole book thus far that has only been owned by a man and a student, but it is also the only copy that made its way to the Protestant north of the Low Countries.
Although De Barry does not seem to have had a distinct readership in mind, the dedication that Catherine added to her father’s Dutch translation clearly steered the reception of De eensaemheydt of Philagia. The majority of the books that have been studied thus far found their way to women who lived their lives as the Brides of Christ Catharina envisaged. Interestingly, however, most of the women who owned a copy lived such a life within (enclosed) convents of various orders, and not as the filiae devotae Catharina and the publisher seem to have had in mind when they addressed the book to “alle Gheestelijcke Dochters” (“All Spiritual Daughters”). Whether or not it was intended to, the book evidently reached a wide female audience and thereby played an important role in spreading Jesuit spirituality and mysticism to women’s religious communities in the Southern Low Countries.
Further reading
Album studiosorum academiae Lugduno Batavae xdlxxv–mdccclxxv: accedunt nomina curatorum et professorum per eadem secula. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1875.
“Barry, Paul de.” In Carlos Sommervogel and others, Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus, 12 vols. Brussels: Schepens, 1890–1932. I (1890), cols 945–57.
“Barry, Paul de.” In Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. by Marcel Viller and others, 16 vols. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne et ses fils, 1937–94. I (1937), cols 1252–55.
De Vlieger-De Wilde, Koen, ed. Adresboek van zeventiende-eeuwse drukkers, uitgevers en boekverkopers in Vlaanderen / Directory of Seventeenth-Century Printers, Publishers and Booksellers in Flanders. Antwerp: Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen, 2004.
De Vroede, Maurits. “Kwezels” en “Zusters”: De geestelijke dochters in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 17de en 18de eeuw. Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, 1994.
Monteiro, Marit Edin. Geestelijke maagden: Leven tussen klooster en wereld in Noord-Nederland gedurende de zeventiende eeuw. Hilversum: Verloren, 1996.
Olthoff, Frans. De boekdrukkers, boekverkoopers en uitgevers in Antwerpen sedert de uitvinding der boekdrukkunst tot op onze dagen. Antwerp: J.-B. Buschmann, 1891.
“Sibenius, Martin.” In Carlos Sommervogel and others, Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus, 12 vols. Brussels: Schepens, 1890–1932. VII (1896), cols 1181–84.
Stracke, D.A. “Guilliam van Aelst en Guillaume van Aelst S.J.” De Gulden Passer 6 (1928), 239–49
Van Honacker, K. Het archief van de families de Lannoy, Melijn, de Heuvel en Meyers met inbegrip van het archief van de heren van Zwijndrecht. Antwerp: Het Rijksarchief in België, 2002. Identification number BE–A0511/Y1/010)
Verheggen, Evelyne M.F. Beelden voor passie en hartstocht: Bid- en devotieprenten in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 17de en 18de eeuw. Zutphen: Walburg, 2006.
[1] This blog was inspired by the module ‘Vrouwen en literatuur in de vroegmoderne tijd’ of the undergraduate course Neerlandistiek in de praktijk (University of Antwerp, academic year 2021–22). My gratitude goes to my students Robin Van Gestel and Mie Verschooten for their enthusiastic exploration of the copy of De Barry’s De eensaemheydt van Philagia in the Museum voor Heem- en Oudheidkunde in Kontich.
[3] It is not very clear who Guilliam van Aelst was, nor how many translations can be attributed to him. For an extensive discussion on both questions, see D.A. Stracke, “Guilliam van Aelst en Guillaume van Aelst S.J.,” in De Gulden Passer 6 (1928), 239–49.
[4] In the same year Paul De Barry’s text was also translated into German by Martinus Sibenius SJ (1604–68): Einöde Philagiae, Das ist Weiß unnd Manier, die Geistliche Exercitia einmal im Jahr, acht oder zehen Tag lang nützlich zu verrichten (Köln: Michael Dehmen [the Elder], 1646). This German translation was also reprinted eight times before 1738.
[5] The dedication of Van Aelst’s translation of De Sales’ De Liefde Godts (1651) is also written by Catharina van Aelst. This time the book is dedicated to Joanna van Lathem, abbess of the Cistercian abbey of Roosendael near Mechelen between 1639 and 1662, with whom she had a family connection. In the dedication, Catharina mentions “andere boecken” (“other books”) written by her “Vader saliger” (“late father”), as well as a female sibling and cousins, who seem to be nuns in the abbey of Roosendael.
[6] For this blog I consulted the Heritage Collections in Antwerp (Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, Museum Plantin-Moretus, and Ruusbroecgenootschap), the Museum voor Heem- en Oudheidkunde in Kontich, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Brussels, and the digital copies that are available on Google Books.
[7] “Schenkingsakte ten belope van 600 fl., na het overlijden van Peter Melijn te overhandigen aan het klooster van de dominicanessen, waar zijn dochter Maria Barbara Melijn was geprofest. 1670.” See K. Van Honacker, Het archief van de families de Lannoy, Melijn, de Heuvel en Meyers met inbegrip van het archief van de heren van Zwijndrecht (Antwerpen: Het Rijksarchief in België, 2002; identification number: BE–A0511/Y1/010).
[8] Announcement of the deceased by the civil registry in Ghent in Den vaderlander, 26, Thursday 1 March 1832, p. 4.
[9] U. Berlière and others, eds, Monasticon Belge, 8 vols(Maredsous: Abbaye de Maredsous, 1890–1993), vii (1977–89): Province de Flandre Orientale, 1028 and 1061–62.
[10]Album studiosorum academiae Lugduno Batavae xdlxxv–mdccclxxv: accedunt nomina curatorum et professorum per eadem secula (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1875), col. 1055.
Early Modern Female Book Ownership 