Hereford Cathedral Library is a working
theological lending and reference library located in
Hereford Cathedral
Hereford Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford in Hereford, England.
A place of worship has existed on the site of the present building since the 8th century or earlier. The present building was begun in 1079. S ...
,
Hereford
Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...
, England; it also holds books and manuscripts of major importance to the history of the
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
of
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
. Hereford Cathedral Library is also well known for its chained books as it is the only library of this type to survive with all of the chains, rods and locks still intact.
History
16th and 17th centuries
During the reign of
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, in 1582, a commission investigating the cathedral found that the collection, gathered since the 12th century, was poorly organised and poorly kept.
In 1590 the whole library was moved to the Lady Chapel, and in 1611 the Chained Library (with books in manuscript chained to their places) was established by
Thomas Thornton. Thornton, who was canon of Hereford from 1583 onwards and vice-chancellor of
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in 1583 and 1599, was the first to chain books in the library.
William Brewster bequeathed the collection to
St John's College, Oxford
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...
.
Many books were added in the 17th century and in 1678 the collection from the Jesuit College at
Cwm, Llanrothal
Cwm (also known as Come and Welsh Jesuit College of St Francis Xavier) was a Jesuit gathering place, Ecclesiastical province and college in Llanrothal, Herefordshire, England. It became a Jesuit college in 1622. Based in a large farmhouse, the ...
, Wales, joined the library when the college was shut down following the invasion by
John Arnold of Monmouthshire
John Arnold, widely known as John Arnold of Monmouthshire ( – 1702), was a Welsh Protestant politician and Whig MP. He was one of the most prominent people in Monmouthshire in the late 17th century. A stark anti-Catholic, he was a notable f ...
.
19th and 20th centuries
In the 1840s, the cathedral underwent considerable restoration work and the books and shelves had to be removed from the Lady Chapel.
It was split between the North Transept and the Victorian Dean Leigh Library.
In 1854,
Francis Tebbs Havergal
Francis Tebbs Havergal (1829–1890), author and editor.
The youngest son of William Henry Havergal was born 27 Aug. 1829. He was a bible-clerk of New College, Oxford (B.A. 1852, M.A. 1857); he became vicar-choral in Hereford Cathedral, 1853–1 ...
was appointed deputy librarian and he greatly improved the library and paid attention to details such as the room temperature and cleanliness.
B. F. Streeter was responsible for a major change in the organisation of the library as were librarians such as Langton E. Brown and Maude Bull from 1897 onwards;
Bull worked in the library for over fifty years until her death in 1951.
For years, the notable scholar, Canon
William Wolfe Capes
William Wolfe Capes (1834–1914) was a notable Hereford scholar.
Life
Capes attended St Paul's School, London, and the Queen's College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1851, graduating B.A. in 1856, and becoming a Fellow there. Ordained in 1868, ...
(1834–1914), sorted records within the library; he printed a volume containing early records, presenting it to the members of the
Cantilupe Society
Cantaloupe is a fruit.
Cantaloupe and its variant spellings may also refer to: Companies
* Cantaloupe, Inc.
In fiction
* the Marquis Canteloupe, fictional nobleman and politician in the ''Alms for Oblivion'' novels of Simon Raven
Music
* " Cant ...
.
Also important in the library's history were Frederick Charles Morgan (died 1978, aged 100) and his daughter Penelope (1976–90).
F. C. Morgan supervised the cataloguing project of 1927 onwards, following a donation by the Dean Leigh Fund.
His nephew Paul was succeeded as honorary librarian by Penelope Morgan who remained in the post until 1989.
During the Second World War, the ''
Mappa Mundi
A ''mappa mundi'' (Latin ; plural = ''mappae mundi''; french: mappemonde; enm, mappemond) is any medieval European map of the world. Such maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps or less across to elaborate wall maps, the ...
'' (the largest medieval map known to still exist) and other valuable manuscripts from the medieval period were kept elsewhere in safety and returned to the collection in 1946.
Mappa Mundi Library
In 1988 the Dean and Chapter proposed the sale of the Mappa Mundi and aroused considerable national opposition.
Following the setting up of a dedicated trust, a donation from Sir
Paul Getty
Jean Paul Getty Sr. (; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family. A native of Minneapolis, he was the son of pio ...
, and an endowment from the
National Heritage Memorial Fund
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...
, the Mappa and chained library were transferred to the Mappa Mundi Charitable Trust and a new building designed by Sir
William Whitfield was opened on 3 May 1996 by the Queen to house the historic collections and the historic chained library, which is open to the public.
Both chained library and historic collections in store are now held in temperature-controlled, fire-resistant rooms and the ''Mappa'' and historic collection are much easier to access than they were in the cathedral. However, the chained library is still chained to the bookshelves.
Collection
![Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods Figure 4](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Libraries_in_the_Medieval_and_Renaissance_Periods_Figure_4.jpg)
Most of the books in the collection date to about 1100. The oldest volume in the library, the
Hereford Gospels
The Hereford Gospels (Hereford, Hereford Cathedral Library, MS P. I. 2) is an 8th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in insular script (minuscule), with large illuminated initials in the Insular style. This is a very late Anglo-Saxon go ...
in
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
characters, dates to around the year 780 and was the only book to survive the 1055 fire.
Many of the books and manuscripts were collected from Herefordshire, with many of those from the 14th century onwards related to county law.
For several centuries books were stored in cupboards or wooden chests until the first library room was established, in the south-west cloister of the cathedral, in the 15th century.
The library contains mainly old books in
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
chained to their places, some of them fine specimens of ancient handwriting, containing beautiful illustrations in gold and colour. The library has an ancient and well-preserved Hereford
antiphonary
An antiphonary or antiphonal is one of the liturgical books intended for use (i.e. in the liturgical choir), and originally characterized, as its name implies, by the assignment to it principally of the antiphons used in various parts of the ...
of the 13th century. Another treasure is an ancient reliquary of oak, bequeathed to the cathedral by Canon Russell, said to have been obtained it from a Roman Catholic family in whose possession it had long been. It is covered with copper plates overlaid with
Limoges enamel
Limoges enamel has been produced at Limoges, in south-western France, over several centuries up to the present. There are two periods when it was of European importance. From the 12th century to 1370 there was a large industry producing metal o ...
representing the murder and entombment of
St. Thomas of Canterbury. The library is in possession of some 229 manuscripts, mainly theological, dated from the 8th to the 16th centuries.
Aside from the Hereford Gospels, is the
Wycliffite Bible and the 13th century
Hereford Breviary – the only surviving copy.
The Chained Library has about 1500 older books in its collection, dating mainly from the late 15th to the early 19th centuries, although it has some 56 books published before 1500.
The bulk of the collection is of books on theology, biblical and church studies and law. Aside from the 150 volumes, dated to the 16th and 17th centuries, from the Jesuit Library at Llanrothal, it received, in 1925, 242 volumes on theology from Paul Foley of
Stoke Edith House
Stoke Edith House is a derelict country house with surrounding park in Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, England. The present 17th century quadrangular mansion was preceded by a multi-gabled, Elizabethan home. Set within gardens, it was destroyed by fir ...
and, in 1978, 260 volumes printed between 1494–1782 from the Library of Lady Hawkins School at
Kington.
The library has also received many other small donations over the years, revealing an important insight into the history of the county and ecclesiastical practices within it. The collection also contains
music manuscript
Music manuscripts are handwritten sources of music. Generally speaking, they can be written on paper or parchment. If the manuscript contains the composer's handwriting it is called an autograph. Music manuscripts can contain musical notation a ...
s used in Hereford Cathedral between the late 17th and 19th centuries and some 9,000 items printed after 1850, as well as a local history section.
Bibliography
;Notes
;References
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- Total pages: 672
Further reading
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External links
The ancient library where the books are under lock and key BBC News.
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Hereford
Cathedral libraries
Libraries in Herefordshire
History of Herefordshire
1611 establishments in England
Libraries established in 1611