Housed in the Chapter Library is a very unusual volume, written entirely in Massachusetts Indian. This volume is a translation of The Practice of Piety by Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor, translated by John Eliot, “The Apostle to the Indians”.

John Eliot was born in Hertfordshire in 1604 but, compelled by his puritan beliefs, he left England for America, arriving in Boston on 3 November 1631, one of the earliest settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He brought with him 23 barrels of books and became pastor for the local congregation at Roxbury. The Pequotyo War of 1634–38 had highlighted the troubled relationship between the settlers and the natives, and coupled with the encouragement of officials in Boston for the conversion of the local Indians, Eliot began his missionary work in September 1646.

Initially preaching in English, he worked hard to learn the local language, eventually becoming proficient in the Massachusetts dialect of coastal Algonquian. He worked out the grammar of the language, enabling it to be written down for the first time. He then translated large numbers of Christian texts into the native language, and his ‘Indian Library’ of tracts and huge volumes in Massachusetts ultimately included twenty separate titles and thousands of copies, all printed in the colony between 1654 and 1688. One of the first books to be worked into the Algonquin language was the Bible. This mammoth task was eventually published in 1663, nearly 120 years before the first English language Bible was printed in America.

Manitowompae pomantamoonk: sampwshanau Christianoh utoh woh an pomantog wussikkitteahonat God was published in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1685. Bayly’s book, written in English in 1611, was a well-known, practical guide to Christian living. It was hugely influential on Puritan faith, reaching its 71st English edition in 1792. It seems that it was popular amongst the Massachusetts Indian population as well, with three editions of the work being published in the Indian language. There are very few surviving copies of this edition of Eliot’s translation of this work, making it one of the rarest books in the Chapter Library.

Eleanor Cracknell, Assistant Archivist

St George’s Chapel Archives holds three registers relating to books borrowed from the Chapter Library by the Dean and Canons of Windsor from 1720 to 1889 [SGC M.895].

The first volume was begun in 1720 and continued until 1760. It begins with a list of “Orders of the Chapter about the Library” which includes rules such as:

“That every one who shall borrow any Books out of the Library, do enter the name of the Book with his own name subscribed, in a Paper Book lying on the Green Desk together with the date of the year & day of the month in which the Book was borrowed.”

Despite the rules, details were entered somewhat haphazardly and untidily until 1727 when a clearer and neater tabulated system for borrowing was introduced. This may have been due to the appointment of a Minor Canon, Henry Boughton, as the first formal Canon Librarian. The system introduced during Boughton’s tenure concisely recorded the name of borrower, the shelf mark of the book and the dates on which it was borrowed and returned. This list shows that the library had several regular borrowers, including the Dean, William Derham, who was a published amateur scientist and is widely credited with being the first man to accurately measure the speed of sound.

Also included in these records was a note of volumes which had been sent away for binding, thereby ensuring that the list of “Bookes Suppos’d to be lost” had no further opportunity for expansion.

Kelda Roe (Archives Assistant)

The Sisters of the Scabards

The Sisters of the Scabards Holiday is the title of a short pamphlet which was published in 1641 [SGC RBK S.372]. It was one of several satirical pamphlets which circulated in the summer of 1641 after Dr William Roane was disgraced and exiled from Doctors’ Commons (a college of lawyers who practised civil law). The charges of corruption and extortion brought by the Long Parliament against Roane and his fellow civil lawyers, John Lambe, John Farmery, Edmund Peirce and Clement Corbett, destroyed not only their own reputations but also undermined the authority of Doctors’ Commons itself.

The title employs a catchphrase, ‘Sister of the Scabard’, taken from a popular contemporary comedic play about a lawless gang self-styled the ‘Brothers and Sisters of…The Blade and the Scabberd’. The term quickly became a euphemism for a prostitute.

The pamphlet features two brothel-keepers named after areas of London – Mrs Bloomsbury and Mrs Long-acre. They are portrayed as good-humoured characters who tease one another about the size of their bellies after drinking lots of “fat-feeding ale”. They complain about the treatment they have received at the hands of the ‘Gentlemen Clarkes’. Mrs Long-acre describes how these men would get drunk, throw the brothel’s residents out on the street, leave without paying and then summon her  “to appeare in Pauls the next Court day, to answere for keeping a common bawdy-house”.  Forced to pay the officer of the court and the ‘Gentlemen Clarkes’ a hefty fine, she suggests that these actions were merely a money-making scam for the Doctors’ Commons lawyers in the long vacation.

The women conclude their conversation by planning to build a “Hospitall for all of our societie that are old and not able to keepe up trade” with the money they have saved now that they are no longer paying fines to corrupt lawyers.

Kelda Roe (Archives Assistant)

This Autumn saw the welcome return of the Adopt a Book Open Days, an occasion to thank those people who have generously supported the scheme to help conserve the Chapter Library, and an opportunity for them to see “their” book.

The visit began with a chance to see where the books had been kept from the 17th century until 1999, with an introductory talk in the Vicars’ Hall. It then moved to their new accommodation in the Undercroft, where adopters’ books were on display for them to see, read and ask questions about. Included in the visit was time to see the exhibition of some of the highlights in the archive collections, and a display of other rare books from the Chapter Library. For those who wished to join us, lunch was served in the Dungeon.

The 2 days were a huge success, and we would like to extend our thanks again to our wonderful adopters, without whom we would not be able to ensure the future survival of the splendid collection of rare books in our care.

Eleanor (Assistant Archivist)

Robert Knox, an English sailor and trader, worked for the British East India Company in the 17th century. Sailing to Persia in 1658, a heavy storm forced his ship to land at Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) where he and some of his men were seized by the locals. It would not be until Knox’s daring escape, some nineteen years later, that he was able to return to England. Whilst detained, Knox surveyed the nature and customs of his captors as well as the flora and fauna of the island and, on his return, recorded his observations and experiences. The account was published in 1681 to a rapturous response leading to French, German and Dutch translations being produced. Housed in the Chapter Library, Robert Knox’s An historical relation of the Island of Ceylon (SGC RBK K.57) remains the earliest detailed account of the natural history and customs of the Sri Lankans written in English.

Illustration from An historical relation of the Island of Ceylon

One illustration, entitled ‘An Execution by an Elephant’, particularly catches the eye, showing an elephant tearing a man (literally) limb from limb. An arm lays strewn in the foreground while a bound man, presumably the next victim, looks on his fate in sheer terror.

In his work, Knox refers to the intelligence and strength of the creatures as well as their remarkable obedience towards their keepers and devotion to their young. The main employment for the captured animal was the public executing of criminals as a warning to other potential offenders.

The severity of the crime determined which mode of despatch was selected. The mood of the presiding King also appears to have been a factor since a certain sense of sadistic pleasure can be detected in the accounts. The victim could be killed instantly, with the elephant stepping on the individual’s head, or the agony of the person could be prolonged since the elephant was trained to crush or wrench limbs from the body.

 Alternatively, blades could be attached to the teeth of the beast: ‘they will run their teeth through the body, and then taer [sic] it in pieces, and throw it limb from limb. They have sharp iron with a socket with three edges, which they put on their teeth at such times.’

Execution by elephant was a common mode of capital punishment in South and South-East Asia for thousands of years and it was not until the 17th and 18th Century that the practice began to die out with the expansion of the European empires.

Liz Moody (Archives volunteer)

Frontispiece from the book on farming & agriculture by J. Worlidge

John Worlidge’s ‘Systema Agriculturae’ is a seventeenth century guide advising ‘the Gentry and Yeomanry of England’ on all aspects of agriculture and farming.

The work was first published in 1669 and was tremendously successful – within fifty years five editions had appeared. It collated existing knowledge and practices into a single accessible volume and contributed greatly to Worlidge’s reputation as an early exponent of British agriculture as an industry to be developed and modernised.

The frontispiece of this volume offers a quirky introduction to the work as a whole with a printed image of an idealised farm providing a background for the title. The image is accompanied by a poem which calls on the reader to:

‘First cast your Eye upon a Rustick Seat,
Built strong and plain, yet well contriv’d and neat’

The poem then guides the reader around the image whilst summarising all that Worlidge considers important on a well-run English farm.

Worlidge offers his readers sound common sense and information on the latest technological developments; encouraging farmers to improve and modernise their lands. Despite this, Worlidge does not dismiss traditional country customs; a large section of Systema agriculturae is dedicated to ‘Prognosticks’ such as:

‘If the hair of dogs smell stronger than usual, or their guts rumble and make a noise, it presageth, Rain or Snow’ (p303).

 This advice may appear antiquated and superstitious; but in an age before accurate, scientific weather reporting was widely available, signs and portents were an important aspect of agricultural life.

Worlidge’s wide ranging book covers the planting and care of various species of fruit tree; the care of livestock; technological developments in farm machinery; animal husbandry; even the relative merits of different animal manures as fertilizer. Thus, the frontispiece poem concludes:

‘Peruse the Book, for here you only see
The following Subject in Epitome.’

Kelda (Archives Assistant)

Map of the World, 1555

Novus Orbis Regionum is a book attributed to Simon Grynaeus (1491-1553). The book contains a map, “Typus Cosmographicus Universalis”, which shows the understanding of the world within that era. The map illustrates the misunderstanding of scientists and geologists at that time, as it shows an oval shaped earth with disfigured continents. As you can see in the image above, North America as we know it is not present. In its place is a thin land-mass labelled as Cuba. The map is framed by images of “outlandish” animals, people and customs from throughout the known world. In the bottom left hand corner is an illustration of “Canibali”, the cannibals believed to live in [South] America. The outstanding quality of the woodcut map has led many to believe it is the work of Hans Holbein the Younger, who was linked with a number of publishers in Basel, Switzerland, where this book was published.

A copy of the 1555 edition of the book can found be in St George’s Chapel Archives and Chapter Library (SGC G261).

Matthew Alexander, Matthew Bush (Windsor Boys’ School)

Mundus Subterraneus by A. Kircher

Since it was set up in 1997, the Adopt a Book scheme has raised money to preserve and conserve the wonderful collection of rare books in the Chapter Library. One volume recently conserved is Mundus Subterraneus by Athanasius Kircher, published in 1665.

Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published in many fields, including oriental studies, geology and medicine. This volume publishes his geological and geographical investigations into natural phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes and fossils. His was a hands-on approach, on one occasion being lowered into the crater of Vesuvius shortly before it erupted. His thoughts were very advanced for the day, believing that the Earth’s interior was a giant, fiery inferno that heated water which had seeped from the ocean, causing the hot springs he witnessed. Volcanoes, he believed, were started when the fire came close to the Earth’s surface.

Dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, the volume is lavishly illustrated with engravings showing all aspects of the underground world. This engraving shows Etna at the point of eruption, an event which the author witnessed first hand.

Eleanor (Assistant Archivist)