Digital Thinking 2025

Digital Thinking:

or Thinking as Handwork

Dean Cooke Rare Books Ltd

Digital Thinking: or Thinking as Handwork

In manuscript studies, material features such as binding, spatial arrangement, signs of use and wear are often treated as sources of contextual, historical or bibliographical insight. This project broadens the frame, asking: how do these extra-textual features relate to thinking? Can the physical form of a manuscript extend, influence, or shape cognition; and if it can, are these features manifested in the artefact? Our Elizabethan legal pocketbook (item 7) shows this clearly: its structure funnels from political philosophy to courtroom scripts, moving thought from abstraction into procedural detail. The careful sequencing and pocket format meant that the law was not only recorded, but cognitively rehearsed in the very act of consulting it. To understand how material form may reflect or constitute thinking, we must begin with the assumption that physical features matter and matter differently than the text alone. As such, these physical features are not merely artefactual details; they are cognitive cues to how manuscripts can be handled as tools for thought.

Writing takes the particular form it does because of the dextrous combination of fingers with opposable thumbs, enabling some uniquely human cognitive capacities. Because the mind and hand co-evolved, thought itself is, in many ways, a handwork. Digital Thinking explores how the material and structural features of books and manuscripts beyond their textual content can reflect or even constitute the cognitive processes of their users. Our catalogue brings together examples across this spectrum: some manuscripts serve primarily as records or mirrors of mental work (reflective), while others appear to actively participate in thought itself (formative). By comparing these interactions, this catalogue investigates not just what people thought, but how their thoughts and other mental contents were realised through fingers, thumbs, hands, and expanded through tools and other physical extensions of the body.

Digital Thinking begins with the premise that physical manuscripts (artefacts written or made by hand) contain forms of meaning that digital copies (a series of digits 1 and 0) frequently flatten or obscure. A digital record typically gives no indication or obscures size, weight, texture, or tactile interaction all features that shape how a book or manuscript was used, valued, or navigated. A pocket-sized book, for example, implies portability and habitual consultation, while a large-format volume may indicate reference, ceremony, or display. The Harbin Pocketbook (item 4) exemplifies this: its compact wallet form made it an intimate companion, where fleeting conversations and anecdotes were caught on the fly; its portability shaped the kinds of thought it preserved.

To guide our analysis, we make the following distinction:

Reflective manuscripts, in which extra-textual features layout, structure, annotations, etc reflect cognitive processes. The estate maps, inventories, and aphorisms in the Warly Archive (item 15), for instance, trace Lee Warly’s sensibility of order, filial duty, and prudence, without transforming his reasoning. The three volumes relating to Lady Pakington (item 9) - a printed book, a manuscript miscellany, and a handmade pamphlet –reflect how individuals and groups express their thoughts in public, social, and private spheres, and captures these contrasting expressions in tangible forms. These manuscripts are valuable because they show us how a person thought, learned, or remembered, but may not themselves influence or structure that thinking.

Formative manuscripts, in which extra-textual features compose, scaffold, or transform thought. John Harris’s augmented Practical Husbandry (item 14) is exemplary: writing, pasting, and tabulating, transforms a standard printed text into an active farming companion. John Woods’s System of Arithmetic and the Mathematics (item 1) compiles fragments of printed texts, hand-drawn diagrams, fold-outs, and hand-coloured borders are re-ordered into a personal pedagogical tool. Its recursive, non-linear structure embodies cognition in action. Anne Chester’s Household Receipt Book (item 2) shows how indexing, attributions, and marginal annotations extended memory and scaffolded household reasoning across decades. The structure or visual form of these manuscripts actively enables reasoning, synthesis, or planning.

These categories are not mutually exclusive. A manuscript that constitutes thought will also reflect it, but not all reflective features are formative. Moreover, many manuscripts hover between the two. Household manuscripts, in particular, exemplify this space. The multiple hands, pinned-in slips, and repeated recipes of the late 18th-century Culinary Manuscript (item 10) records communal practice while also structuring the rhythms of domestic life with iterative experimentation; and Catherine Reay’s Household Folio (item 8) knits together recipes, remedies, and attributions, mapping a network of schoolteachers, physicians, and mayors. This reflects social knowledge but, in its careful titling and “experienced” endorsements, also enacts authority and judgment.

Of course, not all manuscripts are reflective in their extra-textual features; what interests us is the threshold at which form becomes function when structure ceases to be illustrative and starts to be instrumental. David Dunlop’s heavily annotated copy of Jakob Boehme’s Works (item 5) illustrates this liminal space. While the printed volumes reflect Boehme’s visionary theology, Dunlop’s dense mystical marginalia go further, documenting the creation of a “new man”, the persona “Davie Delope”, through the act of annotation itself. Here, reading and writing constitute the creation of a spiritual identity.

We approach this framework with caution. Not every visually engaging or structurally complex manuscript is necessarily formative or strongly reflective, and we are mindful of the risk of over-interpretation. Material features can tempt us toward imaginative readings, and it is important to resist fetishising manuscripts or attributing transformative cognitive effects where none exist. Instead, we focus on instances where the extra-textual features of a manuscript show signs of use to support, organise, or extend cognitive work.

We are conscious of Korzybski’s assertion that “A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness”.† But a map can reflect the thought processes of the cartographer and potentially influence how they came to understand the territory they were exploring. Manuscripts, in this light, may offer similar cognitive understandings.

This framework encourages close, comparative attention to the physicality of thinking evident in artefacts. By broadening our attention from what manuscripts say (textually) to how they think (manifest meaning), Digital Thinking offers a perspective on the embodied nature of thoughts and actions. The manuscripts we present spanning household recipes, estate maps and accounts, mystical treatises, legal pocketbooks, and more demonstrate the range of ways in which hands, tools, and materials do not merely preserve cognition, but often participate in it.

† Korzybski, Alfred. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. (1933). A similar idea is comically explored in Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. (1889).

1. CUTTING EDGE

¶ Cutting, copying, writing, and juxtaposing are not merely mechanical acts they are, in effect, material forms of thinking. As such, these acts challenge and complicate conventional ideas of authorship, demonstrating how making can itself be a mode of cognition. Few artefacts capture the material texture of comprehension as vividly as A System of Arithmetic and the Mathematics, compiled by John Woods in the 1780s. More than simply a collection of mathematical texts or a record of knowledge, this volume functions as an instrument of thought: layered, recursive, and intensely physical. Part handbook, part study aid, part intellectual workshop, the manuscript exemplifies what one whose physical form and organisation do not just reflect cognition, but actively

¶ [WOODS, John]. Composite Volume of Manuscript and Printed Elements, entitled [to front board] A’ System of Arithmetic and the Mathematics’. [?Swanmore, Hampshire, England. Compiled, circa 1788]. Octavo (185 x 115 x 45mm).Contemporary vellum.

The handmade clasps barely contain this manuscript’s treasures; the volume is stuffed almost to bursting with inserted fragments, intercut sequences, hand-drawn diagrams, coloured borders, and folded plates. Its structure, at first glance chaotic, reveals itself to be deliberate and crafted, looping through mathematical topics with a rhythm that hints at the author’s own cognitive process. As an object it demands physical engagement, reflecting its maker’s blurring of the line between compiler and author.

CONTENTS AND COMPOSITION

Woods’s volume is a hybrid artefact, combining printed material, transcribed excerpts, hand-drawn diagrams, and manuscript calculations. The result is a dense pedagogical or, more likely, autodidactic tool that bridges formal education, maritime training, and scientific inquiry. Its contents focus on mathematical fields essential to 18thcentury navigational and technical practice arithmetic, trigonometry, astronomy, geometry, surveying, and gauging yet its structure departs radically from any standard textbook format. The contents are drawn from a wide variety of sources ranging from the end of the 17th century through to the middle of the 18th century and are organised in an idiosyncratic manner that makes a survey challenging; we nevertheless present an overview below.

JohnHill’sArithmetick

Woods draws extensively from John Hill’s Arithmetick both in the Theory and Practice (1716 and later editions), incorporating multiple, non-contiguous fragments of it that span foundational and advanced arithmetic. Early in the manuscript, he includes Hill’s introductory definitions (covering fractions, decimals, and prime numbers) alongside unit conversion tables for money, weight, and measure. These appear on several gathered pages (e.g. pp. [1]–8 and 9–16), where Woods weaves in some unidentified material on simple geometry, before resuming Hill’s text. Further excerpts from Hill reappear in several subsequent clusters, including, in order of appearance, pages on arithmetic and geometric progressions (pp. 121–150), use of square and cube roots (pp. 235-238), logarithmic arithmetic (pp. 313-328), extracting square and cube roots (pp. 213-234), and manipulating vulgar fractions (pp. 109 -120). This final section is interspersed with two separate insertions of manuscript pages on the same subject, and many of the printed text pages have been carefully bordered in manuscript.

This breaking apart of Hill’s original order indicates that Woods intended not to reproduce the book but to repurpose it. His restructuring interrupting, skipping, and returning produces a rhythm of its own, in which sections loop back to reinforce and strengthen key concepts while setting them in dialogue with other sources and examples. The effect is one of active recomposition, shaping Hill’s content into something newly synthetic and personally meaningful.

Wood has created a large and detailed section on dialling which features some 45 pages of coloured diagrams, fold-outs, geometric constructions, calculations and worked examples. We have been unable to identify the original sources for this section. This is probably because Wood has, as elsewhere, adapted the material to suit his own needs. The evident investment of time and care lavished on these highly visual pages is remarkable, and the inclusion of interleaved blank pages suggests ongoing engagement.

HenryWilson’sNavigation New Modelled

Wilson’s work forms one of the structural backbones of the volume, albeit with its vertebra broken apart, resequenced and repurposed. Across the manuscript, Wilson’s text appears in multiple sections which Woods has extracted from various editions, covering both fundamental and advanced navigational techniques. Early fragments focus on astronomical projection and spherical trigonometry (pp. 219–definitions of astronomical terms and alternative methods (pp.121–136 and Plate 9, unidentified). Woods then sets down his own handwritten summaries of equivalent problems such as finding the sun’s right ascension or altitude offering multiple solutions that use different mathematical techniques (logarithms, Gunter’s scale, plain trigonometry).

Subsequent excerpts return to more basic material, including geometrical constructions, planar trigonometry and simple sailing problems (pp. 4–14, unidentified), trigonometric methods (pp. 139–144, unidentified), and logarithmic navigation (pp. 35–62, unidentified), before including astronomical tables and problems (pp. 35 tables and compass translations (pp. 121 some cases, Woods annotates, colours, or completes these

fragments; in others, he inserts manuscript examples directly within the printed flow. Wilson’s original chapter order gives way to an organisational logic unique to Woods: one that begins with advanced material, circles back to basics, then finishes with practical computational tools. It suggests an iterative, comparative learning process less concerned with the linear development prescribed by a textbook than with following its maker’s individual concerns and journey of

Manuscriptworkedproblems

Wood includes approximately nine pages of manuscript workings which include subjects like “To find the Sun’s Altitude when due E & W” and “To find the Right Ascension”. Text remains unidentified, but it bears similarities to Henry Wilson’s Trigonometry Improv’d (six editions between 1720 and 1769), so is perhaps condensed from that work. These problems are solved using multiple techniques logarithmic calculation, Gunter’s scale, planar trigonometry often on the same page. This comparative approach indicates a pedagogical interest in method as well as outcome, reinforcing the manuscript’s function as a kind of cognitive workshop.

Printedandmanuscriptmaterialon astronomyandcalendarsystems

This section, some of which has been bordered in manuscript, includes fragments from Benjamin Martin’s The Marrow of A Companion to the Almanack (1765), and Mariner’s New Kalendar, juxtaposed with manuscript practical applications, and 12 pages from Perkins 1696. The Second Part of this Almanack. Astrological signs in

manuscript to upper margin. Towards the end of the volume, he has added pasted-in sections of a calendar from an almanac. The printed clippings have been neatly mounted and then bordered, annotated, and titled in manuscript “Old Stile”. One especially notable inclusion is a printed sheet entitled Directions for Using the Portable Card-Dial. This is unrecorded in ESTC. It was printed at Bath, by Thomas Boddely, in King’s-MeadStreet, but with no date given. ESTC records 14 publications by Thomas Boddely between 1741 and 1756; two of these record his address at King’s Mead (one also narrows his location to the Pope’s Head). In 1756, ‘Boddely’s Bath Journal’ is taken over by “John Keene, brother-in-law of Mr.

Thomas Boddely deceased”, so we can confidently date our otherwise unrecorded printed sheet to before 1756.

STRUCTURE AND USE

What was the purpose of Woods’ considerable labour in creating this manuscript? What appears at first glance to be a technical compilation (maritime calculation, surveying, astronomy, mathematical instruction) takes a form and particularly a structure that invites a deeper reading. The more we explore, the more it reveals itself as a novel creative act and a reification of process one that tells us as much about how knowledge was worked through as what that knowledge was.

Woods was likely not a professional compiler or institutional teacher, but an autodidact. Foundational topics (e.g. numeration, unit conversions, and planar geometry) appear multiple times, often after more complex material has already been introduced. For example, Woods presents spherical trigonometry problems from Wilson’s Navigation New Modelled well before including sections on basic geometric constructions, or even more simple forms of trigonometry, from the same work. Similarly, material on dialling a mathematically and visually rich topic is presented midway through, before circling back to more elementary topics.

This recursive structure challenges any assumption of a straightforward instructional logic. Instead, it suggests that Woods was curating and sequencing material in ways that reflected his own style of learning and comprehension: a style that involved assembling, adapting, and experimenting with the material tools of technical thought.

Despite being such a sui generis artefact, its author’s identity remains something of a mystery. An inscription near the end of the volume “John Woods Swanmore, 1780”, plausibly connects him to Swanmore in Hampshire, and raises the distinct possibility of a maritime connection. The village of Swanmore is located just 25 miles from Portsmouth Harbour. Indeed, it was in May 1787 that the First Fleet of ships left Portsmouth Harbour bound for Australia, taking the first British settlers there. They would arrive in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Was Woods a local officer, tutor, or mariner; a student of navigation, a teacher or an autodidact with a keen interest in the world around him?

BETWEEN AUCTOR AND ARTIFEX

What makes this manuscript especially compelling is the way it blurs the distinction between auctor (originator) and artifex (maker). Woods copied, extracted, and pasted from a wide range of printed sources, including those mentioned above. But the arrangement, visual design, and material interventions are unmistakably and substantively his. In several cases, he interrupts a continuous printed section to insert manuscript content, often on a distinct but contextually relevant topic. Elsewhere, he reorganises chapters, adds marginal notes, and selectively copies out specific examples and problems.

The manuscript thus becomes a site of authorship through making. Woods is not a neutral transcriber he is shaping meaning through juxtaposition, sequence, emphasis, and visual embellishment. His additions often appear cognitively strategic: borders are perhaps intended to highlight key pages; colour draws attention to diagrams; marginalia hint at critical understanding. And yet, in other places, the manuscript is oddly whimsical containing, for instance, a pasted-in printer’s vignette or fragments of illustration that serve no instructional function. These playful insertions complicate the manuscript’s purpose: they resist categorisation as either purely practical or purely aesthetic. The result is a document in which knowledge is made not only through calculation and comparison, but also through an embodied, and sometimes slightly eccentric, process of physical composition.

Such details resist utilitarian explanations. They feel like moments of engagement for their own sake traces of enjoyment, visual thinking, or perhaps simply satisfaction in the act of compilation itself. Nonetheless they invite questions as to the nature of authorship, the purpose of this manuscript and the process of creation itself.

PAPER TRAILS

Adding a further layer of material history to the volume is the presence of a number of other inscriptions, probably by former owners of Woods’ copies of printed source texts (including Woods himself). The earliest is probably that of “Robt Darkn” (the end has been cropped) which appears on the fold-in to the front board. This suggests Woods has used an old vellum document to create the binding, and that the original text has been carefully washed away, save for the ownership inscription to the inner board. Woods has then neatly inscribed its new identity (“A System of Arithmetic and the Mathematics”) across the front board.

Whether Woods had been amassing texts for some time before embarking on his planned work is moot. His earliest inscription is the abovementioned “John Woods Swanmore, 1780”, which he has written on the title page to A Companion to the Almanack, for the Year 1765. He has, then, certainly been grappling with the subject since at least the beginning of the decade. His ownership inscription to front paste-down reads “Jn Woods August 10th 1788”, but we do not know whether he commenced or completed (or something in between) the book at that time. In any case, just a year later it was in the hands of a new owner, when it became “John Morells Jr Augst 5th 1789”.

Woods has inscribed two other texts: the title page of The General Magazine (“John Woods 1788”) and p.121 from Henry Wilson’s Navigation New Modelled. On the facing page to this inscription, there is a brief annotation to a single page from The Gauger’s Practice (“Came out of Winton Jany 30th / Came out of Bristol Feby 6th” and two further locations), which is signed “W. Dormton”. Other users of sections of the volume presumably before Woods repurposed them are “Oliver Ambrose His Book” whose inscription appears on the first text leaf of the volume, and “John Sluorr”? to the back of ‘An Accurate Map of the World’ – a folding plate from 1759 The General Magazine. Given their peripheral positioning, these inscriptions are probably by previous owners of harvested texts rather than owners or readers of the ‘finished’ work.

CONCLUSION

Those earlier inscribers add to the multitude of scribes, authors, readers, compilers, makers, and other users who have all converged wittingly or otherwise in the creation of this unusual hybrid object: manuscript and printed, instructional and reflexive, authoritative and exploratory. A paradigm example of a formative manuscript, John Woods’s “System of Arithmetic and the Mathematics” is fragmentary, interleaved, non-linear, but neither chaotic nor careless: it has been shaped by use and reflection, and by recombining and reshaping its source materials to become a form of knowledge-making in its own right. And it is Woods’ idiosyncratic agency which has brought these strands together.

In its interruptions, insertions, and re-orderings, the volume models a kind of embodied cognition that moves through the fingers, eyes, and pages. It invites us to rethink what it means to learn, to author, and to make. It is a record not just of what John Woods knew, but how he came to know it. It also reminds us that books, manuscripts, and hybrids are not passive receptacles, but instruments of thought – and that learning is both a shared experience and a deeply personal matter.

£6,000 Ref: 8354

2. MY OWN PORTIONS

¶ Authority, authorship, and agency overlap, interlink and jostle, side by side and layer upon layer in this multifaceted manuscript. What probably began as something like a dowry manuscript a depository of practical and prestigious knowledge capital that a young woman could carry with her into marriage has, through circulation, curation, experimentation, and organisation, been transformed into a living document, responsive to new experience, new responsibilities and ongoing household needs.

Its compiler, Anne Chester, underwent her own transformation. Having started this volume aged around sixteen, she married and in due course became the head of a complex household. This is borne out by the record of her husband’s will (National Archive PROB-11-518-338), which leaves her the house, its contents, and its surrounding lands. Other property is left to various family members mostly their eldest son and Anne’s share perhaps represented her dower: that is, her right to a third of the total wealth during her lifetime. The will’s terms appear to go beyond the minimum, underscoring her authority by also making her joint executor. The manuscript thus both aids and records Anne Chester’s development from adolescence to marriage, to motherhood and matriarchy, and thence to widowhood, inheritance and management of a large estate.

¶ [CHESTER, Anne (later FOUNTAYNE) (1661-1743)]. English 17th Century Manuscript Household Receipt Book. [Barkway, Hertfordshire, and Melton Manor, Suffolk.Circa 1677-1740].

Quarto (236 x 175 x 40 mm). Text arranged tete-beche: [1 inscription], [1, blank], [1], [3, blanks], [2, index], [8, blanks], 123; [1, blank], [7, index], [4, blanks], 82 text pages. A total of 206 text pages and nine pages of indexing on 188 leaves. Over 450 receipts in a 17th century hand (many quite brief) and 25 in a late 18th–or early 19th century hand.

The miscellaneity of receipt collections can sometimes work against discussing them in an orderly way, as is the case here. Both an embarrassment of riches and a many threaded social document, it resists a simple breaking into categories or themes. Our descriptions below attempt to reflect at least some aspects of this multifarious manuscript, focusing on connections and preserving the porous nature of the contents.

APPEARANCE AND ORGANISATION

Contemporary black morocco, panelled boards, gilt, clasps broken, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, front endpaper loose,and lacking rear endpaper.

Watermark: Fleur-de-lis, above 4, WR; Countermark: IHS surmounted by a cross.

(See Haewood 1788-90, and 1793).

The volume is handsomely bound in black morocco with gilt tooled panels, all edges gilt. The binding is rubbed, and it would once have been secured with clasps, however these are now broken with only segments remaining. Nonetheless, it retains its identity as a volume created to impress, an impression emphasised by the care taken in mise-en-page; the text is bordered throughout (although this peters out near the end of each section), including between receipts, most of which are neatly titled. There is an index at the beginning of both sections, and the remedies are arranged in (roughly) alphabetical order, with some receipts organised into subsections. The order has been slightly disrupted over time, as more receipts were added, and the beautiful page layout is not maintained by later users, but its original albeit decidedly miscellaneous structure survives.

Provenance: Elaborate inscription to front blank: “Anne Chester / Anne Chester her Booke / begun March 10 1677/8”.

Bookplate to pastedown of Frederick James Osbaldeston Montagu, OBE MC (18781957), of Lynford Hall,County Norfolk.

This (initially) careful presentation strengthens our conjecture that the book was originally created as a dowry manuscript of the kind discussed by Pennell† and others. Such volumes are even more interesting when, as here, it was intended not just to impress, but to aid the complex business of making and running a household over several decades.

WHO WAS ANNE CHESTER?

The ownership inscription “Anne Chester her Booke” is complemented by a small marginal note on page 28, next to a recipe for “A Sack Positt”, which reads: “my mother fountaynes way”. This confirms our scribe as Anne Chester (1661-1743) of Barkway, Hertfordshire, daughter of Edward Chester, Sheriff of Hertfordshire (16431718), and Judith Chester (née Wright), daughter of Edward Wright of Finley. Anne married Thomas Fountayne (1639-1709), of Melton Manor, Suffolk, who attended King’s College in Cambridge, studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, and became a barrister. He inherited High Melton in 1680. Anne and Thomas had four children: John (1684-1736), who married Elizabeth Carew (1688-1768); Thomas (d.1708), who died of smallpox while a student at St John’s

College, Cambridge; Anne, who married Simon Patrick, of Dallam, Suffolk; and Judith, who married Thomas Sherlock, Master of the Temple.

Interestingly, she leaves the “Anne Chester her Booke” inscription unchanged, never amending it to her married name. We shall follow her example by continuing to use her birth name here.

PAPER TRAILS

After her ownership inscription, Chester writes the title “Selections of Phisick Colected by Sir William Power Kt incerted into this Manuscripe Anno: 1630” (clearly copying this out from her source material, since it predates her own birth by over 30 years), indicating that this was her first inclusion. Her sustained bursts of labour transcribing these “Selections of Phisick” suggest that she was consciously laying a firm foundation for both her book and her future.

A certain prestigious and layered lineage is also implied here: Chester copies out a lengthy account in which Sir William Power (1565-1649) claims to have obtained much of his material from the posthumous desk of Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1553“gathered out of the most famous Auntient and modern Phisitions”, among them “Sr “labours of chimistry and other secrets of that infinite Tresury of nature” had been “found in his desk amoungst his Choice papers after his death.” The narrative, which at times is a little confusing, continues with an explanation that Power, “as a token of his duty and service to the right hon Dudly Lo. viscount Dor Chester principall secretary or soveraign Lo. Charles I”, passed it to the said Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester (1573 -1632), in the hope “that it may hold the meanest place of his library for himself and his heyres”.

Chester has been careful to mark over 20 of those she understands to be Raleigh’s with the initials “W R”. Included among these is his “great Cordiall”, a widely circulated 17th-century nostrum, which often contained as many as 40 different herbs (ours has a relatively restrained 30).

The “Vertues of Balsamums” (p.13) is annotated “W R” in the margin and includes several endorsements: “I have taken a way the grievious paine of my breast with a plaster of balsamum of succianum mastick & Antimone a pliedto-the place & I think that any of them will do it”; another has “I have cured a most dangerous swelling in my own knees with the balsamum of succinum mastick & caramen […] and with ther oyle above 30 persons of the dead palsey & as many of the Sciattica & other Aches”; and other similar commendations. But it is not clear whether it was Raleigh, Power, or Chester who claimed to have benefited from the balsam.

Other sources of medical authority supply remedies and treatments such as “Dr pamans bitter drinke for an auge” (ague, we assume) (p.66); “Lozenges for a Rhume Dr Rattliff”(p.104); “Dr Dentons Bitter Drink for an Auge” (p.105); “To procure quick Labour. Dr Chamberlin” (p.112) and “Dr Andersons pills which he gave to Duk Latherdale”. Less recognised figures are also on hand (“Mrs Scribb her Re- for ye yellow Jaundes”. (p.55); “Mrs Kays plaister” p.109); “A Water for ye Eyes Cosen Parson” (p.96)).

How did Chester come by this manuscript or its contents? We can find no family connection to Carleton or to Power. But her careful, even reverent copying down of the chain of attribution underscores the material’s importance and symbolic value. Chester was not only preserving a line of intellectual descent, but positioning herself as the inheritor, custodian, and active participant in a tradition of empirical knowledge. This is evident via attributions, comments, endorsements and revisitings she has made over the following decades.

MY OWN MAKING

The multivocality of the remedies, as well as uncertainty as to how much Chester has transcribed verbatim from Power’s manuscript or has added herself, make the attributions in this section ambiguous. Sometimes the context helps; for example, “Sal prunella made” (p.27) includes the note that “mounsieur mayhern assured me yt it was also singular good against the stone” – likely a reference to Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (also Theodore Mayhern) (1573-1655). Given his date of death, it seems likely that the recommendation was originally made to Power. Chester has, however, made the manuscript very much her own: it bears the marks of continued use and adaptation throughout, with ink changes, interpolations, crosses, manicules, and evaluative findings like “Proved” and “as I think best” – and even “not exelent” – indicating that recipes were tested, evaluated, and revised.

In contrast, the (mostly) culinary section at the opposite end of the manuscript offers some clarity as to whose voice we are reading. Among the most unambiguous are those receipts Chester claims for herself: on p.60 she confidently asserts “A Tansey as I think best”, presents “my Almond Puding” and shortly after, claims “Orang jumbals” (p.62) as “my own”.

Some recipes are attributed to close relations: her mother (mentioned above), her sister (“To Make Mead sister Flyer” (probably Floyer) (p.56)), a cousin (“A Water for ye Eyes Cosen Parson” (on p.96 at the remedies end). Others are gleaned from wider connections: a “Mr Crouch” knows how to “Make perfume for Bag” (p.57), while “Mrs Scribb” supplies “her Re- for ye yellow Jaundes” (p.55). Among the attributed culinary recipes are several alcoholic beverages (“To Make Chery Wine ye very best”, with marginal note: “Mrs Vincent” (p.58); “To Make Strong Meade. Mrs D” and “Reason Wine Mrs Cudworth” (both p.59)“Cowslip Wine Mr Crofts” (p.79)), fish (“Mr pohtack to dress Eeles” (p.63)), and cake (“To Make a Seed Cake Mrs Neal” (p.81)).

As with her treatment of Power’s remedies at the opposite end, some sections appear to have been copied out en bloc. For example, there are five receipts attributed to “Lad H” (pp.29-33), followed by nine attributed to “E C” interrupted by a single recipe from “Lad H”, two unattributed, and two more to “E C”, until “Lad H” is identified on p.41 in the recipe “To Make Allmond Butter” as “Lady Heart”. An interesting feature of these attributions is that all have been written in a different colour ink to the receipts, indicating that the attributions were added later (or at least, separately).

Among the other clear signs of use are Chester’s additions and amendments. A nice example occurs in the recipe on p.6, “To Make Oringe Marmalade” for which you “Take ye fairest oringes & scour them well wth salt […] for every pownd of oringes allo 3 pd of double refine sugar of which put in half att first with a pint of string jelley maide eather of pipiens or aple Johns”. She has added a note at the end in different-coloured ink: “I sometimes slice all ye peiles & put half a pint more of ye jelly to ye quantitey”.

CONNECTING THE BODY

The tête-bêche arrangement of the volume, which demarcates food and medicine while containing them in a single form, suggests that early moderns understood the holistic nature of the human body. But within that framework some parts of the physical body are accorded their own sections.

A short section on hands (p.51) begins “ye Hands heated”, a condition for which you must take a “handfull of Dock roots […] fayre water […] cow butter”. Hygiene is considered important (“to make ye Hands Cleane”, recommends rubbing “hony” and “yolks of eggs”), as is hand care (a treatment for “Chopt [we assume “Chapped”] Hands” contains a mixture of oil, roses, and wax). There are six receipts for conditions affecting “Leggs” (pp.59-61), notably “Lameness”, which calls for “a black sheeps head with ye wooll on it”, with its “braines & tongue removed”, to create a kind of broth with which to “bath the plaice lame”. Heart complaints, whether it be “payned”, “Diseased”, or afflicted with “ye passion”(pp.51-2), are treated with things such as “rose water”, “gallingale”, “juice of Borrage” “mother of pearls” and rarities like “filings of gold”. The head receives intensive attention, but its various conditions from the psychological to the irritations of infestations are treated in different sections. One group (pp.47-50) brings together several methods of combatting the effects of aging on hair (“Hayre defective”, “to hinder ye growing of gray hayre”, “to make haire grow”) or the

irksome “Nitts in y , and graver scenarios such as “y no fewer than 11 remedies for “ye Head Ach”.

Another batch of remedies (p.39) remains with the head but goes only skin deep: “Face Freckled” requires a simple mixture of “Allom” and “white of an egg” applied like foundation “to anoynt youre face”; to achieve a “Face made fayre”, take “flowers of rosemary & seeth them in white wine & wash you face therewith also if you drink thereof it will make you have a sweet breath”. Other cosmetics include remedies for “Face enflamed”, “face Blistered Red” and a method to have “Bad Blood taken out of the Face”. This latter requires the unfortunate sufferer to “Sett a horsleech or 2 to yor face but it is good to purge before & to direct the worms on the reddest place with a quill or Reed or goose skinn”.

Mental fatigue can be treated with three herbal remedies on pp.8-9 for “Brayn Restored”, “Brain Restored” and “Against forgettfullness”. One of these is to be added to “yr pottage”, another is to be “snufft up your nose” (apparently good for “braine or memory”), and for extra mental stimulation a mix of “Rude red sage mints

oyle of ollives & strong vinegar” requires that you “smoke thereof allso youre own haire burnt”, and it will “qickneth forgettfull parsons”. This remedy can also be repurposed to help “those that be heavy & sleepye” or persons “trobled with the falling sicknes”.

The inclusion of several remedies for memory, greying, and balding tempts one to assume that the scribe is of an advanced age. If that was indeed the case, then this indicates that these particular receipts have been copied out from one of the earlier sources: Power, Raleigh or one of the “antient” authorities, rather than the youthful Chester. That said, “Memory Restored” on pp.72-5 not only dedicates four pages to memory loss, but is emphatically marked out for attention by two manicules at the beginning of the section, suggesting that some people in her household were in need of attention. A lengthy introduction to the recipe claims that “There was by our time att Canterbury a Cannon a Dr of Divinity & allso in the law named Johanes Coletus” who acquired a technique from “a Christned Jew wherby obtained such a marvelous strong memory”. The even lengthier remedy gives detailed instructions, and recommends taking the mixture at first “every 8 weekes once 2 or 3 dayes together”, gradually reducing it to “once when the moone increceth the 3d yeare itt is sufficient once in 12 months & afterwards so long as you live once a yeare”.

Also grouped are treatments for maladies afflicting the reproductive system. For “Flowers flowringe excessivley in “herb Woodipp”, and “oaken leaves eaten” will apparently (p.41); whereas “For the pain & swellings in the genetalls” one should “seeth well the roote of Brasse & make a plaster thereof & put suet theretoo & bind it fast & it will cease the paine” (p.44). To relieve the misfortune of “Gonorhea Palsie”, meanwhile, take “seed of letties powder made into a powder & drank whith water it stopeth the flux yt paseth-forth in ye patients water against his will” (p.45).

PANACEAS

If a specific remedy proved of no avail, or the complaint was more general or less localised, a range of cure-alls were on hand, often employing a large quantity of ingredients. The last great plague ravaged England just over a decade before Anne Chester began to compile her book, and it would still have been a persistent spectre, hence the receipt for “A Cordyale or plauge Water” (p.66). Following the pattern of 17th-century plague nostrums, it gathers multifarious “flowers & leaves”, as if the sheer array of herbs might ward off the dreadful effects of plague. There are some 15 varieties of “Oyle” (pp.80-85) including “Pretious”, “Rue, “Wormwood” and “Saturne” for treating various conditions.

Early modern classics include “To Make Lucatellas Ballsum” (with its “Vertues”) on p.92; and two receipts for salves (“A Salve” and the grander “A Soveraigne Salve”) on p.67 (the latter meriting the whole of the following page for a rundown of its “Excelent effect”). A two-page receipt for “The Lady Hewitts Cordiall Water” (pp.64-5) contains a whopping 60 herbs, to be steeped in “sherry sack […] in a limbeck”, then prepared thus: “to each quart glass of water put ye quantities of Cordials heare expressed”. These include “15 graines of Bezer / 12 graynes of Muske / 10 graines of Ambergreece – half a Drm of flower of Amber half a pound of white sugar candy beaten”, along with “one Dram of flower of Corrall / one Dram of flower of pearle”, combined with the luxurious “4 leaves of leafe Gold a small bag of Saffron”.

PREPARATION, ADMINISTRATION, CONSUMPTION

Much detail is devoted to preparing and applying the remedies. The first group lists six cures for agues, beginning on p.1 with “Agues in Children” (for which you should either administer “powder of Cristall and lay it to soake in wine […] a suckinge Child shall recover” or “Take 3 burr roots & wash them and scrape them seeth them with half a pint of ale and so drink thereof luke warme before the fitt doth come”). The other four contain ingredients such as “iuyce of sorrell”, mixed with “milke” and taken “as hott as can posible bee endured”, or “rosemary sage & mariogolds” together with “bay leaves” and “pepper beeing warme”. Or you can always try “white wine sack or stale beere” mixed with “fresh horse dung” (pp.1-2).

Seven remedies for bleeding include “To stanch blood when a master vine is broke” (p.4), which requires “rawe beef” cooked upon a “gridyron over fresh coales” and laid “to the sore”. When wrapped in cloth it also “stancheth bleeding at nose”.

Of the two remedies for “Brests Sore”, one (annotated “Proved”) mixes roasted “lilly roote” with “Ale with hony”, “whites of eggs & crums of browne” and “turpentine” into a wet cloth and “Lay to ye sore”. Also on p.5 are two drinks for “Brests Encombed”, which call for herbs mixed with wine or water.

Preparing remedies sometimes requires the involvement of animals, never to the latter’s advantage. “Cock Water for a Consumption & Cough of ye lungs” (p.23) recommends that for greatest efficacy one should “Take a runing

Cock pull him alive then kill him”; and to “heale wounds” there is “nothing so excellent […] as ye distilled water of spiders distilled in a strong balnu Balneum” (p.24). The slaughter continues intermittently in a batch of brief remedies for “Frencie in the Head” (pp.37-8), of which the first three are numbered: “1. Take the lights of a Goat & clapp it to the head of the patient. Cureth. 2. Also a spoonge dipt in whight wine warmed & put to the left papp. cureth. 3. Also the root called neproyalle boyled & laid to the head draweth forth all madness”. A fourth claims that “a roasted mouse is very good for the frensy”. More humanely, a subsequent cure employs “luce of smalledye reviver vinegere oyle violets or roses” mixed in a “vessell of glase over a fier”, the resulting compound to be laid “on the patients head itt being first shaven”.

Humankind is also called upon to render material service, but only posthumously: among four remedies for “Falling Sickns” (pp.42-3) each calling for a different collection of herbs, is one specifying that “before the sicknes doe come 2 or 3 dates lett the patient himself provide a hollow peece of a dead mans skull & lett him drink therein”. And it seems only fair that, on at least one occasion, animals appear as antagonists: “Bitten with a Dog” (p.10) requires “Isop” and “rue” boiled in butter, then strained and melted with “wax & roseen” and “put in a box” until needed; the concoction to be applied to the affected area using a piece of lint, “but you must dyet yor selffe with a little barley bread & milk until you be whoule”.

† Pennell, Sara. “Perfecting Practice? Women, Manuscript Recipes and Knowledge in Early Modern England.” 2004. Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinity/ Trent Colloquium, edited by Jonathan Gibson and Victoria E. Burke, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2016.

Archives:

Court Book of Manor of Old Hurst, Huntingdonshire. MHD/348. Lord of the Manor: Thomas Fountayne, esq., 1691-1707; Ladies of the Manor: France Fountayne, widow, 1712, and Anne Fountaine, widow 1715-1728.

Melton Hall Deeds. MHD/1-350. Records of the estates of the Fountayne and Montagu families at High Melton, Yorkshire.

The culinary recipes, too, do not stint on the directions. Among the 12 varieties of “Creame” (pp.8-13), including standards such as “Barley”, “Clouted” “Goosbury”, and “Cherry” (interspersed with a method to “perfume Gloves ye Spanish way” and one to “To Make Gravell for a Sick body”) is an unusual receipt for “A Creame to lay under Snow” which imprecisely calls for “as much Creame as will serve yor turne boyle itt & take as much rice powder as will make itt pap” to which you add “rose water & sugar”, then spice the mixture with “cinamon & large mace”, stir in rosemary “yn lay itt under yor snow lett it be very cold before you lay ye snow on”.

Old kitchen favourites (“Damson Wine” (p.18), “To Pickle Pideons” (p.19), “To Make a Fruggacy” (p.20), “To Collar A Calves Head” (p.21)) are joined by less common recipes such as “To Bake a Red Deare”, for which you must “Take the hanch or side of a stagg & bone it then parboyle it very well” then “take some fat of bacon & cut some lards as long and as big as your little finger lard it very thick”, season it with “a good deal of peper & salt cloues mace nutmeggs and ginger”, and bake in an oven “as hot as for brown bread” (p.22).

More unusual still are directions for making “The Court Perfume”, which instruct the reader to “Take 3 ounces & halfe of Beniamin lay it one night in rose water with a litle goome draggon […] take out the Beniamin & beat it very fine in a mortar”, add “damusk rose leaves […] mingle with a ¼ of an ounce of Civitt mould them together with an ounce of the best duble refine suger”, then “make them into little & thin cake” and “dry ym in ye shade” (p.15). We have been unable to find any perfume with this name, nor even a similar receipt.

CONCLUSION

The social fabric of Anne Chester’s world is inscribed directly onto these pages, revealing not only the networks from which her knowledge came, but the ones she helped sustain. These attributions make visible the embodied labour of women’s knowledge, as well as the distributed, relational way it was shared, evaluated, and preserved.

The manuscript also offers a compelling example of how early modern household books could serve not simply as containers of miscellaneous information, but as dynamic instruments of thought. Its structural features alphabetical organisation, indexed entries, visual cues work to extend memory and scaffold practical reasoning; and its layered authorship and marginalia record evolving judgements and social networks. Its dual orientation to tradition and to lived practice positions it as a manuscript not only for remembering, but for refiguring: a site where authority is attested to, identity is enacted, and cognition is externalised on the page. In this light, it stands as an example of a tool that both reflects and contributes to the mental lives of those who make and use it.

£12,500Ref: 8324

3. THE ART OF

LEARNING

¶ The purpose of rote learning is to embed information through repetition. But whether pupils actually understand what they are copying can be a moot point – hence teachers’ from-time-immemorial direction to ‘show your working’. Early cyphering books record just this kind of classroom instruction, with a pupil’s worked examples

This finely executed ciphering book was produced under the instruction of Stephen Barrett, schoolmaster and clergyman of Ashford, Kent. It records the progress of one of Barrett’s pupils, who carefully copies out the lessons of arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. Its structure follows the sequence of a complete mathematical curriculum: from first principles and definitions, through plane and solid geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, and surveying, including practical applications such as “Board and Timber Measure” and “Measuring Carpenters, and Bricklayers Work”.

¶ [BARRETT, Stephen (1719-1801)].

18th Century Mathematical Manuscript, entitled ‘A Plan of the Mathemats, The Revd . Mr Barret’s Ashford 1760’.

[Ashford, Kent, 1760]. Folio (324 x 23 x 13 mm). Title page and approximately 159 pages of text and calculations on 90 leaves. Bordered throughout, and pages numbered to p.162. Vignette title and five topographical vignette head engrisaille, in watercolour.

Contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, rubbed, small area of loss to spine.

Watermark: Britannia; Countermark: LVG (i.e. 18 th century Dutch papermaker, Lubertus van Gerrevink). (Haewood 201,circa 1765).

Stephen Barrett attended grammar school in Skipton, where he is said to have excelled in poetry and classics. He matriculated at University College, Oxford in 1738 and graduated BA in 1741 and MA in 1744. Having taken holy orders he became rector of the parishes of Purton and Ickleford, Hertfordshire, in 1744. He was a friend of Samuel Johnson and Edward Cave, and a frequent contributor to the

significantly elevated the school’s reputation, yet surprisingly little of his pedagogical work seems to have survived. There is a single commonplace book, now at the Beinecke Library [Osborn c193], recorded as “Autograph MS. Original poems dating from 1736-ca.1794”. Against this backdrop of scarcity, our anonymous student-produced “Plan of the Mathematicks” offers rare, first-hand evidence of the curriculum delivered in Barrett’s classroom, showing what was transmitted, copied, and internalised by those he taught.

but the finished object is above all reflective: a record of what had been learned, not a space for experimentation or interaction. Several blank leaves, unfinished sections, and missing theorems hint at an incomplete rendition of the whole curriculum, at odds with the general level of dedication displayed in the transcription.

The neatly executed illustrations lift the manuscript beyond simple didacticism. Mensuration examples, geometrical solids, and diagrams are neatly executed and shaded with attention to proportion and perspective (including several fine examples of towers rendered in miniature). Headpieces depicting landscapes introduce some sections, treating mathematical training as an arena for artistic as well as cognitive display, and underscore the degree of labour, intention, and pride invested in the work.

The structure of the text mirrors a fixed curriculum rather than shaping new intellectual order; indeed, its purpose was to record and memorialise the content of lessons rather than scaffold ongoing problem-solving. Nonetheless, the very process of copying out, diagramming, and ornamenting reveals how 18th-century pedagogy treated transcription as an act of cognition. What we see here is not a young mind in the flux of reasoning, but a record of that mind’s consolidation of learning.

£1,500 Ref: 8364

4. COMPACT CONVERSATIONS

¶ Overheard remarks, fleeting anecdotes, spoken exchanges – such saltatory snippets can animate our understanding of centuries-old social history if one of the interlocutors has thought to write them down (and happenstance has preserved them). They can also help to bring nuance to the character of a scribe, particularly if, as in this case, they are better known for writing histories and genealogies and transcribing antiquarian texts.

The scholar, librarian and nonjuror George Harbin has intermittently recorded his day-to-day interactions with a range of his peers and acquaintances, interspersing these memoranda of personal encounters among his more customary transcriptions from other texts.

There can be little doubt that Harbin carried this neatly clasped little book with him, likely tucked into a pocket. Carried around in public spaces yet kept close to the body, pocketbooks function as intimate tools for selfwriting and self-formation. Their compact form shapes how we record, organize, and interpret information, which in turn may influence our self-perception and alter

¶ HARBIN, George (c.1665-1744). Early 18th-CenturyManuscriptPocketbook.

[Circa 1710-11]. Oblong octavo (160 x 70 x 7 mm). Approximately 55 text pages (50 at one end, 5 at the other) on 30 leaves, one blank endpaper excised. Five loose leaf notes and documents tucked into letter pocket.

Contemporary vellum, wallet-style binding, with letter pocket at oneend,clasp intact.

ATTRIBUTION

Among several documents tucked into the letter pocket of this little volume are two – one paper, one vellum, perhaps scribal copies – relating to George Harbin’s (c.1665-1744) time at Jesus College; another, which gives sketches of his life, is signed on the other side “A: Malet”. This is presumably Rev. Alexander Malet (1704-1775), Harbin’s executor, and to whom his manuscripts passed. The note was written after Harbin’s death, and as there are no ownership inscriptions in the volume, it is a key piece of evidence for identifying our scribe. These documents, coupled with comparisons of the hand against other Harbin manuscripts, secures our attribution.1

George Harbin graduated BA from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1687, and migrated to Jesus College the following year. Having been ordained as chaplain – first to Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, then to Colonel Sackville Tufton in Northamptonshire – in 1699 he entered the service of Thomas Thynne, first Viscount Weymouth, becoming his librarian (his status as nonjuror disqualified him from the role of chaplain after the act of 1702 imposing the oath of abjuration). In 1710 – roughly the date of this volume – he drew on his extensive reading and assiduous manuscript-copying to publish The English Constitution Fully Stated (a riposte to William Higden’s View of the English Constitution (1709)); in 1713, The Hereditary Right of the Crown of England Asserted appeared anonymously, only years later identified as Harbin’s work.

BOOKS, LIBRARIES, CHATS

Harbin was evidently a highly sociable individual, and his pocketbook treats encounters with people as seriously as those with books. As if mixing at the same gathering, passages from printed and manuscript works (“Apud Rymer Fædera”, “Dr Tod’s Notitia Dioces. Carlolensis”, “Camden’s Eliz. A.D. 1577”) mingle with snatches of chat and anecdote. He relates hearing from “Dr Radcliffe” (probably the English physician, academic and politician John Radcliffe (1650-1714)) that “there were ^more people that did spit blood in Oxford than any other place in the England: wch he attributed to the badnesse of ye Water” (f.10r); and in an account of a conversation about printed maps, he writes: “Mr Johnson also shew’d me a Map of Moscovy, wch he said was given him by Mr Lock, and was a very great curiosity; none of them now to be had. It was made by one Monsr Witsen” (f.21v).

Books and libraries are a frequent topic, occasioning a few digression-heavy narratives; on “May. 1st”, Harbin “met wth Mr Toland in Mr Harley’s Library & asked him about Spaccio della bestia trionfante a bopoke written by Jordanus Brunus in 8vo he told me he did lend it for 3 or 4 hours to Monsr la Croze (as he owns in his Entretiens sur divers sujets d’histoire p.327) & that only for a Copy of this book he had a present made him of 50 Pistolls ^ by Prince Eugene of Savoy. He assured me this book was Printed in London by an Italian Printer … Mr Ch. Bernard gave 16 Guineas & at ye Auction of his Books, it was sold to Mr Clavell of the Temple (April 1711) for 28 pounds” (ff.11v12v). Particular volumes are discussed almost as though they are people: during a chat with “Dr Grabe” (presumably John Ernest Grabe (1666-1711), chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford), Harbin hears that his

august companion “never cd meet wth Lloyd’s Greek Edition in 12 Josephus περι αὐτοκρατορος λογισμου tho’ he searched for it in all The Libraries of Oxford, and that at Lambeth. That piece was printed from a MS in New College Library, but it has been printed by the Jesuite Comfetis & is in MS likewise at the End of the Alexandrian LXX” (f.11r).

The “Jesuite Comfetis” is likely François Combefis (1605 – 1679),2 whose publications included Flavii Iosephi De imperio rationis : in laudem Maccabaeorum liber (1672) and Φλάβιου

Τα εὐρισκόμενα (1691).

In a political anecdote, perhaps appealing to the nonjuror Harbin’s sense of principle, he writes: “Dr Sheridan, the Deprived Bp of Kilmore told me (May 20th 1711) that he was present at the execution of Sr Phelim O Neale in Ireland, for being the Chief Actour in the Irish Massacre”, and that, having been offered a reprieve in exchange for a declaration that he was effectively coerced “by vertue of a Commission” from “K Charles 1 O’Neale replied that “he wd not save his life by so base a lye” (ff.18v-20r). It may be an effect of his sheer conviviality that Harbin blithely follows this with an account of a conversation on the same day with a Johnson of Twickenham”, who informs him “that wee spoil our Peeches in England by letting them hang close to a brick wall, whose heat in summer is so great, that they are dryed up in a manner, and ys particularly affirmed to be true of the Mignion Peech, wch is very delicious in France, but of no great value in England” (f.20v-22v).

Another exotic but ill-fated specimen is profiled a week later: “May 26 1711. I saw at Burlington-house in Picadilly a Strange but very beautifull Bird wch had been lately brought by Captn. Coleman from Guinea, or the Country thereabout. It was of the bignesse of a tame-pidgeon, wth legs & clawes much like one from the head, to half of the body, the middle of his back, together wth ye breast, it was of a darke purple. The bill was very short & of a dark red colour. The head was crested, as a Cockatoo from y end of the bill to the hinder part of the head”. Harbin has, however, added a later note at the top of the page in different-coloured ink: “The under mentioned bird dyed at the beginning of the following winter” (ff.22v-

CONCLUSION

Fragments of early-18th-century conversation have been snatched out of the air and captured in this tightly clasped pocketbook, giving physical form to passing utterances and enshrining – along with some enjoyable digressions – among the literary transcriptions for which Harbin was renowned. In doing so, he assigns equal weight to written and to spoken material, presenting both as part of a continuum of reflection and a structure that helps him to form his own thoughts.

Its compact form is not incidental but integral. This pocketbook both expands and contracts the scope of memory. Its portability allowed encounters to be written down at once, expanding the temporal window of what could be captured, but its small format constrains detail, funnelling experience into compressed notes rather than extended narratives. The result is a record that is at once briefer and more immediate, framing how memories are formed, internalised and revisited.

£3,250 Ref: 8366

1. Library holdings include: Beinecke Library [OSB MSS 299].Northamptonshire Record Office [FH 281 . RoJ

The Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Thynne Papers, Vol. XXVII. British Library [Add. MS 32092; Add. MS 32096; Add. MS 32095].

Somerset Records Office [DD\HN].

Phillipps acquired some the manuscript collections of Harbin [4801-4911; 10658] en from the English diplomat Sir Alexander Malet (1800-1886), descendent of Harbin’s nephew and executor Rev. Alexander Malet (1704-1775).

2. We are extremely grateful to Christopher Whittick for this information.

5. BOEHME ME UP SCOTTY!

¶ From affirmation and validation of thought and experiences to the birth of a second spiritual self, the zealous annotator of Jakob Boehme’s mystical writings records his remarkable bifurcation to create a kind of spiritual avatar (with possible allusions to Hermes), accomplishing his own alchemical Magnum Opus.

In over 600 marginal and interleaved annotations, clipped engravings, and handdrawn images, the scribe a Scottish merchant and shipmaster conducts an onthe-page dialogue with the text, shaping his own thought in the process – and invoking a third participant in the conversation.

COMPOUND AUTHORSHIP

Jakob Boehme (1575-1624) was a German Lutheran shoemaker turned visionary whose theosophical writings (following a profound mystical vision in 1600) provoked ecclesiastical censure but continued to circulate widely in manuscript and print. His work inspired many writers and thinkers, including German Romantic philosophers (Hegel considered him the first German philosopher), religious radicals, and poets, among them William Blake, John Milton, S. T. Coleridge, and W. B. Yeats. These four volumes collect English translations of his many treatises, including Aurora, The Three Principles, The Mysterium Magnum, and The answers to forty questions concerning the soul. They are lavishly illustrated with numerous engraved emblematic plates some with moveable onlays intended to reflect Boehme’s visionary quality.

¶ BOEHME, Jakob (1575-1624); Annotated by David DUNLOP (d.1793). The Works of Jacob Behmen,TheTeutonicTheosopher.

M. Richardson [-G. Robinson], 1764-81. First collected editionin English.

Bound in maroon library buckram, ink and blind library stamps (General Theological Seminary), page edges a little brittle, folded plates in volume I torn alongfolds and loosely inserted.

Pagination [vol. I]: xiii, [3], 22, [2], 23-269, [7], 301, [21]; [vol. II]: [4], 195, [37], 120, 160, 32; [vol. III]: [2], 507, [27], 37 [1]; [vol.IV]: [8], 8, [2], 9-297, [3], 218 (this section with errors in pagination, but appears complete), [8], 156. Plates: [vol. I] 4; [vol. II]. 15 plates; [vol. III]: 3 with moveable onlays (one of these laid down to sheet); [vol. IV]: 3 (including hand-coloured, folded plate). Half-title to volume IV only. Lacks frontispiece to volume I, and one other plate.[Caillet 1289].

Extra-illustrated with 12 small inset engravings pasted to margins of volume I. Extensive annotations and ink notes to margins in a contemporary hand.

Attribution of the extensive marginalia is made to David Dunlop (d. 1793), a merchant and shipmaster based in Irvine, Scotland, whose name appears repeatedly in the annotations. Several entries confirm the impression of a Scottish scribe with maritime connections: a passage dated 3 December 1782 places him “at Irvine Quay and William Shelly as just getting up in Harbour Syde or State room in said Cabbine when this was reveald to me last year at Edinburgh when attending the Courts as at present and I think in same month Novr or Decr 1781” (Vol. III, p.175). Dunlop frequently cites locations in this way, naming specific ports, roads, and churches, and especially when recalling spiritual experiences. For example, in response to Boehme’s printed text: “the sensual divine Understanding, a Tongue tinctured from the divine Ens of five Vowels” he writes in the margin: “now I saw a Toung come up from the Lord within me plain to Behold. in 1774 near to a Dock in Corke Called Hairs Dock” (Vol. II,

A reference to his wife and son reinforces our attribution: “William Dunlop the second son that was Conceived in Ann Kelly my Earthly Wiffe” (Vol. II, p.115) corresponds to a record of William Dunlope’s birth on 27 August 1750 at Irvine, Ayrshire to David Dunlope and Anna Kellie. Further offspring of David Dunlop and Anne Kelly (sometimes spelled “Keltie”) appear in the records: Andrew Dunlope, born 19 February 1757 at Irvine; Anne; George; Sallie; and Stevensone, born 5 February 1761 at Irvine.

THE NEW MAN AND AVATAR

What sets this copy apart from many other annotated books is the emergence, within the marginalia, of a second identity: “Davie Delope” (also spelled “Delape”, “Delop”, or “Dalope”). More than merely a pseudonym, “Delope” appears to be a mystic, spiritually reborn persona, something Dunlop affirms in the first volume: “David Dunlop now Davie Dalope” (Vol. I, p.98–99). In places, the scribe writes as both, oscillating between these co-existing identities. Delope seems to represent the fruit of Dunlop’s mystical transformation: in one telling gloss, Dunlop notes that the experiences he describes are “Experimentalie known to David Dunlop yett by David Delape the new man within the old” (Vol. I, p.83).

The name Delope while orthographically unstable may derive from Dolops, the mythical son of Hermes. The connotations here are twofold: in the Greek myths, the Argonauts and other sailors would make sacrifices to Dolops

for protection at sea; and Dolops, through his paternal association, is also tied to Hermes Trismegistus, the syncretic originator-god of Hermeticism who deeply influenced many strands of Western esoteric and mystic philosophy. Given Dunlop’s maritime background and the Hermetic resonances of Boehme’s mysticism, the name’s adoption is suggestive: Delope as both spiritual sailor and esoteric heir.

TRANSFORMATION AND VALIDATION

The volumes are visually arresting: four large quartos packed with dense esoteric printed text, moveable engraved plates, and abundant inked marginalia, pasted‑in engravings, and hand‑drawn emblems. Dunlop/Delope uses Boehme’s printed text as a dialogue partner, annotating to record, reflect upon and affirm personal revelations. One of the most striking features of his airy visions is that so many are precisely dated and tied to physical locations, almost in the manner of a ship’s log: for instance, “on a Alter in a Stone wall Church up a Hill near Passage west Syde of Cork river in Iearland 1774. about advent Sunday December” (Vol. II, p.145); “this was done to David Dunlop on Eighth of August 1784 whyle resting near a Park gate” (Vol. I, p.40); and “this is truly So how high was the Church Shewen me when I was sitting in Markes Church in Dubline. 1775” (Vol. III, p.173). Such levels of detail reach a peak of vividness in his description of a Christophany that occurred “on the road Kilmarnock”; Dunlop/Delope writes that he has “seen yea the Lord himself with the wound in his Syde and Blood on his Bodie and seen him coming down from Heaven and on the Cross & of the Cross in Cloaths and Wrapt in Linnent his right foot out and on the road his right arm out stretched […] and often angels. and the new man and the New wooman within me Duelling under the Shadow of the rock of Ages” (Vol. I, p.65).

The annotations often respond to Boehme with direct experiential affirmation. In response to the printed text “plucked the pearl from his Hatband, and his Hatband broke; and then he became as another earthly Man, and none saluted [reverenced or regarded] him”, our scribe declares, “this is agreeable to what was shewen me last night 14th of Septr 1782”. (Vol. I, p.177). In another passage, Boehme writes “there is the Power, and in the Power is the Tone or Tune, and rises up in the Spirit, into the Head, into the Mind”, to which Dunlop/Delope responds, “this I have Experienced in right & left Ears like a Chime of Bells” (Vol. I, p.47). This auditory trope reverberates again in “The Voice of God’s Anger, which forced into Adam’s Essence … the Tone or Hearing of the Dark World did sound [or ring its sad Knell]” – affirmed by Dunlop/Delope’s experiential report, “and this bringeth to mind the stroak of a Mighty Bell in left Eare in Scotland. 1774. & in Scotland. 1776 in left Eare like a Chime of Bells, and in a little time some few Stroakes in my right Eare in Scotland near Lord Glencairnes betwixt Inshannan Bridge 1776 or the troops Embanked for America” (Vol. III, p.101). In numerous passages, Dunlop/Delope assigns great authority to Boehme’s accounts, seizing on them for validation for his own experiences; declaring in one passage, “Isiah XXIX. 23 when thy Discern See their Children the worke of my right hand in them […] they that had an Erroneous Spirit in them shall gett understanding and they that were Scornfull shall learn Doctrine – this is just what god by Jacob Behemen mentioneth was at hand. and to me it has been Manifested or reveald & Seen. D. D.” (Vol III, p.152).

TRANSMUTATION

Dunlop’s invocations of “the new man within the old” may seem metaphorical, but his passionate embrace of Boehme’s alchemical worldview suggests otherwise. In traditional alchemy, transformation is commonly described through three emblematic stages: nigredo(blackening), albedo (whitening), and rubedo(reddening). In the laboratory, these terms referred to the visible processes of putrefaction, purification, and the final creation of the philosopher’s stone (the symbolic Magnum Opus of alchemy); but they also served as parallels for the soul’s inner work. Nigredo marks the decomposition of form and the descent into conflict and dissolution; albedo follows as purification, a clarifying of substance or spirit; rubedo completes the process as unification, perfection, and reintegration of the reborn self.

Boehme reinterprets this triad within his theosophical cosmology as the soul’s passage through the divine drama of creation: from the anguish and division of the dark world, through the inward breaking-through of divine light, to the fiery rebirth of the spirit in Christ’s likeness. This final state is marked by love, divine wisdom, and full alignment with the will of God. For Boehme, the soul’s regeneration is no metaphor it is a cosmological reenactment, an echo of creation itself. Viewed in this light, Dunlop’s annotations become not just devotional glosses but a lived alchemical record of descent, illumination, and rebirth, culminating in the emergence of a “new man within the old” – his own Magnum Opus

Dunlop chronicles his spiritual decomposition (nigredo) through visions of strife and hardship in several passages: for example, “yett often Since has the Divill appeared and raged against me since Driving to Dispair and Many Artful things Done to Deceive and Drive to Dispair” (Vol. I, p.40); and “This Battle was fought in the Spiritual world within David Dunlop / this I Saw and the men were like as prists in their Cloathing Black with Banns and Black gowns” (Vol. III, p.158); and “thou has a Vew in this letter what was caste out of me in the Rage of iniquitie” (Vol. I, p.221).

He describes his purification (albedo) through theophanies such as “Some time Calm o god of Hosts the mightie Lord; how lovely is the place whear thos Enthroned in Glorie Shewes the brigh[t]ness of thy face” (Vol. I, p.40); “I often have Ocular Demonstrations off by seeing Clouds of Gloryous Light Skimming around & before me” (Vol. I, p.45); and “this I. D.D. have Experience of seeing God face to face as is hear mentioned on the light of August 1784 it being on a Sunday” (Vol. II, p. 91).

Finally, the transformative reintegration of the self (rubido) appears through experiences of salvation and rebirth and the appearance of a ‘second self’: “it is a sore travail, the pains & pangs of being Born Again. yea Excruciating pains is attested by D. D. from Experiencing same so has it been with Jacob Behmen” (Vol. IV, p.268); “we know that Jesus Christ is the power of godlie Wisdom of God and is become the Rock of our Salvation – David Dunlop now Davie Dalope” (Vol. I, p.98-99); “looking up and seeing in the north whear the light is truest Experimentalie known to David Dunlop yett by David Delape the new man within the old . truth. Da: Delope” (Vol. I, p.83).

Dunlop also picks up on a specific reference by Boehme to the philosopher’s stone (the symbolic Magnum Opus of alchemy): “The Noble Philosopher’s Stone was as easy to be found by him as other stone, and then he might have adorned the outward life with gold, silver and precious Stones, Jewels and Pearls”. This passage is marked “^” in the text, and annotated in the margin, “now as I lay in Bed in my Roome covered with flowered stained paper this Change hear noticed to be done by the Noble Stone; then flowers was changed and like unto Embrydered Silk with Gold or Silver flowers richly wrought in the same. this is attested by Da: Delape”. (Vol. II, p.112). The motif of the “new man” and “new wooman” recurs, sometimes related to pasted in engravings (such as that in Vol. I, p.171) that visualise the internal metamorphosis.

These volumes can be read as a record not only of mystical experience but of transformation through the act of reading. Dunlop finds in Boehme not just insight, but companionship and affirmation a voice that makes sense of his own visionary life. By writing in the margins, he holds a dialogue with the text that both shapes and chronicles his own profound transformation.

CONCLUSION

These unusual interactions offer remarkable evidence of mystical experience grounded in everyday life: at quaysides and park gates, in ship cabins and Scottish and Irish churches. In Dunlop/Delope’s hand, Boehme becomes something more than a mystical philosopher he is a companion, a guide, a catalyst for the birth of “the new man within the old”.

This is a work of three authors: the visionary mystic Jakob Boehme, the Scottish shipmaster David Dunlop, and the alchemically reborn Davie Delope – a trinity of voices that produce a documented spiritual metamorphosis unfolding in dialogue, page by page. Their collaboration across centuries, media, and identities results in an extraordinary document of spiritual practice, experiential annotation, self-writing and self-fashioning.

£7,500 Ref: 8334

6. HYBRID HISTORY

¶ Despite its hybrid form and clear evidence of interaction including inserted maps, armorial sketches, and architectural sketches this manuscript is reflective of its compiler’s thoughts rather than formative. Its structure preserves existing orders of knowledge, and its interventions aim at completeness and coherence, not transformation. The manuscript thus functions as an instrument of historical reference rather than of intellectual development.

It was compiled by Edmund Lamplugh Irton (1762–1820) of Irton Hall, Copeland, Cumberland. Edmund, the eldest son of Samuel Irton and Frances Tubman, matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1780. He married twice, and his eldest son Samuel inherited Irton Hall following his death. The Irton family resided at the Hall for over 600 years until its sale in the mid-19th century. Edmund’s fine library was sold by auction at Irton Hall circa 1853, and later in Keswick.

¶ IRTON, Edmund Lamplugh (17621820) HybridTopographyNotebook.

[Circa 1790]. Octavo (176 x 110 x 10 mm).

bound in reversed calf with scorching close to the spine; rebacked in modern reversed calf with a new label. Working clasps hanging from the upper board; the substantial print and manuscript extracts are followed by around 60blank leaves.

Irton’s notebook constitutes the beginnings of a county history of Durham, with manuscript and printed extracts from the 17th and 18th centuries drawn from topographical descriptions, ecclesiastical history, and incumbents of monasteries. It includes excerpts from a dozen printed volumes among them pp.45-48, and folding map, extracted from Robert Morden’s The New Description and State of England, (1701); pp.509-536, with 2 page manuscript continuation from Browne Willis’s Mitred Parliamentary Abbeys (1718), and John Ecton’s Liber Valorum (1711). These appear alongside interleaved sketches, as well as manuscript notes such as “Sir Thomas Blackston of Blackston, M.S.S. Book in the Heralds Office relating to this Country / 41. Sir Willm Dugdale vis Ao 1666”.

The printed texts are inserted incompletely, with the missing sections copied out by hand; and these manuscript notes help us to ascertain his working method. For example, he inserts Durham-related printed material, but where the text continues to another topographical area, he has crossed this out and added a signposting note (“Enter’d in Dorsetshire Libr 8vo” , “Enter’d in Yorkshire Libr 8vo” , “Enter’d in Cheshire Libr 8vo”, and so on) indicating that he has transposed those texts to other similar notebooks. Furthermore, where the texts move from print to manuscript, the handwritten continuation takes up the printed catchword, indicating that Irton is simply copying out the printed text from one of his other county notebooks. He marks these divisions explicitly, crossing out references to other locations and noting their inclusion in companion notebooks across multiple locations.

£1,000 Ref: 8360

This appealing compilation of manuscript and print in this volume serves primarily to assemble, but not to juxtapose, compare or even augment knowledge of the subject. Rather they reflect a reordering of pre-existing knowledge, but an arrangement which maintains the status quo – albeit in a compelling artefactual format.

¶ [ELIZABETHAN SOCIETY].

English 16th-Century Manuscript Pocketbook.

[England. Circa 1590]. Octavo (148 x 100 x 10 mm). 113 text pages on 58 leaves. The text is divided into two main sections of 58 text pages and 55 text pages, separated by a single blank leaf. The first section covers the laws governing the people; the second section comprises protocols for assizes, court leet, and court baron. Contemporary limp vellum, damp staining to text.

Later inscriptions to front pastedown: “Abr[aham] Crosland His Booke 1673 Ex dono Clarissimi Amici Henery Mould Of Appleby”. Inscription to gutter margin: “Henery Mould did posses this booke”

7. POCKET MICROCOSM

¶ The strictures and stratifications of Elizabethan society are packed into this little pocket book. Writing in highly expressive, sometimes richly metaphorical language, our scribe uses vivid imagery, especially in the parallel between the Queen’s relation to her people and the soul’s relation to the body, to underscore the crucial need for a robustly run state. The text moves from the political philosophy underpinning the social order, through to the mechanism by which that order was maintained, and the protocols and forms of words to be employed – and then to an illustration of this in practice, as a named individual is, in both senses, made an example of.

This progression from first principles to their practical application may indicate that our scribe intended to create a text – detailed but compact – that would guide not only their actions but their thoughts on the matters at issue.

DATING THE MANUSCRIPT

Numerous references in the text to “the Queene” and “the Q: Matie”, indicate that our notebook was written during the reign of Elizabeth I, and two pieces of evidence help us to narrow the date down further. Firstly, a note on f.6v refers to two legal works: “Vide Crompton Iin fo: 14”– presumably Richard Crompton’s (fl. 1573-1599) L’authoritie et iurisdiction des courts de la Maiestie de la Roygne, published by Yetsweirt, 1594. [STC (2nd ed.), 6050]; and “Dyer 155:p”, probably Sir James Dyer’s (1512-1582), Ascuns novel cases, published by Tottell, 1585, 1592, 1601 (and three further 17th-century editions). Secondly, in the section on court procedure, a copied-out admission of guilt is attributed to “Gilbert Hussey of Awndell [Oundle] in the County of Northt [Northampton]” – its unhappy author (more of whom below) answering in the records to one “Gilbert Hussey, esq., of Ownedell (Oundle), Northants” who was convicted of recusancy in March 1587/88 and served 12 months. 2 We therefore date our manuscript to the mid-1590s, and tentatively situate it in Northamptonshire.

This would have been 60 or so years after her father, Henry VIII, had broken with Rome in the 1530s, and around 30 years after the Elizabethan Religious Settlement which, after the upsets and reversals under Edward VI and Mary I, reestablished the independence of the Church of England from Rome and confirmed Elizabeth as its supreme head. Further measures, including the reintroduction of the Book of Common Prayer, the adoption of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the issuing of a new Book of Homilies, attempted with some success to build proper foundations for the church’s reformed theology.

The machinery of the law had a crucial part to play in maintaining this hard-won stability. It was a common trope of the era that laws and hierarchy were to the commonwealth as reason was to the human constitution. Helen Hackett summarises this view: “Reason must rule over the unruly passions and bodily appetites, and chaos would ensue in both the mind and the state if hierarchy should break down”. 1

Accordingly, the contents of this pocketbook set out the laws and obligations to be followed by the English people, after establishing the stakes involved and the urgency of acting appropriately.

ANATOMY OF THE BODY POLITIC

Our scribe presents a reasoned argument justifying a hierarchical system of state control – or the commonweal as it was often known. God sits at the top, represented on Earth by the divinely appointed monarch, to whom all subjects must defer (“Firste the Lawes that are ordayned to keepe us in the feare and reuerence of god From contempt and neclect of Religion and from Scisme sectes and factions”). Order is maintained by the monarch’s appointees and by branches of officialdom who administer the monarch’s wishes via the laws passed in their name (“The lawes to reteyne us in the Honor and obedience due to our prynce and wch most p[ro]p[er]lye concern her p [er]son Crowne & dignitye”). These “lawes wch concerne our selves and Cuntry” are the means by which the ‘lower orders’ in this system (those without money or power) are tightly controlled by the officers of the state.

That need for tight control was most keenly felt over the perceived threat of a return to Catholicism, and thus to subjection to the Pope. Hence the promotion and burnishing of the myth of Gloriana as a buttress against Rome and its contagions, and hence, also, the constant reinforcement of Protestantism by regular attendance at church, as well as the use of the Book of Common Prayer (“Euerye one above the age of sixtene yeres not havinge any reasonable excuse must every Sonday and every other day ordayned to be kept holyday resorte to his p[ar]ishe churche chappell or other place of Common prayer”

Failure to comply could result in a fine:

“Yf any man make default he looseth xxli p[er] mensem or xiid for eu[er]y daye”

The commonweal’s inherent imbalance – between those with power and those without – required a robust justification if all subjects were to be persuaded to ‘hold the line’ by fulfilling the role allotted them in the hierarchy. Key to this was intellectual credibility, largely through the well-used analogy of the mind (or soul) and the body, in which the queen was the mind which governed over the body of the people. As the pocket book declares, “Everye wiseman knoweth that a kingdom well ordered consisteth of 2 p[ar]tes. Namely in the iust commandmt of the prynce and in the due obedience of the subiectes, if either of them fayle yt is like the sep[ar]acion of the soule and the bodye in the life of man” (f.4v). Thus, in order to keep body and soul together, it was important to regulate both the economy and the actions of subjects, and to maintain the people’s vigilance in defending the realm against Rome’s attempts to reassert Catholic influence in England.

One of the methods by which the Pope tried to infiltrate the ‘body’ of the people was to offer a kind of absolution: our scribe explains that the pontiff “hath sett downe certeyn posicions for his owne advantage : One that he hath full power and aucthoritye to absolve and free the Q: Mates subiectes from their due and naturall obedience 2 : That it is necessarye for every man that / wilbe saved That he be subiect to the bishoppe of Rome”. But the English people would gain nothing from this, since they must remain loyal to the government, which is “the onely stay & p

[ro]pe of humayne affayres : For wthout governmt, no howse, no cittye, no nation or cuntry, no nor the worlde it selfe can stand or continue”. It follows from this rhetorical stance that to break this connection would be to break “the Chayne wherby the Co[mm]en wealth is linked together, it is the victuale spirit; that so many millions of men doe breath in so much as if this soule of Commandinge were taken away the co[mm]en wealth of it selfe would be nothinge but A birde ^burden^ and co[mm]en pray”.

The country the English feared would make them “co[mm]en pray” was Spain. We assume that our text was written after the famous foiled attack by the Spanish Armada in 1588, but such direct assault is not our scribe’s chief concern; rather it is the more subtle infiltration and conversion of the soul of the English into “metamorphosed Spanyardes”, who “blowe the bellowes and kindle the Coles of A great fyer to consume and waste this Monarchy” – a telling use of satanic imagery.

BODY AND SOUL

The analogies continue, as does the demonisation of Spain. The doctrine of transubstantiation is employed – and the analogy extended to the leavening of the bread – to illustrate how Catholicism can infiltrate the body and soul of England, much as “firebrands of Sedition and wicked Inchauntors give the wyne of rebellion to the people to drinke and wold foster them wth A most dangerous kynde of Foode Sowringe the dowe of England wth the Levyn of Spayne”. Not only might Spain sour England’s bread and offer the “wyne of rebellion”, but they will bring with them “from beionde seas any Agnus dei, Crosses pictures beades or suchlike supersticious Trump[er]yes” (f.6r). The text warns that if “any such is offered”, failure to report it to the authorities “wthin i4 daies” is treason.

English subjects could make themselves traitors in a number of other ways, some almost inadvertent or downright undetectable. Our scribe makes reference to “Lawes to suppresse the malice of such as are evill affected towardes her highness” (f.6v), giving an example which begins with a transgression in one’s own head before radiating outwards into action: “Yf any evell disposed p[er]son contrary to the duety of their fidelitye and allegance advisedlye wth a malicious entent, of his or their owne Imaginacion have imagined invented practized spoken and spread abroade any false and sedicious sclaunderous newes rumors or tales againste the Queene”; not forgetting those who “have spoken or reported such newes of the speakinge or reportinge of any other.” (This ends with the note, quoted earlier: “Vide Crompton Iin fo: 14 Dyer 155:p”.)

Included under this definition was any written speculation, discussion, or even a passing mention aloud, of the Queen’s death or succession – a matter raised by parliament in 1566, but dashed by a royal prerogative forbidding further mention of these matters. Our scribe duly condemns as a traitor anyone who has “sett forth, by expresse wordes or writinges how long the Q Mati shall live or who shall raigne as kinge or queene after her decease Or advisedly and wth A malicious entent againste or most naturall soveraigne devise and write printe or sett forth any manner of booke, Ryme, ballad, or writinge conteyninge any false sedicious and sclaunderous matter to the defamacion of the Q Mati or to the stirringe or movinge of any insurrecion or rebellion wthin this realme or any the dominions belonginge to the same or p[ro]cure any such &c to be written” (f.6v-f.7r).

OTHER THREATS TO THE BODY POLITIC

The text also concerns itself with preserving the structural integrity of the body politic through its constituent parts: the sinews of commerce, bureaucracy, and military capability. Currency and the stamps and seals of office carried not just transactional value but sovereign authority; therefore the economic system is protected from contagion by laws that mete out punishment “Yf any have counterfeicted the moneys of this realme or of any other realme currant here, or washed clipped or filed any of the said moneys”, or if they “bringe false money into this realme counterfeyct to the money of England (knowinge the money to be false), to marchandize or make”; and the symbols of governance and authority are similarly defended, with justice poised to pounce “Yf any have counterfeicted the great seale the privy seale, the signe Manuell, or the privye signett or the Armes of this

realme” (f.7v). The state’s desire to preserve its integrity naturally extends to its martial capability, as illustrated in the prohibition “to take away any of her shippes ordinaunce Artillery or other municions or fortificacions” (f.7v.).

Fear of corruption and disease is apparent throughout these laws, which punish even the intention to act in a deleterious manner or the concealment of someone else’s infractions: “Yf any have conspired or devised to enlarge or sett at lib[er]tie any man com[m]itted by her highnes specyall commandent for Treason or suspic[i]on of Treason touchinge the royall p[er]son […] the penalty of Misprision of treason” (f.8r.). Together, the laws reaffirm a worldview in which the health of the commonwealth depends on the impermeability of its structures where the instruments of economic, administrative, judicial, and military function are all bound by the same need for incorruptibility.

VILE BODIES

Where the previous section addresses structural threats to the body politic, this portion turns to violations enacted through the physical body offences of violence, perversion, and rebellion that disturb not only the peace but the symbolic order of society.

Certain crimes are framed “As petit Treasons” because they invert the expected hierarchies of social and familial authority: if a “Servan killeth his Mr or Mrs” , a “wife killeth her husband”, or a “Clark his ordinary”, these are not merely murders, but violations of duty and obedience that strike at the patriarchal and professional structures undergirding the commonwealth (f.8v.).

Other laws address bodily harm (“abusinge the body wthout death”), such as “Yf any of malice p[re]tensed, cutt out the tongues, or putt out the eyes of any of the Qu subiectes”. Sexual crimes are covered with sometimes palpable moral force: “Buggery wth man or beaste” is denounced as “A horrible detestable and abhominable Sinne”, citing “Eccl: ca 22 verse 19 : whosoever lyeth wth A beaste shall dye the death” (its authority somewhat undercut by the apparent misattribution of this Bible passage, which actually belongs to Exodus 22:18). Rape is defined, with legal specificity, as the “Ravishinge of a mayde, wydowe, or wife above x : yeres of age, against her will, although shee consent after” (f.9r.).

These laws police violence through the boundaries of consent, purity, and bodily sanctity, but this section also refers back to previous expressions of the state’s desire for integrity, with laws that govern misinformation and rebellion: “Lawes p[ro]vided that peace may be continued And that Feloneyes faction sedic[i]on rebellion and

insurec[i]on may be p[re]vented and eschewed.” The manuscript gives as examples “Feloynes” such as rumourmongering (“false newes or tales whereby discorde or occac[i]on of discorde may growe betweene the queene and her people”), riotous assembly (“Yf any above the number of twelve have byn unlawfully assembled and have entended and practized wth force of Armes”), or incitement (“if any p[er]son by Ringing of A Bell sounding of Trumpett fyeringe Beacons or by any other Arte have raised xii p[er]sons to any such entent wch continued after p [ro]clamacon he is a felon”). Even the “wife or servant” of such conspirators is liable, reinforcing the belief that rebellion, like disease, spreads easily through proximity (f.11r.).

This section’s focus on interpersonal action that can cause social disruption strengthens the idea of a person not as an autonomous being, but as an organ within a collective body, and a component whose antagonism or disobedience must be punished to preserve the health of the whole.

Having defended against structural threats (both external and internal), the laws turn their attention to structural maintenance. These homoeostatic functions of the body politic focus on the regulation of sustenance, labour, and material conditions to ensure the continued health of the commonwealth – and many have resonances with the present day.

A central concern is food security and the fair distribution of vital goods. Laws are laid out to “avoide the scarcitye of victuale and Cattell, necessary for the sustenance of the people”, prohibiting illegal traders (such as “Forstallers”, “Regrators”, and “Badgers”) who interfere with equitable business (f.16v.). Also addressed is what we would now call environmental sustainability: offenders are penalised “Yf any have distroyed any Spawne of fry of fish by any meanes […] Or taken Salmons or Trowte out of season […] Barbell under xii inches” or if they “destroy the eggs of wildfowle” (f.16v.). Regulation of prices and weights is another key concern and extends into almost every layer of public provisioning. “Yf any Butcher Brewer, Baker, Cooke Fishmonger inholder […] have not solde at reasonable prices for moderate gaynes”, they are in breach of the law – and “moderate gaynes” are given precise limits: “The hostler shall sell hey and wete at reasonable prices, and but A half penny more than in the markett”, and “No vyntner or other” may sell “wynes called Gascoines wynes, Guyon or french wyne, but after the rate of viijd the gallon” (f.17r.).

Similarly, restrictions are placed on “Secrite Abuses and misdemeanors in Artificers handicraftesmen laborers and others”, a capacious category that includes the use of “false measures” and cases where “the Baker and bruer have kept the Assise of Bread and Ale” (f.23v.); it also applies “Yf any Curryer have Curryed lether but in his owne howes or lether not well tanned or not throughly dryed after his weete season … Or have Curryed other sole lether wth any other stuffe then hard tallowe” (f.24v.). Legislation of this kind extends to “the Arte of clothyer, woollen weaver, or such mechanicall Arts”, as well as to the professions; and woe betide “any p[er]son beinge unmarryed or under Thirty yeres and married, and beinge compellable to serve any of those Arts” who has “refused to serve” (f.26v.). Employers must also comply with the state’s strictures on wage control, with penalties “Yf any hhave geven wages contry to rates of wages of servants and laborers appointed & p[ro]clamed” (f.26v.).

Public infrastructure is treated as a collective bodily responsibility: for example, “Yf any Bridges in the highe wayes be broken and decayed to the annoyance of passengers […] Then what hindred Cittye towne p[ar]ishe or p[er]son certayne, or body politique ought of right to repayre or amende the same”. It falls to local “Constables and Churchwardens” to act in this case, and they are in breach of the law if they “have not in Easter weeke called their p[ar]isioners together and appointed overseers of the workes for amendment of their highe wayes leadinge to any markett and have not appointed six daies for that worke” (f.25v.). In a similar vein, clean waterways and fertile land must be maintained, with penalties for those who have “corrupted any waters or running Rivers by Lyme or layinge of hemp or flax in them” (f.26r.); and although one passage concerning the destruction of hedges and the killing of “deare or Conyes in p[ar]ke or warren” (f.13r) has been struck through, its presence still points to broader anxieties around environmental degradation.

Moral and physical order converge in laws policing games and leisure of those in the ‘lower orders’: artificers and their servants are forbidden from frequenting alehouses or playing “Bowleinge Coytinge, Coyles, tennys, Diceinge tables Cardinge, shovegroate, or such like” (f.29r.), and there is specific censuring of the “Destroyers of gentlemens games and sporte” (f.27v.). Possession of certain weaponry is also outlawed, with serious consequences “Yf any have used or kept and gunne or Crosebowe or carried in his journey any Crosebowe” (f.29r.).

Finally, provisions are made for those less fortunate, including instructions to “Enquire of women that have Children borne out of Matrimonye and of the Father of such infant”, “Lawes made for the releife of the poore feeble and impotent”, and the stipulation that “Poore aged & impotent p[er]sons should be p[ro]vided for by the Justices of peace where they were borne or abidenge” (f.29v.).

These laws represent not only a mode of control, but a vision of social health in which justice, labour, and sustenance are in constant, carefully measured balance – a balance that even private thoughts of dissent can threaten.

PROTOCOLS AND PROCLAMATIONS

A blank leaf neatly marks the division between the philosophical underpinnings of society and the practical applications of the law. Our scribe goes into detail about the formal proceedings and protocols that governed the prosecution of cases in parts of the justice system, from the most serious crimes (which came before the Queen’s Justices) to those considered less momentous (which were dealt with by the local courts).

The section begins with “The Order of proceedinge at the assises to be holden by the queenes Justices”, noting that “three proclamacons must be first made by the Cryer”, and that all present must “heare the queenes Com[m]issions read” (f.31r.). The text amounts to a template for each stage of the proceedings: “All Justice of peace” and “All Coroners of our soueraigne Lady the queen wthin the County of N. [name]” are instructed to “answere to your names as you be called” (f.32v.- f.33r.); the accused is subsequently asked: “what sayest thous to this {Murder / Burgulary / ffelon or Treason […] Art thou guylty or not” 35r.). And so on, in assiduous detail, to the conclusion of the trial.

Another template concerns “Statute 29 Eliz:” (a 1586/7 statute addressing the treatment of recusants), and provides the form of words for the proceedings: “A: B: of C in the County of D beinge indicted at this assyse of N for not com[m]ing to Church by the space of Six –monethes & Yeelde thy body, before the next assyses or gaole deliuery to be holden wth this County to the Sheriff of this County of D: soe that he may have thy bodye at the next assyses or jaile deliuery or els thou shalt be convicted” (f.39r.). We get the impression of a continuing refinement of focus – from the grand theories of sovereignty to their legislative application to specific court proceedings – when our scribe copies out the statement, referred to above, of one individual prosecuted (for recusancy) and made to repent:

“Whereas I Gilbert Hussey of Awndell [Oundle] in the County of Northt [Northampton] esquire haue greeuously offended in absenting my selfe from the Co[mm]en praier Com[m]anded and sett fourth by the queenes Highnes publikely to be frequented of all her subiectes in Churches or other places convenient within this Realme of England for the services of allmighty god contrary to my duety both to god and her matie I doe heere before yor Lo: and other s here present hartely repent me of the same, and also doe heere faithfully promise to be obedyent” (f.39r. – f.39v.).

COURTS LEET AND BARON

The manuscript now changes from secretary hand to court hand. This visual distinction, which marks a change of subject, would have aided easy textual wayfinding. The text sets out, again with a high degree of detail, various forms of proclamation at courts leet and courts baron. These were the two forms of manorial court (that is, courts dealing with matters over which lords of the manor had jurisdiction): the court leet was concerned with law and order, and heard minor crimes which the court baron did not; it also regulated agricultural matters such as overstocking commons. The court baron was by this date almost solely concerned with tenure, recording the sales, purchases, mortgages and inheritances of land held by customary tenure.

The section on “Court leet” begins with the “Cryar” saying “3 oyes”, then calling on the relevant parties to “come neare and answere to youre names and doe youre sute on paine of amerciament”. The jury is then called (“xij men pro domina Regina et domino manerii”) and the “forman” bidden to swear “The oathe”, the wording of which is given in full.

Just as the scribe in the previous sections took pains to lay out the context and justification for the workings of Elizabethan justice, here they reproduce at length the cryer’s proclamation ‘script’ framing the proceedings within the larger picture of England’s socio-political maintenance: “This Courte leet was First ordayned to teache every man his dewtie aswell towards his prince as hhis lorde and that the presentment beinge here made of offences done contrarie to the lawes shoulde be made knowne to thend the offendors shoulde receave punishment accordinge to the quallitie of the offence and that from hence the Sessions and other highe Courtes receavinge notice mighte

execute the lawes in greater measure then we maie doe herein” (f40v). Moving on to the day’s business, the cryer calls on the court “to present everie one whoe have tarried within this mannor a yeare and a daye and be of the age of xij years or above and not sworne to be loyall and faythefull to the Queene”. Turning to the accused, he continues: “I thinke it verye necessarye that youthe whoe by reason of theyre Weaknes and Wante of understandinge mighte be here present to learne theyre dewties for theyre ignorance of the lawes shall not excuse them” (f40v).

Again acknowledging the place of the leet court in the overall hierarchy of justice, the cryer instructs the court to “presente offences againste her highness Crowne and dignitie Whiche are equirable and presentable as Felonies but not punnisheable here but onlie to be certified into the Sessions” (f41r).

The blow-by-blow account continues with great thoroughness, and is followed in similar fashion by the proclamations for the court baron. The contextual declaration usefully clarifies the leet / baron distinction: “This courte was ordained for 2 speciall causes the firste for the lorde of the mannor because everye man that holdeth any land of him as of his sayd mannor oughte to paie him a certaine rente dewty or other service which hath continewed by usage ever since the land was given from the mannor of which use and custome you that are sworne are Judge.

“The other cause is for your selves because you may determine the wronges, trespasses, dettes and other injuries done unto you not excedinge in damage 40s and to make good and wholesome lawes and orders amongest you for the quiet holdinge and enjoyinge of every his owne” (f51v).

A parenthetical note in an italic hand treats the nature of justification, employing a passage from “Rom 5.1”: “Justificati igitur fide, pacem cum deo habemus: Hec verba nobis offerun pro argumento hujus aurora epertitis magna” (Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God: These words are offered to us as an argument for this great dawning of revelation) (f.55) – the familiar circular argument of the Church. Its inclusion here at the end of the volume seems a kind of ‘amen’ to the preceding material.

SOURCE TEXTS

While there are undoubtedly precedents of philosophical and legal works, we have been unable find an example of a work which so concisely combines the ideological foundations of society as a body politic with the practical application of those strictures.

We know from internal evidence (mentioned above) that our scribe was consulting texts like Richard Crompton’s (fl. 1573-1599) L’authoritie et iurisdiction des courts de la Maiestie de la Roygne, (1594) and Sir James Dyer’s (1512-1582), Ascuns novel cases (1585). However, although he references these works, he does not copy from them directly. So where exactly did he source his material?

We suggest that he was distilling the ideas from a variety of sources, and from the general milieu. The theological upheavals of the Reformation, combined with the unusual political situation of a woman on the throne, gave rise to intense debates and new questions about the structural management of both the individual and the state. The

solution adopted by many Elizabethan thinkers was to liken the human constitution to the commonwealth. According to Hackett, this analogy, with the mind as ruler over the body, is found across many Elizabethan genres. She cites examples as diverse as the popular poetic anthology, Tottell’s Miscellany (1557) and Banister’s Treatise of Chirurgery (1575); the motif also found artistic expression in the work of Spenser and Shakespeare – in short, it was to be found throughout Elizabethan society. But perhaps its strongest formulation was in philosophical justifications such as A vvoorke of Ioannes Ferrarius Montanus, touchynge the good orderynge of a common weale (1559), The Touchstone of Complexions, and Erasmus’s highly influential Enchiridion. 3

No single work is identifiable with this text, rather it seems to be a remarkably concise distillation of Elizabethan political theory and practice. Traces of other texts may be found in contemporary work: for example, the unusual phrase “metamorphosed Spanyardes”, is found in Antoine Arnauld’s (1560-1619) The arrainment of the whole society of Iesuits in France (1594), but there the similarity ends, so perhaps the expression was already, if not common parlance, at least in circulation.

The second section of the manuscript, which deals with legal procedures and protocols, is very similar to the guidelines outlined in Modus tenendi curiam baronis (1533), and later iterations such as The avcthoritie of al iustices of peace (1580). However, while our text is certainly very similar as one would hope from legal protocols it has not been copied verbatim, but rather distilled from these works into a convenient pocketbook.

FUNCTIONAL FORM

The manuscript’s contents are arranged in a format that neatly reflects the model of social hierarchy undergirding the realm’s ‘proper’ functioning. It moves from the broadest justification of state authority, a lofty overview of the English body politic, to its safeguarding in legislation, then to the finer points of court practice and to the smallest unit of legal interaction: a single individual, Gilbert Hussey, whose repentance is presented as a model of conformity. This funnel from abstract system to individual case is both narratively effective and conceptually reinforcing, mirroring the intended direction of influence from sovereign to subject. Just as the law polices not only actions but thought defining treason as something that can begin in “their owne Imaginacion” this manuscript may work to embed not only legal knowledge, but an internalised duty.

This embedding appears to be reinforced by the physical and visual organisation of the manuscript. A blank leaf marks a hinge between ideological content and legal procedure, visually and cognitively separating two modes of engagement. A change in hand from secretary to court hand corresponds to a shift in function, guiding the reader through different legal registers. These choices likely aided navigation but they may also have facilitated internal distinctions in thinking about law: between justification and execution, authority and duty.

The manuscript is an inherently practical object. Its pocket format, condensed philosophy, formulaic procedures, and scripted speech acts all point to regular use in active settings perhaps in courtrooms or local proceedings.

These features indicate that the book was meant not only to be read, but used repeatedly as a tool of legal performance. Such repetition can have a formative effect: it embeds not just information, but structures, routines, and beliefs.

It is this combination the intentional structure, the ideological content, and its evident application that leads us to ask whether this manuscript might be constitutive of its user’s legal thinking and their own place in the body politic. By contrast, a manuscript with similar content but lacking these formal cues or templates might serve only a reflective function, preserving knowledge without materially reinforcing its logic.

GLORIANA’S AFTERLIFE

The symbolic power embodied in this little volume seems to have endured long after its legal contents had grown obsolete. In 1673 nearly a century after the Elizabethan religious settlement, and in the thick of renewed anxiety the manuscript was gifted from “Henery Mould of Appleby” to one “Abr[aham] Crosland”, described as a “clarissimus amicus”. By this point, its procedural details were largely out of date; the laws themselves no longer applied. But as a relic of a more orderly world, steeped in the certainty of hierarchy and divine right, the manuscript seems to have acquired a second life as a totem of spiritual continuity in an age of religious upheaval and a gesture of fidelity to a lost structure of governance.

CONCLUSION

For a small volume designed to be carried in the pocket, this is a strikingly thorough account of the social and legal machinery of Elizabethan England. It contains a wealth of material methodically organised with visual waymarkers, that its owner clearly felt they needed to have readily to hand. Its content, structure, and use all suggest that it may have played an active role in shaping how its owner exercised and thought about law, authority, and duty. Its textual content and physical features combine into a rich and varied source of insights into how the repercussions of England’s break with Rome were carried into law, and how the relationship between the monarch and their subjects was embedded in everyday standards of behaviour of the people to maintain homoeostatic functioning of the body politic.

£15,000 Ref: 8328

References:

1. Hackett, Helen: The Elizabethan Mind (2022). pp.258-64

2. McCann, Timothy J (ed): Recusants in the Exchequer Pipe Rolls 1581-1592, extracted by Dom Hugh Bowler. Catholic Record Society (Records Series) Vol 71, 1986, p.92.

3. Hackett, Helen. Ibid.

With thanks to Dr Robert Colley and Christopher Whittick.

8. SOCIAL SELECTION

¶ Among the most interesting early-modern receipt books are those that look both inward and outward – expressing something of the household for which they were created and setting that household in a wider network of family, friends and other acquaintances. They also tend to bear the marks of heavy use, making no concessions to a posterity they could never have envisaged.

So it is with this manuscript, which was clearly an item of exchange from one family member to another and draws on an impressive network of ‘pillars of the community’ in Newcastle and Durham; it also comes down to us far from unscathed, but its condition is a commentary on its thorough household service.

As to which household that was, the evidence is suggestive enough for us to attempt an attribution. A pencil note (undated) to the inner cover reads “Probably brought from Mr Reay’s House at Killingworth, when Miss Reay was married to Mr Bell” (Killingworth is a town in Northumberland). Since records indicate that the Reay and Bell families of Northumberland frequently intermarried, we cannot be sure exactly which “Miss Reay” this refers to; but several dates in the manuscript point us towards Catherine Reay, who married John Bell on 23 April 1704 at Haltwhistle, Northumberland.

¶ [REAY, Catherine] 18th Century Book of Recipes and Remedies.

[Northumbria, Killingworth and Haltwhistle?

Circa 1720-40]. Folio (313 x 203 x 6 mm).

Pages numbered 1-55, 78-81, 84-112 are blank and several excised, 113, 116-139. Approximately 260 recipes on 81 text pages.

Contemporary limp vellum, text block loosening, earlier leaves frayed, and lacking at least 13leaves.

Watermark: Pro Patria; Countermark: Crown GR.Similar to Haewood 3702 and 3704.

There are clear signs that the manuscript was written in a few sustained bursts and with a degree of planning: the text is quite dense with a ruled line between each entry, and the tete-beche arrangement has allowed for a second, shorter section at the other end. The earliest date in the manuscript is 1704, but we suggest that Catherine Reay copied out the receipts around 1720 from an earlier manuscript. After 39 recipes, the volume is continued by a second hand, while a third adds a note to the one of the endpapers: “att This End of this booke you [have] receipts for Wines, preserving & emperick receipts / and att the other End you have recepts for Cookery &c”. These distinctions are not, however, entirely maintained – wine recipes also appear “att the other End”, and “This End” begins with recipes for “Scotch Collops” and two puddings before settling down to wines, preserves and syrups.

At the “other End”, roughly the first 16 pages show a transition in the style of the headings, from elaborate, double -size, thick lettering with wavy underlining to a smaller, less embellished form of the succeeding hand. A note on p.23 states that the preceding recipes were copied en masse and strongly indicates that this manuscript was composed for someone else’s use: “NB Thus farr was Mrs Langleys Receipts who was ye School Mts which Taugh Pastry”.

RECIPES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

It is unclear whether the attribution to “Mrs Langleys […] ye School Mts” refers to the over 70 recipes that form the first part of the volume, or the 30 or so that are written in the second hand. Those in the hand we attribute to Catherine include methods of pickling (“Turnips”, “Colliflowers & Kidney Beans” (p.1), “Cucumbers” (p.6)) and stewing (“Chickens” (p.8), “Pippins” (“These better for a Side Dish” (p9), “Eals” (p.10)), and for making sauces (“for Roasted Pullets or Capons”, “for Boil’d Ducks or boil’d Rabbits”, (p.4), “for a Roasted Hare” (p.5)), puddings (“an Orange Pudding”, “a Pippin pudding” (p.10), “A Quaking Pudding” (p.11)), and various pies, cakes and sundries. There are several recipes for pies (“Artichoke Pye”, “Lumber Pye”, “Salmon Pye”), but they also encompass “Olive Florendine”, “To Butter Crabs”, “To Marulett Soles”, “To make a Lesser fruit Cake” and several instances of food colouring (“To Colour Aples Red for Flat Tarts &c”, “To Colour Colly flowrs Red or Yellow or to Colour Turnips”). The note on p.23 concludes: “Also these 2 following was hers”, and Mrs Langley treats us to a pair of wine recipes: “A New way To make Goosebury, Curranberry & Black Berry Wines” and “To make Lemmon or Orange Wine” (requiring “36 Lemmons” or – one assumes – a similar quantity of oranges).

A note at the top of the next page explains “These following receipts are out of my own Receipt book” (p.24), although it’s unclear whether this applies only to the next few or to the 120 or so that make up most of the remaining contents at this end. Muddying the waters further, a note on p.43 announces that “These 6 next following receipts was out of M. Shaw’s receipt book”. The first recipe that follows, “To make Almond Cheesecakes, experienced by my Selfe”, introduces an addendum to the headings that becomes frequent, marking many recipes as personally endorsed by the scribe (usually with the single word “Experienced”); the next recipe, “To make Minced Pyes as I often made ym”, conveys much the same imprimatur. On at least one occasion, they feel moved to declare the opposite: “To make make an Orrange Pudding not experienced by me” (p.43).

EXPERIENCE AND AUTHORITY

Personal experience and external authority both drawn on to commend many of these recipes. Another instance of the former comes with a biographical aside: “To make a fruit Cake, Such as we had at my Wedding, & our own way” (p.26); and a particularly detailed set of directions “To make ye best Surfeit Water that’s made. Experienced” (calling for 35 herbs and flowers to be suffused in brandy for up to five days, then for another nine “druggs” from “ye Apothecaries Shop” to be added and the mixture distilled “in a Limbeck or hot Still”) seems to have a special meaning by virtue of its being “my dear Mothers receipt”; probably cherishing the memory, the scribe expounds at length on their mother’s method: “She used to lay ye herbs abroad to dry for 10 or 20 days […] She used to take some of ye first coming off & kept by it Selfe unsweetened to use upon extraordinary occasions” (pp3031).

Among external authorities, the medical profession is well represented: “Doctr Walker” is acknowledged for his prescriptions “To make Medicine for ye Griping of ye Gutts or Colick” and “A powder to preserve ye Teeth” (p.50);

and we have “Dr Law” to thank for the remedies “To cure ye Jawndice”, “Tea for any Weakness or decay of Eye Sight & to prevent a Cataract” (p.51), “A Powder to take inwardly for ye deffects of Eyesight”, and “A Sneezing powder” (p.52) – this last pair “prescribed by Dr Law & experienced by Lady Musgrave and Severall others which he mentioned”, indicating that they used the services of the same physician as the exalted “Lady Musgrave” (probably Elizabeth nee Francklyn (1648-1701) who married Sir Christopher Musgrave, 4th Baronet (c.1632-1704), of Edenhall in Cumbria in 1671). The personal and the professional combine in another biographical nugget with the remedy “For a Hectique, by Doctr Whartons Advice in my daughter Jeneys case” (p40). This could well be the physician, Thomas Wharton of Old Park (1657-1714), who married Mary Hall, daughter of John Hall (d.1697), Alderman of Durham in 1670 and 1674.

The list of local worthies, particularly aldermen and mayors, lengthens: “Mr Alderman Wass his Electuary for a Chough. Experd” (p.29) is joined by “Gooseberry Wine as Mrs Wass told me according to Mrs Henderson’s Receipt which she had from Durham” (p.52); and a recipe “To Stove or burn White Wine as I have known it done for ye use of Mayors” contains the chatty note: “Mr Wass’s Wine was thus order’d when he came in ye 2d time, he was Mayor, in ye year 1704 Mrs Henderson said few or no cloves would do because She Said it made it drink more like Wine yn Sack, but it was really good” (p.38) (Thomas Wass, a merchant, was mayor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1704). Another mayor may well be the attributee named in “A Powder for a Cough Prescribed by Mr Nichs Ridley” (p48) (Nicholas Ridley was mayor in 1706)

Likewise, “Mrs Matfins Way” to make a “Seed Cake” (p.47) and “A fine Rice Pudding” (p.48), not to mention the unfortunate woman’s recourse to a treatment “To Cure a Vomiting & Purging Precribd by Dr Luck for Mrs Matfin & Experienced by her with good Success” (p43), may correspond to the two Matfens who served as Sheriff of Newcastle (Matthew in 1704, Roger in 1714). As to the nature of the Reay family’s acquaintance with these figures, Henry Reay served as Sheriff in 1707 and as Mayor in 1712 and 1729, and John Bell as sheriff in 1702. Catherine’s casual reference, above, to preparing wine “as I have known it done for ye use of Mayors” (and elsewhere, for example “To make Custards as Mrs Mortimer used to make ym at ye Mayors &c” (p.24)) suggests a familiarity with the office.

SCHOOLS, SOCIABILITY, GOSSIP

The connections traced here extend beyond family, doctors and local government: “Mrs Langley” the pastry instructor is joined by another teacher, “Mr Stewardson one of 3 head School Masters”, whose remedy for “ye Palsey” comes with a background narrative that widens the geographical reach: “a Clergyman of ye City of London assured told him yt after ye bath water and severall other remedies” had failed, he was cured “of a Numb Palsey, by taking 3 parts of pea Cock dung made into an Ellectuary with one part of ye Conserve of rosemary flowers […] he had received such extraordinary advantage” (p.54).

The capital is again invoked as a source of reliable treatments in the instructions “To Cure ye Collick, an Experd Medicine prescribed by Dr … of London a famous Dr for ye use of Mrs Wheeler”; but the ever-gregarious scribe adds another endorsement: “I had ye receipt of Sister Sutton who also experienced it, to be very good in ye Collick”. She appends her own views on the dosage, implying that she too has “Experienced” this cure: “my opinion is to take a Spoonfull fasting in ye Morning and a Spoonfull last at Night” (p53). London also features in the origin story for a third receipt, “To Wash Muzlings Mrs Waltons way when She liv’d in London” (p49); and the city’s perennial function as a barometer of taste is alluded to in the recipe “To make Jocolett as it is used at London for breakfast” (p42).

References: Baillie, John. An Impartial History of the Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne and Its Vicinity. (1801).

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/localgovernment/your-elected-representatives/lordmayor-newcastle/lord-mayors-mayors-andsheriffs.

Oiling the wheels of sociability still further is a recipe “To make Coffee”, with a tip for ensuring that one’s conviviality doesn’t lose its flavour (“if you think to keep any of it then take of ye Lid of ye pott immediately to let out ye Steem for it is ye Steem falling back into it that makes it Sower and thus order’d it will keep a week”) (p41); and, courtesy of the third hand, another ingredient of many a social group – namely gossip – is indulged in while prefacing a handful of “Receipts bought of a man who pretended To been in The service of a Mountebank” (not an entirely effective endorsement for the six receipts that follow, including “How To Sement Broken Chinie”, “To Cure the Toothacke”, and “How To Wash & Glaze Puters”) (p113).

A NETWORK MATERIALISED

The first section of the manuscripts begins eagerly with calligraphic titles, but this practice is not sustained. Nonetheless, the receipts in both sections are written in neat, consistent hands with ruled lines between them, suggesting they were copied out in focused bursts. A less practiced hand adds occasional recipes at both ends of the manuscript, disrupting the original structure and further blurring its internal logic. This is exemplified in the puzzling approach to numbering, which appears only at recipe “39 A Quaking Pudding” (actually the 41st recipe). The recipes end halfway down page 55 with recipe “217” which instructs the reader “To Make Oring Cakes”. The remaining half of the page is blank and there follow around 10 stubs where leaves have been excised. Given the blank section after the final recipe, we assume that the leaves were removed for the usefulness as blank paper rather than an act of aggressive editing. The manuscript shows no further signs of use until the 1794, when another scribe has added “an account of table Linning”. These layers of interaction, ordering and disordering lend the manuscript a patchwork character: it is not only a record of domestic expertise but a physical trace of generational use, where formal coherence was overridden by practicality.

CONCLUSION

The arrangement of our manuscript, together with numerous textual references, suggest that Catherine Reay began compiling these recipes from her own, earlier book for the benefit of another householder (perhaps the “Jeney” who was treated for a “Hectique”). The act of copying from the earlier source was continued by a second hand who subsequently augmented the volume with recipes of their own and others. These numerous personal and family connections combine with attributions and other remarks that branch into Northumberland and London, knitting together physicians, headmasters, mayors, aldermen, clergymen, merchants, a pastry teacher and others into a social fabric full of threads waiting to be followed.

£3,250 Ref: 8321

¶ [PAKINGTON, Lady Dorothy (c.1623-1679); FYSHER, Elizabeth]. 17th-Century Manuscript Miscellany Volume, a Manuscript Pamphlet, and an Associated Printed Book.

The group comprises three texts:

ROHAN, Henri, duc de (15791638). A treatise of the interest of the princes and states of Christendome, written in French by the most noble and illustrious prince, the Duke of Rohan. Englished by H.H. London: printed by Ric. Hodgkinsonne, 1641. Pagination [24], 59, [7], 146 [4] p. Complete. Bound in contemporary limp vellum with original ties (one broken). [R24499, Wing R1868].

[PAKINGTON, Lady Dorothy (c.1623-1679) et al; FYSHER, Elizabeth (scribe)]. 17th-Century Manuscript Miscellany. [Circa 1680]. Tall duodecimo. 54 text pages on 28 leaves, plus 39 blanks and a stub remaining at end. Contemporary black morocco with gilt tooling.

[FYSHER, Elizabeth (scribe)]. 17th-Century Manuscript Prayer and Advice. [Circa 1680]. Slim duodecimo pamphlet. Four text pages on two leaves, plus two blanks. Paper wrappers, hand-painted in imitation of marbled paper.

9. PERSONAL POLYPHONY

¶ The mental spaces afforded to women in the early modern period were often tightly circumscribed; usually to spiritual matters or health and wellbeing. Despite these limitations, many women found creative routes for asserting their sense of themselves and expressing agency. One notable example is Lady Dorothy Pakington, whose work and ideas had a profound influence on 17th-century thought.

Such was Lady Pakington’s repute that she was long believed to be the author of The Whole Duty of Man. Whether or not she was actually the author is only partially relevant, since there is little doubt that her work was held in such high esteem that she certainly could have written it; and the work’s authorship remains ambiguous, especially given that early modern composition could often be a collaborative, multivocal process. Lady Pakington’s cultivation of a circle of royalist fellow travellers – largely centred at her own home – adds weight to the notion of a co-produced text.

Despite her stature, Lady Pakington’s reputation largely lies in just a few contemporary reports of her abilities and a manuscript at the Bodleian Library; a volume which has significant overlap with ours, as we shall demonstrate. Our manuscripts, which were almost certainly written by the same scribe as the Bodleian’s volume, help to expand and consolidate her reputation; they also raise questions about individual versus collective or collaborative authorship. Furthermore, given the strong similarities in hand, it is very possible that the “Eliz. Fysher” whose ownership inscription appears in one of our volumes was herself the scribe responsible for all of these extant copies of Lady Pakington’s work. If so, Fysher’s role as both inscriber and scribe opens up intriguing possibilities for understanding more about the transmission of Lady Pakington’s output and, more generally, the circulation of writings amongst contemporary intellectual women.

READERS AND REGISTERS

Considered together, our three volumes a printed book, a manuscript miscellany, and a manuscript pamphlet map a continuum of textual intimacy, their physical forms accentuating the shifting registers of manuscript and print culture in the late 17th century and reflecting them in palpable form. At one end stands the printed book, Henri duc de Rohan’s (1579-1638) A treatise of the interest of the princes, published in 1641, with a dedicatory gesture to Lady Pakington’s husband, Sir John (ostensibly personal, yet in reality generic and distanced: a conventional bid for patronage that only reinforces its impersonality). The manuscript miscellany, by contrast, brings the reader closer: this is a carefully compiled collection of prayers, its polyphonic voices marked and attributed, circulating in a community of women and their confidants. Its handwritten text mediates between the individual and the collective, allowing community and identity to be forged within a shared textual and mental space. Still more personal is the small pamphlet, with its single prayer and piece of counsel an intimate artefact of private exchange honed to a point. More powerful for being just a sliver of text, it creates a privileged pact between giver and receiver.

The bindings and formats reinforce this movement from general to particular. The vellum-bound printed book, mechanically multiplied, carries its dedication but falls far short of true intimacy. The miscellany, bound handsomely in morocco, is capacious enough to accommodate a variety of shared content, but is anchored in the personal sphere, suggesting a curated, bespoke arrangement. The slim pamphlet, with its home-made binding and ephemeral appearance, all but collapses the distance between writer and reader with its material intimacy.

These contrasts remind us that manuscript culture did more than simply survive alongside print; it could occupy a different, more personal register of communication. Where print declaimed, manuscript exchange allowed for confidentiality, solidarity, and the expression of identity within trusted circles. This collection demonstrates how material form itself stages degrees of intimacy from the impersonal address of print to the whispered counsel of a handwritten and handmade pamphlet.

Lady Dorothy Pakington [née Coventry] (c.1623 1679) and her husband, Sir John Pakington, second baronet (16211679/80), lived at his ancestral home of Westwood, Worcestershire. The marriage probably took place in the early 1640s. It is thought to have been arranged by her parents, but was nonetheless a mutually rewarding, loving and companionate marriage. They had four children: Elizabeth Pakington (1640-?); Margaret Pakington (later Godfrey –see below) (c. 1644-1680); Elizabeth Ann Pakington (later Sheen) (1648-1719); and Sir John Pakington (1649-1688).

The Pakingtons were staunch royalists, and throughout the Interregnum they maintained Westwood as a sanctuary for ejected Anglican clergy; most notably Henry Hammond, with whom Lady Pakington developed a close friendship bonded by shared spiritual and intellectual beliefs. Hammond was followed by other leading lights including John Fell (1625-1686), dean of Christ Church (and later bishop of Oxford); Richard Allestree (1621/221681), churchman and provost of Eton College; John Dolben (1625-1686), clergyman and later archbishop of York; Humphrey Henchman (1592–1675), clergyman and later bishop of London; George Morley (1598-1684), clergyman and later bishop of Winchester; and other prominent churchmen, many of whom became her personal friends.

Lady Pakington was known for her intellect and learning, and Westwood acted not just as a refuge, but as a catalyst for these royalist clergymen and thinkers. It was out of this intellectual crucible that, among other works, the highly influential The Whole Duty of Man (1658) emerged. Lady Pakington was credited with authorship of the book, as was Hammond, and they were followed by over 20 putative authors, until it was recently agreed that Allestree was the most likely candidate (we will discuss the multivocality of these works below).

GROUP THINKING

The two manuscripts in this group were produced around the same time as Bodleian MS Add. B. 58, (hereafter ‘Bodleian MS’) – likely soon after Lady Pakington’s death.

The extent to which their contents reproduce the work of Lady Pakington alone is difficult to measure; by all accounts (though these accounts are limited), the atmosphere at Westwood was one of mutuality, exchange of ideas, cross-fertilisation and co-authorship. The manuscripts themselves reflect this culture: our Fysher manuscript attributes several prayers to Hammond, while the Bodleian MS preserves the same material without attribution, potentially illustrating how authorship, editing, and scribal exchange operated fluidly within the group. (A similar pattern is seen in The Whole Duty of Man, with its much-contested attribution.) Read together, these discrepancies reinforce the idea that both the prayers and the printed treatise were not the productions of a single hand, but the outcome of collaborative intellectual labour conducted within the Westwood circle.

This coterie was not an exclusionary group of self-promoting intellectuals, but a defensive ring of Royalists during the Interregnum; one which would have naturally dissolved at the Restoration. The repression of women, however, continued; and both our manuscripts include what may be a private response to this, effectively marking such a ‘closed’ form of communication as women’s domain. In “A Collection of Prayers”, besides “Lady Pakington” we have the early ownership inscription of “Eliz. Fysher”, the inclusion of “A prayer of my Dear Mothers” (.f27r), and “The Countess of Mortons Daily Exercises” (f.29r); and in the pamphlet, the second of two texts is an untitled, two -page address by one woman (“her that begs your pardon & is your true Lover & humble Servt:”) to another, advising her on appropriate behaviour (“avoid all pevishness & sowerness of humor”, cultivate “a mild meek & affable temper”).

This quantity of material authored by 17th-century women is significant, and suggests an interest in expressing solidarity with other women – a sentiment that might be proscribed in a public arena. The Bodleian MS exhibits a similar inclination, both in its emphasis on confidentiality (for example, the inscription “Private prayers”) and in its tracing of a readership of women (the ownership inscriptions “E. Eyre” (presumably Lady Pakington’s daughter, Elizabeth Eyre) and “Dorothy Godfrey”, who we assume was Dorothy Godfrey (1674-?), daughter of Margaret Godfrey (née Pakington), (c.1644-1680)).

Considered as a group, these texts show how manuscript culture could provide intellectual women with a space to forge bonds of solidarity and fellowship (the pamphlet advice is signed off with “your true Lover & humble Servt”) within a wider climate of repression. They bear out the notion of a community across generations of women, who established enclaves of trust and mutual counsel (“the only way to have all the good things you desire, is to frame your self to a complyance with my Lady’s good instructions, & those of your other friends”) that pushed against the silences imposed by patriarchal society. Yet the very contents of these exchanges also reveal the constraints they operated within: there is no hint of rebellion in the woman-to-woman advice to “avoid all pevishness & sowerness

of humor, & all ill, & froward expressions are to be shun’d for they appear very ungentile, & for you to acquire, a mild meek & affable temper, will make you belov’d of every body”. By working within the narrow bounds assigned to them (“Not to be too nice nor too curious”, and “not so much as a sower look, must appear in your countenance”), these women were extending the scope of their intellectual and spiritual lives, while simultaneously reinforcing those same boundaries policing one another’s public conduct and desires even as they enlarged the private freedoms available to them.

ELIZABETH FYSHER

But who was “Eliz. Fysher”, whose early ownership inscription appears on the front endpaper of our manuscript, and who, as we suggest above, may have had a more significant role in these manuscripts than previously thought? We have been unable to definitively identify her, and she does not appear to be connected to any of Lady Pakington’s coterie. However, their relative proximity to Westwood suggests that the Fishers of Great Packington are plausible candidates. Among these, the most likely family member is Elizabeth Fisher (née Tyringham) (1580-1685), daughter of Sir Anthony Tyringham, MP and Elizabeth Tyringham, of Great Packington Warwickshire. She married Sir Robert Fisher (1579-1647), 1st Baronet of Packington Magna.

Elizabeth Fisher would have been a contemporary of Lady Pakington’s, and it is likely that these two fervent royalists would have known each other. However, Elizabeth Fisher would have been aged around 100 when these volumes were penned, and our “Eliz. Fysher” writes in a very neat, consistent and sure hand, so in lieu of more indepth research, the scribe’s identity remains something of a mystery – for now, at least. Elizabeth and John had at least five children: Sir Clement Fisher, 2nd Baronet; Francis Fisher; Thomas Fisher; Lettice Fisher; Catherine Fisher; and the records of baptisms at Great Packington also suggest they had a further three daughters: Dorothy; Mary, and Elizabeth,1 raising the distinct possibility that Elizabeth Fisher fille, born 1667, was our (youthful) scribe. If so, her task might have served as a simultaneous instructional exercise in devotion, handwriting, intellectual expansion, and the solidarity of exchange between 17th-century women.

EXTANT MANUSCRIPTS

While there are some family records for the Pakingtons,2 very little seems to have remained of the kind of manuscripts that built Lady Pakington’s reputation. The “prayers by Lady Pakington” at the British Library [Add. MS 28659], in fact amount to just a single prayer entitled ‘A Prayer before the Sacrament, composed by the Lady Pakington’. The British Library also holds an interesting affidavit [Add MS 4253] concerning the authorship of The Whole Duty of Man which reads:

October 13th 1698. Mr Tho. Caultons Vicar of Worksop in Nottinghamshire in the Presence of Will. Thornton Esq & hir Lady, Mrs Heathcote Mrs Austin Aske, Mrs Caulton, & John Hewit, Rector of Harthill declared the Words following:

Nov.r the 5th 1689 at Shire Oaks, Mrs Ey[r]e took me up into her Chamber after dinner & told me, her Daughter Moyser of Beverly was dead naming other things concerning the private Affairs of her Family She told me who was the Author of the whole Duty of Man; At the same time pulling out of a private Drawer a MS tied together & stitched in 8vo which she declared was the Original Copy, written by Lady Packington her Mother who disown’d ever having written the other Books, that are reputed to be

Be by the same Author, except the Decay of Xtian Piety. She added too, that it had been perused in MS by Dr Covell Mr of Trinity College Cambr. Dr Stainford Prebend of York, & Mr Banks Rector of the Great Church at Hull.

Mr Caulton declared this upon his Deathbed 2 days before Decease.

ASSOCIATIONS AND RELATIONS

More directly pertinent to our two manuscripts is a volume of “Lady Pakington’s prayers” at the Bodleian Library [Circa 1680] [MS Add. B. 58]. The first important thing to note when comparing our two manuscripts with the Bodleian’s volume is that they were almost without doubt copied from the same source, apparently by the same scribe, and that said scribe was, as we have argued above, plausibly Elizabeth Fisher fille. We therefore date our two manuscripts as contemporary with the Bodleian volume. We will compare the features of each side-by-side. For clarity and brevity, we will refer to the Bodleian’s MS Add. B. 58 simply as Bodleian MS, our bound volume as Fysher MS and our pamphlet as Fysher P.

Measurements, collations and bindings

Bodleian MS is an unassuming duodecimo volume (128 x72 x 15 mm) bound in contemporary plain sheep. It comprises a total of 30 prayers and other writings on 73 leaves, plus 65 blanks.

Fysher MS is a tall, slim duodecimo volume (145 x 60 x 12 mm) bound in contemporary black morocco with gilt tooling. It comprises a total of 15 prayers and other writings on 28 leaves, plus 39 blanks and a stub remaining at end.

Fysher P is a slim pamphlet (135 x 88 mm). It comprises four text pages on two leaves, plus two blanks.

The binding is most unusual: it appears to be a homemade attempt at hand-painting a marbled paper effect. What is certain is that the two texts were deliberately selected and bound up separately to create a singularly intimate artefact.

Textual similarities and differences

The text in Fysher MS is continuous, with texts grouped under attributions, whereas that in Bodleian MS is arranged tête-bêche, with ascriptions to Lady Pakington at one end and no mention of authorship at the other. This arrangement could imply that Lady Pakington’s work occupies one end only, or the entire volume. Our volume offers some insight into this question, but also raises other questions.

Bodleian MS has an inscription to f.1r. “Private prayers” and is inscribed on the verso “E. Eyre” (presumably Lady Pakington’s daughter, Elizabeth Eyre). An inscription at the opposite end reads “Dorothy Godfrey” (f.140v), whom we assume was Dorothy Godfrey (1674-?), daughter of Margaret Godfrey (née Pakington), (c.1644-1680). After two pages of scattered notes, an inscription to f.135v. states that “The following Prayers, were the Lady Pakingtons, found, after her death”.

Fysher MS is inscribed to f1r. “Eliz Fysher” and the general title “A Collection of Prayer[s]” on f.2r, followed by “Prayers of the Lady Pakington” on f.3r which marks the first of her prayers themselves “For Devotion in Prayer” on the same page, and continues to f3v. This appears on ff.134v-134r in Bodleian MS. Next is “A Confession” which in our volume runs from f4r to f7r and in the Bodleian’s on ff.133v-130v. The plea “For Dilligence” begins

further down the page on f7r, and continues to f8r in ours, and ff.125v-125r in Bodleian MS. The lengthier piece entitled “A thanksgiveing” runs from f.8r to 11v in ours, and from f.124v to f.119v in Bodleian MS.

It is perhaps significant that these texts occur in the same order in both Fysher MS and Bodleian MS. The Bodleian volume does, however, have several short pieces interspersed that were not copied into ours, and we have texts not found in theirs. Nonetheless, it is clear that the two books were copied by the same scribe from the same originating text (apparently now lost). The most compelling piece of evidence for this is to be found on f.5v of our volume, and f.131v of the Bodleian MS

A bracketed note written midway through the text on f.5v of our volume states “(this was imperfect & ye beginning of this yt follows is lost)” – and occurs verbatim on f.131v of Bodleian MS.

However, it is equally clear that the volumes diverge in other places. A notable feature of Fysher MS is that the attributions are recorded, whereas Bodleian MS has only the attribution: “The following Prayers, were the Lady Pakingtons, found, after her death” to f.135v. This note seems to have been taken to refer to the entire contents of the volume,3 but it is not certain that that is the correct interpretation, not least because the contents are arranged tête-bêche, and the Pakington attribution occurs at one end of the volume, and not the other.

A group of prayers in Fysher MS is attributed to Henry Hammond (“Prayers of the Reverend Dr Hammo[nd]”), but in Bodleian MS they all appear in the “Private Prayers” section at the opposite end of the volume with no further attribution. The group consists of: “A Thanksgiveing” (the wording is very different to the “thanksgiveing” noted above) on ff.12r-13v in Fysher MS and ff.6v-8r in Bodleian MS; “A Confession” on ff.13v-15v in Fysher MS and ff.8v-11r in Bodleian MS; “For Humility” (ff16r-17r and ff.11v-13r respectively); “For the Love of God” on ff.17v-18v in Fysher MS and ff.13v-15r in Bodleian MS (and there titled simply “For Love”); “For Charity” (ff.19r-19v in ours and ff.15v-16v in Bodleian MS where it is untitled); “For Devotion in Prayer” (appears on ff.20r-23v in Fysher MS and ff.17r-19r in Bodleian MS); “For Sincerity” (ff.22v-23v in Fysher MS and ff.20r-21v in the Bodleian MS); “For Resignation” (ff.23v-24v in Fysher MS and ff.22r-23r in Bodleian MS); “For Perseverance” (ff.24v-25v in Fysher MS and ff.24r-25v in Bodleian MS).

This entire group appears in the same order in both, so the scribe was clearly working from the same manuscript. The only differences are that the prayer “For the Love of God” in Fysher MS is titled simply “For Love” in Bodleian MS, and that the prayer “For Charity” in Fysher MS is “Blessed Lord which hath so universally extended thy bowels of love” in the Bodleian MS, but the texts are the same.

The texts attributed to Hammond in Fysher MS are immediately followed by a brief extract of “Private prayers in the Church / This following is out of ye Booke entitled a Method for private devotion”, i.e. Edward Wettenhall’s (1636-1713) Enter into thy closet, first published in 1666 and reprinted numerous times. This appears together with “A short prayer before devine service begins” which was taken “out of Dr Patricks devout Chtian”. Simon Patrick’s (1626-1707) The devout Christian was first published in 1673 [Wing, P780] and reprinted numerous times. These two extracts occupy one and a half pages, and are the final entries by our scribe.

The next entry, which is written in a different, but also late-17th century hand, is a piece entitled “prayer of my Dear Mother” and offers the possibility of providing evidence for Elizabeth Fysher’s identity; either via her mother or as an example of the work of Elizabeth Fysher herself, perhaps recorded by one of her daughters. The text is thus far otherwise untraced, and as there are no additional details, we are wary of drawing conclusions. It has some similarities to a prayer in Brian Duppa’s (1588-1662) A guide for the penitent (1664), [Wing / D2660], part of which reads (p.42):

“Let this day, O my God, be noted in thy Book. / Do not thou forget my Prayers, nor suffer me to forget my Resolutions.”

And our text reads,

“Let this day oh God be noted in thy Book do not thou forgett my promises nor Lett me forget my resolutions”

However, the texts diverge shortly thereafter, so we offer it merely as a suggestion for where “my Dear Mother” may have got her inspiration.

Continuing the royalist strain, a third contributor to the volume adds “The Countess of Mortons Daily Exercise” (ff.29r-31r). Anne Douglas, Countess of Morton’s (d.1700) The Countess of Morton’s daily exercise was first published in 1666, and 1678, 1679, 1689, 1692, 1696, and reprinted several times in the 18th century. She is remembered for her devotional writings and the daring escapade in which she smuggled her goddaughter, Princess Henrietta (1644-1670) out of England to France in 1646.

While the overlaps discussed above between the two volumes reinforce the case that there was an original text (or texts) from which both volumes were transcribed, they are not simply “copies”; each manuscript features certain texts or groups of texts selected over others, leaving some which occur in each and others that do not. So, while we are reluctant to draw conclusions, we can confidently state that intentionality in the form of textual selection guided the choices made in each volume.

CONCLUSION

Our manuscript offers corroborating evidence for some of Lady Pakington’s works, but the ambiguity of authorship demands scholarly reassessment over the authorship of some of the writings traditionally attributed to her in the Bodleian MS, and other writings associated with the Pakington circle; the similarities in hand between our two manuscripts and the Bodleian MS are too marked to ignore, making the “Eliz. Fysher” ownership inscription in ours a fresh route of inquiry into the circumstances of the creation of these works. What was Elizabeth Fysher’s relationship with either Lady Pakington or Elizabeth Eyre? What do the material aspects of our three volumes offer in the way of further insights into the multivocal nature of authorship between these 17thcentury luminaries? And, indeed, what do they say about women’s writing and literary exchange in the 17th century more widely?

There can be no doubting Lady Pakington’s historical importance, and any future scholarly work on her would be glaringly incomplete without these volumes.

£20,000 Ref: 8329

References:

1. www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/2416/records/4475893?tid=&pid=&queryId=c86a304e-96c0-466c-9a314582f09bc0d7&_phsrc=jmk397&_phstart=successSource

2. Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. Miscellaneous papers relating to the Pakington and related families, 15611829. [705:349/12946].

3. Mendelson, Sara H. ‘Pakington [née Coventry], Dorothy, Lady Pakington’. ODNB. (2004); Arnoult, Sharon L. ‘“Some Improvement to their Spiritual and Eternal State”’ in Early Modern Women and Transnational Communities of Letters. Edited by Julie D. Campbell and Anne R. Larsen. (2016).

10. KITCHEN SCRAPS

¶ Pinned-in scraps, stitched additions, and a printed slip titled “Directions for Cleaning Metal Goods” reveal the porous boundaries between the culinary, medicinal, and practical, and between manuscript and print. The text is hybrid not only in its media but in its authorship, being both communal and cumulative. This is not the work of a single compiler, but of a household in all its complexity recording, revising, and adapting according to need.

A layered and fragmentary manuscript shaped by collective use over time, this late 18th-century culinary notebook comprises around 54 pages of recipes in multiple hands some elegant, others informal. It is not so much a record of domestic knowledge as a site of its ongoing construction. Items such as “Currant Wine,” “Spunge Cake” and “Syrup of Saffron” appear more than once, often in varied forms, suggesting repeated testing, adaptation or coexisting traditions rather than clerical duplication.

¶ [HOUSEHOLD RECEIPTS].

Late 18th-century Culinary Manuscript.

[Norfolk? Circa 1775-1820]. Quarto. Approximately 54 text pages. Some leaves excised, some additional leaves amateurishly stitched in, others loose. Contemporary vellum. Various watermarks, including Britannia, Coat of Arms (similar to Haewood 445-8).

Contents span the seasonal and practical (“To Keep Eggs”, “To Preseve Orranges”, “To pickle mushrooms”), the festive (“To Make a Floating Iland”, “Oyster Parties”), and the affluent (“Syrup of Saffron”), suggesting a household with the means to entertain and the leisure to cook for enjoyment. Indeed, wines, such as “Currant”, “Cowslip”, “Black Cherry”, “Quince”, and “Sage”, and creams, including “Rasberry Creem”, “Ice Creame”, “Orange Cream”, and “Sugar Loaf Cream”, are among the most popular types of recipe, interspersed with a few medical receipts (“Lozengers For the hart burn”, “A Receit for Vapours”).

There is no index, and recipes appear in no fixed sequence; the structure is not planned but accumulative, reflecting the shifting priorities of a household that cooked seasonally, entertained guests, preserved produce, and treated illness within the same textual space. But the manuscript does more than reflect. By recording certain preparations what to make, how to cure, what to preserve and how it would also have helped to shape the rhythms of domestic life.

That formative quality lies in the manuscript’s extratextual features multiple hands, repeated entries, stitched additions, and pinned-in fragments which suggest collective, iterative use. And whereas this may be true of many, if not all household receipt books, this volume draws attention to these aspects through its preservation of source material in unadulterated form; illustrating how domestic texts can function as tools of embodied, shared thought even when their structure is loose and their authorship diffuse.

£1,250 Ref: 8286

11. COSMIC CLERGY

¶ Pre-Newtonian astronomy collides with contemporary sky-watching in this 18th-century miscellany, attributed to Cambridge alumnus, clergyman and amateur astronomer John Lambe – a student of the heavens in more ways than one.

The manuscript surveys the “Antiquity & Excellency of Astronomy” through several lenses, including the lives of astronomers ancient and modern, histories of comets and eclipses, and the Gregorian calendar. Lambe has copied some material from printed sources, often citing page references, but he punctuates these passages with personal notes and accounts of his own celestial observations –brief narratives that often convey his enthusiasm for the topic.

¶ LAMBE, John (1685-1733). Astronomy manuscript. Concerning the Antiquity & Excellency of Astronomy.

[Circa 1720]. Quarto (200 x 155 x 23 mm).

284 numbered pages. Contemporary panelled sheep, worn, rebacked, text browned and dusty throughout.

Provenance: A later, rather faint note in pencil to the front paste-down reads “Orig [ina]l Autograph Common-Place Books of Rev. John Lambe M.A. (of Clare Hall Camb) &c. 1720”. Ink name stamp to title page of “Dav Lambe”.

A later note in pencil to the front paste-down reads “Orig [ina]l Autograph Common-Place Books of Rev. John Lambe M.A. (of Clare Hall Camb) &c. 1720”. John Lambe matriculated at Clare Hall in 1703, then graduated BA in 1706/7, and MA in 1710; he later became vicar of Oxton and chaplain to the Duke of Montagu. An ink name stamp to the title page reads “Dav Lambe” – probably signifying John Lambe’s son, Davies Lambe (1715–1771), who graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge (BA 1737/8, MA in 1741) and, like his father, went on to become a vicar.

At the time Lambe attended Cambridge, the tutor (later Master) at Clare Hall was Samuel Blithe, who, in the closing decades of the 17th century, “set courses of reading that mixed traditional Aristotelian philosophy with texts by Bacon, Boyle, and even Gassendi and Galileo”.1 Internal evidence dates this volume circa 1715–1720, after Lambe’s time at Cambridge: for example, he describes the 1715 comet and aurora in the present tense, while later phenomena are referred to predictively. But the spirit of Blithe’s teaching lived on, both at the college and, clearly, in Lambe’s worldview, to judge from his digest of the history of the field in this manuscript. Lambe arranges his volume in three “books”, though he proves a little inconsistent within this structure, as we shall see. “Book the first” (crossed through on title page, but still legible) presents a history “Of the Antiquity & Excellency of Astronomy” (pp2-61); “Book 2d Magi” (pp106-187) features brief accounts of astronomers such as “Pytheas, of Marseilles”, “Marcius Philippus”, “Ptolomy”, “Hypatia”, “Robert of Lincoln”, “Albohazia”, “Sacro Bosco”, and “Regiomontanus”. These usually occupy a page or two, but the revolutionary “Copernicus” is afforded

After a 24-page discussion of the calendar (“Calendarii Reformatio”, “Clavius & the Roman Calendar” (pp188211)), including such things as tables for finding movable feasts, Lambe devotes his closing paragraph to heralding the next section: “It is now time to hasten to the Prince of Astronomers, the Noble, & renowned Tycho Brahe who claims a more ample & particular account, which therefore we will next begin”. Accordingly, “Book 3d” covers the life and work of “Tycho Braheus” at length, also bringing in “Kepler”, “Gassendus”, and others (pp212-269). Unexpectedly, a third cluster of luminaries appears (“Rogerius Bacon”, “Lucas Gauricus”, “Fracastorius”), but only after the index.

One name strikingly absent from this chronicle is that of Newton, whose Principia had been published three decades earlier at Lambe’s own university. The most recent astronomer to receive a biographical entry is “Gassendus” (Pierre Gassendi (d. 1655)), which suggests that Newton simply fell outside the chronological scope of the ‘history of astronomers’ sections. Contemporary figures such as Edmond Halley are mentioned, but in other contexts particularly in the discussions of comets and predictive calculation (“De Cometis – Dr Halley & other Astronomers imagine the orbits & appearances of the Comet in 1680” (p.93)) rather than among the biographies. Lambe’s personal perspective animates these histories and accounts, as he jots down reports of his own sightings (“Aug 29 I observ’d this Eclipse at Southwell” (p97)) or of the frustrations of meteorology, as in his attempt to view the 1715 transit of Mercury with a camera obscura (“by Rays let in to a dark room at a little hole”), expressing his eager anticipation (“Mercury is in conjunction with the sun in 17 deg: of Taurus, & will appear like a little black patch or beauty spot in the face of the Sun. which will be mos curious to behold”) and making clear his disappointment in a subsequent note in darker ink, “The Morning was cloudy so this Phænomenon not to be

Earthly matters also attend his recollection that in “1715 There was a wonderfull Aurora Borealis or Chasm rather in ye Sky for several nights together”, (p.95) which occurred “about the time that Derwentwater was beheaded” –Lambe’s aside echoing, probably unconsciously, the ancient habit of associating movements in the heavens with notable human events (James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, was executed for treason on 24 February 1716 after participating in the Jacobite rising the previous year).

These personal aspects of Lambe’s text are at times mirrored by his mildly idiosyncratic disruptions of the structure he has imposed, as mentioned above. The presence of new material beyond the point he had initially marked as the end suggests that this was a working notebook, expanded over time rather than thoroughly planned in advance. Further evidence of this lies in the densely packed lines of text, with occasional underlinings and marginal additions – features that indicate a private record of study and reflection rather than composed notes or an item intended for display.

Lambe’s volume shows him reprocessing the intellectual diet of his Cambridge years once he has become a working clergyman with an ongoing amateur interest in astronomy. But while the notebook is thoughtful, it does not seem to generate new systems of reasoning or guide collective practice. Its marginalia clarify rather than transform; its organisation, though sometimes curious, does not structure complex processes of discovery, rather it registers the pace of Lambe’s own engagement and demonstrates cognition at the level of recording, collating, and occasionally personalising knowledge.

£1,500 Ref: 8307

1. Giles Mandelbrote, K. A. Manley. The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland: 1640-1850: Volume 2. (2006).

12. BOYD WILL BE BOYD

¶ Even within the highly circumscribed existence of women in the early modern period, we can still find hints of character and agency in the surviving traces of their lives. Though largely denied the range of choices, opportunities and expressions of opinion available to men, they nevertheless found ways to exercise their preferences and articulate their personal views in the books and manuscripts they read, adapted, and created.

The five items in this collection, while aligning with the traditionally female spheres of religion and cookery, have material qualities that bring us closer to their owner: the inexpensive materials, evidence of heavy use, and inexpert repairs to certain volumes – not to mention her inclusion of a more political extract among the hymns and homilies of one manuscript book – all express something of the life of a twicemarried, twice-widowed woman in Revolutionary America.

A posthumous biographical note to the pastedown of her “Book of Receipts” sketches Ann Boyd’s life in the context of her familial relationships (“Daughter of …”, “She married …”). But artefacts of this vintage can add nuance to such stark statements about their owners, through the choice of contents and the volumes’ physical condition. The two manuscript notebooks here are quite fragile, expressing both the cheapness of their construction and the degree of use they had; and the addition of several manuscript leaves to one of the printed books, in a homespun manner consonant with the basic methods used in the notebooks, suggests a determination to personalize this copy.

¶ [BOYD, Ann (1745-1833)] A Small Collection of Books and Manuscripts. [Pennsylvania and Baltimore. Circa 1770-1820].

A collection of two manuscripts and three books belonging to Ann Boyd of Pennsylvania and Baltimore, spanning some 50 years and two marriages.

These relatively austere qualities seem at odds with Ann Boyd’s apparent social status – at birth, at least. She was born to Edward Drury (1720-1763), a wealthy Pennsylvania innkeeper, and Sarah nee Maugridge (1725-1785). Her grandfather, William Maugridge (1697-1766), a cabinet maker, was a member of the Junto Club of Philadelphia and an acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin. The paroxysms of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), although not referred to in Ann’s volumes, may be reflected in the fate of her first husband, Col. John Little (1739-1774), who died while posted to Bermuda.

In 1777, Ann married Dr. John Boyd (d.1790), who had opened the second drug store in Baltimore, Maryland and was a member of the Baltimore Committee of Correspondence. After his death, Anne continued living in Baltimore, having inherited his properties.

THE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS

In chronological order, the five items are as follows.

1. LITTLE/BOYD, Ann. Philosophical and Theological Manuscript Miscellany

Octavo (167 x 105 x 5 mm). Approximately 41 text pages on 24 leaves, plus two pages which had been stitched in, but since detached. Contemporary sheep, worn and broken.

The timespan of this little manuscript notebook seems to reach from 1770 (the date of “Ann Little’s” inscription, during her first marriage) to the early 1820s (when a copied-out passage appeared in print).

Ann’s additional inscription of her second married name (“Ann Boyd”) to the rear pastedown reinforces this impression of a life being encompassed.

The contents include hymns copied from texts by the likes of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley; together with extracts from essays on temperance, charity, and prudence, and from an essay, “On Justification”, that appeared in the August 1820 issue of the Washington Theological Repertory.

Ann was clearly keen to engage with theological texts – but one selection suggests a political sensibility. Between a hymn and a tract on temperance, and set apart somewhat by a pair of blank pages on either side, are three pages of copied-out text entitled “The Speech of a French Curate to the National Assembly, on the resignation of his ecclesiastical character & salary”. This passage, which was published in The Age of Infidelity: In Answer to Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason (London, 1795), asserts the merits of the separation of church and state, as its anonymous cleric declares: “I rejoice in this day […] not because I wish to see religion degraded; but because I wish to see it exalted & purified. By destroying its alliance with the state you have given it dignity & independence […] We resign without reluctance, our gold & silver Images & embroidered vestments […] We can also spare our churches, for the heart that wishes to lift up itself to God, will never be at a loss for a room to do it in.” Mild stuff, perhaps, but suggestive of Ann’s embrace of texts beyond the merely pious.

BOYD, Ann. Manuscript Book of Recipes and Remedies.

Octavo (146 x 95 x 5 mm). 42 text pages on 21 leaves (some leaves excised with only stubs remaining), plus three stitched-in leaves of household remedies, a recipe to the rear paste-down.

Manuscript title to front cover: “Book of Recipes Ann Drury Boyd”; inscribed “Ann Boyd” to front endpaper, with biographical notes in a later hand. Pages fixed, wear to covers.

This rough-and-ready household book contains 52 recipes for savouries, desserts, remedies, and household receipts. Recipes and remedies jostle with household and gardening tips: thus, “To destroy Buggs” (“24 grains corrosive sublimate” mixed with “well into every part of the bedstead & bottom”) is followed by a recipe for “Muffins”, then by a “Hint to Gardeners” (namely that brine mixed with pond water will eradicate “worms, grass and mosses” from gravel paths). The miscellany also features “Savoy Biscuits”, “An Indian meal Pudding”, “Valencia Wine”, “Mock Macaroons”, “Richmond Pudding”, and “India pickle for Mangoes”.

Occasional attributions (“Mrs. M’s Receipt for Bacon”, “To cure Bacon Mrs Lawsons way”, “an Orange Pudding Mrs Covay”) sketch an outline of Ann Boyd’s social circle. Medical items include notes on “the vapour”, a method “To take a film of the eye”, and cures for “Warts” and “Consumption”. Household recipes include “Egyptian cement, that resists water”, “To destroy Canker-worms”, and – crudely sewn into the back on a scrap of paper – “Cheap white Paint”. Adding to this sense of an unplanned receptacle for sundry recipes is the fact that, while most of the rectos have their text written horizontally, many of the versos – for no clear reason – instead have vertical text.

3. NELSON, Robert. A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England.

[London]: Circa 1750 to 1800. Octavo. Pagination 636, [14, index], p. lacks title page and prelims. Contemporary sheep, worn and broken with amateur cloth spine repair.

Inscribed “Ann Boyd” to front endpaper. Seven manuscript pages on leaves crudely stitched in between index pages. These leaves are slightly larger, and have been folded to fit the volume’s dimensions and stitched to secure these extra flaps. Her manuscript additions include excerpts from 18th-century texts, including Philip Doddridge’s The Family Expositor, Massillon’s Sermons.

4. [EPISCOPAL CHURCH].

Select portions from the Authorised version of the whole book of Psalms, [Bound with] Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of

Baltimore: E. J. Coale, 1820; Philadelphia: S. F. Bradford. 1827. Octavo. Pagination 158; 132, [2] p. Contemporary sheep, amateur cloth repairs to hinges.

Gilt ownership label “Ann Boyd” to front cover, and inscribed by Boyd to front endpaper. The first book ends at p.158, i.e. the end of the Psalms. Instead of the “Hymns Annexed” promised in the title, Boyd, or perhaps a bookseller, has bound in a Philadelphia printing of Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

5. FABER, Rev. G. S. A Practical Treatise on the Ordinary Operations of The Holy Spirit.

New York: Eastburn, Kirk and Co. 1814. Octavo. Pagination xix, [1], 256 p. Contemporary sheep.

¶ Inscribed “Ann Boyd” to title page, with a four-line pious inscription to rear endpaper.

CONCLUSION

The physical aspects of Ann Boyd’s volumes – from the rudimentary materials of the two manuscripts and the haphazard arrangement in the recipe book to the evidence of heavy use and the awkward repairs – may carry an intimation of straitened circumstances, or simply of an unpretentious attitude to material possessions. In either case, it adds some shading to the portrait of her given by the posthumous biographical note; and her decision to copy into her notebook an item endorsing the separation of church and state suggests the glimmer of a political position, albeit hidden under a cheaply bound bushel.

£4,000 Ref: 8346

13. MERCANTILE MAZES

¶ Memory, learning, community, and commerce are materially entangled across five decades in this highly engaging work which traces the life of one James Smellie of Carstairs from his early education through to his later mercantile activities.

What began as a schoolboy’s cyphering book has been populated over time with puzzles, currency conversions, addresses and numerous other interventions and interpolations. The result is a layered record of village life, where imagination, trade, and fellowship are inscribed onto the same surfaces. Pages are enlivened by calligraphic flourishes in the margin, drawings of swanlike birds and bowler-hatted figures wandering across lines of text – and by two labyrinths, one tipped in towards the end of the volume, the other obscured by a feat of miniature writing. These and other interactions disrupt any sense of a linear narrative, capturing instead the reversions, rehearsals, reiterations, and general messiness of a life lived in real time.

Smellie’s mercantile practice (“A Merchant in New England stands indebted to his Correspondent in London”) abuts records of potato-field auctions and

¶ [SMELLIE, James]. Manuscript ‘Count Book’ and Miscellany.

[Scotland, South Lanarkshire, Carstairs. Circa1802-50].

Small quarto (165 x 200 x 12 mm). The volume is comprised of two main sections: 126 and 46 text pages which have been hand stitched together through the spine. Bound in heavily faded marbled card wrappers, reinforced with a wraparound slice of sheepskin.

The contents are easily legible but written on browned, finger-marked, and dog-eared paper. Its confluences of the written and the illustrated, the serious and the playful, the civic and the personal, all contribute to a somewhat chaotic feel that perhaps stands in contrast to many other cyphering books. Far from being a static record, Smellie’s miscellany barely manages to contain the plurality of his life’s strands as they continually interlace across fifty years of inscription.

£750 Ref: 8352

14. GROUNDWORKS

¶ British agriculture was changing rapidly during the 18th century, as production intensified to meet the demands of an increasing population. A combination of factors – from land reclamation in the eastern fenlands and woodland clearances to reduction of fallow periods by instead rotating turnips and clover – made these increases possible. Opinions differ markedly as to the timespan of the British Agricultural Revolution, but farmers were certainly still in the thick of it by the final decades of the 18th century – the period from which our fascinating volume dates.

Publishers at the time saw a ready market in the ‘gentleman farmer’, especially those keen to ‘improve’ the land, hence titles such as John Trusler’s Practical Husbandry, intended for “Gentlemen, who may think proper to use a certain quantity of land, either for amusement or convenience” rather than those “men early bred to husbandry”.

Our copy of Trusler’s printed guide has been transformed into a working tool for agricultural life across nearly two decades. The consequent layering of voices reads strikingly like a running dialogue between text, land, and labour – a conversation that unfolds over almost 20 years of trial and error.

¶ [TRUSLER, John (1735-1820); HARRIS, John, annotator]. Annotated and Interleaved copy of ‘Practical husbandry; or, the art of farming, with a certainty of gain: as practised by judicious farmers in this country.

The Result of Experience and Long Observation’.

London: printed for the author; and sold by R. Baldwin, Pater-Noster Row, MDCCLXXX. [1780]. FIRST EDITION.

Octavo. Pagination [12],160 (of 164)p. Text complete, but bound without the advertisement leaves (pp.161-164). [ESTC: T68833]. Interleaved and annotated throughout. 96 interleaves with approximately 88 pages of manuscript text, 19 pages of pasted-in printed scraps, and manuscript to front and rear paste-downs and annotations to approximately 24pages of printed text. Contemporary calf, 20th century reback, rubbed. Bookseller’s ticket to front pastedown: “[-URY, Bookseller / Stationer & Binder / 111 High Street, Southampton”.

Provenance: Ownership inscription to title page: “J[oh]n Harris”.

WHO COMPILED IT – AND WHY?

We attribute the annotations to John Harris, who signs his name to the title page, and makes a note to the front pastedown regarding the quality of a herd sold in Oxford, which was bought by a Staffordshire farmer, “I have Heard of the Excellency of this stock J Harris”. Several references in the text suggest he resided in Gloucestershire. These include “Mr King of Winterbourne observed this first to me” and “changed seed from Horton” (opposite p.116) and the city of Bath in neighbouring Somerset (“This year I tried the Swedish Turnip called Roota Baga – I had the seed from Bath by my friend”).

It seems likely that Harris was indeed a ‘gentleman farmer’; however, while probably not “bred to husbandry”, he certainly has greater-than-average prior experience and motivation beyond mere “amusement”; and gives plenty of evidence for this in his assiduous notes and additions throughout the volume. The title to front paste-down restates the earnestness of his project: “Remarks on Agriculture. Crops, Sheep, & Cattle – for a Series of Years”.

Harris has made the printed volume he purchased more fertile and appropriate to his own needs by having it bound with several blank pages after each chapter; here, he has appended first-person records of his own investigations and experiments, together with manuscript transcriptions and clippings from other printed sources together with receipts borrowed from friends and neighbours. Together they form a weighty compilation of agricultural thought and practice, lived through the page over time (specifically the years 1780–1797). In this sense, the volume enacts a double labour: the manual labour of farming and the intellectual labour of shaping and recording experience and experiment through writing.

One can see how the structure of the book channels the farmer’s learning: in the blank sections inserted between each chapter, Harris has added relevant additions, notes, observations, and experiments directly related to that chapter, so that the manuscript notes on each crop complement and expand the subject of the printed chapter. The farm’s priorities are also evident, as the interleaves flourish with observations and tables concerning the crops that mattered, while other sections (notably beans) remain conspicuously uncultivated. What results is a record of labour, where presence and absence alike are eloquent witnesses to agricultural activity.

One sequence nicely illustrates how Harris’s seasonal and annual cycles unfold on the page, and show him fully engaged with some of the key crops and practices then in circulation. After a chapter on wheat, he recounts that wheat crop of the year 1780 & 1781 were both blighted & miserably deficient […] the like had not been felt upwards of 60 years, as I was informed on fullest enquiry, amongst the old farmers of the Country” year was not much better, proving on the Summer” resulting in a late, poor yield. In an uncharacteristically unscientific episode he asks planets Jupiter & Saturn, w from “Dr Mead on the influence of the planets” interventions, he includes notes on how weather”, and records his own experiments with threshing, ploughing and rotation with clover. Then, in 1790, he triumphantly exclaims it was “the best crop I ever had” progress on the page.

EXPERIMENTATION AND CONVERSATION

This sequence illustrates the volume’s function as an agricultural laboratory book, where information is recorded, problems are worked out and experiments are chronicled. Harris records observations, interventions, and results: some time after the wheat trials mentioned above, he conducts a different experiment involving clover, wheat, and turnips, which although it perfect crop”, ultimately

The book also becomes a site of knowledge exchange and a forum for conversations. Harris augments Trusler’s text, and juxtaposes the work of other published authors; neighbouring friends and fellow practitioners pitch in with commentary and other contributions “a very infectious Disorder” in sheep), providing alternate sources of authority. His augmentation of the text with his own “Articles in the interleaved which comprises subjects which do not occur in the main contents page, “of Butter and cheese”, “A proposed preservative agt mice”

“Thompson on Tythes”, “Youngs and the famous statistician Sir John Sinclair (1754-1835), whose had a strong influence on the scientific approach to agriculture evidenced in these pages. Publication began in 1791, but our “communicated to me by . However he makes the note in 1795, so it may simply be that the information has filtered down from the original printed volumes via

Harris supplements his own arrangement of material with elements keeping. The printed introduction records certain costs, and each printed chapter notes the price of crops and tables the costs of labour; and Harris follows suit, often quoting prices and advice on when to sell

“The best time to carry which to markett is abt the last week in week in April, there is little wheat then in hand, & consequently a better price will be given” p.33), and creating his own cost tables for labour and for planting fields in certain ways. He even follows Trusler’s printed examples by arranging vertical text into three columns (“Remarks”, “Expences”, “Produce”), and records his own experience (“The Ground had been sown in this rotation of Crops. Barley turnips seed scattered at the same time, next year Barley & clover – both accompanied by the associated expenses and profits from the produce opp. p.116).

The final dozen or so leaves at the end of the volume are used for topics not concluded elsewhere, or omitted entirely by Trusler. One important crop not mentioned in the printed text is potatoes. Harris compensates for the omission with observations on planting “from J. Wimpey”. We assume this refers to the Joseph Wimpey (17391808), a landowner who wrote on the management of estates. Among his works is Rural improvements: or, essays on the most rational methods of (1755), which has much to say about potatoes, but Harris’s text is not a direct copy from that or any other work by Wimpey that we can find, so we assume it is a digested version of his readings. Harris earliest mention of potatoes is in 1784 when, after identifying several varieties he “planted an acre of potatoes – the ground dunged, they were of different sorts”. He seems happy to announce that “They produced a good crop all 50 bags sold at 4l a bag”. Despite his early success, his crops in later years were not so consistently lucrative. 1785 “two rows of the yellow or golden eye potato […] flowered well & bore fruit” but other varieties did not fare so well: some “withered & fell off – whether this defect is occasioned by the continuation of the drought, or by the coldness of the nights, I know not” but thanks to some watering, by the end of the year “the Golden Eye were eat well with little worming”, and he concludes that “The kidney Potatoes is best”. He considers the subject is of sufficient importance to include among his manuscript additions to Trusler’s ‘Contents’ pages, and indeed Trusler must have concurred as he added a chapter on potatoes to later editions of his book.

£2,500 Ref: 8372

This is digital thinking in its most concrete form. The printed manual provides a firm groundwork of knowledge, but it is the hand’s work writing, pasting, tabulating that transforms it into an active farming companion.

Calculations of costs, prices updated, advice from friends and colleagues all jostle together with personal reflections and meteorological notes. The book documents not just the accumulation of knowledge but the practice of acquiring it: experimental, iterative, inseparably tied to the rhythms of the soil.

15. A DUTIFUL DIORAMA

“All Terrestrial Possessions, by turns, become the property of others: Now mine, next of that person, & thereafter I know not to whom. Let virtue be your Leader, Industry your Companion, and Be contented with your portion.”

¶ These words, recorded in Lee Warly’s hand, capture the ethos that animates this archive: practicality, virtue and familial duty in the face of mortality. Ostensibly a straightforward collection of rental accounts, inventories, legal notes, and maps drawn up in for estate management, these manuscripts exceed the merely transactional, as our scribe often charts more emotional territory. The documents offer an unexpectedly poignant glimpse into the life of 18th-century provincial landowners Mary Warly and her son Lee.

The deeper interest of the archive lies not in what it records, but how. Its physical features the careful calligraphy, beautifully coloured maps, aphoristic inscriptions, and decorative illustrations go far beyond what was strictly required (something Warly would have known from his professional life as an attorney in Canterbury). These distinctive qualities seem to be motivated not by a concern with clarity or formal innovation but by depth of feeling, revealing a thoughtful man who used the tools of record-keeping to organise his thoughts on the page.

The archive’s structure and content do not scaffold or transform thought; instead, they mirror Warly’s mental habits and values. The hand-coloured estate maps, elegant illustrations, and detailed inventory of his mother’s belongings convey a sensibility shaped by filial duty and affection. The moral and emotional investment that Warly brought to the task of managing the combined affairs of his mother and himself is palpable; the archive exemplifies reflective thinking, and demonstrates that a manuscript need not be formative to be compelling. These features allow us to trace the contours of a mind that saw value in order, in care, and in the dignity of committing oneself to a task.

Archive of Manuscript Material relating to the Warly family of Kent, including manuscript plans, charts and rental information, in addition to bound volumes recording income and expenditure,financialsecurities,andaninventory of moveable goods, such as plate and jewellery. [Canterbury,Kent.Circa 1730-1790].

The information captured in these diligently curated items maps a broad social landscape through the network of tenant farmers, tradespeople, and financial intermediaries who coexist within it. It provides granular insight into the mechanisms of 18th-century estate management, financial instruments, and land ownership, while also yielding glimpses into the everyday lives of those whose labour and tenancy sustained the privileged lives of estate holders.

But Warly clearly recognises that privilege has both obligations and limits. The detail of the archive works to circumscribe – quite literally – his place in the world; marking out the extent of his property, recording his financial affairs, and defining the edges of his economic reach. This is most vividly expressed in the hand-drawn compass motifs that recur throughout, often paired with the phrase “Keep within compass”. The compass bridges the literal and metaphorical work of the archive: it is the tool by which land is measured and mapped, but also a visual

CONTENTS OF THE WARLY ARCHIVE

1. Pocketbook of Rental Income. [Circa 1732-3]. Octavo (145 x 95 x 8 mm). 68 pages of text and calculations, plus a 20page tabulated index on 46 leaves. Vellum, wallet-style binding.

Although Lee Warly is the scribe, it is clear from a note at the end of the index (f.14v) which reads “A List of Mrs Walry’s Tenants wth an Accot: of their respective yearly Rents”, that he is working on behalf of his mother. A likely explanation for this lies in a note to f.21v: “Md: my Hond: Father. Mr John Warly Died the 6th February 1732/3. Aged, 58”.

The seriousness with which Lee treats his new-found responsibilities is manifest in the care lavished on these artefacts, as if to show his mother–and perhaps himself–that he is worthy of the task.

2. Folio Book of Income and Aphorisms. [Circa 1732-57]. Folio (375 x 230 x 8 mm). 16 pages of text and calculations (extending onto paste-downs) on 18 leaves. Brown paper wrappers.

Clearly conscious of the fragility of existence and the importance of his task, Warly declares on the front cover: “Mora frahir periculum carpe diem” (“Delay is a threat, seize the day”), with, among other remarks, the reminder to himself to “Keep within compass”.

That Lee is organising his mind as well as the family property is clear from this volume, the first two pages of which collect aphorisms appropriate to his new responsibilities. Despite the family’s obvious material privilege, he seems keen to maintain some humility when he records the axiom “All Terrestrial Possessions, by turns, become the property of others: Now mine, next of that person, & thereafter I know not to whom”. Nevertheless, he is careful to delineate what belongs to his family (at least for now), while keeping himself within his compass with other pithy sayings like this from Jonathan Swift: “A Wise-man ought to have money in his Head, but not in his Heart”.

This volume begins with summaries of lands inherited from “Mr John Lee’s” Kentish estates in 1720, and properties in Essex and London from “Dr Jonas Warly late of Witham in Essex” in 1722, which he collates with his late father’s properties in 1732. It seems that Lee and his mother are working together when he records the “Estates Purchased by Mrs Mary Warly and Lee Warly since the sixth day of February 1732”, because while he records their purchases separately, he keeps a running total of their properties jointly.

At the end of the volume, and in contrast to the laconic epitaph afforded to his father in item 1, Lee records both his mother’s passing and his own emotional response:

“My Honoured and Good Mother Mrs Mary Warly begun to continue in the Chamber the 8th November 1760 and never came down stairs afterwards during all which space to the time of her Decease, she endured grievous pains with an humble quiet and dutiful Submission to the Divine Will. She […] Died on Thursday the 10th August 1769

about four of the Clock in the Morning […] I have now lost my Barrier between me and Death. God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been. If the Way to Heaven be through Piety, Chastity, Truth Justice & Charity, I may reasonably hope she hath a place there”.

Among the aphorisms recorded beneath are the declaration “Ah! Maria, Matrum Optima, Mulierum Amantissima Vale” (“Ah! Mary, Best of Mothers, Most Loving of Women, Farewell”) and the heartfelt question, often recorded on headstones of the period, “And who can grieve too much? What time shall end Our Mourning for so dear a Friend?”.

3. Folio Book entitled ‘Personal Securities’. [Circa 1732-82]. Folio (375 x 230 x 8 mm).** leaves, 28 pages of text and calculations on ** leaves, plus two-pages on a loosely inserted leaf. Brown paper wrappers, front cover detached.

An inscription to the front cover of this volume reiterates Warly’s concerns about the fragility of existence: “Dum tempus habemus operemur bonum” (“While we have time, let us do good”), and on its first page he repeats Swift’s words on the dangers of letting money enter one’s heart.

The records of “Promisory Notes” in this volume are sandwiched between apposite legal cases, including a 1778 case concerning the time in which a merchant is legally entitled to recover a debt. It concludes with an abstract of legal acts.

4. A Slim Folio of Accounts. [Circa 1737-41]. Folio (303 x 183 x 2 mm). Nine pages of accounts on six leaves. Pinned sheets.

This small gathering comprises five pages of copies of bonds (“The United Company of Merchts of England Tradeing in the East=Indies”) taken out in 1717, and updated to the current year (1737), together with “Promisory” paid to the Warlys between 1730 and 1741.

5. A Folio Volume of Inventories. [Circa 1747]. Folio (325 x 168 x 8 mm). 7 manuscript pages on 26 vellum leaves, plus half a page of text on paper endleaf. Limp vellum binding, retaining original vellum ties.

Lee reiterates his philosophy concerning material possessions (“Hodie mihi, cras altera” (“Today it is mine, tomorrow it is another’s”)), and suggests that his prosperity does not entirely accord with his desires, because “Non est mortale quod opto” (“What I desire is not mortal”). Nonetheless, while he is on this earth, there are delights to be savoured, including coffee and chocolate.

The first vellum leaf is titled “An Account of the Plate belonging to Mrs Mary Warly and Lee Warly taken the fifteenth Day of February in the year of our Lord 1747”. To the facing (paper) leaf, he notes that “The large Coffee Pot mentioned on the other side may serve for a Chocolate Pot there being a Little Lid on the Top of the great Lidd & a hole to put the handle pf the Chocolate Mill through”. (He also notes that this coffee pot is engraved with the “Arch Deacon of Colchester’s Seal” and the Warly arms (“which is a Field Ermyne, Lion Rampant Gules, crowned Or”)). Among the 100 or so carefully recorded items are “Five large Spoons with the Oxinden’s Crest […] engraved on the Outsides of the Bowls & marked also K. O. 1659” and “A Tobacco Box with the Oxindens Arms engraven on the Lid of it and a Tobacco Stopper with the crest on it”.

6. A Folio Volume of Accounts. [Circa 1758-75]. Folio (325 x 230 x 4 mm). 13 manuscript pages on eight leaves. Brown paper wrappers, lacking front cover, leaves loose.

Drophead title to first leaf: “An Accot: of several Principal sums of money due to Mrs & Lee Warly on the several securities hereafter mentioned together with the Rates of yearly Interest”. The accounts include moneys from bonds, mortgages and promissory notes, along with payment received from “Mr Robert Knowler Chymist & Apothecary for Drugs Glass Phials Pill boxes &c late of Mr John Warly decd” .

7. Loose Leaf Accounts, Notes, and Letters. [Circa 1754-90]. Various sizes. 11, mostly single leaf manuscript notes.

Sundry items including “An Account of Quit Rents, Fee farm Rents, Reserved Rents, and of all other Acknowledgments that are Yearly payable out of Lee Warly’s Estate” (1770), together with other accounts, notes, and a two-page letter concerning a land dispute dated 1790.

8. Ten Manuscript Maps and Plans of Properties owned by Mary and Lee Warly. [Circa 1746-85]. Various sizes. Paper and vellum. Maps drawn to scale.

8.1. “A Map of the Rose & Crown Inn with the Stables Yard, Garden & a piece of Meadow-land. And a House Stable […] in Duck Street […] belonging to Mrs M: Warly”. [Circa 1746]. (248 x 203 mm). Hand-coloured on paper.

8.2 “Plan of a Cottage called Foxes in the Hole […] belonging to Lee Warly”. [Circa 1746]. (203 x 165 mm). Handcoloured on vellum.

8.3. “A Map of a Messuage called Little Maydeken al[ia]s the Red House”. [Circa 1746]. (211 x 131 mm). Handcoloured on paper.

8.4. “A Plan of Lands called Greenway”. [Circa 1746]. (216 x 211 mm). Hand-coloured on paper.

8.5. “A Map of Marshland […] at Bonnington belonging to Mrs M: Warly (late Mrs Fox’s)”. [Circa 1751]. (150 x 92 mm). Hand-coloured on paper.8.6. “A Map of Two pieces of Fresh Marshland […] at Bonnington in Romney Marsh late Mrs Fox’s and now part of the Estate of Mrs Mary Warly”. [Circa 1751]. (220 x 173 mm). Hand-coloured on vellum.

8.7. “An Eye Survey of a Farm at Viseenden of Bethersden & Smarden in Kent […] belonging to Capt Thomas Knowler & Mrs Mary Warly”. [Circa 1769]. (345 x 332 mm). Hand-coloured on paper, torn across in two places, fragile, but no loss.

8.8. “A Map of Marshland […] at Bonnington belonging to Mrs M: Warly”. [Circa 1751]. (150 x 92 mm). Handcoloured on paper.

8.9 Undated and untitled map with land portions (including “Hether Broome Cloas”, “Lodgeleeze”, “Hether Clipgates”). Triangular map cut to peripheries of demarcated land (extends to 395 x 140 mm). Hand-coloured on vellum.

8.10. “A Rough Sketch of Pimp-hurst Farm in Bethersden Kent belonging to Mr Lee Warly. Surveyed in 1784 & plan’d by a Scale of 12 Rods to an Inch”. [Circa 1785]. (785 x 428 mm). A large hand-coloured map on paper, mounted on card.

Institutional holdings

Sir Henry Oxinden’s commonplace book, dated c.1642-1670) is in the Folger (V.b.110), and various collections of his correspondence have been published.

Canterbury Cathedral Library hold a collection of Warly family material in addition to Warley’s extensive library.

The Museum of English Rural Life hold one of Lee Warley’s cash account books.

CONTENTS

1. Autodidact’s Hybrid Manuscript and Printed Volume of Mathematics. [Circa 1788].

2. Anne Chester’s 17th Century Manuscript Household Receipt Book. [Circa 1677-1740].

3. Stephen Barrett’s Educational ‘Plan of the Mathematics’. [Circa 1760].

4. George Harbin’s Manuscript Pocketbook. [Circa 1710].

5. Profusely Annotated ‘The Works of Jacob Behmen’, First Edition. [1764-1781].

6. Hybrid Manuscript and Printed Topography Notebook. [Circa 1790].

7. Rare Elizabethan Manuscript Pocketbook in Original Vellum Binding. [Circa 1590].

8. Folio Manuscript of Household Recipes and Remedies. [Circa 1720-1740].

9. Important Manuscripts by Lady Pakington and her Circle. [Circa 1680].

10. Georgian Household Receipt Book. [Circa 1775-1820].

11. Manuscript Astronomy Notebook by Cambridge Alumnus. [Circa 1720].

12. Books and Manuscripts of 18th Century Pennsylvania Woman. [Circa 1770-1820].

13. Scottish Manuscript Miscellany kept nearly 50 Years. [Circa 1802-1850].

14. 18th Century Agriculture Interleaved, Annotated, Printed Scraps. [Circa 1780-1790].

15. Rich Beautifully Illustrated Family Archive Maps and Manuscripts. [Circa 1730-1790].

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I specialise in interesting and unusual manuscripts and antiquarian books that record their histories as material forms, through the shaping of objects and the traces left on the surface, by the conscious and unconscious acts of their creators and users.