Category Archives: Rare Books at New College Library

Summer days at New College Library … and Hymnology collections

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Summer has arrived!  The weather forecast says 12 degrees today –  but it feels much warmer. The School of Divinity’s exams are over, and the bustle of last week’s General Assembly has faded. Inside the  library, only a few dedicated researchers are at work – and the library staff, of course. Here’s a summer themed item from New College Library’s Special  Collections.

The child’s book of song and praise, including 34 pieces of music … [1870]. Hymnology Collection, E15/g 6.

  The child’s book of song and praise [1870] is an item from the Hymnology Collections. The core of these collections was the gift in the 1880s of two thousand hymnbooks from James Thin, the founder of the famous Edinburgh bookshop. This collection has been added to by gift, purchase and the re-organisation of other library books of a similar nature to form the collection of over 5000 items  we have today.

Primarily 18th & 19th century printed volumes (some with very nice pictorial publishers bindings),  there are also some older books,  a few scores and some LPs and cassettes. The collection covers sacred songs and poetry as well as hymns, including  many items intended for children, both for Sunday School and home use. This verse from The child’s book of song and praise is just one example:

“Peace be around thee, wherever thou rov’st’ / May life be for thee one summer’s day …”

A project to catalogue the Hymnology Collections online has just begun – just one of the Funk Cataloguing Projects which are opening up the Special Collections here at New College Library.

Treasures of New College Library : the Pamphlets Collection

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 “… but that religious pamphlets, especially if they had a shade of allegory in them,  were the very rage of the day.”[1]

In the days before radio, television and instant news pamphlets allowed theological debate and comment to be carried on in cheap, portable and accessible print. New College Library has an exceptional Pamphlets Collection with over 30,000 items. Spanning the development of the Scottish Church from the time of the Reformation to the present century, the sermons, theological debates and reports of Church government and discipline which are contained in this collection are a reflection of the parallel development of Scottish history, and of the establishment and disestablishment of a national Scottish Church.

The Church of Scotland’s lament. Pamphlets Collection, New College Library B.c.4.28/9

  “The Church of Scotland’s lament over the Pride of Her Ministers, with their Top Wiggs, and Long Gravates …” is just one example of the Pamphlets in this collection. Dating from the 1700s, it is a humorous poke at a well to do Church of Scotland minister, with the writer contrasting the minister’s comfortable existence with the struggles of the Covenanters in times past.

As I write the 2012 General Assembly is in full swing, and many Church of Scotland ministers are coming and going – but I haven’t spotted any wigs or ‘Gravates’  (cravats, I think). Nevertheless comment, discussion and criticism of the Church’s activities will be just as much in the news as when this pamphlet was written.

This pamphlet  is newly catalogued online as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library, which has enabled the cataloguing of over 12,000 pamphlets. 

[1] Hogg, James The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner (London: A.M. Philpot Ltd., 1824)

 

Early Bibles at New College Library

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New College Library has rich and distinct Bible collections. This  Geneva Bible, printed in 1599 with an illustrated frontispiece is just one example.  Called a Geneva Bible because it was produced by a group of Protestant scholars who fled to Geneva during the time of Queen Mary I of England (1553 – 1558), it was innovative in being a  mass-produced Bible which came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids.

Bible, Book of Common Prayer and Psalter. London, 1599. New College Library B.r.438/1

 This 1599 edition also inclues the new “Junius” version of the Book of Revelation, in which the notes were translated from a new Latin commentary by Fransiscus Junius on Revelation. It was the Bible used by John Knox and Oliver Cromwell, making it hugely important to the study of sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain.

University of Edinburgh Edinburgh Divinity students on programmes such as the Masters degree in  Theology in History have the opportunity to handle rare books like this as part of their studies.

 This Bible is newly catalogued online as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library, which has enabled the cataloguing of 631 early Bibles.

Treasures of New College Library : the Acta Sanctorum

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Down in the depths of New College Library’s Stack III, one of the first rows of shelves that faces you when you enter contains the Acta Sanctorum. This huge Latin work in sixty-eight volumes examines the lives of saints, organised according to each saint’s feast day in the calendar year.  Fifty-three of the volumes were published between 1643 and 1794 by the Bollandist Fathers in Antwerp. Hugh Watt, in his New College Library : A Centenary History (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1946), relates a story that Cardinal Hume had intended to purchase this set of the Acta Sanctorum for himself as a birthday present, but arrived at the bookseller’s only to find that Dr William Cunningham, second Principal of New College, had beaten him to it and purchased the volumes for New College Library.

University of Edinburgh users have trial access to the online Acta Sanctorum Database until 24 May 2012.  The Acta Sanctorum Database contains the entire Acta Sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indices. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina reference numbers, essential references for scholars, are also included.