All Illustrations, unless stated otherwise, are
licensed by Durham Cathedral Library under a
DURHAM PRIORY LIBRARY RECREATED
Web-Site can be found HERE
Durham possesses the finest collection of Mediæval manuscripts of any English Cathedral. Durham University,
in partnership with Durham Cathedral, is engaged in an ambitious project to digitise Durham Priory Library – the books owned and used by the Benedictine Monastery of Durham and its dependent Cells.
Durham Cathedral’s Web-Site can be found HERE
Durham Cathedral.
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The project’s principal aims are:
Re-unite the whole collection On-line, providing scholars with a unique opportunity to explore the concept of the Mediæval Library and the life of a Benedictine Priory, and enabling them to unlock significant research potential that could lead to notable publications, conferences and exhibitions;
Benefit the manuscripts and books through expert conservation and reduced handling, so preserving them
for future generations;
Provide digital material to support education
and outreach work at partner institutions;
Contribute to the cultural heritage and economy
of the North-East of England, and raise the profile
of Durham’s UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The first phase of this work is to digitise the manuscripts
and printed books in the libraries of Durham Cathedral and Durham University that were owned by Durham Priory.
By the time of the Dissolution of Durham Priory,
printing had been available for the mass production
of books for nearly a Century.
The extensive collection of printed texts that survive
from the Priory make this project not just a collection of digitised manuscripts but also of printed books.
These are not just the product of the first fifty years of printing, known as “incunables” and viewed by some scholars with a reverence similar to that paid to manuscripts, but the later output of the 16th-Century.
The title page of this small book, a practical manual on Preaching, the “Gemma Predicantium”, by Nicolas Denyse, published in Northern France in 1506, shows that print could still produce complex visual effects.
It also bears the ownership inscriptions of Thomas Swalwell and Sir Thomas Tempest: the first, a Monk of Durham Priory, who died shortly before the Dissolution; the second, one of the main owners of printed Priory books that left Durham Cathedral during the 16th-Century.
About The Project.
The purpose of the project is to collect all information relating to the books of Durham Priory, manuscript and printed work inherited, given, bought or created by the Monks of the Benedictine Priory of Durham, its predecessors and Cells.
The first phase of this work has started digitising
material still in Durham, held by Durham Cathedral
Library (341 manuscripts and fifty-two printed books)
and Durham University Library (twelve manuscripts
and two printed books).
There are also about fifty printed books in Ushaw College Library, a few miles from Durham City, which should be digitised later on in the project. The archives of Durham Priory also reflect the literate culture of the period, especially illustrative of scribal and organisational activity carrying on in the Priory throughout its existence, so manuscript volumes – cartularies and registers – and any records of Library activity will also be digitised for the project.
Although a large number of books remain in Durham,
some 175 manuscripts and forty-one printed books with Durham connections have been identified in other Libraries (almost entirely within the United Kingdom).
It is hoped that these will become available On-line as well, enabling a virtual reunion of the surviving Durham books online. Some of these have already been digitised by
their owners, and the project intends to assist wherever possible in increasing this number.
While Durham Priory has been extraordinarily lucky in the number of books that survive today, there were far more on its shelves, in the hands of its Monks, or just around and about the buildings and precincts.
After the Dissolution, it is clear that many books left the building – about half as many survive today beyond the walls of Durham Cathedral as in its own Library.
How many more left but did not survive to the present day ? We have some clues, most importantly surviving Mediæval Library catalogues, which not only serve to identify many of the survivors but also show us how many books have perished.
Many more medical texts, for example, are catalogued than survive, showing that we cannot simply assess the nature of the Priory Library from survivors.
Sadly, rich as the information is from these contemporary Library catalogues, they are from the earlier period of the Priory, so we have no catalogue of printed books during the Monastic period, although the evidence of the printed survivors is that this was a period of lively scholarly engagement.
Right up until the Dissolution of the Monasteries (circa 1538), Monks from Durham Priory were studying at their own establishment within Oxford University (“Durham College”), and clear evidence of this survives in the books with which they worked.
Illustration: DURHAM CATHEDRAL
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