Book of the Week (27th February 2012)

Selenographia, sive Lunae Descriptio by Johannes Hevelius (1647)

Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) was a German-Polish brewer, town councillor and astronomer.  Although he played a leading role in the government of Danzig throughout his working life, Hevelius loved to study the night sky.  He built his own observatory and acquired the very best astronomical instruments.  Between 1641 and 1647 he charted the topography of the moon’s surface, publishing the results in his Selenographia of 1647.  His engravings were so detailed and accurate that it was over 200 years before the next significant development in lunar mapping occurred when, during the ‘Space Race’, US and Soviet agencies vied to be the first to glimpse the far side of the moon.  Hevelius went on to discover four comets, and write further treatises on stars and the movement of heavenly bodies.  In 1679 his observatory was destroyed by fire, and he lost his precious notes and instruments.  The astronomer never fully recovered from the shock; although he rebuilt the observatory and refurnished it, he did not live to see the publication of his complete celestial map in 1690.

The Cathedral Library has a splendid edition of Hevelius’s Selenographia, printed in Danzig in the mid-seventeenth century.  Its frontispiece shows the figure of ‘Contemplatio’ holding a telescope.  The sun appears to her right and the moon to her left.

Inside the book there are engravings of Hevelius’s instruments, including this one of the telescope on the roof of his observatory.

The detail in the map of the lunar surface is outstanding for its time.  In addition to his topographical studies, Hevelius also charted the phases of the moon.

King John and Worcester

Worcester Cathedral has two royal tombs.  One belongs to Prince Arthur (Henry VIII’s older brother and first husband of Katherine of Aragon), and the other to King John.  John’s rise and fall occupies a prominent place in English medieval history.  When he inherited the crown from his illustrious brother, Richard the Lionheart, in 1199 he succeeded to the kingdom of England, the lordship of Ireland, the dukedoms of Normandy and Aquitaine, and the county of Anjou.  However, by the time of his death in 1216 John had lost most of his French territories and the loyalty of his leading barons.  Today he is best remembered for signing the Magna Carta, a ‘Charter of Liberties’ drawn up by the barons to limit the authority of the monarch.

King John's tomb in the chancel of Worcester Cathedral

Less well-known is John’s connection to Worcester.  The Cathedral Library holds some fascinating documents and artefacts relating to the king, including his will, his thumb bone and a fragment from his burial clothes.  John was a frequent visitor to the town.  He is known to have stayed here on at least nine occasions, both as an envoy of his brother and also as king.  Worcester was an important garrison town in the Middle Ages, close to the border with Wales.  Indeed, two of John’s visits (in 1189 and 1209) involved negotiations with Welsh noblemen.  Although we only have records of the visits he made for political purposes, we know that the king had a special affection for the area.  The royal forests of Kinver and Feckenham were among his favourite hunting grounds, and he chose to spend the Christmases of 1207 and 1214 at Worcester.  John was also attracted by the shrines of the Anglo-Saxon Saints Oswald and Wulfstan, the latter of whom was canonized during the king’s reign.  In his will John requested to be buried between the shrines, even though Worcester had formally declared for the barons against the king.

King John’s will is thought to be the earliest surviving copy of a royal will in England.  Although small, it is one of the treasures of the Cathedral archive.  Among the signatories were some of his most loyal and trusted friends.  They included William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby.

John's will

Alongside this document we also have relics taken from the King’s tomb during an antiquarian study in 1797.  One of these is a thumb bone.  Could it have come from the hand which signed the Magna Carta?  At the same time the bone was removed workmen recovered fragments of cloth believed to be part of the King’s shroud and hose.  So next time you see John appearing in ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’, remember that the originals can be found here in Worcester Cathedral Library!

The thumb bone taken from John's tomb

‘Worcester Never Looked Better’: Cathedral and Town in the Nineteenth Century

Thanks to the efforts of numerous people the Library’s first major exhibition of the year is up and running in the Cathedral.  We’ve had great fun plundering the Victorian archives for stories and pictures, and have turned up some real gems along the way.  Did you know that Canon Melville was a graceful ice skater, or that the Cathedral helped finance a floating chapel on the River Severn?

For those of you unable to get to Worcester to see the exhibition in person we have uploaded some images in order for you to get a flavour of what is on offer.  The Victorians were enthusiastic preservers of our ecclesiastical heritage, and during the nineteenth century every medieval cathedral in England was repaired or restored in some way.  More money was spent at Worcester than anywhere else, which is not surprising given the very dim view of the building held by commentators at the time.  One journalist wrote that no other Cathedral presented ‘so little to admire, and so much to deplore’.

The Restoration of the Tower

The restoration led to something of a renaissance in other areas of Cathedral life.  It acquired some greatly respected clergy in the second half of the nineteenth century, including Mandell Creighton who later became bishop of London.  One of the lay clerks wrote some extraordinary reminiscences of the Victorian clergy, including a description of Canon Fortescue’s appalling dress sense.  Fortescue’s oversized black gloves and starchy collars were a favourite of the choristers during his time here.  Of course, music played an extremely important part in the life of the Cathedral, from its involvement in the Three Choirs Festival to its acquisition of a daring new piece of technology – an electric organ!  One of the most interesting pictures on show is of the enormous ‘Patent Kinetic Blower’ used to drive the organ’s motors.

During the nineteenth century, the idea of visiting a cathedral as a tourist or day-tripper really took off.  The Tower visitor book of 1890 reveals that the future Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, was one of the first to brave the heights in that year.  Victorian Worcester had its fair share of notable people, including the founder of the British Medical Association, Charles Hastings, and the authoresses Mary Martha Sherwood and Mrs Henry Wood.  It’s been great fun and extremely rewarding doing the research for this exhibition; we hope you can get along to enjoy it too!

‘Worcester Never Looked Better’ will run until the 10^th February in the Dean’s Chapel.

The First Post of 2012

A happy new year to you all from Worcester Cathedral Library!  The first two weeks of the year have proved especially hectic, so I have been unable to update the blog until now.  But what better way to repel those Friday 13^th blues than to catch up with the Library news.  The volunteers and I have been beavering away creating a new exhibition for the Cathedral, which will run between 23^rd January and 10^th February in the Dean’s Chapel.  Entitled ‘Worcester Never Looked Better: Cathedral and Town in the Nineteenth Century’, it will use archive documents and photographs to give a flavour of the vibrancy and personality of the Victorian Cathedral.  We’ve come across such an array of fascinating material tucked away in draws, boxes, trunks and cupboards that it’s proving difficult to trim it down for the exhibition.  For those who are unable to get to the Cathedral to see the finished product, you will certainly not miss out.  Once everything is up and running I will post some of the highlights on the blog, so watch this space!

Today’s date got me thinking how often research comes down to luck, no matter how methodical one thinks one is.  In the Library we very often rely on the knowledge or instincts of our volunteers to lead us to the material we need, rather than on the catalogues and databases.  Computers have yet to achieve the sort of ‘joined-up thinking’ that people are good at!  So we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our volunteers for the hard work that they put in over the course of last year, which was accomplished with great skill and wit and enthusiasm.

Personally I have a very busy year to look forward to.  I will be working towards my Postgraduate Certificate in Heritage Management at the University of Birmingham/Ironbridge Institute, as well as contributing a paper to the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in July.  Hopefully I will be able to persuade a few of the medievalists back to Worcester Cathedral Library over the summer!  It’s going to be a good year.