Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector: : Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy

Citation

Baker, W. (1998), "Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector: : Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy", Library Review, Vol. 47 No. 8, pp. 401-402. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1998.47.8.401.1

This beautifully produced, and well illustrated volume, set in Monophoto Ehrhardt and printed by the Cambridge University Press, celebrates the life and achievements of one of the greatest of UK manuscript collectors, Sir Robert Cotton (1571‐1631). Cotton was at the centre of traumatic events transforming Renaissance English society. A member of the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts, he witnessed the last years of Elizabeth I’s regime, the transfer to the House of Stuart and the emerging divisions between Parliament and the Court which were to result in the English Civil Wars. His collection is one of the richest of the named manuscript collections of the British Library. C.J.Wright notes in the Editor’s foreword that the object of his collection of essays “is threefold. It attempts to touch on as many facets of Cotton’s life as possible, setting his career as an antiquary, for example, in the wider context of his activities as a statesman and county landowner”. Secondly, “it also aims to draw attention to the multifarious nature of his acquisitions”, for during his life Cotton “was famous not only for his manuscripts but also for his coins and Roman inscriptions.” Lastly, Wright’s collection “seeks to cast a penetrating new light on the subsequent fates of his various collections.”

In 1992 the British Library Journal, edited by C. J. Wright, devoted volume XVIII to Sir Robert Cotton. Eight of the essays now published in book form appeared in earlier versions in the journal. These essays include, in author alphabetical order, Janet Backhouse on “Sir Robert Cotton’s record of a royal bookshelf ”; James P. Carley’s “The Royal Library as a source for Sir Robert Cotton’s collection: a preliminary list of acquisitions”; David Howard’s “Sir Robert Cotton and the commemoration of famous men”; Robert B. Manning’s “Sir Robert Cotton, antiquarianism and estate administration: a Chancery Decree of 1627”; Graham Parry’s “Cotton’s counsels: the contexts of Cottoni Posthuma”; E.C. Teviotdale’s “Some classified catalogues of the Cottonian Library”; Colin G.C. Tite’s “Lost or stolen or strayed: a survey of manuscripts formerly in the Cotton library”; and Elisabeth M.C. Van Hout’s “Camden, Cotton and the chronicles of the Norman Conquest of England.” Colin Tite’s “A Catalogue of Sir Robert Cotton’s printed books?” appeared in the British Library Journal, Vol. XVII (1991). Gay van der Meer’s “An early seventeenth‐century inventory of Cotton’s Anglo‐Saxon coins” may be found in Jaarboek voor Munt en Penningkunde, LXXXI (1994).

Eight of the 17 essays have been written especially for Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Kevin Sharpe’s introduction: “Rewriting Sir Robert Cotton” is a succinct yet detailed summary of the field since the publication of his seminal 1979 biography Sir Robert Cotton 1586 ‐1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. Nigel Ramsay’s “Sir Robert Cotton’s services to the crown: a paper written in self‐defence” focuses on a document now at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in Cotton’s hand. The very difficult‐to‐read holograph contains Cotton’s “defence of himself and of his services done to the crown.” Cotton’s collection of Roman inscriptions, found today in geographically diverse locations, preoccupies David McKitterick in his clearly written “From Camden to Cambridge: Sir Robert Cotton’s Roman Inscriptions, and their subsequent treatment.” Glenys Davies’s “Sir Robert Cotton’s collection of Roman stones: a catalogue with commentary” is replete with black and white tablet illustrations. In one of the shorter contributions, Elizabeth M. Hallam’s “Arthur Agarde and Domesday Book” focuses on Arthur Agarde (born 1540) who was “Deputy Chamberlain of the Exchequer from 1570 to 1615. .. an associate of Sir Robert Cotton”, and “the founder of scholarly work on Domesday Book.”

Hilton Kelliher’s “British post‐mediaeval verse in the Cotton collection; a survey and handlist”, in addition to a detailed introduction, contains a descriptive “Handlist of verse”, followed by “Indices to handlist of Post‐Mediaeval Cotton Verse”, divided into an index of first lines and refrains, and an index of authors and attributed authors. Andrew Prescott, in what may perhaps be regarded as the most original contribution, “‘Their Present Miserable State of Cremation: The Restoration of the Cotton Library”, draws attention not primarily to the 1731 Ashburnham House fire which traditionally “consumed a large number of the treasures of the Cotton (and Royal) collection”, but to subsequent events. He focuses on the activities of the Reverend William Whiston and others, who reported on the extent and nature of the fire, and who probably destroyed more than they conserved. Prescott’s analysis calls into question preconceived notions of “conservation” and “preservation” and the documenting of manuscript collections, and provides salutary reading.

Each essay is followed by extensive documentation. There is a detailed index which even includes, in italics, illustrations. This erudite and fascinating volume should be in every collection concerned with English history and culture. Unfortunately, its superb dustjacket designed by John Mitchell, will no doubt be destroyed when it goes into Libraries: its fate, as Prescott demonstrates in his contribution, given the institutional history of Cotton’s collection, is hardly surprising.