Heythrop Library

This is the fifth post in a series for our blog. It shares the reports written by Alison Felstead, Rare Books Cataloguer at Campion Hall, who has since April 2024 done sterling work on creating detailed records for those Heythrop Library rare books which are stored at Campion Hall. Below is the report received from Alison for the Heythrop Library Committee meeting in October 2025.

At the time of writing, 1,033 books, periodicals and manuscripts (i.e. discrete bibliographical entities) have been catalogued onto the Oxford Libraries Information System (OLIS) and made available to scholars worldwide via the University’s SOLO resource discovery interface. This figure includes five periodical titles and thirty manuscripts. To date, about 46 percent of the material catalogued was not previously represented in SOLO.

I completed the cataloguing of the Positios mentioned in my last report, some of which proved to be very rare. Unfortunately, many of the 19^th century examples were printed on acidic paper which has become extremely fragile. I then moved on to the approximately 50 volumes which arrived from Heythrop without any record and only occasional classified shelfmarks. These represented a mixed bag including some additional Positio volumes (now shelved with the main sequence of boxed Positios in the Campion Library Rare Books Room), two very rare late 18^th century French items, and a rare Aldus Manutius phrase book edited by the Jesuits and printed by Meursius in Antwerp. Approximately 70 percent of these items were new to SOLO.

As might be expected, cataloguing the approximately 50 incunables (i.e. books printed before 1501) revealed some of the real treasures of the Heythrop Library, a couple of which are described in more detail below.

I am currently cataloguing approximately 60 manuscripts, including a few facsimiles of manuscripts. Most of these are found in the classified sequence (regular and folio sizes). With the records I am creating, I am attempting to record the content and approximate dates of the manuscripts often in the absence of a title-page or other helpful information. The content of the manuscripts catalogued so far includes Jansenism, sermons, meditations, lecture notes from St. Beuno’s, and a beautiful manuscript version of a published work.

Brief notes on a few of the interesting items catalogued since my last report on 4 June 2025 follow:

1) A late 15th century work by William of Ockham which bears several provenance marks and inscriptions including that of Hugh Ward (1593?-1635), the Irish Franciscan poet, hagiographer and collector of Irish manuscripts, and Jean François van de Velde (1743-1823), the bibliophile and last librarian of the old University in Leuven before its suppression in 1797. (Lyon : Johannes Trechsel, 1495; Incunable BQ6738 SEN 1495)

2) Wynkyn de Worde’s 1498 edition of the Golden legend (Legenda aurea), a collection of 153 hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine translated into English by William Caxton. The volume is very imperfect but includes many lively woodcut images of the saints. (London : Wynkyn de Worde, 8 January 1498; Incunable BQ6684 LEG 1498)

3) A collection of letters from F.A. Paley (the classical scholar) and the Reverend J.A. Pope to the publisher C. Kegan Paul on the English translation of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi. This was ultimately published by Kegan Paul in 1881 under the title Of the imitation of Christ, along with notes on the translation by J.A. Pope. A note pasted onto the front free endleaf reads: “In memory of Charles Kegan Paul. Sent in accordance with instructions found after his death.” (BQ7461 PAU 1880)

4) Three anonymous 18th century French manuscripts on Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638) and Jansenism, entitled Eclaircissement sur le Jansenisme, Explication des passages de St. Augustin qui semblent favoriser les propositions condamnées de Jansensius, and Decision d’un cas de conscience touchant la lecture des livres du Port Royal. Bookplates indicate that these volumes were previously at Stonyhurst in 1810. (BT116 JAN)

I am very grateful to the Committee for approving an additional three months of funding, to enable me to complete the cataloguing of the Heythrop Library material sent to Campion Hall in 2018. To be able to catalogue such a unique and valuable collection in an environment where the expert knowledge of Hall members – both Jesuits and Fellows – is easily accessible and always generously shared has been a professionally rewarding experience.

Alison Felstead, Rare Books Cataloguer, Campion Hall (9 October 2025)