We Are Our History – The Bodleian Conveyor

Archival Silences and Indo-German Entanglements – Ways of Uncovering Hidden Voices

A guest blogpost from Paula Schnabel and Jannes Thode as part of the research exchange between the Bodleian Libraries and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

What is archival silence? Since the so-called “archival turn”, archives have become a subject of study on their own terms. While they had been seen as the ultimate bearers and providers of truth until recently, they now face increasing critical attention. The work of Foucault (1969) and Derrida (1995) drew more attention to the connection between archives and structures of knowledge and power. Archives are not simply the innocent collection of material – usually for administrative purposes – but are actively producing that material as documents and sources for historical events (Mbembe 2002, 20). Which material is regarded as preservable is connected to historical power. In this context, the concept of archival silence has gained new currency.

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, writing about the Haitian Revolution of 1791, was one of the first to theorise archival silence. In his Silencing the Past (1995), he claims that “history reveals itself only in the production of specific narratives” (Trouillot 1995, 25). Silences particularly occur in the making of narratives, but Trouillot distinguished three other moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources), the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives), and the moment of respective significance (the making of history) (Trouillot 1995, 26). Archival silences are thus predominantly the omissions and blurrings in the making of sources and their assembly through archival institutions, but also the gaps which (inevitably) happen in creating narratives. Since Trouillot, the issue of archival silence has been picked up by archivists (for instance Moss & Thomas 2021) and by artistic practice as well.

Post-structural and post-modernist critiques of the archive highlight the importance of individual interpretation and the fluidity of texts (Lane & Hill 2011, 8). Archives and the silences which occur in them are therefore not static and can be challenged and refigured through new archival sources, different narratives and interpretations. In this sense, silences are created, maintained and reproduced. Moreover, the new scholarship challenges the notion of the archivist as a “passive, invisible, disinterested, neutral” persona and portrays him/her instead as an active participant in the construction of the archive (ibid., 4). While the Jenkinsonian ideal of an archivist as passive and neutral remains dominant (particularly in continental Europe) and archivists themselves remain reluctant to acknowledge their active participation in the construction of the archive, new initiatives – particularly in the field of post-colonial Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the coming-to-terms with one’s own past) –have begun to transform traditional images of archivists (in the widest sense). IN_CONTEXT at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and We are our history at the Bodleian Library in Oxford are two such examples which rethink their own archival material and its digital presentation.

In their transnational cooperation and exchange these two initiatives challenge an often-overlooked aspect of historical research. In order to confront archival silences, it is crucial to become aware of our modes of fact assembly in different but connected archival institutions and how their structural assemblage form our historical narratives. Archival institutions are “centre[s] of interpretation” (Osborne 1999, 52) and thus possess their own strategies of acquisition, deposition and preservation. To bring different archival institutions into dialogue enables researchers, on the one hand, to expand their views on different collections and arrive at new insights. On the other hand, to reflect on power relations between archival institutions demonstrates how these institutions contribute unevenly to our historical narratives. For instance, archival material held in the India Office records of the British Library mirrors only the perspective of the British Indian government and its colonial relationship with India. As this relationship has a century-long history, archival material relating to India and held in Britain is by far the most condensed. If a historian is interested in British India, these are the main and dominant sources. However, different actors participated in colonialism in India (Arnold 2015). German-speaking actors for instance were collaborators in conquering India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the German nation-state came into existence and began a colonial project of its own, it became increasingly hostile to the British Empire and supported anti-colonialism in India (to a certain degree).

While German political interest into the Indian subcontinent fluctuated over the course of time and peaking in the 1914-18 period, German-speaking scientists had already assumed important functions in the eighteenth-century conquer of the Indian subcontinent. Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854) for instance, forged a wide-ranging network of botanists and natural scientists from Calcutta over Cape Town, to London and the German-speaking lands. The case of Wallich is crucial as it demonstrates how scattered archival material of German-speaking actors on the Indian subcontinent often is. As he was employed by the East India Company and later the superintendent of the Botanical Garden in Calcutta, he left much of his extensive correspondence there. Unfortunately, the letters are in a poor condition, which makes it necessary to turn to other relevant holdings. Besides the material held in the India Office and various scientific institutions in the United Kingdom, among them the Botanical Gardens in Kew, his correspondence partners’ legacies become particularly worthwhile to consult. Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), a German Botanist, was one such correspondence partner, whose legacy is held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and can be accessed online via Kalliope.

As can be seen by this example, the contribution of material relating to German participation in European colonialism, which is held in (German) archives and libraries, to dominant British narrtives about British India remains difficult for two reasons. First, German archives are not speaking directly about endeavours of German-speaking actors in overseas territories, which were not formally possessed by the German empire, thus being silent and difficult to access. It took a long time to uncover the network of botanists in different German archives. Second, even if we find the sources their impact on the dominant narrative is still influenced by the uneven power structure of different archival institutions. It is therefore essential to facilitate more cross-border reaching initiatives such as the cooperation of IN_CONTEXT and We are our History, and or our own project of MIDA (Modern India in German Archives). As a DFG-funded long-term project, we collect data from different archival institutions in a single database to help researchers finding material about India and Indo-German relations. With this database we attempt to challenge the dominant British narrative about colonial India and enable a new and more nuanced narrative about India’s colonial past and the myriads of influences between India and Germany.

German archives enable historians of modern India to discover fissures and disruptions of the dominant British colonial discourse and unearth marginalised voices. As Germans and Britons were competitors in the colonial game, marginalised actors were able to actively navigate between them and exert agency. Indian anti-colonial nationalists, for instance, were observed and partially prosecuted by British authorities, while they were supported by the German Foreign Office during the Great War and even later, in the Second World War. The freedom fighters were able to carve out of that cooperation what they needed for their struggle – funds for instance. This does not mean that German archives do not reflect a colonial view. Indeed, many German records are equally shaped by racist and supremacist views on the colonial “other”. After all, colonialism was a truly European project. Still, German archives offer numerous possibilities for new research on the colonial history of modern India and beyond.

Finally, silences are inherent in historical narratives. By highlighting one event another one is silenced. Silence per se is perhaps unavoidable but our choice which voices should be heard and how they are presented should be guided by ethical considerations. Instead of simply reproducing the voices of dominant actors, we should critically assess them and make other voices of competing dominant actors or marginalised subjects heard to disrupt and fissure the dominant narrative. Lastly, a remark of caution. Our objective should not just be the accumulation of archival material in different archival institutions, especially since this is not possible for all researchers. Moreover, some archives might never be accessible for Western researchers. Communities create their own archives to remember and tell the stories of their communities. They are important safe spaces to process their experiences and enable a way of healing. Especially in the context of colonial relationships, the attempt to access these community archives and publish research about them can create a new form of colonial exploitation.

Further reading:

Arnold, D., “Gobalization and Contingent Colonialism: Towards a transnational history of ‘British’ India,” in: Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 16 (2), 2015

Foucault, M., L’archéologie du savoir (Paris 1969)

Derrida, J., Prenowitz, E., “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression,” in: Diacritics 25 (2), 1995, pp. 9–63

Lane, V., Hill, J., “Defining archives. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Situating the archive and the archivists,” in: Hill, J. (ed.), The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping. A Reader (London 2011)

Mbembe, A., “The Power of the Archive and its Limits,” in: Hamilton, C., Harris, V., Taylor, J., Pickover, M., Reid, G., Saleh, R. (eds), Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town 2002)

Osborne, T., “The ordinariness of the archive,” in: History of the Human Sciences 12 (2), 1999, pp- 51–64

Michael Moss & David Thomas (eds), Archival Silences. Missing, Lost and, Uncreated Archives (London, New York 2021)

Trouillot, M.R., Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, MA 1995)

Author Biographies:

After completing a BA in history and South Asian studies at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Paula Schnabel has turned towards the subject of global history, finishing her master’s degree with a thesis on the global life of Austrian art historian Stella Kramrisch (1896-1993) who lived and worked in Vienna, Calcutta and Philadelphia.

After studying philosophy and area studies (with focus on South Asia) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jannes Thode has begun his PhD project on the dynamic structures of violence in colonial Bengal between 1757 and 1818.

Both are currently working for the MIDA project as research fellows and spend their time discussing about the connection of archives, power and knowledge.

Connecting Colonial Collections: A Research Exchange Between the Bodleian Libraries and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

Devika, Associate Researcher and Consultant for the ‘We Are Our History’ Project

In an era when digitisation and racial equity have become focal points in preserving and presenting historical collections, collaborative research between major libraries has never been more significant. The “Connecting Colonial Collections” project is a research exchange between the Bodleian Libraries and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin that brought together scholars and library staff to delve deeper into the rich, shared colonial histories of South Asian manuscripts and the colonial connections between British-German collecting practices. The Oxford in Berlin flexible funding collaboration supported the initiative, encouraging cross-border intellectual collaboration on critical global themes.

This collaboration not only advances the scholarly understanding of colonial histories in the context of libraries but also encourages sharing best practices for cataloguing and digitisation, laying the groundwork for future partnerships between the UK and Germany.

In July 2024, Dr John Woitkowitz and Dr Lars Müller from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Stabi) visited Oxford to participate in a research exchange at the Bodleian Libraries. This was in collaboration with and after Jasdeep Singh and Devika from the Bodleian Libraries’ May 2024 visit to Berlin (read about it here on their website).

The STABI-Bodleian exchange group at the Weston Library in Oxford

The Oxford visit involved a series of discussions, tours, and presentations, and a core highlight was the workshop delivered by Dr Woitkowitz and Dr Müller for the Bodleian Libraries staff which truly emphasises the nature of this collaboration. The afternoon began with an introduction to the Oxford-Berlin collaboration by Antony Brewerton, Associate Director to Academic Services, Bodleian Libraries. Dr Woitkowitz and Dr Müller then addressed challenges related to digitisation, cataloguing, and the colonial legacies of collections. They focused on the work they had undertaken as part of their project IN_CONTEXT.

Their discussion centred around curating colonial collections and developing equitable frameworks for digitising and cataloguing these materials. However, it also extended beyond this, delving into topics like provenance cataloguing, the use of IIIF standards, and the ethical challenges of presenting colonial materials in digital formats.

A major theme was the importance of provenance research, which allows scholars to trace the ownership history of items and understand the context in which they were collected. The SBB team shared their experiences developing data sheets for digital cultural heritage, offering insights into how metadata could be enhanced to reflect more accurately the colonial origins of collections.

The second part of the workshop was a presentation by Bodleian staff Judith Siefring and Alexander Hitchman, focussing on the digitisation of South Asian collections at the Bodleian Libraries. Judith and Alex spoke of the work they had undertaken as part of the digitisation workstream, of the We Are Our History project. They discussed the future priority areas for digitisation, the many factors associated with the presentation of digital collections online, and finally, how digitisation was an impetus for examining knowledge categorisation.

The day concluded with discussions on future collaboration, particularly focusing on digitisation projects involving South Asian and East African materials, areas where both libraries have significant holdings. There was also a discussion about how both libraries could explore ways to include more diverse voices and perspectives in their cataloguing process.

Expanding the Scope: Synergies between UK and German Research

We thank Dr John Woitkowitz and Dr Lars Müller for a wonderful visit and the stimulating discussions. We also thank colleagues in the Bodleian Libraries for their participation and support throughout the visit.

One of the exciting outcomes of the Oxford and Berlin visit was the recognition of shared research interests between the UK and Germany. Both countries have extensive colonial collections, and both are grappling with the challenges of presenting these materials in a way that reflects a more nuanced understanding of their histories.

The collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has laid the groundwork for future projects exploring these shared colonial histories in greater depth. Both institutions are working to create a more complete and inclusive understanding of their collections by pooling resources, sharing expertise, and collaborating on joint digitisation initiatives.

Early donors to the Bodleian Library: Katherine Sandys and colonialism

by Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull

One rich example of the Bodleian’s acquisition of books produced outside of Europe is provided by the donation of £20 (nearly £3000 today) in 1607 from Katherine Sandys née Bulkeley. Katherine was a shrewd businesswoman and the fourth wife of Edwin Sandys: a prominent MP, religious writer, and coloniser.

-The Bodleian’s copy of Fang Gung’s, Dan shi shin fa (Thoughts on Dan Shi) (1522). The vellum cover is annotated in latin with an inscription recording Sandys’ donation Sinica 32/6. Image taken by Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull in 2023. — The Bodleian’s copy of Fang Gung’s, Dan shi shin fa (Thoughts on Dan Shi) (1522). The parchment cover is annotated in Latin with an inscription recording Sandys’ donation. Sinica 32/6. Image taken by Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull in 2023.

In his letters, Bodley complained about donors being allowed to choose the items purchased with their donations. But in the case of this donation, the choice of books made by Bodley and librarian Thomas James may have reflected the Sandys family’s involvement in early colonial activities such as those of the Virginia Company.

Such works included important travelogues containing finely engraved maps. These depicted parts of the world where at this point in history England was a weaker colonising force, such as the Middle East (Arthus Gotthard and Johann Bry’s The Seventh Part of the East Indies (1606)), and Asia (Cornelius Wytfliet’s Universal History of the Indies (1605)). Much like Matal’s atlas, these texts helped to expand Western readers’ understanding of these newly navigated areas. But like Lodge’s manuscript catechism, their subject matter also shone light on the ongoing efforts of European colonists to convert indigenous people to Christianity; making these books fitting acquisitions for a library founded by Bodley as a seat of Protestant learning.

Sandys’ donation also included works acquired from these areas in non-European languages unreadable to Western scholars. This included eight medical texts in Chinese, such as Gong Ting Chien’s Van Bin Hoiye Chun (Cure for all Illnesses) (1573) and Fang Gung’s, Dan shi shin fa (Thoughts on Dan Shi) (1522). Like the Bodleian’s other early Chinese works acquired from 1604 onwards, Sandys’ books are cheaply printed.

Book with Chinese printed characters, Gong Ting Chien’s Van Bin Hoiye Chun (Cure for all Illnesses) (1573) — The Bodleian’s copy of Gong Ting Chien’s Van Bin Hoiye Chun (Cure for all Illnesses) (1573). Sinica 19/2. Image taken by Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull in 2023.

Some are unique survivals of sixteenth-century editions produced in the Fujin province on the southeastern coast of China during the Ming Dynasty. Too cheap to adorn the library of any serious Chinese scholar, they were probably sold by entrepreneurial local booksellers to Dutch merchants, and then exported to Europe by Dutch merchants engaged in the lucrative transcontinental spice trade in the employ of the newly formed Dutch East India Company. Bought in Amsterdam at auction by Bodley’s literary agent, when they arrived at the Bodleian they were simply recorded in the Benefactors’ Register under the catch-all heading ‘volumes in Chinese’. It was not until 1687, when the Chinese scholar and Catholic convert, Shen Fu-Tsung 沈福宗 (Michael Alphonsus), was paid by the Bodleian’s librarian Thomas Hyde to transliterate their titles that their contents became known in England. This enabled the creation of the first catalogue of Chinese Books for the Bodleian, and ultimately paved the way for future scholars to explore the library’s rich East Asian collections.

The books purchased with Sandys’ donation exemplify the complex relationship of the Bodleian’s early collections to colonialism and its legacy. Bodley’s acquisition of Chinese books is part of an explicitly colonial narrative. Likely acquired directly from the emergent oppressive power of the Dutch East India Company, these books were brought to Europe by a chartered company who would come to dominate East Asian trade routes across the Indian Ocean through the forced migration and killing of indigenous people. These books and their acquisition by a Western seat of learning promoted and glorified colonial projects of conquest, trade, and conversion to readers. Bodley did, albeit unintentionally, enable Fu-Tsung and Hyde’s later intellectual endeavours, paving the way for the first known direct Anglo-Chinese scholarly collaboration. The acquisition of these books also ensured the preservation of unique texts of international import and facilitated further study that continues at the library today. But as we continue to unlock their rich histories, we need to consciously centralise, and make accessible, the often-hidden colonial narratives that led to the arrival of items like these volumes at the Bodleian. However problematic and uncomfortable these may be, they are vital to furthering our understanding of the role colonialism played in developing the library’s collection.

My thanks go to Mamtimyn Sunuodula, Curator of Chinese Collections at the Bodleian, for translating the titles of Sinica 19/2 and 32/6.

Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull is a research associate on the AHRC-funded project ‘Shaping Scholarship: Early Donations to the Bodleian Library’. He is also a final year DPhil student, Clarendon, and Graduate Development Scholar in English at the University of Oxford. His doctoral research focuses on the materiality of women’s texts between 1580 and 1760, and related work has appeared in The Review of English Studies. You can contact Ben via email at b.wilkinson-turnbull@ucl.ac.uk. He can also be found on X (Twitter) @Ben_WT.

Further reading

Cornelius Wytfliet, Histoire universelle des Indes, orientales et occidentales (Douai, 1605)

Arthus, Gotthard and Johann Theodor de Bry, Indiae Orientalis Pars Septima : Navigationes duas, Primam, trium Annorum, a Georgio Spilbergio, trium navium praefecto, Ann. 1601. ex Selandia in Indiam Orientalem susceptam (Frankfurt, 1606)

Gong Ting Chien,Van Bin Hoiye Chun (Cure for all Illnesses) (Fujin, 1573)

Fang Gung, Dan shi shin fa (Thoughts on Dan Shi) (Fujin, 1522)

David Helliwell, ‘Our Earliest Chinese Accession’, https://serica.blog/2012/11/29/our-earliest-chinese-accession/

William Poole, ‘The Letters of Shen Fuzong to Thomas Hyde, 1687-88’, British Library Journal (2015), article 9. (https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/articles/1227de6b-c20f-48fb-8411-b1f811ffa957).

Kerry Ward, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company. (Cambridge, 2009).

‘Counter Archive’: Black Lives in the Archives

by Devika

Peter Brathwaite FRSA is a British baritone, broadcaster, theatre artist, music columnist and a developer of music programming. Read more here. His photographic book project Rediscovering Black Portraiture highlights Black individuals in the history of visual arts, and in a similar but more personal vein Brathwaite has undertaken research to uncover Black histories in archives.

At a workshop with the Bodleian Libraries project ‘We Are Our History’ 24 October 2023, held at the Weston Library for Special Collections, Brathwaite led participants on a journey through archives connected with Codrington College, Barbados, and other historical documents of Britain’s Caribbean colonies during enslavement. For Brathwaite there were familial connections: he found his ancestors Edward/Addo and Margaret Brathwaite, as well as his enslaver ancestor John Brathwaite, referenced in the records.

A key part of the workshop was the ‘counter-archive’ of material that Brathwaite brought into the Library, curated by himself, in the form of photographs, maps, a Bible, and song. The group sang ‘The Breadfruit Song’ together, with Brathwaite prompting participants to think about the vitality of singing compared to the loss of magic, aura, materiality and perhaps of reality when dealing with words on paper. While singing in the Bodleian sounds impossible and almost sacrilegious, music, as Brathwaite explained, is a critical experience and archive. An archive created by the disempowered. When denied their identity beyond being owned as property on paper, the traditional archive, music communicates that experience instead. Traditional archives thus necessitate the use of counter-archives especially in contexts where historically people have been denied inclusion in official records.

Bringing expertise to archival research, including familial and community memories preserved outside of archival sources, was an important theme of the workshop. Brathwaite gave the example of spotting specific words in documents whose significance might be missed by individuals unfamiliar with the relevant context. He pointed out that historical records referred to rebellions by enslaved individuals as ‘mischief’. Mischief was a shorthand for living, he declared, especially for the enslaved. Words like ‘mischief’ could be used to connote the infantilization of the body of colour, to justify regimes of control.

The workshop led to a very well-attended lecture by Peter Brathwaite … which led to a short film … which led to the temporary display mentioned below.

Collaboration with artists, storytellers, academics and more, as part of the ‘We Are Our History’ project, goes beyond one off events. We are keen on helping researchers discover and work with the archives. This facilitates relationships with the archives, especially beyond traditional treatments, as in this case, that help both the Bodleian and researchers learn from these narratives, stories, unconventional treatments and counter archives. For the library, the learning is about being more inclusive of stories traditionally not told, and more aware of practices that sedimented a lack of inclusion–and how we can change those practices to be more inclusive in the future. Working with artists like Peter Brathwaite is an incredible learning experience for those involved in the initiatives but also for the library as a whole, and that is the purpose of these collaborations as opposed to performative checks.

The temporary display, ‘Mischief in the Archives,’ at the Weston Library until 7 April, draws out the themes of Peter Brathwaite’s archival research. https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/mischief-in-the-archives

For more on this story see: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/features/hearing-through-overwhelming-silence-enslaved-ancestors-found-bodleian-archives-opera

Also watch the short film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVQU7El6EqI

Collage Comparison: A Case Study of Comparison and Juxtaposition in Archives

Collage Comparison poster, detail. Collage Comparison Symposium and Julia Utreras

by Devika

Methods of reading and understanding archives are constantly evolving. The question of ‘whose voices?’ are heard in archival materials has encouraged attention to gaps and silences. With the project ‘We Are Our History,’ the Bodleian Libraries have found guidance from researchers inside and outside academia on new approaches to archives. The symposium ‘Collage Comparison,’ (September 29-30, 2023, St Anne’s College Oxford and Bodleian Libraries) was devised by the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre, using collage as a method of bringing archival materials into dialogue with each other. The two-day symposium brought together artists, practitioners, and scholars from a range of disciplines within Oxford and beyond—from English, Modern Languages, and History of Art to Ethnomusicology, Visual Anthropology, and Curatorial Studies.

Organisers Dr Joseph Hankinson, Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Dr Georgia Nasseh explored how collage, conceptually and practically, can provide a new and decolonised rhetoric for understanding translation and archival work.

Understanding Archives Differently with Collage

On the first day, the group was guided in creative collage-making by artist Sofia Yalla. The session led by Yalla explored how professional archives relate to personal archives, with participants being given either a ‘construction’ or a ‘deconstruction’ kit, having to connect and collaborate in these two processes of selecting and building an archive.

The choice of collage as the focal point for exploration was deeply rooted in its historical ties to the African continent and its diaspora. With its delicate balance of appropriation and expropriation, fragmentation, and juxtaposition, collage played a pivotal role in the artistic expressions of writers like Kojo Laing and M. NourbeSe Philip. From the start, the symposium used the potential of collage as a model, with participants’ self-introductions woven into a conversation ‘performed’ by all the participants, rather than standing as separate, individual statements.

On the second day, the symposium worked with an archive held in the Bodleian, the archive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In this workshop hosted by Dr Mushakavanahu, it was fascinating to observe the different creations by individuals interacting with the same document. Participants sitting side-by-side and creating collage (from photographs of the archival materials) became a true example of diversity: difference, similarity, and juxtaposition of perspectives in the archives. The need to understand how one set of texts could mean something entirely different for different communities–multiple understandings of the same texts–is an advantage, not a limitation.

Digital Collage and Future Accessibility

Discussion during the symposium explored how academic work informed the aesthetics of collage and considered future accessibility to the created material. The Zine created by attendees as part of their final morning in the Symposium will be available on the Collage Comparison website. The Zine exemplifies many of the ideas discussed above; most importantly, the potential collage holds as a technique towards interacting with archives – digitally or in person.

See Collage Comparison for description of the symposium aims and images of the workshop in progress.

For the Bodleian Libraries, Collage Comparison provided a model of collaborative working and showed the alchemy in archives placed in a new relationship with researchers. See the ‘We Are Our History’ project website. https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/libraries/our-work/we-are-our-history

Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu will lecture on ‘Cut/Copy/Paste: Collage as a form of reading and writing the archive’, on Tuesday 24 January at 1 pm, in the Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford. Registration required: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/waoh-conversations

Colonial Connections of the Early Bodleian Library

Book open at a map of the world — Jean Matal’s atlas from 1600: America, sive Novus orbis, tabulis æneis delineatus. I. Matalius. Shelfmark: H 7.2(3) Art.

by Dr Anna-Lujz Gilbert

When Thomas Bodley re-founded Oxford University’s library in 1598, he knew he would need the help of a “great store of honourable friends” for the project to be a success. He asked people he knew to donate to the Library and, as an encouragement, he had the names of donors written into an ornate Register of Benefactors. ‘Shaping Scholarship’ is an AHRC-funded project at UCL, in collaboration with the Bodleian, which uses that Benefactors’ Register to examine cultures of library donation in early seventeenth-century England, and their impact on the Bodleian’s book collections. The early Bodleian Library had many colonial connections, and the public database of the early donations to the Library (c. 1600–1620) which we are producing for this project will help further research in this area.

Page of the Benefactor's Book of the Bodleian Library — Bodleian Library Records b. 903, Registrum Donatorum, the Benefactors’ Register

The Bodleian Library was established at a time when England was striving to become an imperial power. Many of the Library’s donors were statesmen, civil servants, soldiers, and courtiers—the kinds of people who were likely to be involved in overseas affairs of different kinds. Some donors were directly involved in colonial activities, such as Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?-1618), who led expeditions to the Americas, and who gifted the library £50 in 1603 (worth over £8,000 today). Others were involved in these activities from afar. Donor Sir Walter Cope (1553?–1614), for example, invested in and energetically raised funds for new merchant companies set up to promote international trade through colonising practices. Companies like the Virginia Company, which established England’s first North American colonies, made substantial losses. To raise money for these colonial ventures, they presented investment as a public-spirited act for the good of the nation. This context can inform how we understand donation to the early Bodleian Library as a similarly public-spirited act.

Overseas conquest, as well as trade and embassy, facilitated the movement of books into the Library. In the 1610s, for example, the Bodleian acquired a manuscript catechism which had been produced by Jesuits in Brazil to help convert indigenous people. It was written in Tupi, a now extinct indigenous language. [See an online edition of this manuscript at the link here.] It was gifted to the Bodleian by English author Thomas Lodge, who had taken it from a Jesuit library during an English raid on a Portuguese settlement in Brazil. [see footnote 1] (Lodge’s gift was, however, considered to be too small to be included in the Benefactors’ Register).

Exploration and colonisation helped to expand Western knowledge, and this was reflected in the content of some of the books purchased by the Bodleian. The 1603 gift of Henry Brooke, Baron Cobham, for instance, paid for the acquisition of Jean Matal’s [Johannes Matalius] atlas of the world with its new maps of America.

The Bodleian collected books in non-European languages in the hope that these too would be used to advance Western knowledge, even if, for some of these languages, there was no-one in England who could read them at the time.

By looking at who was donating to the early Bodleian Library and what books were acquired, we can ask how this seventeenth-century project to encompass knowledge was aligned with English and wider European activities to compass the globe itself. Lines of enquiry include examining the colonial activities of donors, the acquisition of books produced outside of Europe, and the kinds of knowledge represented in the books acquired.

footnote 1: See: Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá and Caroline Egan, ‘Translation and prolepsis: the Jesuit origins of a Tupi Christian doctrine,’ in Cultural Worlds of the Jesuits in Colonial Latin America, edited by Linda A. Newson (London: University of London Press, 2020), 189–206.

Anna-Lujz Gilbert is a postdoctoral research fellow on the ‘Shaping Scholarship’ project at UCL. For this project, she is leading the construction of a database of donations made to the Bodleian Library in its first twenty years, c. 1600–1620, which will be published as a free online resource. Her wider research interests are in the movement to establish semi-public libraries in early modern England.

For more information about the Shaping Scholarship project, see the project website at: http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/projects/shaping-scholarship

This blogpost is one of a series exploring the Bodleian’s colonial and imperial connections, as part of the ‘We Are Our History’ project in 2022-24.