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Inventorying St Alban’s College Library in 1767: The Process and its Records

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2020

Marta Revilla-Rivas
Marta Revilla-Rivas*
Affiliation:
Departamento Filología Inglesa, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Vallodolid Plaza del Campus S/N – 47011Valladolid, Spain. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

St Alban’s English College in Valladolid, established at the height of the Catholic Reformation for the training of English secular clergy under the rule of Spanish Jesuits, underwent an alteration in its management after the expulsion of the religious order from Spain in 1767. As part of this process, numerous valuable archival records were produced which have not, thus far, been studied. This article analyses a portion of these documents: the surviving manuscript inventories of the library. It also considers the series of governmental orders issued by the Spanish authorities as part of the process of expulsion and examines how these orders shaped the production of the library inventories. It offers an overview of the contents of the catalogues, with descriptions of some of those specific book entries that make these inventories unique. The study of these archival documents provides insight into, and understanding of, a key moment in the College history: its shift from Spanish Jesuit control to an English secular one and the difficulties that the Spanish authorities faced because of this change in the College’s national identity.

Keywords

St Alban’s CollegeSpainJesuitsBook inventoryJesuit libraryEnglish Catholics
Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , October 2020 , pp. 169 - 189
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Trustees of the Catholic Record Society

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Footnotes

*

This research has been carried out as part of a doctoral research fellowship, within the research project “Exilio, diplomacia y transmission textual: redes de intercambio entre la Península Ibérica y las Islas Británicas en la edad moderna” FFI2015-66847-P (Agencia Estatal de Investigación). I would also like to thank my supervisors Dr. Ana Sáez Hidalgo and Dr. Mauricio Herrero Jiménez for their comments on earlier versions of this article and their continued support and guidance with my research.

References

1 The English Jesuit priest, Robert Persons (1546-1610), was a key figure in the establishment and work of the English Mission. Born in in Somerset, England, he was educated at St Mary’s Hall, Oxford and was a fellow and tutor of Balliol College until 1574 when he left England for the Continent where he became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1575. He joined Edmund Campion on the first Jesuit mission to England in 1580 and, shortly after Campion’s capture in July 1581, left England for France and never returned. Persons was a prolific author, polemicist, pamphleteer, and propagandist for the English Catholic cause. He founded a series of English Catholic seminaries in continental Europe: at Valladolid, Seville, Madrid, and St Omer. He died at the age of sixty-four at the Venerable English College in Rome where he was Rector. The bibliography of Person’s work is extensive as also is that of the scholarly work on his life and writings. See, for example, the work of Victor Houliston, Thomas McCoog SJ, Michael Questier among many others.

2 Michael E. Williams, St Alban’s College Valladolid: Four Centuries of English Catholic Presence in Spain (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1986), 10; Javier Burrieza, Una isla de Inglaterra en Castilla (Valladolid: Iglesia del Real Colegio de San Albano, 2000), 17.

3 Michael E. Williams’s contribution is, to date, the most comprehensive history of the College. More recently, scholarly attention has been paid to the role of the English College in Anglo-Spanish relations and intellectual exchange during the early modern period. See Ana Sáez-Hidalgo, ‘St. Alban’s English College, Valladolid: Enclave or Doorway to the Reception of English Books in Spain?’, South Atlantic Review 79 (2014): 105-123; and Berta Cano Echevarría, Ana Sáez-Hidalgo, Glyn Redworth and Mark Hutchings, ‘Comfort without offence? The Performance and Transmission of Exile Literature at the English College, Valladolid, 1592-1600’, Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 31.1 (Winter 2008): 31-67.

4 After St Alban’s College, Persons went on to establish the English Colleges in Seville (1592), Madrid (1598), and St Omer (1594). For the foundation of these colleges, see Michael Questier, ‘Seminary colleges, converts and religious change in post-Reformation England, 1568-1688’, in Liam Chambers and Thomas O’Connor, eds. College communities abroad. Education, migration and Catholicism in early modern Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017) and Robert E. Scully, S.J., Into the Lion’s Den: the Jesuit Mission in Elizabethan England and Wales, 1580-1603 (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2011), 51-54.

5 On the importance of these new institutions and trans-national relations, see Maurice Whitehead, ‘“Established and putt in good order”: The Venerable English College, Rome, under Jesuit Administration, 1579-1685’, in James E. Kelly and Hannah Thomas, eds. Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580-1789 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 315-36 at 318.

6 José Ramón Fernández Suárez, ‘Joseph Creswell: al servicio de Dios y de su Majestad Católica (1598-1613)’ ES: Revista de Filología Inglesa 8 (1978): 47-83 at 62.

7 Javier Burrieza Sánchez, Valladolid, tierras y caminos de jesuitas. Presencia de la Compañía de Jesús en la provincia de Valladolid, 1545-1767 (Valladolid: Diputación Provincial de Valladolid, 2007), 250.

8 Williams, St Alban’s College Valladolid, 47.

9 Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England, 1598-1606, “Lest Our Lamp be Entirely Extinguished” (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017), 198-99. Also see Williams, St Alban’s College Valladolid, 196.

10 Ibid., 27.

11 Javier Burrieza Sánchez, Una isla de Inglaterra en Castilla (Valladolid: Iglesia del Real Colegio de San Albano, 2000).

12 The documentation referred to in this article can be accessed in the Archivo General Diocesano (hereafter AGD), Valladolid and the Archivo Histórico Nacional (hereafter AHN), Madrid.

13 Carlos A. Martínez Tornero, Carlos III y los bienes de los jesuitas: la gestión de Las temporalidades por la monarquía borbónica (1767-1815) (Alicante: Universidad de Alicante. Servicio de Publicaciones, 2010), 17.

14 For more on how the Society of Jesus was accused of regicide and of involvement in the Conspiracy of the Távoras see: Dale K. Van Kley, ‘The Role of Conspiracy in the International Campaign against the Society of Jesus, 1758-1768’ in Jeffrey D. Burson and Jonathan Wright, eds. The Jesuit Suppression in Global Contexts: Causes, Events and Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 12-39, and Francis A. Dutra, ‘The Wounding of King José I: Accident or Assassination Attempt?’ Mediterranean Studies 7 (1998): 221–229.

15 Van Kley, ‘The Role of Conspiracy’, 13. For more information on Pombal’s anti-Jesuit campaign see Henrique Leitão and Francisco Malta Romeiras. ‘The Role of Science in the History of Portuguese Anti-Jesuitism’, Journal of Jesuit Studies 2, 1 (2015): 77-99.

16 Emanuele Colombo and Niccolò Guasti, ‘The Expulsion and Suppression in Portugal and Spain’ in Jeffrey D. Burson and Jonathan Wright, eds. The Jesuit Suppression in Global Contexts: Causes, Events and Consequences, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 117-38, at 121.

17 Ibid., 112-23.

18 Van Kley, ‘The Role of Conspiracy’, 13-39.

19 Ibid., 14.

20 Peter Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent 1558-1795. The English Colleges and Convents in the Catholic Low Countries, 1558-1795 (London and New York: 1914), 342.

21 For more on the relationship between the English Vicars Apostolic and the English Jesuits see Thomas M. McCoog, S.J., ‘Libera nos Domine? The Vicars Apostolic and the Suppressed/Restored English Province of the Society of Jesus’, in James E. Kelly and Susan Royal, eds. Early Modern English Catholicism: Identity, Memory and Counter-Reformation (Leiden: 2016), 81-101 at 85-6.

22 Teófanes Egido, ‘El siglo XVIII: del poder a la extinción’, in Teófanes Egido, Javier Burrieza Sánchez, Manuel Revuelta González, eds. Los jesuitas en España y en el mundo hispánico, (Madrid: Fundación Carolina. Centro de Estudios Hispánicos e Iberoamericanos, 2004), 225-78 at 262.

23 Martínez Tornero, Carlos III y los bienes de los jesuitas, 20.

24 Teófanes Egido: ‘La expulsión de los jesuitas de España’, in Ricardo García-Villoslada, ed. Historia de la Iglesia en España, (Madrid, La Editorial Católica, 1979), 745-92.

25 Van Kley, ‘The Role of Conspiracy’, 33.

26 Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, Dictamen fiscal de expulsión de los jesuitas de España (1766-1767), eds. Jorge Cejudo López and Teófanes Egido (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1977).

27 Pragmática sanción de su Majestad en fuerza de ley para el extrañamiento de estos Reinos a los Regulares de la Compañía, ocupación de sus Temporalidades, y prohibición de su restablecimiento en tiempo alguno, con las demás precauciones que expresa. The copy used here is held in AGD, in the “Curia” collection, box number 946. The document is not foliated, but merely dated 27 February 1767.

28 Martínez Tornero, Carlos III y los bienes de los jesuitas, 26.

29 Instrucción de lo que deben ejecutar los Comisionados para el Extrañamiento, y ocupación de bienes, y haciendas de los Jesuitas en estos reinos de España e Islas adyacentes, en conformidad de lo resuelto por S. M. Madrid, 1767.

30 Martínez Tornero, Carlos III y los bienes de los jesuitas, 31.

31 Pragmática Sanción de SM, en fuerza de ley, para el extrañamiento de estos Reinos a los Regulares de la Compañía, ocupación de sus Temporalidades, y prohibición de su restablecimiento en tiempo alguno, con las demás precauciones que expresa, Colección general de las providencias hasta aquí tomadas sobre el extrañamiento y ocupación de temporalidades de los regulares de la Compañía, que existían en los Dominios de S.M. de España, Indias, e Islas Filipinas a consecuencia del Real Decreto de 27 de Febrero y Pragmática Sanción de 2 de abril de 1767, parte primera, XIII, 28-34.

32 M. García Gómez, Testigos de la memoria: los inventarios de las bibliotecas de la Compañía de Jesús en la expulsión de 1767 (Alicante: Universidad de Alicante. Servicio de publicaciones, 2010), 26.

33 AGD, Fondo Curia, 946. N.p. Original in Spanish: Real Cédula de su Majestad a Consulta del Consejo, que fija las penas contra los que han sido Regulares de la Compañía en estos Reinos y vuelvan a ellos a ellos, aunque sea so color de estar dimitidos, en contravención de la Pragmática-Sanción de dos de Abril de este año, y contra los que les auxiliaren, o que sabiéndolo no dieren cuenta a las Justicias, con lo demás que dispone para asegurar el puntual cumplimiento. (Madrid: en la Oficina de Don Antonio Sanz…, 1767.)

34 Ibid. Instrucción de lo que se deberá observar para inventariar libros y papeles existentes en las casas que han sido de los Regulares de la Compañía en todos los dominios de S.M. con el fin de establecer un método individual de formalizar el Índice, y reconocimiento de libros y papeles de las Casas de la Compañía, por requerir reglas especiales, para que se ejecutase con uniformidad en todas ellas y con el debido método, distinción y claridad. 23 abril 1767, Madrid. Colección general de las provedencias hasta aquí tomadas por el gobierno sobre el estrañamiento y la ocupación de las temporalidades de los regulares de la Compañía… En Madrid: en la Imprenta Real de la Gazeta, 1767, 65-73.

35 My translation, here and elsewhere, unless otherwise stated. Original in Spanish: ‘Se hará distinción entre libros impresos y manuscritos, con un índice distinto para cada tipo.’ Instrucción de lo que se deberá observar para inventariar libros y papeles. AGD, Curia Collection, Box 946. Not foliated.

36 Ibid. ‘El orden será alfabético por los apellidos de los autores, seguidos del nombre y título de la obra para que se conozca su contenido.’

37 Ibid. ‘En los libros manuscritos se pondrán los dos primeros renglones y los dos últimos, así como el número de folios de que consta.’

38 Ibid. ‘El orden será alfabético por los apellidos de los autores, seguidos del nombre, y el título de la obra para que se conozca su contenido.’

39 Ibid. ‘Si en un volumen hay varias obras, se describirán individualmente.’

40 Ibid.

41 García Gómez, Testigos de la memoria, 88.

42 Ibid., 80.

43 Some of these include: García Gómez, Memoria de unos libros: la biblioteca de los jesuitas expulsados del Colegio de Albacete (Albacete: Instituto de estudios Albacetenses Don Juan Manuel, 2001); Mª Victoria Játiva Morales, La biblioteca de los jesuitas del colegio de San Esteban de Murcia (Universidad de Murcia, 2007), and Pérez Goyena, A. P., ‘La Biblioteca del antiguo Colegio de jesuitas de Pamplona’, Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos 19, no. 3 (1928): 404-16.

44 There is no record of any other religious institutions offering to help the staff or students of St Alban’s on these very first moments of the expulsion. In contrast, this lack of aid was unusual in other parts of Europe. Upon the suppression of the Society in 1773, the local convent of the Augustinians in Bruges offered their aid to the remaining ex-Jesuits. James E. Kelly, ‘English women religious, the exile male colleges and national identities in Counter-Reformation Europe’, in Chambers and O’Connor, eds. College communities abroad, 198-220 at 202.

45 Rollo Principal de autos hechos para la ocupación de temporalidades de el Colegio de San Albano Seminario de Ingleses de la Ciudad de Valladolid can currently be accessed in the AHN. The document can be found in the Clero Collection, under the label Jesuitas, Papeles, 72-8.

46 This Rollo has been studied in Michael E. Williams. ‘St Alban’s College, Valladolid and the Events of 1767’, Recusant History 20 (2) (1990): 223-38. Williams uses the Rollo as a basis for his narrative of the process of expulsion. He, however, does not include any reference to the inventories currently held in the AGD, Valladolid.

47 AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 72-8. 74.

48 These dates are given on the first of the three book inventories that will be discussed throughout this article. AGD, Catedral Collection, Box 1008. Not foliated.

49 This inventory finishes with a detailed description of all the pieces of furniture found in a room which was an annexe to the library.

50 AGD, Catedral Collection, Box 1008. Not foliated. ‘Guillaudi in Epist. Div. Pauli un tomo en 4º entablado.’ This title corresponds to Claude Guilliaud’s Collatio in omnes divi Pauli apostoli epistolas, juxta eruditorum sententiam facta (Lyon: apud Sébastien Gryphe, 1542) (Universal Short Title Catalogue, ref. no. 140343).

51 Ibid. ‘Otro, en octavo, Correccion Romana.’ This title corresponds to François Lucas, Romanae correctionis in latinis Bibliis editionis vulgatae, jussu Sixti V… recognitis, loca insigniora… (Lyon: apud haeredes Guilelmi Rovillii, 1604) (USTC ref. no. 6900412).

52 Ibid. ‘Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, ocho tomos, de a folio, los quatro entablados viejos, y los otros en pergamino.’ This book has not yet been identified.

53 Ibid. ‘Replima de Hurto [sic], otro tomo, en quarto.’

54 John Fisher, A reply made unto Mr. Anthony Wotton and Mr. Iohn White ministers. Wherin it is shewed, that they have not sufficiently answered the Treatise of Faith. And wherin also the truth of the chief points of the said treatise is more cleerly declared, and more strongly confirmed. By A.D. Student in Diuinity. The first part. (Saint-Omer: English College Press, 1612). (A&R ref. no. 607, STC ref. no. 10914, USTC ref. no. 3005094).

55 AGD, Cathedral Collection, Box 1008. Not foliated. ‘Vn librito, en griego, en octavo.’

56 For example, in AGD2, the inventory states that the bookshelf labeled M.M.M.M was inventoried on 17 April. This date was written above the original ‘16 April’, which is still visible underneath. In AGD1, the date in this section reads 16 April.

57 AGD2 has not been considered here, as it does not survive in its entirety.

58 This AHN inventory is the authenticated copy referred to in the Rollo Principal on Monday 20 April 1767. AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 72-8.

59 AGD, Catedral Collection, Box 1008. Not foliated.

60 The literal translation would be ‘Brief Collection of books and Letters by Juan Canne, in octavo.’ AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 113r.

61 John Camm, The memory of the righteous revived being a brief collection of the books and written epistles of John Camm & John Audland […] (London: printed and sold by Andrew Sowle, at the Crooked-Billet in Holloway-Lane in Shoredich, and at the Three-Keys in Nage-Head-Court [sic] in Grace-Church-Street, 1689). ESTC R22076.

62 Ana Sáez-Hidalgo mentions other instances of English collaboration with Spanish authorities – the Holy Office – in the identification of English books and the need to prove that those works were not unorthodox. See ‘“Extravagant” English Books at the Library of El Escorial and Jesuit Agency’ in Kelly and Thomas eds. Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange, 155-185 at 164-168.

63 Ana Sáez-Hidalgo. ‘English Recusant Controversy in Spanish Print Culture: Dissemination, Popularisation, Fictionalisation’ in Liam Chambers and Thomas O’Connor, eds. Forming Catholic Communities: Irish, Scots and English College Networks in Europe, 1568-1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 201–231 at 214.

64 For more information, see Marta Revilla-Rivas, ‘Trade of Tools for the English Mission: Early Modern Books at St Alban’s College Library, Valladolid’ (forthcoming).

65 Williams, ‘St Alban’s College, Valladolid and the Events of 1767’, 223–38.

66 As already discussed, AGD1 and AGD2 both have 13 April as their starting date and finished four days later; AHN1 was started on 16 April and finished two days later.

67 AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 72-8.74.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 AGD, Curia Collection, Box 946. Not foliated.

71 García Gómez, Testigos de la memoria, 31.

72 AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 76.

73 See below, p. 16 on the English Bishops’ enquiry on the situation of St Alban’s and the other English colleges in Spain as a result of the expulsion.

74 AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 77

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 For further information, see Ana Sáez Hidalgo, ‘Two English Rectors, a Spanish Archbishop, and an Apostolic Nuncio at the Archives’, South-Eastern Catholic History. Journal of the Essex Recusant Society 8 (2016-2017): 27-39.

78 AGD, Curia Collection, Box 946. These letters bear witness to the difficulties encountered by Durango in Valladolid and the solutions provided from Bustamante. The events discussed there were recorded on the Rollo Principal.

79 AGD, Curia Collection, Box 946. Not foliated

80 Willams, St Alban’s College, 72.

81 McCoog, ‘Libera nos Domine’, 88.

82 Ibid.

83 García Gómez, Testigos de la memoria, 87.

84 Ibid., 88.

85 Pedro Rayón Valpuesta, ‘Los libros como herramienta transformadora de la sociedad: la venta y distribución de libros desde el Colegio San Andrés de la Compañía de Jesús en Bilbao (siglo XVIII)’ Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 25 (2016): 349-379 at 352.

86 García Gómez, Testigos de la memoria, 83.

87 Ibid., 92.

88 Marica Šapro-Ficović and Željko Vegh, ‘The History of Jesuit Libraries in Croatia’, Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2(2): 283-301, 286.

89 Maurice Whitehead, English Jesuit Education, Expulsion, Suppression, Survival, Restoration, 1726-1803 (London: Routledge, 2013), 136-38.

90 Ibid., 138.

91 This study, which could not be summarized in a few pages, is part of my PhD thesis, ‘Chronicle of an Ending: The Inventories of the Library of Saint Alban’s English College in Valladolid. A Perspective on the European Cultural Network of English Catholics Training for the English Mission’ (PhD diss., University of Valladolid, forthcoming).

92 AHN, Clero Collection, Jesuitas, Papeles, 74.