Provenance in relation to books refers to what is rather grandly called ‘custodial history’; this could be mistaken for the rap sheet of a frequent tenant of Mountjoy rather than a blameless book. At its simplest, provenance refers to the previous owners of the book, from the first purchaser who inscribed his or her name on the fly leaf, up to the last owner or rather, inscriber, as we usually will not be aware of ownership unless the book is signed or otherwise marked by a name or bookplate.
In the world of fine art, provenance serves a serious function in that it is vital to be able to trace the history of the work back to its first owner, its creator. An ideal provenance captures the ownership history of an artwork all the way back to the creation of the artist. But many times, there are gaps in the object’s ownership record which can affect the work’s value. Major breaks in the custodial line can cast doubt on the actual authenticity of the work.
Books, being seldom unique works and rarely of a value that would encourage forgery, we can look upon their provenance with a lighter look and even the occasional smile.
In tracing provenance history, we are always presented with many blank spaces, often full centuries of it, when we have little idea in whose ownership the book resided. But it is often a useful a peg from which to hang the story of the original owner and their descendants.
The illustrations show the title page of an eighteenth-century Dublin published book of poems and a bookplate opposite. The title page has two inscriptions. The first, a signature by Henry Rugge dated 1740 and another handwritten (small and barely legible) note, ‘E[d]m[und] Roche] [purchased] of Mrs Rugge’. Henry Rugge is listed as a church warden for St. Peters Church, Cork, for the year 1749. A Henry Rugge was also returned to parliament for the constituency of Youghal, Co. Cork, in 1719, his 88 votes defeating Sir John Osberne’s 60 (voting was restricted to members of the corporation and freemen of the borough).
Dublin, 1730
The bookplate reveals a lot more about the Roche family than the rather innocuous signature on the title page.
The Roche coat of arms in the arcane terminology of heraldry reads: Standing Upon A Rock Ppr., An Osprey Or Sea-Eagle With Wings Endorsed Arg. … and Holding In Its Dexter Claw A Roach, Also Arg.
This may be translated as: An osprey with silver wings, standing on a bare rock, holding a silver coloured roach in its right claw.
Edward Roche was the father of Edmund Burke Roche who was created 1st Baron Fermoy in 1856. Local legend has it that Lord Fermoy lost Trabolgan on a bet with a house guest whose greyhound was unexpectedly faster than his own. The ancestral home, Trabolgan house and estate, after passing through the hands of many owners, eventually became Trabolgan Holiday Village in 1985. Edmund Burke Roche, unlucky with greyhounds, was the great grandfather of HRH Princess Diana.
.jpg){kind=link}
For some book owners a simple signature or even a bookplate is considered insufficient to mark a book as part of their collection. An armorial binding refers to any bookbinding (typically leather but sometimes cloth) stamped with the coat-of-arms of its owners. The owner may be an individual, a family, an estate or a house. In this case all four entities form part of the story.
Newstead Abbey is best known today as the ancestral home of Lord Byron (1788–1824). George Gordon Byron inherited the Newstead estate at the age of ten, when he became sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale. It is tempting to think of the infamous poet enjoying Miguel de Cervantes’s greatest work in the original Spanish, perhaps alone in his personal library at Newstead. However, a little research on the heraldic crest dispels this idea.
Portrait by Thomas Phillips, c. 1813
The crest that appears atop the coat of arms is not that of the Byron family. Both the crest and the motto (Tentanda Via Est – the Way Must Be Tried), are those of the Wildman family, later owners of Newstead. Thomas Wildman bought Newstead from Byron in 1818. The beautiful binding of the Don Quixote is in keeping with what we know of Wildman’s lavish refurbishment of Newstead Abbey.
Crest of the Wildman family
Portrait by James LonsdaleNottingham City Museums & Galleries
My third and final example of provenance evidence taken from our Special Collections comes from a totally different level of society than that of denizens of either Newstead or the Trabolgan House. The book is a Catholic ‘Ordo’ – a calendar and liturgical guidebook for a particular year, in this case, 1772, previously owned by Nicholas Madgett, Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe. The printed material is of interest, not least for the advertisement list of Catholic publications at the end. The handwritten notes though, are of far greater value in that they give an outline of the life of a Catholic bishop operating in Co. Kerry in the time of the penal laws.
There are numerous blank leaves throughout the book which the bishop has used for notetaking, keeping financial accounts, and as an address book. Of particular note is his list of “Dignitaries of the diocese of Kerry”, (higher clergy, canons and deans) and the parish priests of the diocese. He also records his contacts abroad including clergy in Paris and Rome. He notes the purchase of a ‘suit of cloath for himself at £4-13s-0d’. The written notes indicate that the bishop held clerical conferences through his diocese at various times and on various subjects. For example, 5th and 6th of October at Listowel and Tralee, both on the subjects of theft and usury.1
A rather touching note records the loan of a guinea to “James O’Driscoll’s wife”. His recording of the exact date of the loan indicated that it remained unpaid after seven years.
This book and its annotations are treated in much greater detail in an article by the Rev. Professor Patrick Power in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1926, where much of the handwritten material is transcribed. He describes it as a ‘valuable manuscript memoranda in the handwriting of its original owner Nicholas Madgett, Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe’ and providing a ‘fleeting glimpse of the church in Kerry during the later penal days’. However, even a cursory examination of the handwritten annotations gives some indications as of the life of a Catholic Bishop at this time.
We might expect a Catholic cleric, especially a bishop, of this period to lead a very circumspect, almost furtive existence, trying to keep a low profile in a society where many of his clerical duties were officially prohibited by law. However, Madgett would seem to move freely among his flock and to have many connections both within Ireland and abroad, moreover, he would seem to be confident of his place at the head of the Catholic population and organised his meetings and conferences without fear, even though Catholic Emancipation was more than fifty years away.
A fitting ending to this particular provenance story is how the book arrived at U.C.D. The author of the article in the Irish Ecclesiastic Review, Canon Power, was an avid collector of old and rare books and the ‘Ordo’ formed part of his collection. Before his death he sold many items from his collection to U.C.D. The funding of this purchase was provided by solicitor Arthur Cox and was made in memory of his father Dr Michael Cox.
These are but three examples of the vast multitude of provenance stories that reside within the books of all libraries, collections and humble bookshelves. Every book has its story and often the tale told by the smudged ink in the margins is far more interesting than the one presented in the neat rows of print.
- The Latin phrase (de furto et usura) could also mean theft and usurpation (encroachment on land, trespass etc) ↩︎
This post was researched and written by Eugene Roche, Assistant Librarian, UCD Special Collections.
References
Fairbairn, J. (1905).Fairbairn’s book of crests of the families of Great Britain and Ireland (4th ed., rev. and enl). T.C. & E.C. Jack.
Power, P. (1926). The Irish “Ordo Recitandi”, the Diocese of Kerry, 1772. Irish Ecclesiastical Review, XXVIII (October).
Fascinating blog post. I spent a few days in Trabolgan Holiday Village sometime in the 1980s, probably shortly after it opened. The Diana reference reminds me of a friend of mine who once almost crashed into her car when she was still a nanny. His wife also recalled meeting Diana at around the same time in a launderette.