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Abstract
In the late nineteenth century Oxford colleges opened up their ancient muniments to be catalogued by external scholars. Their cataloguing was heavily influenced by the culture of records printing that relied on a linear way of thinking about documents and on the selection of records, so that only the most significant documents utilized the limited space. This essay will examine this culture at work in the early publications of the Oxford Historical Society and show how it influenced the college archivists to concentrate on the content of records in their cataloguing, and ignore their context and provenance.
Notes
[1] Early versions of this paper were read at I-CHORA 5 and at HATII, University of Glasgow; I am grateful to those present for their thoughts and suggestions. I have also profited from conversations with Elizabeth Boardman, Jeremy Catto, Robin Darwall-Smith, Michael Moss, Andrew Prescott and Julian Reid.
[2] Ut in nostro collegio provocati ad lites et arma semper sint parati, nec ad pugnam in acie progrediantur inermes, statuimus ut eorum arma, hoc est, evidentiae, chartae, munimenta et reliqua scripta. Statutes of … Corpus Christi, 93.
[3] For a discussion of these changes see Darwall-Smith & Riordan, ‘Archives for administrators.’
[4] Smith, Annals, xxi.
[5] Oliver, Early Deeds.
[6] Levine, Amateur and Professional, 70.
[7] Stubbs, ‘Inaugural,’ 13.
[8] Sweet, Antiquaries, 11–20.
[9] Levine, Amateur and Professional, 30.
[10] Stubbs, ‘Inaugural,’ 14.
[11] Stubbs, ‘Inaugural,’ 14.
[12] Oman, Memories, 158.
[13] Levine, Amateur and Professional, 29.
[14] Boas, Crosfield.
[15] Fellow of Brasenose College, and husband of the novelist, Mrs Humphry Ward.
[16] Bodleian Library, Oxford Historical Society papers [uncat], Memorandum by F. Madan.
[17] Bodleian Library, Oxford Historical Society Minute Book, 1883–1970 [uncat], 10–12.
[18] OHS, Prospectus, 5, 11, 15.
[19] OHS, Prospectus, 6–12.
[20] OHS, Prospectus, 15.
[21] Burrows, ed. Collectanea, 3.
[22] Magrath, ed. Flemings, viii-ix.
[23] HMC, Second Report, 132, 135, 138; HMC, Fifth Report, 480–1.
[24] HMC, Fourth Report, 458–65.
[25] Darwall-Smith & Riordan, ‘Archives for Administators,’ 97–8.
[26] Darwall-Smith & Riordan, ‘Archives for Administators,’ 96–8, 100.
[27] Magdalen College Archives EP/232/4.
[28] Magdalen College Archives MS 825.
[29] It is not clear where he acquired these slips–similar, but not identical, slips were in use at the Bodleian. I'm grateful to Michael Moss and Mike Webb for their help on this point.
[30] Queen's College Archive FA1.
[31] From Walton's introduction to his catalogue in Magdalen College Archives.
[32] Stubbs, Select Charters, 168.