Spanning the Centuries: An Exhibit of Recent Acquisitions, 1579-1868

Part I - Voices from the Past: Printed Books, Bound Manuscripts, and the

People Who Created Them

In Historical & Special Collections, we collect materials that show how law was taught, learned, and practiced. Sometimes, the way books are bound and illustrated can shed light on how their owners used them, and even who they were. Two such examples follow: a legal and medical self-help volume, likely owned by a community leader in a small French community; and a work that may have belonged to a German student studying to become a notary. Each volume is an example of a sammelband – a volume comprising multiple printed works that were bound together at some point after publication – usually by the volume’s owner. Because their owner chose to bind specific (and sometimes apparently unrelated) works together, sammelbands can show us how their owners intended to use the material in ways that a single volume often cannot. HSC also focuses on collecting legal manuscripts, many of which we digitize and make freely available to scholars worldwide. Because they are written by hand, manuscripts by their nature are unique, and show us how particular individuals have engaged with the law over the centuries. The manuscripts shown here illustrate the evolution of French law, reveal an English clergyman’s concern for the criminals in his care, and give us glimpses of how law was studied and taught in 17th-century France and at the 19th-century Harvard Law School.

Becoming a Notary

Johann Zeulner, Examen creandorum notariorum Nuremberg: Joannis Friderici Sartorii, 1620 (1st ed.)bound with:Heinrich Knaust, E divi Iustiniani imperatoris Institutionibus erotemata Latinogermanica Frankfurt: Matthäus Kempfer, Vincenz Steinmeyer, 1628bound with:Georg Vogelmann, Elegantiarum Latini sermonis praeceptiones aliquot Magdeburg: Johannis Franci, 1620HOLLIS nos. 13756109, 13756201 and 13757135

This sammelband is made up of three books useful to a seventeenth-century German student training to become a notary. We can surmise that the student bound these works together so they could easily be carried from place to place, always at hand for reference. Though the vellum binding with hand-lettered text in black and red looks striking to our eyes, it was most likely just “binding waste” or “manuscript waste” – scrap material from the binder’s shop. First published in 1620, Examen Creandorum Notariorum is a study guide for the examination given notarial candidates. Iustiniani, first published in 1569, is a highly abridged version of Justinian’s Institutes with a parallel German translation and study questions. First published in 1566, the final title is a handbook on eloquence and forensics based on a collection of exemplary passages from the speeches of Cicero and other Latin authors.

Shown: Front cover

Becoming a Notary (cont’d)

Johann Zeulner, Examen creandorum notariorum Nuremberg: Joannis Friderici Sartorii, 1620 (1st ed.)bound with:Heinrich Knaust, E divi Iustiniani imperatoris Institutionibus erotemata Latinogermanica Frankfurt: Matthäus Kempfer, Vincenz Steinmeyer, 1628bound with:Georg Vogelmann, Elegantiarum Latini sermonis praeceptiones aliquot Magdeburg: Johannis Franci, 1620HOLLIS nos. 13756109, 13756201 and 13757135

Shown: Zeulner title page (HOLLIS no. 13756109)

Legal and Medical Self-Help in a French Community

Alexandre de la Roche, Prieur de Saint-Pierre, L’Arbitre charitable pour euiter les procez et les querelles; ou du moins pour les terminer promptement, sans peine & sans frais Paris: Laurens Raveneau, 1668HOLLIS no. 13346101bound with 2 editions of:Remedes pour les pauvres gens de la campagneParis: 167?HOLLIS nos. 13739457 & 13346408

This unique work features an early French arbitration treatise bound with two brief manuals for treating illnesses and injuries. Its titles may be translated as “Charitable arbitration to avoid trial and quarrels, or at least to end them quickly, without penalty and fees,” and “Remedies for the poor people in the countryside.”

It likely belonged to a community leader in a small French town who bound them so they could easily be carried as he or she traveled about tending to people in the community. That these three titles were bound together suggests that one person assumed dual roles in the community, and provides an intriguing clue about how law and medicine were practiced away from cities, formal courts, and hospitals.

La Roche’s work contains striking engravings whose purpose was to show people, even those who could not read, how to conduct themselves during an arbitration (shown here). The companion works also feature engravings, some quite graphic, that demonstrate how to bandage injuries.

Shown: De la Roche, title pages 1 (detail) & 2

Legal and Medical Self-Help in a French Community (cont’d)

Alexandre de la Roche, Prieur de Saint-Pierre, L’Arbitre charitable pour euiter les procez et les querelles; ou du moins pour les terminer promptement, sans peine & sans frais Paris: Laurens Raveneau, 1668HOLLIS no. 13346101

Shown: First page of table of contents



Shown: Engraving 1 (following title page)



Shown: Engraving 4 (after page 38)



Shown: Engraving 5 (after page 74)


Remedes pour les pauvres gens de la campagneParis: 167?HOLLIS no. 13739457

This is the first of the two “Remedies for the Poor” works that was bound with de la Roche’s volume on charitable arbitration.

Shown: Title page



This is the first of the two “Remedies for the Poor” works that was bound with de la Roche’s volume on charitable arbitration.

Shown: Table of contents



This is the second of the two “Remedies for the Poor” works that was bound with de la Roche’s volume on charitable arbitration.

Shown: Title page




Shown: Fig. 1 (after page 4): illustration of a bandage




Shown: Fig. 2 (after page 8): how to tie a bandage

Coutumes: Tracing the Development of French Law

City of Lille, Coustumes de la ville et eschevinage de Lille, 1579HLS MS 221; HOLLIS no. 13481824

The most important source of early French law, coutumes, or “customary laws,” document the laws and practices of different regions, cities, towns, and villages in France. At first transmitted orally, by the middle of the 13th century some coutumes were written down. For the next several centuries, countless people copied and recopied the coutumes, documenting changes in local laws and customs as they did so. By the 16th century, official coutumes appeared, which ultimately became an important source of modern French law.

Our newest manuscript coutume joins hundreds of others in our collection, which includes coutumes from jurisdictions throughout France. From them we can learn much about the history and evolution of French law. This volume is particularly rich in new material: it is a working manuscript of the Coutumes of Lille in force around 1579, during the period of Philip II's dominion.

The Harvard Law School Library has digitized the complete work; consult the HOLLIS library catalog record for a link to the images.

Shown: Front cover, made of limp vellum

Coutumes: Tracing the Development of French Law (cont’d)


Shown: Table of sections (folio 3v)



Shown: First page (folio 4r)



Shown: Inside back cover

Learning and Teaching the Law in 17th-Century France

Edmond Mérille, Commentarii Institutionum France: Bourges, July-August 1637HLS MS 4489; HOLLIS no. 13808679

Edmond (or Emond) Mérille (1579-1647) was a prominent 17th-century French jurist, a professor of civil law at Cahors and Bourges, and the author of several important legal treatises.

This manuscript consists of transcriptions of Mérille’s commentaries on Justinian’s Institutes, and adds an end-of-year lecture delivered between July 29 and August 8, 1637. Almost certainly written by an anonymous pupil of Mérille’s, it contains important evidence about how Roman law was studied and taught in 17th-century France.

Shown: Front cover

Learning and Teaching the Law in 17th-Century France (cont’d)


Revisions and corrections to the text, in different handwriting and with darker ink, appear throughout the manuscript. These notes are probably written by Mérille or an editor, who relied on this student’s manuscript to prepare a published version of the text. The printed version of the Commentarii, edited by Claude Mongin, was published nearly two decades later in 1654, seven years after Mérille’s death. The Library owns a copy (HOLLIS no. 4345364). Scholars can now study this manuscript alongside the Library’s printed volume for evidence of the substance and evolution of Mérille’s legal thought.

Shown: Page 1

Learning and Teaching the Law in 17th-Century France (cont’d)


Shown: Page 291 (last page)

Ministering to Prisoners

John Disney (compiler), Offices proper to be used with criminals and debtors. Compiled from the Book of Common Prayer, & several private books of devotion, for the use of ordinaries, who have the care of attending prisonersNottingham: 1725HLS MS 4490; HOLLIS no. 13836866

This attractive and unusual manuscript contains readings from the Bible and other sources, fine-tuned for different types of prisoners and crimes.

The compiler, John Disney (1677-1730), studied law in Middle Temple but never practiced. In 1719 he entered the priesthood and in 1722 became vicar of St. Mary's in Nottingham. Though Disney was a prolific author, this compilation was left as a work in progress and never published.

This manuscript, not quite like anything else in our collection, adds a new dimension to our strong collection of Anglo-American trials and crime broadsides.

Shown: Title page

Ministering to Prisoners (cont’d)


Shown: Office for criminals not yet brought to trial, which includes a special prayer for those “such as seem to be hardened and impenitent.” (fol. 1)

Ministering to Prisoners (cont’d)


Shown: Proper Lessons, to be read, one or two at a time, with certain lessons pertaining to murder and stealing highlighted (fol. 6)

The Daily Life of a Harvard Law School Student

John Marshall Vanmeter, Diary kept while a student at Harvard Law School, 1856, January 1-March 22HLS MS 4483; HOLLIS no. 13342414

John Vanmeter (1836-1925) was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. He received his law degree from Harvard in 1857, and returned home to Ohio where he pursued a successful career in law, farming, and finance.

Vanmeter’s diary is a rich source of information about the daily life of a Harvard Law School student, and a window into HLS history. In the diary he noted the topics of lectures delivered by his law professors, especially Theophilus Parsons and Judge Parker, whose lectures he found “dry and very hard to listen to, but very instructive.” When he sought a bit of fun, he played a borrowed violin; walked to Mt. Auburn and Fresh Pond to view ice harvesting; and “went down on Washington Street and after striving uselessly for half an hour in try to see a pretty girl’s face, gave up in despair and came back to the Parker House.”

Vanmeter’s diary joins a similar manuscript already in our collection, the Diary of James W. Boyden, 1845-1846 (HLS MS 4486; HOLLIS no. 13640337; available online through HOLLIS), as well as over 200 collections of HLS student class notes spanning the 1820s through the 1980s.

Shown: Front cover

The Daily Life of a Harvard Law School Student (cont’d)


Vanmeter prefaced his diary with these lofty sentiments:

Cambridge Jan 1st 1856An hour, a day, a year! What are they? Time past, time present, and time future. We muse upon the first, the other know, and the third we dream of; and from them all, deduce that man is unworthy of his Creator. … (page 1)

The Daily Life of a Harvard Law School Student (cont’d)


Vanmeter began his diary on January 1, 1856. Shown here is the first entry. He spent his day reading (for 6 hours!), attending lectures and visiting his club. He finished reading Joseph Story’s treatise on bailments, and pronounced it a “very instructive work, and such an one as should be in every law library.”

Part 2 - Crime, Consequences, and Lessons Learned: Trials, Broadsides and

the Popular Press

HSC has a rich collection of Anglo-American trials and broadsides, which feature popular (and often sensational) accounts of crimes and their perpetrators. From these we can learn how crime and criminals were treated in the popular press and received by the public. As shown by the recent acquisitions featured here, many of the stories in these pamphlets and broadsides are moralistic and didactic in tone; confessions and repentance at the gallows is a popular theme. Lurid tales featuring titillating details and grisly illustrations attest to the public’s thirst for sensation and the publishers’ ability to meet the demand. Featured here are accounts of trials and crimes in a variety of formats. Some of them will be digitized and added to the Harvard Law School Library’s digital collection, Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. and U.K., 1815-1914. Besides showing the rise of crime reporting in the popular press, the trials in Studies in Scarlet are a particularly rich source for the study of women in early modern society. Also on view is a sampling of broadsides, which were published to notify the public of executions. The broadsides, defined as a sheet of paper printed on one side only or containing one large page without columns, usually contain accounts of the condemned person’s life and crimes, and often include didactic poems or statements of the criminal’s guilt and repentance. These broadsides, and many others, may be found online in the Harvard Law School’s digital collection, Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library.

http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/home?_collection=scarlet

http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/

A Notorious Murder, Vividly Illustrated

The life of Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed at Tyburn, for starving Mary Clifford to death, one of her apprentices. Upon which is founded the popular piece of "Mary Clifford," performed at the City of London Theatre London: J.V. Quick, 1839HOLLIS no. 13901579This is an anonymous account of the infamous Elizabeth Brownrigg (1720-1767), who was tried and executed for the murder of one of her apprentices. Brownrigg, a midwife, was an "overseer of Women and Children" at the foundling hospital in St. Dunstan's parish, London. She was given several young girls to train as apprentice servants, each of whom she then proceeded to torture and starve in her home, assisted by her husband and son. By the time the authorities discovered her actions, one girl, Mary Clifford, was incapacitated from starvation and ulcerated lacerations from several days of whipping. She died a few days later. Brownrigg and her son fled, but were soon apprehended. All three members of the family were tried, but the father and son were acquitted.

Shown: Title page

A Notorious Murder, Vividly Illustrated (cont’d)

The life of Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed at Tyburn, for starving Mary Clifford to death, one of her apprentices. Upon which is founded the popular piece of "Mary Clifford," performed at the City of London Theatre London: J.V. Quick, 1839HOLLIS no. 13901579

As indicated in the title, this event was the inspiration for a play, a scene of which can be seen in the hand-colored plate shown here (opposite title page).

A Murder, Unfolded

Sunderland murder: The trial of Jacob Frederich Ehlert [1810-1839], for the murder of Capt. Johan Fredrick Berkholtz, of the ship Phoenix, while asleep in his cabin, on the night of the 12th of June, 1839. Convicted on the evidence of his accomplice, Daniel Fredrick Muller. With an account of his execution, &c.Durham? George Walker, 1839HOLLIS no. 5593369

This trial was printed in a single sheet, intended to be folded 4 times, cut into 12 leaves, and bound as a 24-page pamphlet. Our copy never made it that far. Still intact as a single sheet, it is an interesting artifact of the printing and publishing process.

Here is how it looks folded, with the title page showing (actual size of each leaf is 7” x 4”).

A Sensational Correspondence

New annals of gallantry: containing, a complete collection of all the genuine letters which have passed between Captain Inglefield, and Mrs. Inglefield … relative to a charge brought by the former against the latter, for partiality to her black servant… London: Printed for R. Randall, 1785 HOLLIS no. 13846849

This 80-page pamphlet contains letters and testimony from all sides of a sensational case. Captain John Nicholson Inglefield (1748-1828) sued his wife Ann for divorce due to her alleged adultery with a black servant; Ann counter-sued for desertion. The case came before the ecclesiastical court in July 1785. Though Mrs. Inglefield won in court, their marriage was irretrievably damaged and they never lived together again.

Shown: Title page

A Sensational Correspondence (cont’d)

New annals of gallantry: containing, a complete collection of all the genuine letters which have passed between Captain Inglefield, and Mrs. Inglefield … relative to a charge brought by the former against the latter, for partiality to her black servant… London: Printed for R. Randall, 1785 HOLLIS no. 13846849

Included in the pamphlet are three pages of salacious advertisements for adultery trials; a miscellany of amusing stories promising “A Dish of Fun for every Palate, from the Peer to the Peasant”; and a saucy collection of stories including “The Frolicks of Boarding-school Misses.”

Shown: First page of publisher’s advertisement, following page 65.

An Extravagantly Illustrated Account of a Versatile Criminal

Peter Thomson, Life and adventures of George W. Symonds, the Burdell murderer New York: National Police Gazette Office, 1863 HOLLIS no. 13905602

This booklet is an example of the growing interest in the genre of popular biography brought about by the new mass media print culture in the mid-nineteenth century. It pertains to the sensational murder of James Rowand, a jeweler in Princeton, on Nov. 13, 1862, for which "Charles Lewis" was tried and executed on April 3, 1863. Scholars have noted that there was considerable doubt concerning Lewis’ true identity. One of the contenders for the real Charles Lewis was George W. Symonds. This narrative gives a vivid account of the many horrific crimes committed by Symonds over two decades, as well as other aspects of his life.

Shown: Cover/title page

An Extravagantly Illustrated Account of a Versatile Criminal (cont’d)


Shown: Page 3



Copious illustrations throughout the booklet feature Symonds enacting a variety of misdeeds, such as "Symonds sets fire to the Franklin House at Hudson" and "The widow's daughter escaping from Symonds,” shown here (following page 14).



Shown: Publisher’s advertisement for The Vocabulum, or, Rogue's Lexicon, "a complete dictionary of the words and phrases used by the Professors of the 'Clyfaking' [i.e. pickpocketing] Fraternity" – further evidence of the burgeoning popular press (page 29).

A Selection of Crime Broadsides

Farewell to the world of Richard Bishop, who now lies under sentence of death in Maidstone gaol, for the murder of Alfred Cartwright London: H. Disley, 1868Broadside 526; HOLLIS no. 13854532This is a fine example of gallows literature. It claims to be based on the final lament and mea culpa of 21-year-old Richard Bishop, who was awaiting execution for the murder of his neighbor Alfred Cartwright. Hanged on 30 April 1868, Bishop was one of the last people to be executed publicly; an act passed that year banned public executions.

A Selection of Crime Broadsides (cont’d)

The life and behaviour of William Burton, who was executed at Gloucester, on Thursday, April 8, 1819: For the wilful murder of William Syms, of Woolaston Gloucester: Price, Printer, 1819Broadside 523; HOLLIS no. 13753935

Burton murdered Syms for his money and dumped his body in the River Severn.


An Account of the trial and execution of Wm. Ettell and Jacob Pool, who suffered at Gloucester, on Saturday, April 19, 1817Gloucester: Printed and Sold by T. Birt, 1817 Broadside 524; HOLLIS no. 13754177

William Ettell, 22, and Jacob Pool, 37, were hanged for the violent robbery of Mrs. Ship of York, a women "of advanced years" who was returning from Bath market.


The trial & execution of John Horwood, which took place at the New City Goal [sic] this day (Friday April 13, 1821) for the wilful murder of Eliza Balsam, of Hanham, Near Bristol Bristol: Harry Bonner, Printer, 1821 Broadside 522; HOLLIS no. 13518589

John Horwood was an 18-year-old miner from Hanham and the first person to be hanged at Bristol's New Gaol. When he saw Balsam, his ex-girlfriend, with her new boyfriend, he threw a stone at her that knocked her in the head. She died from the resulting injury. After the execution, Horwood's skeleton was kept in a hanging cupboard, still with its noose, until it was buried in 2011. The woodcut depicts a body hanging from a gallows under the gaze of a clergyman, military officer and audience.


A copy of verses on John Marrott, John Wilkinson, and Matthew Harrison, now under sentence of death in York Castle, for horse stealing York (England): C. Croshaw, 1828Broadside 513; HOLLIS no. 13518702

A 14-stanza didactic poem from the viewpoint of the condemned, all three of whom were executed on 26 April 1828.


Particular account of the execution &c. of William Walker, who was executed this morning, (Friday, April 29, 1831), on the drop over the New Bristol Gaol Bristol: Taylor, Printer, 1831Broadside 525; HOLLIS no. 13754178

Walker, who was hanged for burglary, confessed his involvement in two other burglaries before his death. The account of the trial, description of Walker after the trial, and his execution is followed by a set of didactic verses.

Education

Spanning the Centuries: An Exhibit of Recent Acquisitions, 1579-1868