Humfrey Wanley at 300

Blog series Medieval manuscripts

This year, we are commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726). The attribute assigned to Wanley in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry — ‘Old English scholar and librarian’ — barely does him justice. Today, we remember Wanley as a scrupulous cataloguer, as a formidable collector of manuscripts, and as a prolific correspondent. He was one of the founding members of the Society of Antiquaries, as well as librarian to the Harley family. This blogpost focuses on Wanley’s connections with the three foundation collections of the British Museum Library (Cotton, Harley and Sloane).

Wanley the tourist in the Cotton Library

Humfrey Wanley is renowned for his (often sour) relationship with Dr Thomas Smith, librarian of the Cotton collection in the later 17th century, before that Library was presented to the nation. Wanley and Smith had a similar interest in British antiquities, which developed over time into a somewhat unhealthy rivalry, and led to Smith trying to restrict Wanley’s access to the Cotton manuscripts. But in their early encounters, Humfrey Wanley and Thomas Smith were on more cordial terms.

In a letter written to his friend Thomas Tanner on 19 April 1695, Wanley described a visit he had made to the Cotton Library and some of the precious books he had been shown.

‘I am now just come home from Westminster & Sir John Cottons Library … the first Book [Dr Smith] shewed me was the Famous Book of Durham, containing the Gospells in Latin written above a thousand years ago, with a Saxon interlineary version, not much newer, it is a large folio, incomparably well written (I mean the Latin, & very well and cleanly kept) … He shewed me likewise an interlineary Psalter, written in Latin Capitalls as the other, with a saxon version, with the Songs of the old & new Testaments & this MS is almost as ancient as the former … I saw too, the most antient & incomparable copy of Genesis … it is a large folio, well written, with [a] Picture in almost every page; it is in Capitals without accents & in most places without any distinction of words … I tried the Drs Patience a little, for I copied almost a leaf & a half of the fragment of Judith, which is said to be written stylo Cædmoniano. I know not when I shal copie the rest ...’

You may recognise some of the manuscripts being described here. The ‘Famous Book of Durham’ is the Lindisfarne Gospels (Cotton MS Nero D IV); the ‘interlineary Psalter’ is the Vespasian Psalter (Cotton MS Vespasian A I); and the ‘fragment of Judith’ is part of the Beowulf-manuscript (Cotton MS Vitellius A XV).

The other manuscript mentioned by Wanley is the Cotton Genesis (Cotton MS Otho B VI), an illuminated copy of the Book of Genesis, in Greek, made probably in 5th-century Egypt. This volume was damaged severely in a fire at Ashburnham House, London, that ravaged the Cotton Library in October 1731. More recently, its pages have been subjected to specialist imaging at the British Library, supported by the generosity of the Goldhammer Foundation, allowing modern generations to view some of its pages for the first time in over two centuries.

We know that Humfrey Wanley retained a special interest in the Cotton Genesis. In May 1698, he reported to Arthur Charlett, Master of University College, Oxford, that he had heard that Sir John Cotton had talked of giving his prize manuscript to the University of Oxford. At some stage, he must have been allowed to handle it in person, despite Smith’s misgivings. In his famous Book of Specimens (now held at Longleat House), Wanley reproduced a page of the Greek script of the Cotton Genesis. The same page is found in a contemporary facsimile of the Book of Specimens, perhaps made during Wanley’s lifetime, as reproduced here. Humfrey Wanley was a distinguished palaeographer. His intention was not to preserve the script for posterity, but to help him to establish the evolution of ancient and medieval handwriting. Without Wanley’s intervention, however, we would struggle to know how the manuscript appeared before the fire.

Wanley the cataloguer in Hans Sloane’s Library

By 1700, the young Humfrey Wanley had forged a connection with another major collector: Hans Sloane (1660-1753), the physician and Royal Society Fellow. Wanley was briefly employed to catalogue works acquired for Sloane’s ever-growing Library. Many individuals, often anonymous, contributed to this laborious cataloguing task. But to anyone familiar with Wanley’s elegant and tidy handwriting, the presence of his hand in the handwritten catalogue Sloane MS 3972B is hard to miss. His entries suggest that Wanley was already a skilled cataloguer, able to describe manuscripts written in many languages — from Latin and Greek, to Italian and Spanish — and on topics ranging from heraldry to astrology and medicine.

Wanley the librarian to Robert and Edward Harley

The ‘Sloane connection’ helped Wanley later in his career, when he was appointed librarian to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and his son, Edward Harley. From the early 1700s until his death (6 July 1726), Wanley corresponded daily with antiquarians, booksellers and collectors, to discuss potential acquisitions for the Harleian Library. One letter sent to Sloane in March 1724 showcases Wanley’s negotiating skills, as he manages the competing interests of Sloane and Edward Harley ahead of the sale of the Chamberlayne Library. In his letter, Wanley explains that:

‘This morning I went to Mr Brown’s the Bookseller, to bespeak such Books as his Lordship [Harley] had marked in his Catalogue in order to buy; but was soon inform’d that You [Sloane] had marked several of the same Books’ (Sloane MS 4047, f. 145).

Could Sloane and Wanley not come to an agreement before the sale to avoid competition and ensure both collectors could purchase some of the desired titles, he asks? Fortunately, Sloane agreed and Wanley succeeded in keeping both his former and present employers happy.

As a librarian, Wanley was heavily invested not only in securing treasures for the Harley Library, but also in cataloguing them. Building upon the earlier experience in Sloane’s Library, he developed a much more ambitious project to describe the thousands of manuscripts owned by the Harleys. Any folio from what he humbly titled the ‘short catalogue’ (Add MSS 45701-45711) reveals the care and attention with which Wanley researched the material properties and content of each manuscript, often down to the individual folios.

Reading through his entries, we get tantalising glimpses into 18th-century acquisition practices. The manuscripts did not yet have the Harley MS reference with which modern users are familiar, being identified instead by a pressmark. Wanley specifies which manuscripts were ‘bought of me’ and even lists volumes that were dismembered or altogether removed from the Library.

‘My Lord judging this Book to be improper for his Library, took it away the 12th of February A.D. 1724/5’. Wanley's note features in the margin of a crossed-out entry for a manuscript filled with lampoons and satires. What was so offensive about the volume ‘68.D.25’? We may never find out but, thanks to Wanley’s record-keeping practices, even deaccessioned volumes are mentioned in the catalogue.

Wanley never got to witness the publication of the four-volume printed Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum (1808-12), but his cataloguing effort laid the groundwork for this publication and continues to inform our understanding of the Harley collection. Wanley’s activities as documented in his letters and catalogues reveal his engagement with all three foundation collections and shine a light on the many, meaningful connections between them.