12^th century Greek Gospels in an early Greek-style binding given by George Wheler

The clergyman, traveller, amateur botanist and Lincoln alumnus George Wheler (1651-1724) gave this manuscript to Lincoln in 1698. Wheler had bought the manuscript in Zakynthos in 1676 while he was travelling in Greece and the Levant, a journey recounted in his A Journey into Greece (1682).

Treatment:

Tailband secured; detaching and split leaves stabilised with Japanese paper; shelfmark label repaired and re-attached; new Kasemake box made.

12^th century English manuscript owned by Robert Fleming

Robert Fleming (nephew of the founder of Lincoln, Richard Fleming) was an early English humanist and the greatest donor of manuscripts to the College library. This small composite manuscript contains 15 works dating from the 11^th and 12^th centuries and includes a copy of Macrobius’ In somnium Scipionis commentaries, complete with the world map often found in this work.  The volume was previously owned by Sempringham Priory, Lincolnshire and is in a rare medieval binding.

Treatment:

Board secured with linen thread and partial panel spine linings; protection and consolidation of textile extensions onto boards and supports with Japanese tissue, providing support to fragile skin covering; stabilisation of sewing of one quire; correction of misaligned fragment on folio 62, held in place with toned thin Japanese tissue; securing of endbands; creation of a loose quire of Japanese paper for insertion between folios 61 and 62 to prevent further damage; bespoke Kasemake box made.

John Wesley’s walking stick

John Wesley is known for travelling to his preaching commitments on foot, as well as walking with his students, so this piece is a particularly significant item in the collection. Finely turned wood with a metal top engraved ‘I. W.’, it was donated to Lincoln by Old Member G. N. Eales in 1965.

Treatment:

A bespoke Kasemake box has been created by the Bodleian’s Packaging and Display Service. Tankerdale Ltd re-adhered the initialed brass cap to the walking stick with fish glue.

Lincoln College MS Hebrew 1 Roll of the Pentateuch

This parchment scroll dates, we think, to the 19^th century and is on two ornately turned ivory rollers. The scroll was in a brocaded textile cover, with figured panels woven with silver thread alternating with red velvet panels. The cover is fringed with silver metal-wrapped thread, and has a red silk lining. The scroll is in good condition, although the rollers showed some damage. The textile covering is in fair condition, although it appeared to be darkened and tarnished, and some of the woven metal threads are broken. There are two holes at the top of the cover through which the ends of the rollers protruded, which have become frayed making it difficult to extract the rollers. The treatment obviates the need to extract the scroll by storing the scroll and mantle separately within a new box.

Treatment:

The mantle was padded with acid-free tissue to gently relax the creases in the velvet caused by crushing in the narrow box. The fringing was untangled and aligned and bands of acid-free tissue were pinned around to help the fringe relax and straighten.

The main task was to provide more suitable storage, which would also encourage safer handling by readers. Following the example of the British Library, the mantle and scroll are housed separately in the same box, with acid-free tissue padding inside the mantle to prevent folds and creases. Plasterzote separates the scroll rollers, with a Tyvek wrapping tied with unbleached cotton tape protecting the parchment. Plasterzote inserts protect the scroll and tissue padding the mantle in the box and step-by-step handling instructions have been created to guide readers.

Lincoln College MS Hebrew 2 Roll of Esther

This roll dates, we think, to the 19^th century and contains the Book of Esther. It is a parchment roll on a single turned wooden roller. The leading edge of the roll has been beautifully shaped, and has four ornate woven ties of brightly coloured striped silk to tie the roll. These ties were originally knotted together in pairs, and attached to the edge of the roll by hand-worked loops of green silk. One pair of decorative silk ties was in very poor condition, one of the green silk loops had broken and its tie had become detached and unravelled, and was little more than a group of threads. These single threads clung to the nap of the parchment roll, making it difficult to unroll, and if not stabilised would be completely lost. The other pair of ties was in better condition and still tied together. The roll was unprotected in a box shared with another item.

Treatment:

The fragility of the ribbons required them to be strapped to a support board, which also necessitated the leading edge of the scroll to be strapped in place.

Housing was devised which would allow consultation whilst keeping the ribbons secure. A U-shaped plasterzote support and Evolon fabric cover were created for the roll. Plasterzote inserts protect the scroll in the box and step-by-step handling instructions were created to guide readers.

An early 15^th century English collection of sermons

This large manuscript dates to the first quarter of the 15^th century, and is in a 14/15^th century binding. It was in good condition in keeping with its age and use, but several condition problems needed to be addressed. First, there was no upper flyleaf and the first folio, which is illuminated, was unprotected and lay directly against the inner face of the upper board. There is no pastedown on the upper board, and the stiff sewing support slips, where laced into the upper board, were rubbing directly against the illuminated leaf. Furthermore, the first three slips had worked free of their lacing exit holes, and in two cases, the wooden pegs which secure the slips had been lost. The first support was free of the hole, with the wooden peg still in place. The second and third slip had lost their peg. Each time the upper board was moved the first three slips came out of their exit holes. When the board was shut back on the volume, the slips pressed against the first decorated leaf and were pushed back into their slots.

Treatment:

Selective cleaning with latex sponge; protective leaf of Japanese tissue pasted to spine between the sewing supports to prevent abrasion of text and illumination; loose support secured in recess; bespoke Kasemake box made.

Portrait of Thomas Marshall (1621-1685) Rector (1672- 1685)

Thomas Marshall (1621-1685) was a Lincoln alumnus and Oxford philologist who lived in exile in the Netherlands (where he acted as chaplain to the Company of Merchant Adventurers) from 1648 until he returned as Rector of Lincoln in 1672. He bequeathed many books and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library and was a generous donor to Lincoln College Library.

Attributed to the English School, this painting is most likely contemporary with Thomas Marshall’s rectorship of the College. The portrait required conservation: the paint layers appeared to have been extensively overpainted with brittle cracking in the original paint layers of the hair, face and hands barely visible underneath. This suggested that the original paint underneath the later overpainting was significantly damaged.

Treatment:

Removal from frame, surface cleaning. Losses in the paint and ground layers were filled with ‘Flügger’ acrylic putty (chalk and butyl methacrylate dispersion). Retouching was carried out with dry pigments bound in ‘Laropal’, 40g in 35ml 1-methoxypropan-2-ol, 65ml white spirit.

The frame was treated by a frame conservator. It was surface cleaned to remove the darkened toning layer. Losses and flaking areas were consolidated with rabbit skin glue. The larger losses were filled with gilders’ putty (chalk and animal glue). All flats were gilded and toned with rabbit skin glue and watercolour to suit the existing finish. Smaller losses and losses to the name plaque were retouched with watercolour. 3mm ‘Optium Museum Acrylic®’ was fitted into the frame.

Learning from a damaged book

Julius Caesar, Rerum a se gestarum Commentarii (Lyons, 1570)

This small, well-used and extremely fragile book came to Lincoln as part of the bequest of William Vesey, a Fellow of the College for over 50 years who died in 1755. The original French binding of blind-tooled calf over boards made up of printed sheets pasted together was so badly disintegrated that the book was too fragile to be handled. Yet it is precisely this disintegration, where the structure of the binding is laid bare, that makes the book such an interesting object of study for anyone interested in the history of books and their bindings.

Treatment:

A bespoke Kasemake box with five Plastazote inserts was made to re-house the textblock, detached back board and leather cover safely. The book can be displayed in its disbound state, visible from several angles on lift-out acrylic supports, for teaching and exhibition, as it is an excellent example for showing both how books were constructed and what can happen to them.

Minimal conservation treatment: stabilised endbands, reinforced attachment of front board, re-hinged detached flyleaf with Japanese tissue and secured leather cover with toned Japanese tissue.

The Edward Thomas papers 1895-1989

The poet Edward Thomas was an undergraduate student in modern history at Lincoln College, taking a 2nd class degree in 1900. His daughter Myfanwy Thomas gave a collection of papers relating to her father to Lincoln in 1968 and 1989. Highlights of the collection include Thomas’s famous poem Roads, written on the back of a letter to his wife Helen, a manuscript copy of his work Oxford, and his annotated copy of The Lyrical Poems of Shelley.  Oxford required conservation treatment to repair tears on the edges and folds of the manuscript.

Treatment:

Cleaned with latex sponge; edge tears repaired with Japanese paper; worst folds and creases humidified by brushing on a small amount of water and flattening between blotters; separate sections stored in folds of Old Grey Ivory Photokraft paper, and placed into bespoke Kasemake box.

Although catalogued at the time of deposit, a resurgence of interest in Thomas and advances in cataloguing standards necessitated an investment in re-cataloguing. You can see them at https://archives.lincoln.ox.ac.uk/records/LC/MS/THO

A rare 15^th century book in its original binding

Lincoln’s copy of the first edition of one of St Augustine’s most important exegetical works, his commentaries on the Psalms, was given to the College in around 1518 by Edmund Audley, Bishop of Salisbury. While many of the College’s books were rebound in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, this copy is still in its original binding: a leather binding over wooden boards that was created between 1489 and 1496 by a continental binder working in London who is known only as the “Octagonal Rose binder” (a name drawn from a particular decorative tool associated with his work). This is an important work, one of only 5 complete copies in British libraries in a contemporary binding and given to Lincoln by one of its most important donors.

Treatment:

v.1 and v.3 Board re-attached using textiles and Japanese paper; v.3 corner of board stabilised and endband secured.

Thomas Marshall’s Bible

This copy of the 1634 edition of the Authorised Version, or King James Bible, belonged to Thomas Marshall (1621-1685), an Oxford philologist who lived in exile in the Netherlands (where he acted as chaplain to the Company of Merchant Adventurers) from 1648 until he returned as Rector of Lincoln in 1672. It is bound in a rather sombre black goatskin binding with heavy metal clasps because the printed text is interleaved with blank sheets that almost double its size; on these sheets are what the Senior Library card catalogue describes as “many learned notes” - densely-packed handwritten notes (in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and even English) that cover the blank pages. The volume also has small parchment tabs pasted to the fore-edge of many pages on which chapter and verse are written in a small, neat hand. This bible is particularly valuable to Lincoln because Marshall’s notes, ranging from commentaries on the text of the bible to a diary of his own biblical studies, are precious evidence of one reader’s intense engagement with the printed word.

Treatment:

Repair and securing of tabs, followed by microphotography; edge tears mended with Japanese paper; small split caused by copper-induced deterioration of paper secured with tabs of gelatine-coated tissue on Japanese tissue paper; first gathering secured with linen thread; title-page and first leaf secured with hinges of watercolour-toned Japanese paper to improve alignment; pleated area of title-page humidified and flattened; split in last bifolium repaired.

12^th century Acts of the Apostles & 4 other works owned by Robert Fleming

This 12^th century manuscript has been rebound in the 17^th century probably in Oxford. It is a typical Western binding, sewn on four double alum-tawed supports, in pulpboards with a covering of reversed tanned leather (probably sheepskin) and tooled in blind. It is an unassuming workaday binding, like many in Oxford collections. It may have been in an earlier Greek/Byzantine binding, but the current structure conceals details such as preparatory V-cuts on the spine which would indicate an earlier Greek binding. No elements of an earlier binding can be seen at present. The manuscript preserves a fine full-sized portrait of a saint in ink (f1v), and richly coloured headpieces throughout the text-block.

Treatment:

Boards re-attached, after removal of old adhesive, with Japanese paper and aerolinen spine linings secured with wheat starch paste and linen braids, sewn in place with linen thread; broken headband secured with watercolour-toned linen thread; toned Japanese paper used where leather has been lost on spine; tears on two leaves repaired with Japanese paper tabs; bespoke Kasemake box made.