More than a Kitchen-Aid: Elizabeth Capell’s Recipe Book

Front cover of the Elizabeth Capell Cooking Notebook, MS.2002.012, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Cookbooks have been aids in the kitchen for generations. The Elizabeth Capell manuscript cookbook, owned by the John J. Burns Library, is of unknown authorship, and ongoing research has not yet determined its origins. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating window into a world long gone. The book served as a place for women to write down their recipes, or “receipts,” for food, folk remedies, and other household tips and tricks. This practice may have evolved from the Renaissance practice of keeping a “commonplace book,” which was a journal where scholars recorded excerpts from books, their thoughts, and reading notes. Literate women then adopted this practice and adapted it to their own needs and duties.

This particular manuscript may have begun as a commonplace book—the upside-down writing in the back of the book is a word-for-word copy of “the Story of Bembo, a Primitive Christian,” which was published in Oxford in 1689 by a minister named Richard Allestree. The rest of the manuscript contains 223 receipts for culinary delights such as “pickelled Turkey” and “a heartichoak [artichoke] pye,” as well as remedies “to take away Freckells” and “to Chore [Cure] y^e Passion of the heart.”

Various recipes using marzipan, Elizabeth Capell Cooking Notebook, MS.2000.12, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

The recipes in the Capell manuscript are typical of English cooking of the seventeenth century. The seventeenth century was a time of transition in the English culinary tradition, as cooks moved away from heavy medieval foods to lighter dishes with different combinations of flavor. The boiled pudding, which appears six times in the manuscript, was an emerging dish that quickly became popular. Other typically English dishes in the Capell manuscript include scotch collops (a dish of fried tenderized veal), gingerbread, syllabub (a drink like punch), mutton, and marzipan molded into different shapes (even bacon!). Dishes like marzipan and syllabub required large amounts of sugar, spices, and almonds, all of which were expensive ingredients in the seventeenth century. The appearance of these expensive ingredients indicates that this book belonged to a member of the English gentry.

This cookbook served as a way for women to pass the skills of literacy from generation to generation, Elizabeth Capell Cooking Notebook, MS.2000.12, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Beyond its role as a kitchen reference, this manuscript helps to illuminate some of the functions of women’s literacy in the seventeenth century. The women who worked on this manuscript are notable because they could read and write, at a time when few women below the nobility could sign their names. There are thirty-three different scripts that appear in the manuscript, indicating that there was more than one contributor to the cookbook. This sort of cookbook also served as a way for women to pass the skills of literacy from generation to generation. The Capell manuscript contains a very interesting example of this: four receipts, numbered 167-170, have large, childish handwriting in their titles, while the body of the recipe is written in the hand of an educated adult. One can imagine a little girl practicing her writing in her mother’s recipe book, learning how to write with clear and efficient handwriting.

The authors of this cookbook compiled receipts from a variety of sources that may have included friends, family, and neighbors, as well as published cookery and medicinal works. For instance, six recipes are attributed to “Mrs. Ruttinson.” We do not know exactly who she is, but she was clearly trusted by the woman who wrote down her recipes. The variety of sources also helps to demonstrate the communal qualities of the cookbook manuscript. Beyond its function as a kitchen reference, the cookbook also functioned as a method of transmitting information from woman to woman.

To say that a woman’s role was limited to the domestic sphere is to underestimate the width and breadth of domesticity. Women’s diverse responsibilities, including running kitchens, maintaining household accounts, and educating children, are captured in this seventeenth-century manuscript. The handwritten cookbook was much more than simply an aid in the kitchen: it was a repository of a communal knowledge, and a way to transmit that knowledge to future generations.

The Capell Cooking notebook contains recipes, or “receipts,” for food, folk remedies, and other household tips and tricks, Elizabeth Capell Cooking Notebook, MS.2000.12, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

The images and content in this blog post are drawn from the exhibit  “Making History Public: Books Around the World 1400 – 1800.”   This exhibit was curated and organized by Professor Virginia Reinburg’s Fall 2012 HS600 class, in collaboration with the Boston College University Libraries.  From April – December 2013, the “Making History Public” exhibit is on display in the History Department, Stokes 3rd Floor South.

• Marie Pellissier, A & S, Class of 2015

Clasps and Red Pigment: Bookbuilder Intern Studies a 16th Century Book

Books studied by Bookbuilders of Boston Spring 2013 Interns at the Burns Library. Compendium Manualis D. Navarri, with the blue text block, is on the left. Photograph by Gary Gilbert.

In my position as a Bookbuilders of Boston Intern, during the spring semester of 2013, I feel very lucky to have worked directly with the Burns Library staff learning more about the history of the book. One of my projects this semester involved meeting with Barbara Adams Hebard, the Conservator at the Burns Library.  Barbara assigned me a book to study for the semester.  I worked on a book titled  Compendium Manualis D. Navarri, a 16th century book on confession that is now part of the Burns Library’s Jesuitica Collection.  This project gave me a chance to research early books’ construction, clasps, dyes, and even to test a sample of the pigment on the cover of the book in the Boston College Cleanroom.

The first thing I learned was how to identify the parts of a book. Using the diagram that Burns Conservator Barbara Adams Hebard gave me, I found that my book possesses most of the common characteristics of a 16^th century hand-bound book. Although it is not considered an incunable, being published after 1550, it is bound in the style characteristic of an incunable. It is a small book measuring 12 centimeters high, not an unusual size at the time, but one that is determined by the printer. The cover material is leather, most likely a young pigskin. The leather is attached over wooden boards and lined with a plain white pastedown. The first flyleaf is the title page which includes illustration. This first page has a loss at the top of the page; perhaps a new owner removed a previous owner’s name or address. Barbara speculated that perhaps it was stolen at some point many years ago.

In this image of Compendium Manualis D. Navarri, you can see that the leather over the spine conceals three raised bands. Photograph by Gary Gilbert.

The edges of the text block are painted a solid blue. The end of the text block has a few blank pages with the same double line border as the text, perhaps a place for a student to take notes. The blind stamp designs that decorate the upper and lower boards of the book include faces – perhaps of Saints – and other arabesque designs. The stamped designs are referred to as blind because they are impressions in the leather that are not gilded. The leather over the spine conceals three raised bands. The spine of a book at this time would not have had a title. The leather cover appears to have brown pigment residue but Barbara explained that over time a book cover’s color can change due to light, heat or constant handling.

Dr. Gregory McMahon, a physicist in the Cleanroom, helped us analyze our microscopic pigment samples, utilizing a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The results showed us what elements were present in the sample which would then tell us what type of pigment was used. After testing a sample of the pigment the original color was confirmed as a red pigment of mixed elements but primarily composed of mercuric sulfide also known as vermillion. The other compounds found in my mixed vermillion sample were most likely from the tanning process which could have changed the color over time.

This book’s clasps seem to come from the area now known as Germany. Photograph by Gary Gilbert.

One of the special features of this rare book is the decorated brass fasteners or clasps that are attached to the fore edge of the boards. There are two clasps and they are still intact and fully functional. This book’s clasps seem to come from the area now known as Germany. In the essay, “Clasps, Schliessen, Clausuren. A guide to the Manufacture and the literature of clasps” by J. Franklin Mowery, images of typical 16^th century German clasps match up with my book’s clasps almost perfectly. A book clasp like the one found on my book has three separate parts. The catch is attached on the upper board while the strap plate on a leather strip forms the movable section of the clasp. This main piece of the clasp is called the hasp which can be very decorative. The scalloped edges of this book’s hasp greatly resemble those of a typical 16^th century German hasp design.

This book exemplifies the quality and style of bookbinding around the 16^th century. Books used to be very expensive at that time because of the valuable materials they used and the time-consuming techniques they entailed. Commercial publishers must now generate reasonably-priced books at a much faster pace, so they are compelled to use inexpensive materials and modern technology in the production. Current books unfortunately do not last as long for that reason, meanwhile my book was crafted from the best materials by trained binders and is still around many hundreds of years later.

Jennifer O’Brien, Bookbuilders of Boston Burns Library Spring 2013 Intern & A & S, Class of 2013

A Curious Case of Waste: Bookbuilders of Boston Intern Report

The John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections is located on the North side of the Bapst building facing Commonwealth Avenue.

Acting as a “bookbuilder” brings to mind, for me, an attempt to understand the fundamentals of book publishing – the building blocks of a physical book, albeit – that form the timeless basis for the industry today. Undergoing this internship at a special collections library such as the Burns, I had the invaluable opportunity to study the origins of book publishing among incredibly historical texts. As one of my side projects, the Conservator of the Burns, Barbara Adams Hebard, chose a book each for my colleague Jen and me to study and research. Seeking to break down their various components, we set about learning how books were physically, and meaningfully, published.

Bookbuilder Interns studied these two books from the Burns Library’s collections. The book featured in this post, Appendix Ad Grammaticum Proteum de Alphonsi de Vargas, is pictured above on the right. Photograph by Gary Gilbert.

In the Conservation Lab, Barbara gave us a diagram of the typical book, which we then applied to our own books that we had been commissioned to study. In my observations, I noted some key differences that exist when it comes to my rare, old book, which is called Appendix Ad Grammaticum Proteum de Alphonsi de Vargas, written by Laurent Forer. An obvious observation is that Appendix is not a hardcover book but a “paperback” of sorts; yet, it is not really a paperback at all, as the cover is actually made of vellum (which is the skin of an animal stretched thin). Specifically, it is what’s called “limp vellum” binding, without boards; limp vellum bindings, I learned, were often used in order to be economical when it came to bookbinding. My book was bound (or perhaps even rebound) sometime in its history (probably in the 19th century) with a leaf of an illuminated manuscript, likely from the late medieval centuries. It runs horizontal from the front cover over the spine and onto the back cover. Its illustrations are blue and red, with some lines of the script written in all red instead of black on the back; this fact probably relays that this leaf is from a liturgical work, since that red phrase would have denoted a priest’s words in a liturgy. Despite its unusual cover, the book has most of the other trappings of a traditional book, such as a hinge, a back cover, a square, a doublure margin, a headband, an inner joint, and a first flyleaf. It also has the top edge, head, fore edge, tail, foot, and spine.

Front cover: close-up of vellum showing hand-written text.

Physically, this book has some other really interesting features as well, besides the fact that its cover comes from a completely different century than the content of the book, which dates to 1636. The fibers of the headband are woven out of two different colors of silk – white and blue – and its threads are so small and worn that Barbara was the only one who could detect that. I noticed four strings, about two millimeters in width, which seemed to come from the spine of the book and then pull through underneath the cover of the book. These straps, Barbara noted, are made of vellum; I guessed that they were likely threaded through in order to enhance the strength of the book and make it flat, and also to attach the text block to the cover. From further reading and research, I learned that these straps are actually called slips, which hold the cover in place by being threaded through the vellum through slits. I noticed two more sets of vellum slips on each the front and back cover of the book, that appear to have been cut short at their exit point from underneath the cover. The straps from these particular points probably were used as ties to close the book, rather than metal clasps. Someone later on may have cut them off, likely because they were either too worn down from being tied so much or the owner of the book got fed up with tying the book so often. The pastedown of the Burns’ copy of Forer’s book is really a mystery; on both the front and back, it is a handwritten sheet of music and lyrics, pasted face down. Alas, not only was the cover recycled in the book’s rebinding, but so are the pastedowns, which seem to be jotted-on scrap paper of no connection to the text. Sure enough, as I browsed Michelle P. Brown’s book Understanding Medieval Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms, I learned that “pastedowns are often formed of fragments of earlier manuscripts that were considered dispensable.” This book has many layers of reuse, which is why Barbara chose it for me; as I am an Environmental Studies minor, Barbara believed I would find this fact charming (which I do).

Detail of the pastedown, with faintly visible musical notation.

Furthermore into the book’s physical extent, the fore edge and top edge of the text block are sprinkled with red and blue paint, which happens to match the red and blue illustrations on the cover of the book. The speckles were likely meant to be decorative, but we are uncertain whether or not the speckles were done to match the new cover or if the new cover was chosen to match the text block’s speckles. The title page of Appendix has a particularly bad water stain on it stretching down the page, this damage probably being the cause of why the book’s original cover (which could have even been leather) was replaced with a repurposed leaf of vellum. Finally, the spine of the book seems to have been (quite shoddily) painted over with what Barbara suspects is lead white paint. It was likely painted so that the spine could be titled and have notation on it, since writing anything on top of the manuscript cover would have been illegible. Written in black ink over the paint on the spine is the author’s name, “Forer.”

Back cover: close-up of vellum showing rubricated text in the lower right corner.

On Monday, March 18th, the other Bookbuilder of Boston intern Jen O’Brien  and I finally had the exciting and rare opportunity to visit the Clean Room, which is a physics and forensics lab located on Newton Campus, just a short bus ride away from the Burns. Along with us I brought pigment samples from the cover of my and Jen’s book. Our goal was to have the pigments tested by a physicist, Dr. Gregory McMahon, in order to figure out just what that pigment on the cover is; by knowing this, it is easier to further understand from which time period the illuminated manuscript came, as certain pigments were used by scribes at different times throughout history. To do this, Barbara used a tool to chip a miniscule amount off of each of our book’s covers to be tested in the lab. To give an idea of the size, 50-70 microns is the width of a strand of hair, and my sample is 1/5 that size. My pigment came from one of the illuminated letters of the manuscript, which has both red and blue pigments on the front, but in this case it was the red pigment. Armed with these samples, Jen and I arrived at the Clean Room to be suited up. We had to wear full hazmat-like suits in the lab not because the materials we were working with were harmful, but instead because we – our skin cells and our hair follicles and the dust particles from our clothes – could harm the samples and taint the results. Once we were head to toe in crinkly white stuff, we headed in to watch Dr. McMahon begin.

Our goal in bringing these pigments to the lab was to expose them to a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in order to decipher what elements comprise each pigment. The SEM is no simple tool; it is a huge machine connected to several computers. The SEM operates inside a vacuum, with a pressure that is similar to deep space; the sample is placed on carbon conductor tape and bombarded with electrons from a beam, the resulting energy being measured as an X-ray and graphed on the computer. Based on the frequency measurement of the electrons bouncing off the sample, the element or elements of the pigment can be discovered. When my pigment was tested, the data on the computer’s graph spiked at a frequency that reflected the elemental composition of mercury and sulfur. Next, using an online search engine affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts called Cameo, we were able to plug in these elements and match the substance with a “bright red pigment” called vermillion. Vermillion was made from cinnabar, a mineral from China, available in Europe through eastern trade routes.

The BC Libraries catalog record for Appendix Ad Grammaticum Proteum de Alphonsi de Vargas, written by Laurent Forer.

While working with Barbara to decipher the physical extent of my book, I have been simultaneously working with the Burns’ cataloguer, David Richtmyer, to begin to crack its literary extent. Discovering that the pigment used on the cover was vermillion, I had confirmation that the manuscript was from medieval times, likely around the year 1450. But what about the text itself? In analyzing the title page and subsequent features of the printed text with David, as well as cataloging my book with the MARC record used by the Library of Congress, I was able to discover certain details to bring the content of my book into greater context. I already knew Forer’s book belonged to the Jesuitica collection here at the Burns, which contains an impressive amount of historical materials. Gleaning what I could from David’s knowledge of printed materials and also the Latin language, I discovered the Burns’ copy of Forer’s work is likely an abbreviated version of a longer book on Catholic Jesuit theology – a pocket-sized version if you will. In the 17^th century, church and state were not yet separate, and this book is a Jesuit point of view on politics, and a sort of counterattack on behalf of the Jesuits. The man whose name appears in the title – Alphonsi de Vargas – was likely a Spanish Jesuit who was being attacked by another man, Kaspar Schoppe, who was a German Protestant-to-Catholic convert with a sharp tongue against the Society of Jesus. Schoppe was probably a skilled debater who spoke out against Vargas, and Forer’s way (as well as the rest of the world’s way at the time) of getting even was to write a book in defense of Vargas; it is a sort of political treatise dealing with controversial religious (and political) figures at the time.

Somewhere in its life the book was nearly ruined by water and rebound to be saved, oddly enough by manuscript waste that is likely religious in itself as well. As clergy changes over time, so do the liturgical needs of those clergy, and as certain medieval, liturgical manuscripts became obsolete, Forer’s text did not. Due to this salvation, the Burns’ copy is a 17^th century work, bound by a 15^th century work of an elaborately different style, at a time sometime likely during the 19^th century. Appendix Ad Grammaticum Proteum therefore is a text that truly – physically and literary – spans the ages of book publishing.

Juliette San Fillipo, Bookbuilders of Boston Intern Spring 2013 and    A & S, Class of 2013

A Flood of Faith and Knowledge: Kircher’s Arca Nöe

This full-page engraving notes the Arca Nöe’s title and author. An inscription on the sail of the ship in the background reads “Make thee an Ark, outside of which there is no salvation.”

Perhaps no human being can be credited with embracing Plato’s statement “nothing is more beautiful than to know everything” to the same extent as Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, a polymath, and a walking encyclopedia. Kircher’s vast knowledge earned him the title “master of a hundred arts.” A man fiercely loyal to the Catholic faith and Jesuit ideals yet insatiably curious about the workings of the universe, Athanasius Kircher produced a body of work (with over forty publications) as all encompassing as his store of knowledge. The Arca Noë, published in 1675 by Johann Janson, is part of the Burns Library’s Jesuitica Collection.  It is one of several books Kircher published based on strict Catholic orthodoxy. In it, he describes the condition of the world before and after the great Flood, lyrically relates the actions of Noah, and goes to great lengths to depict the Ark itself. The story of Noah’s Ark offered an ideal template through which Kircher could express his curiosity as a natural philosopher and his faith as a Jesuit.

“Submerged Mountains”, which depicts the Ark settling in the aftermath of the Flood, is one of the engravings signed by Coenraet Decker in the Arca Nöe.

Numerous elements combine within the book’s pages to create an interior stunning to behold. The book contains elaborate, full-page illustrations, detailed maps, unique page borders, and foldout diagrams. Coenraet Decker, an Amsterdam artist, signed three of the Arca Noë‘s engravings, including Portrait of Charles II, King of Spain, Noah and His Progeny, and Submerged Mountains. Decker’s engravings share certain common elements, as evidenced by a comparison between Noah and His Progeny and Submerged Mountains. Decker included a mountain in the background of Noah and his Progeny.  The mountain in the background probably represents Mount Ararat, upon which the Ark came to rest after the Flood, as shown in Submerged Mountains. The same swelling clouds billow up around Mount Ararat in both illustrations.

Noah and His Progeny, another engraving by Coenraet Decker which appears in Arca Nöe.

Decker’s clouds, in their swirling grandeur, seem to be manifestations of divine power. The clouds are ever present. They loom in the sky both in Noah and His Progeny and in the top plate of Submerged Mountains.  It is as if Decker intended the clouds as a reminder of God’s hand in Noah’s story. Decker’s engravings are ideal for a book such as the Arca Noë, which aims to proclaim the glory of God through support of Catholic doctrine. As masterpieces in their own right, Decker’s illustrations seem to embody the magnificence of God and his work.

A different artist was clearly responsible for the book’s engravings of the events before, during, and after the Flood. These images show an almost medieval approach to perspective and human proportion. They detail the process by which Noah and his descendants prepared for and survived the great Flood. The artist responsible for these illustrations did not possess Decker’s skill, but his images still succeed in effectively telling Kircher’s account of Noah’s Ark. They demonstrate historical events in a manner comprehensible to average people and provide visual entertainment that would spark a reader’s imagination.

The first of Arca Nöe’s “just-so story” illustrations, this engraving depicts the Ark’s construction in what looks like a modern shipyard.

The Arca Noë contains the largest illustration in any of Kircher’s books—a massive engraving of 39 x 17 ½ inches, made from three separate plates. This is just one of the numerous diagrams and didactic images included in the Arca Noë. Along with confirming Scripture and the Catholic Church’s teachings, the Arca Noë served a secondary purpose. It provided a setting into which Kircher could introduce a detailed nomenclature that identified and classified as many animals as possible. The material, visually presented with over 100 woodcuts, would also conveniently entice twelve-year-old Charles II, the King of Spain, to whom the book was dedicated.

According to Kircher, this engraving depicts “an optical projection of the three storeys of the Ark, whereby the species of all animals are shown in their proper figures, as well as their stables and pens arranged in order on either side of the Ark.”

Fascinatingly, Kircher dedicated an entire section of his Arca Noë classifications to hybrid animals. Hybrid creatures resulted from the mating of different species, which Kircher had no doubt could successfully produce offspring together. For example, giraffes, according to Kircher, were born of camel and leopard parents. This explanation of diversity in the animal population allowed Kircher to skirt the problem of limited space in Noah’s Ark. Although his taxonomy included only about fifty pairs of animals, nowhere near the known number of unique animal species, Kircher asserted that all animals were saved by Noah’s Ark; any animals not rescued in the Ark would reappear after the Flood as a result of hybridization.

A page from the hybrid animals section of the Arca Nöe.

The Arca Noë eloquently tells a biblical story, utilizing marvelous illustrations that give the tale of Noah a fantastical quality and emphasize the surely divine origins of the Flood. At the same time, Kircher’s work, with its precise diagrams and pictorial documentation of the animals saved in the Ark, gives scientific credibility to Noah’s account of the Flood. Rather than describing it only in words, Kircher included pictures that made the seemingly sensational Flood story more believable. Kircher offered his readers pictorial cues that they could easily relate to and understand, regardless of social standing, religious upbringing, or educational background.

The Arca Noë transcends questions of orthodoxy with its secular importance. It is relevant to all human beings at the most basic level, since it describes and catalogues the creatures with which humankind shares the created universe and attribute of life. The true significance of Athanasius Kircher’s Arca Noë lay in the fact that it inspired readers to seek greater understanding of the world around them and, in so doing, relentlessly pursue the noble end so doggedly endorsed by Athanasius Kircher: that of exploring, learning, and, finally, knowing.

If you would like to look at the Arca Nöe or learn more about the Burns Library’s Jesuitica Collection, then contact the Burns Library Reading Room at 617-552-4861 or burnsref@bc.edu. In addition, several books and manuscripts from the Burns Library’s Jesuitica Collection have been digitized and are available online.  Go to the Boston College Libraries Digital Collections page and then scroll down and click on Jesuitica Book Collection or Jesuitica Manuscript Collection to view these materials.

The images and content in this blog post are drawn from the exhibit  “Making History Public: Books Around the World 1400 – 1800.”   This exhibit was curated and organized by Professor Virginia Reinburg’s Fall 2012 HS600 class, in collaboration with the Boston College University Libraries.  From April – December 2013, the “Making History Public” exhibit is on display in the History Department, Stokes 3rd Floor South.

• Christine Spindler, A & S, Class of 2015

Major Works Consulted

Paula Findlen. Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Paula Findlen. “Science, History, and Erudition: Athanasius Kircher’s Museum at the Collegio Romano.” In The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher, ed. Daniel Stolzenberg.  Stanford: Stanford University Libraries and Fiesole: Cadmo, 2001.

Joscelyn Godwin. Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009.

Joscelyn Godwin. “Foreward.” In A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, “Germanus Incredibilis”: With a Selection of His Unpublished Correspondence and an Annotated Translation of His Autobiography, edited by Elizabeth Fletcher.  Leiden: Brill, 2011.

Ingrid D. Rowland and University of Chicago. Library Department of Special Collections. The Ecstatic Journey: Athanasius Kircher in Baroque Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Library, 2000.

 

 

Archives Diary: John L. Sullivan, The Game of Life

John Lawrence Sullivan with unidentified people at Coney Island, circa 1890s-1910s. Box 2, Folder 2, John Lawrence Sullivan Papers, MS.2012.013, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

John Lawrence Sullivan (1858-1918) started his career as an outlaw engaged in illegal prizefighting, became a popular hero and the first American heavyweight champion, went on to the vaudeville stage, and ended his life on a quiet farm. Best known as a boxer and the “Boston Strong Boy,” his life took many interesting and unexpected turns. “If the good Lord shall call me right now, I may say that I have seen it all. I know the game of life from A to Z, from soda to hock,” he said not long before his death. The John Lawrence Sullivan papers at Burns Library provide some insight into his colorful life and ongoing significance in American culture.

Born in Boston’s South End to Irish immigrants Michael Sullivan and Catherine Kelly, Sullivan’s formal education ended at age fifteen, after which he apprenticed as a plumber, a mason, and a tinsmith. (Although he later claimed to have attended Boston College, our records do not confirm this.) It quickly became apparent that his main talent was his prodigious strength. One night in 1878 at the Dudley Street Opera House, Sullivan climbed into the ring with Jack Scannell for an impromptu bout and knocked Scannell clear into the piano on the other side of the stage. Other amateur fights followed, earning him the nickname “The Boston Strong Boy.”  In 1882 he won the American heavyweight championship, besting Paddy Ryan in a bout held in Mississippi City – where prizefighting, incidentally, was illegal.

A poster advertising a bout between John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain, circa 1895-1918. Box 1, Folder 1, John Lawrence Sullivan Papers, MS.2012.013, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Sullivan kept the title of champion for ten years and was as renowned for his drinking and carousing as for his physical feats. His most famous bout was the last bare-knuckle heavyweight championship with Jake Kilrain in Mississippi in 1889, which Sullivan won in seventy-five grueling rounds (and for which he received a year’s prison sentence, later commuted to a $500 fine, because prizefighting was STILL illegal in Mississippi). In 1892 Sullivan lost the championship to James J. Corbett and turned to the stage, which offered more money and less physical work than boxing. As early as 1883 Sullivan had appeared in a skit at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston. In 1890 he starred in Honest Hearts and Willing Hands, becoming the first boxer, and possibly the first athlete, to take a lead role in American theater.

From 1892 to 1902 he held a variety of jobs, managing saloons in New York and Boston, selling whiskey, making book, and appearing in touring productions that often ended badly due to his epic drinking. After 1902, most of his public appearances were as a vaudeville act, in which he read monologues and sometimes staged sparring exhibitions. It is this period that is most richly documented by the John Lawrence Sullivan papers.

John L. Sullivan’s well-known poem, “A Recitation or Toast to Women,” undated. Box 1, Folder 27, John Lawrence Sullivan Papers, MS.2012.013, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

The centerpiece of his monologues was a sentimental poem, “A Recitation or Toast to Woman,” an entertaining bit of doggerel that puzzled at least one onlooker. “Just why this idol of the pugilistic arena should seek to emulate some lovesick heroine of the melodrama, is secret . . .” mused a critic. Dramatic merit aside, Sullivan continued to be quite popular long after his last boxing bout. The owner of Smith’s Opera House in Grand Rapids, Michigan, enthused to Sullivan about his performance in a letter that survives in the collection:

“I have played, as you know, the best Companies on the road in the Vaudeville and Burlesque line and this is the first time that the “STANDING ROOM ONLY” sign has been placed in the lobby of my Theatre this season at every show and the house holds 1200 people, and then being compelled to turn people away. Although I had heard that you were a great drawing card, I did not think it possible for one man to be the means of filling my House . . .”

The same author also strikes a bittersweet note in referring to Sullivan’s well-known losses:

“I know you have not the amount of money, which you have had in the past or anything like it, but there is no question that the Papers are true in their sayings, when quoting you as having made a million dollars and spent it. While you have nothing like a million dollars left, I firmly believe that you have over a million friends . . .”

Sullivan was indeed notoriously profligate, overly generous to his many friends and prone to going on sprees when he won a large purse. In 1902 he filed for bankruptcy in New York and in 1903 was forced to pawn his Championship Belt. His drinking binges contributed to his spending, and he was on a familiar but unfortunate downward spiral until a sudden conversion. On March 5, 1905, as he waited for champagne to be served in a hotel bar, he contemplated all of the money he had spent wastefully over the years. When the champagne arrived, he poured it into a spittoon and swore never to take another drink. He then became a temperance advocate, lecturing publicly on the evils of drink.

Telegram from Theodore Roosevelt to John L. Sullivan, October 27, 1912. Box 1, Folder 26, John Lawrence Sullivan Papers, MS.2012.013, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

From there Sullivan turned his life around, getting a new manager and also, after his divorce in 1908 from his long-separated first wife Annie Bates Bailey, remarrying. In 1910 he married childhood friend Katherine Harkins and retired with her to a small farm in West Abington, Massachusetts. Although many of his friends and sparring partners died young, others remained stalwart, including former boxing partner Jake Kilrain and former President Theodore Roosevelt, with whom Sullivan struck up a friendship in New York in the 1890s. Some of Roosevelt’s correspondence survives in this collection.

Sullivan died at his farm house on February 2, 1918. He had no children, and his papers were donated to the Burns Library by descendants of his nephew, Arthur Lennon. The collection includes correspondence, mostly about Sullivan’s vaudeville career, as well as photographs, some newspaper clippings, Sullivan’s autograph book, a poster advertising a fight, and even a few artifacts like Sullivan’s monogrammed silver dresser set. To learn more about this collection, please see the finding aid, or contact the Burns Library Reading Room at burnsref@bc.edu or 617-552-4861.

• Adrienne Pruitt, Processing Archivist, Archives & Manuscripts, John J. Burns Library

Sources

Isenberg, Michael. John L. Sullivan and His America. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

John Lawrence Sullivan Papers, MS.2012.013, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Sullivan, John Lawrence. Life and Reminiscences of a 19^th Century Gladiator. Boston: J. A. Hearn, 1892. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t1dj68q9n

Medieval Mirror: The Connolly Book of Hours

Front cover of the Connolly Book of Hours, MS.1986.097, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

The Connolly Book of Hours is an illuminated manuscript held by the John J. Burns Library.  This manuscript was created in mid-fifteenth century France, a time and place when Books of Hours were produced and bought in great numbers. The absence of an owner portrait (a common feature in lavish Books of Hours), the small size of the book, and the fact that the manuscript’s miniatures feature a standard iconography for images suggest that the book was a more generalized, mass produced manuscript. It was therefore most likely owned by a family belonging to the growing upper middle class.

Books of Hours are Catholic prayer books that were intended to be used by the laymen and laywomen of the middle ages and Renaissance. They became enormously popular in Europe as a result of rising literacy rates, a growing concern for prayer in the home, increasing interest in the effects of art on private devotion, and a mounting devotion towards the Virgin Mary. Books of Hours served as private prayer books, primers for literacy, family record books, and finally symbols of wealth. The Connolly Book of Hours is an excellent example of such a prayer book.

The manuscript indicates both the increasing democratization of literacy, which was no longer restricted to the nobility and clergy, as well as the more streamlined production of manuscripts to meet the growing demands for books. The manuscript also includes sections written in French, in addition to Latin, the language of the church, demonstrating the increasing use of the vernacular.

Each section of a Book of Hours has a rich pictorial tradition, and is often illuminated, as is the Connolly Book of Hours. The Connolly Book of Hours is full of illustrations that show many facets of life. Thus the manuscript is a beautiful mirror of life in late medieval and Renaissance France.

Folio 106 recto, Office of the Dead, Connolly Book of Hours, MS.1986.097, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

This image of a funeral mass illustrates not only a typical medieval burial, but also the heightened emphasis on death due to the prevalence of disease. A group of priests are shown chanting over a shrouded corpse. The priests deliver the Office of the Dead, which was recited at funerals as well as by monks and priests on a daily basis. The laity were also encouraged to recite the office at home as often as possible to help a loved one’s soul out of purgatory and into heaven. In an age when the bubonic plague still haunted many, and diseases such as influenza killed people suddenly and frequently, the owners of the Connolly Book of Hours must have reflected often upon the Office of the Dead as well as its accompanying image.

Folio 153 verso, Connolly Book of Hours, MS.1986.097, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

Saint Sebastian was widely invoked as a protector against disease, particularly the plague. Because people feared sudden death by disease, Saint Sebastian became one of the most popular saints of the era. Saint Sebastian is shown here as he typically is: tied to a tree and pierced by arrows, a reference to the brutal punishment he endured and survived for being a Christian in the Roman Empire. Archers flank him on both sides, with their arrows pointed threateningly, ready to strike again. The pained expression on Saint Sebastian’s face as he undergoes this torture would have heightened the sympathy felt by viewers of this image. But the knowledge that he survived this horrific encounter would have given hope to the viewers, and would have reminded them of Saint Sebastian’s piety and endurance. Thus, the image would not only inspire the viewer to be a more pious Christian, but it would also encourage him or her to seek the aid of strong and persistent Saint Sebastian in combatting the ever present threat of disease.

Folio 26 recto, Connolly Book of Hours, MS.1986.097, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

A good example of how a Book of Hours would be used as a private prayer book can be seen in the miniature depicting the Annunciation. This scene depicts the archangel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will bear a child, the Son of God. Mary was believed to be inside her room, engaged in prayer when the Gabriel arrived to announce her pregnancy. In the miniature, Mary kneels in prayer, her hands clasped and her Book of Hours open in front of her on a prie-dieu (prayer bench). A vessel in the room contains white lilies, a symbol of Mary’s purity. Her diligent piety is clearly rewarded by the fact that the archangel Gabriel has come down from heaven to give her the joyous news of the coming of Christ. Mary is shown as a model for other women to follow, the exemplary pious woman.

Folio 143 verso, Connolly Book of Hours, MS.1986.097, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

In this period there was a growing emphasis on Marian images, shrines, and pilgrimages, what is now known as “the cult of the Virgin.” Mary’s importance is indicated most evidently by the fact that she appears in numerous images in a Book of Hours. Perhaps the image that indicates unmistakably her importance is the image of the Madonna Enthroned. Mary is depicted seated on a throne as Queen of Heaven, gazing at the infant Jesus whom she holds on her knees. The Madonna and Child are serenaded by two angels flanking them on either side, playing the lute and the harp. Mary’s and Jesus’ holiness is signaled by the golden haloes that surround their heads. Mary is highlighted as the primary holy figure of the piece by the fact that golden light, perhaps an allusion to God the Father, pours in from the upper left corner and points directly at her. Mary is not only shown in heaven, but enthroned in heaven. Her importance in this illustration is greater than even Christ himself, for it is believed only through Mary’s motherhood could Jesus save humankind. Mary plays an essential role in human redemption and salvation.

The Connolly Book of Hours has been digitized and is now a part of the Boston College University Libraries Digital Collections.  If you would like to learn more about this beautiful manuscript, read the finding aid, browse the digital version of the Connolly Book of Hours online or contact the Burns Library Reading Room at 617-552-4861 or burnsref@bc.edu.

• Annelise Corriveau, Arts & Sciences, Boston College Class of 2015

 This blog post is drawn from the exhibit “Making History Public: Books Around the World: 1400 – 1800.”   This exhibit was curated and organized by Professor Virginia Reinburg’s Fall 2012 HS600 class, in collaboration with the Boston College University Libraries.  From April – December 2013, the “Making History Public” exhibit is on display in the History Department, Stokes 3rd Floor South. Stay tuned for more posts on this exhibit!

The Musical Roots of Séamus Connolly, Sullivan Artist-in-Residence: An Exhibit of Irish Music at the John J. Burns Library

Materials on display as part of the “Musical Roots of Seamus Connolly” exhibit. (Photograph by Gary Gilbert.)

On view through May 23, the Burns Library exhibit, “The Musical Roots of Séamus Connolly, Sullivan Artist-in-Residence,” highlights influences and milestones in the music career of Sullivan Artist-in-Residence Séamus Connolly. A world-renowned Irish traditional musician, performer and teacher from Killaloe, Ireland, Connolly won ten All-Ireland solo fiddle championships before immigrating to the United States in 1976.

Seamus Connolly is the architect and guiding spirit behind Boston College’s acclaimed Irish music programs. (Photograph by Bachrach Photography.)

Connolly’s career at Boston College began in 1990, when he worked with Dr. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin to coordinate the Boston College Irish Fiddle Festival. Joining the Boston College faculty shortly thereafter, Connolly developed the Irish Music, Song, and Dance Program within the Irish Studies Program of Boston College. In his current role as Sullivan Artist-in-Residence in the Center for Irish Programs, Connolly teaches fiddle; directs Irish music and dance instruction on campus; and curates the Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Concert and Lecture Series.

The “Musical Roots” exhibit draws primarily from the Séamus Connolly Papers at the Burns Library, with additional items from the library’s Irish collections. Selections include a certificate from Connolly’s first fiddle award in 1957; an annotated program from the 1967 Fiddler of Dooney competition; and a 1903 edition of Francis O’Neill’s Music of Ireland. The exhibit also features the CCÉ Morrissey Cup (Corn Ní Muireasa) from the private collection of Séamus Connolly.

Under-14 Munster fiddle award, CCÉ, 1957. Séamus Connolly Papers. IMC.M064, Irish Music Archives, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

The Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop, and Lecture Series will celebrate the “Musical Roots” exhibit on April 17, 2013 with an “Irish Dance and Céilí” in Gasson Hall. During the céilí, a digital slide show will be on view in the Gasson Hall Rotunda.

The “Musical Roots” exhibit is curated by Elizabeth Sweeney, Kathleen Williams, and John Kearney. For more information – whether about the exhibit, the Séamus Connolly Papers, or the Gaelic Roots series – we invite you to contact the Burns Library Irish Music Center at imc@bc.edu or 617-552-3956.

• Elizabeth Sweeney, Irish Music Librarian, John J. Burns Library, Boston College