Historical Manuscripts Commission

“ All the principal nations of Europe, and even the Dominion of Canada, have an archivist, or custodian of manuscripts, responsible for keeping, indexing, and increasing these collections, whose importance as original documents illustrating the history and biography of the nation can hardly be overrated. ”

“ IN GENERAL.— The Archivist of the United States, in the role as chairman of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission may enter into cooperative agreements pursuant to section 6305 of title 31, United States Code, that involve the transfer of funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to State and local governments, tribal governments, other public entities, educational institutions, or private nonprofit organizations for the public purpose of carrying out section 2120 of title 44, United States Codes. ”

“ We doubt the necessity, and indeed the advisability, of the formation of any such Society.
Mr. Peacock (antè., p. 117.) has already wisely suggested, that "in time a copy of every inscription in every church in England might be ready for reference in our National Library," and we have as little doubt that the MS. department of the British Museum is the proper place of deposit for such records, as that the trustees would willingly accept the charge of them on the recommendation of their present able and active Keeper of the Manuscripts. ”

“ The easiest way to bring order into the chaos of desirable books, is, doubtless, to begin historically with manuscripts. Almost every age that has left any literary remains, has bequeathed to us relics which are cherished by collectors. We may leave the clay books of the Chaldeans out of the account. These tomes resemble nothing so much as sticks of chocolate, and, however useful they may be to the student, the clay MSS. of Assurbanipal are not coveted by the collector. He finds his earliest objects of desire in illuminated manuscripts. The art of decorating manuscripts is as old as Egypt ”

“ The handling of material by a writer who did not collect it, and who is likely to find the places and conditions dealt with strange to his experience, inevitable though it be in so large an undertaking, results in the writing of faulty history. The hastening of the work and the editorial revision of manuscripts by a manager desirous of pleasing subscribers, and impelled by various other motives of his own, are not circumstances likely to increase the accuracy of the work. ”

“ Local societies aim, first of all, to collect and preserve the materials of local history, and while doing this they may effectively assist the state society in securing matter along the same lines. At the same time the members of local societies may cooperate effectively with the collector of the state society in securing manuscripts, books, pamphlets, etc., which are of more general interest. In Iowa, where the State Historical Society has placed a collector in the field, this phase of cooperation now appears to be most promising. ”

“ The first and most important is, the Collection of Materials. In this, it is obvious, the co-operation of individuals well qualified for the work may be secured in all parts of the country, provided some well-defined plan of operation is furnished for their guidance, by some recognised centre of union. A Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, who should well consider and determine upon some uniform plan of recording the inscriptions, &c., is clearly the body who, from their position, could most effectually, and with the greatest propriety, issue such circulars. ”

“ When we find the authorities at the British Museum, and the Guildhall, and other repositories open to us, and giving every facility with their records, which, after all, embrace priceless treasures and quite as worthy of safe custody, the restrictions placed upon literary research by the Master of the Rolls and the Record Office officials is really worthy a Royal Commission of inquiry. ”

“ Hallam, the Historian of the Middle Ages, says: "Since the invention of printing the absolute extinction of any considerable work seems a danger too improbable for apprehension. The press pours forth in a few days a thousand volumes, which, scattered like seeds in the air over the Republic of Europe, could hardly be destroyed without the extirpation of its inhabitants." And, concerning the exposure to which the manuscript production of all previous history was subjected, he says: "In the times of antiquity manuscripts were copied with cost, labor, and delay ”

“ Not only buildings, but objects of art and handicraft of every kind as well as manuscripts and archives, of any date up to the end of the eighteenth century, come within the scope of activity of the Commission, which is a consultative body advising the Minister of Public Worship and Education, who is the executive authority for these purposes. ”

“ Only a few tattered fragments of the New Testament written on papyrus are still extant.
The oldest manuscripts belonging to the Christian era were written on the thinnest and whitest vellum. The parchment of later times is more coarsely grained, and less well finished, manuscripts a thousand and more years old showing no signs of decay or discoloration, unlike many which date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. ”

“ The commissioners, lately appointed by the Queen of England, to inquire into the constitution and management of the British Museum, have, in their report, expressed an opinion decidedly against the printing of the catalogue at all, and principally on the ground that it must ever remain imperfect.
One of the witnesses, (the Right Honorable J. W. Croker,) examined before the commissioners, thus strongly states the case with respect to printing:
"You receive, I suppose, into your library every year some twenty thousand volumes, or something like that. ”

“ Provided always, that no such person shall be permitted to consult or inspect any such book, charter, deed, or other manuscript, except in the presence of the principal Librarian, or of one the principal officers of that department to which such book, deed, charter, or other manuscript shall belong.
X. That no part of the collection or collections belonging to this Museum, be at any time carried out of the general repository; except such books, charters, deeds, or other manuscripts as may be wanted to be made use of in evidence. ”

“ The business of selling manuscripts on commission, which was, as we have seen, kept under very close supervision on the part of the university authorities of Paris and Bologna, appears to have been much less important in England, and the dealers seem for the most part to have been left free to make such terms either in buying or selling manuscripts as they saw fit, and as the necessities of their customers rendered practicable. ”

“ For assuredly, if the genuineness of charters and public deeds is doubted, the authority of ancient manuscripts in general is also called in question; and, if these doubts can be substantiated, it will appear that those who employ themselves in collating the printed editions of the Fathers, or other sacred books, with ancient manuscripts, spend their labour in vain. And hence, too, we must believe, contrary to the opinion of all learned persons, who think the world greatly indebted to the labours of the monks in transcribing books, that they toiled to no good purpose. ”

“ In vain the appeals of councils to such authorities for the determination of controversies; in vain the costs and cares of princes and kings in collecting manuscripts from the remotest countries. And if the case be thus, the Vatican, the Florentine, the Ambrosian, and the royal (French) libraries are nothing better than useless heaps of parchment. And it was to no purpose that the Roman pontiffs and the kings of France, as well as other prelates and princes, sent learned men to the farthest parts of the East to obtain ancient books in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages. ”

“ If it is found that the said objects or manuscripts were carried off in violation of the rights of the Italian provinces the Reparation Commission, on the report of the Committee referred to, shall order their restitution. ”

“ I do not believe that the historical society has fulfilled its highest mission when it has collected a large library of books and manuscripts and housed them securely in a marble palace. For after the materials have been collected their contents should as far as possible be made accessible through publications. ”

“ One is in the British Museum, Cambridge University has two, and a fourth is in the Huntington Library. Thus, no private collector has the good fortune to own a single copy.
Even though many rare volumes have retired permanently from the salesrooms, it has always been a peculiarity of the collector that he lives in hope. Just as there has always been a great search for ancient manuscripts, so there always will be an endless hunt for important early books. If there were wonderful discoveries in the past, why not others of equal importance in the future? ”

“ Que d'ouvrages restent enfouis dans les dépôts publics, dans les divers ministères, aux archives des chambres législatives, qui proviennent des publications et des souscriptions, qui n'ont aucune valeur pour la France, parce que toutes les bibliothèques les possèdent, et que les collections étrangères accepteraient avec empressement et recueilleraient avec soin et réciproquement. ”

“ By these means and others we will cultivate a spirit that actively fosters history; we will cause search to be made for old Manuscripts, for files of old papers and every thing that will throw light on our past history. ”

“ That manuscript had a curious history and certainly deserves a place in a Museum. I heard lately that Gabriel Wells, [Pg 75] the American collector, has got hold of it. J. C. had made alterations in black ink, the magazine editor had gashed it horribly in red; and when the book publisher came to restore the mangled corpus he could do so, intelligibly for the printer, only by an extravagant use of green ink. You see, there was no duplicate copy of the original. Always make duplicates. If you don’t, and if you are a writer of J. C.’s size, your manuscripts may some day be priceless. ”

“ SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE
The history of lost manuscripts, even in so new a country as the United States, contains not only much of interest to the curious, but much of profit to the serious, who are genuinely interested in the work of preserving the records of the past. Various have the fortunes of these precious documents been. Some have been used by frugal housewives to cover jelly glasses or pack eggs, others have gone to feed the paper mill or the furnace ”

“ In the fourth place, your Committee have taken into consideration the want of space for carrying on the binding of the Museum books. The Collection of Manuscripts, and, much more, that of Printed Books, have of late years been increasing with unexampled rapidity; but the bookbinders’ accommodation has not been increased in a corresponding ratio. The damage caused, particularly to new books, placed unbound in the readers’ hands, may well be conceived ”

“ Yet, as the people who are governed by the laws, and the courts who administer them, practically know the law only from the authorized publication of them, the propriety of recurring to ancient, altered, and erased manuscripts, for the purpose of changing their construction after a lapse of thirty years, and after their construction has been long settled by the courts, and has entered as an element into the contracts and business of the citizens, may well be doubted. ”

“ It does not take much of a prophet to foresee a radical development in some of our American library schools within a very few years. When for example, the Columbia Library school was starting, manuscripts were so few in this country that their science and economy was a negligible element in instruction—and as for archives, we had plenty of documents but the very name archive, with what it connotes, was foreign and almost unknown in America. Now there are many well recognized archives and some of our collections of ancient manuscripts are numbered by the thousands. ”

“ After having given the reader some notion of the collection of printed works, I should like now to invite him to accompany me through the Manuscript Department of the Museum. But I am afraid that I shall make a bad guide here; for the Museum is still without a descriptive catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts, which is the only means of enabling the student to obtain a general view of the number and nature of these works. The manuscript catalogue of Dukes goes only as far as 1856. ”

“ If, for instance, a well authenticated copy of Augustine’s City of God was held in the scriptorium of Fulda, and another copy, perhaps equally famous, belonged to that of St. Gall, each monastery could prohibit the copying of its own parchment, and could in this manner control the “copyright” of its own particular text. It is to be borne in mind that no two manuscripts could be in exact accord and that a particular character or authority frequently attached to the text or version presented in a particular parchment. ”

“ Nor do I regret it, for my object was not only to secure good manuscripts for myself, but also to raise the public estimation of them, so that their value might be more generally known, and consequently more manuscripts preserved. For nothing tends to the preservation of anything so much as making it bear a high price. The examples I always kept in view were Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Robert Harley.'
Sir Thomas Phillipps's collection was not confined to European manuscripts. It contained several hundred Oriental ones, and he also acquired those relating to Mexico belonging to Lord Kingsborough. ”