Full of restlessness and wanderlust, Ralph Weldon’s character did not necessarily lend itself to the monastic life. Born in 1674 in Kent, Weldon converted to Catholicism during the reign of James II, before travelling to the English Benedictine priory of St Edmund in Paris. Professed there as Benet in 1693 but continually unsettled, his superiors found a solution by encouraging him to take up writing, bestowing on him the role of community librarian and archivist, a task he eagerly set upon for up to sixteen hours a day until his death in 1713.
Weldon’s work has proved vital to historians: simply, without his Memorials and Chronological Notes, a great deal of the history of the seventeenth-century English Benedictines would be unknown. To this record of early modern English Benedictine life can now be added knowledge of the library at St Edmund’s.
Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae Benedictinorum Anglorum Sti Edmundi Parisiis MDCCII is exactly what it says in the title: the catalogue of the library at the English Benedictine monastery of St Edmund’s in Paris. Compiled in 1702 by Weldon, but also including later additions in different hands, the document was discovered in the Bibliothèque Mazarine and is the oldest complete library catalogue of an exile English institution known to survive. Totalling just over 7500 entries, Weldon is responsible for recording roughly two thirds of these, the rest added later in four or five different hands presumably belonging to those who succeeded him as community librarian. Weldon seemingly drew on his experiences with the French Benedictine congregation of the Maurists to classify this English monastic library, a method that testifies to the influence of the French surroundings on this English institution.
The editors—Frans Blom, Jos Blom, Frans Korsten and Geoffrey Scott—have previously made the catalogue available and searchable online, which it remains, but here they present the document in handsome hardback form. Annotations are light but important, the editors verifying the publishing history of the books, or seeking to identify works if the entry is a little more obscure. For example, Weldon was not above some sectarian judgement: the celebratory and grandiosely titled The second volume conteinyng those statutes whiche have ben made in the tyme of the most victoriouse reigne of king Henrie the Eight, published in London in 1551, is brusquely reduced by Weldon to ‘The statutes made in the time of H. VIII’. The editors have also standardized authors’ names—which is explained where relevant—as well as recording titles crossed out by Weldon. Particularly interesting are the editors’ notes when a volume has been traced to the present day, the monastery library having been broken up at the French Revolution, when the community were forced to flee. In the Introduction, they note that 117 volumes are known to survive today and the work of the editors in chasing these down is underlined by the range of locations mentioned. Pleasingly, Douai Abbey, the present site of the community of St Edmund, holds a significant number, as does the library of the University of Toulouse and the Bibliothèque Mazarine. Others are present in a range of different locations in Paris and throughout the rest of France, but also other religious institutions, such as the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris or St Mary’s Benedictine convent in Colwich. It is unclear whether the editors have consulted each of these surviving volumes—if not, it would make a worthwhile future project—but where they clearly have, such as the volumes at Douai Abbey, it is interesting that a number of the monks wrote their names in the books, suggesting potential previous ownership and gifting to the community.
The editors also provide thoughtful statistical analysis. Once again, the Maurist influence is evident throughout, as is more broadly the French, indicated by a lot of material on that nation, in that language, and published in that territory. Expectedly, there is a heavy Benedictine presence, though not in the three theology categories of ‘Dogmatic’, ‘Scholastic’ and ‘Moral’. ‘Historici Sacri’ contains much Benedictine history but also a healthy showing of material on other orders and the English church, while ‘Concilia’ underlines the importance of the Council of Trent for these exile foundations. The editors note that the titles catalogued under ‘Philosophi’ are solidly traditional but the post-Weldon additions are different, one getting the impression of the influence of the Enlightenment. It is also interesting that more Protestant material appears to have been added to the library throughout the eighteenth century. ‘Controvertistae’ is the second largest category in the catalogue, boasting six hundred entries, with forty per cent of these in English, and French and Latin representing nearly thirty per cent each. Always of interest is the ‘Haeretici et Heterodoxi’ section, which contains a lot of Protestant material but also Catholic authors deemed questionable by the Church, such as Thomas White, alias Blacklo. Clearly, the monks of St Edmund’s also liked to keep watch on their more questionable brethren: the work of Richard Carpenter, an apostate monk, is listed by a later hand as being one of the books kept in ‘Hell’, the colloquial title given in Catholic libraries to the bays holding the ‘Haeretici et Heterodoxi’ material. Liturgical works are notable by their absence; they would have been kept in the quire or sacristy as opposed to the library.
There is much in this book to feed further research and interest, from the presence of several Welsh-language books, perhaps testifying to the Welsh influence on the early sixteenth-century monastic movement, to the presence of what appears to be a manual on brewing beer. There is no better testament to the work of the editors in re-discovering and re-presenting the important work of a once troublesome monk than the fuelling of such future scholarly investigation.
