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To celebrate the Summer Solstice this year, we held a special rare book viewing for our members. All of the books on display featured the people and monuments of Ancient Britain. We also displayed some mysterious stones which were discovered among with other larger examples when building work was done at the Inn in the 1980s!

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Middle Temple Library's Past Exhibitions: Dickens' Legal World

Painting of Charles Dickens by William Powell Frith (1859). The original is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

In 2021, Middle Temple Library hosted an exhibition on one of the Inn's most famous past members: Charles Dickens’ Legal World.

Originally intended to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ death in 2020, the exhibition was rescheduled for 2021 due to the library’s closure during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The exhibition focuses on Dickens’ employment and engagements in the legal world, including his admission to The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 1839 as a student.

Charles Dickens worked as a clerk and court reporter during a period of legal reform in the early Victorian era. His experience shaped some of his most famous works including The Pickwick Papers, Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby. The Inns of Court are featured locations and the legal professionals he encountered inspired characters throughout his novels.

Illustration from Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1852-1854). Illustration by H. K. Browne

If you were unable to see the exhibition in person you can also enjoy this online presentation. These short films were created to demonstrate Dickens’ connections to the legal world and highlight some of his writings.

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This handsome fellow, drawn in red ink, is an example of a ‘drôlerie’, and is found in the Library’s copy Biblia Latina, printed in Venice in 1489. This was originally a four volume Bible, but our copy only includes this, the fourth volume. The book has a large number of red ink doodles (see below), as well as contemporary marginal notes. Drolleries such as this are commonly found in medieval manuscripts, and incunabula, books printed in the 15th century. They are often grotesque and bizarre figures.

Renae Satterley

Librarian

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Middle Temple Library Exhibition: A Gentleman's Library

It was common for a learned gentleman to amass a private library consisting of thousands of volumes in the 16th and 17th centuries. Works on theology would have a dominant presence in these personal collections, but texts on history, literature, classics and the natural world would also be prevalent. Anyone engaging in society would accumulate material not only reflecting their professional life, but also the contemporary issues and discussions of the time. Although women were not excluded from education, men were more likely employed in professional fields, such as law, medicine and theology, which required access to books.  This exhibition displays some of Middle Temple Library’s rare books, including those donated from such private collections, visualising what a gentleman’s bookshelf looked like in these earlier centuries. The exhibition has been divided into subjects

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This 16th-century artwork is of a 'haut', which are said to live in the trees. It has been identified with species of three-toed sloths such as Bradypus variegatus which are found in the forests of Central and South America. This artwork comes from 'Cosmographie universelle' (1575) by the French explorer and writer Andre Thevet (1516-1590). The book describes the history and geography of the lands in which Thevet had travelled. The two volumes contain over 1000 pages divided into 23 books. This woodcut is from chapter XIII of book XXI.

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Provenance mysteries: Los treynta libros de la Monarchia Ecclesiastica o Historia Vniuersal del mundo

Censorship on A4r

The May 2025 provenance mystery features Juan de Pineda (approximately 1521-1599), Los treynta libros de la Monarchia Ecclesiastica o Historia Vniuersal del mundo, printed in Salamanca by Juan Fernandez, and published by Hilario de Bonefant, in 1588. Although originally issued as a five volume set, the Library holds volume one only.

Juan de Pineda (not to be confused with the Jesuit of the same name, 1558-1637) was a Franciscan monk, who was born in Medina del Campo, after which he moved to Salamanca, and attended the university there. By 1545 he was located in Zamora, and after 1560 in Valladolid. The author of this biographical entry states that he travelled extensively through Spain and visited numerous libraries, where he consulted works that informed his Monarchia Ecclesiastica, in which we cited over a thousand authors. It took him twenty years to complete the book.

There is one provenance mystery in this book, and one more generalised mystery. The latter concerns the censorship that has taken place on folio A4r. This has all the appearance of Spanish inquisitorial censorship (see for example a 2023 exhibition at the Biblioteca Nacional de España https://www.bne.es/es/agenda/malos-libros-censura-espana-moderna). But none of the digitised copies available to view online reflect this censorship (see for example https://archive.org/details/AFD02411/page/n55/mode/2up?view=theater, or: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OCRj8_-K3SEC&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false). I consulted with Barry Taylor, Curator of Hispanic Printed Collections at the British Library who confirmed that it did resemble inquisitorial censorship, but could not find the book listed in the expurgatory indexes of 1612 to 1667. The censored passage states that God loves his church more than he does his Mother (quoting the Fathers).

The provenance mystery concerns the inscription found at the end of the volume: Jeronymo Anriquez(?) Again, with thanks to Barry Taylor for the potential reading of the surname. First, is ‘Anriquez’ correct, and second, does this inscription refer to a previous owner, or to a censor? There are no entries for this possible name, or variations thereof, in the Virtual Authority File.

2. Inscription

The book also shows what Adam Smyth has referred to as ‘book marks’, that is, physical traces left behind in early modern books. In this instance, a fingerprint is clearly visible, possibly left behind by a clumsy printer’s assistant. Chemical analysis of the ink would be required to determine whether it was made by printer’s ink, or by pen ink.

3. Fingerprint

As ever, comments on these mysteries are welcome.

Renae Satterley

Head of the Library

May 2025

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Middle Temple Library's Past Exhibitions: Watchmen, Charlies, Peelers: The Story of Policing

Middle Temple Library's 2023 Summer exhibition looked at the history of policing in London.

The story of policing in London is a mutable and ever-changing one. The earliest recorded effort to establish a formal system of policing can be traced back to the reign of King Edward I in his statute of 1285: The Statute of Winchester (13 Edw. I, St. 2). The statute – often referred to as Watch and Ward – received royal ascent on 8th October 1285. It sought to consolidate the various enduring regulations of peace that had existed from the law of Edgar and Canute, through to William the Conqueror, Henry II and Richard I, and reform the system of the watchmen. The statute enforced the need for maintenance of peace in the City of London by outlining that inhabitants of every district must take it upon themselves to remain vigilant and challenge criminal behaviour. It enshrined that those committing the ‘many evils, as murders, robberies, and manslaughters’ must be taken by the keepers of the peace to a place of confinement and punished only if the offence if proved. This loosely mirrors the law and order system in our society today.

To read more, please see the online version of this exhibition.

The police, wearing Peel’s early uniform, contend with a mob at at Coldbath fields, 1833 from Griffiths, Arthur. Mysteries of police and crime. In three volumes. London: Cassell, 1901-1902.

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Middle Temple Library's Past Exhibitions: Botany at Middle Temple

Middle Temple Library's autumn 2022 exhibition, Botany at the Middle Temple, which was curated in collaboration with The Linnean Society of London explored the fascinating topic of botany and plants at Middle Temple.

Plants provide the foundation for nearly all life on earth. The chloroplasts in green plants provide some 70% of our breathable oxygen and sit at the centre of countless ecosystems. By the same token, plants are essential to human life and civilization. Grains, pulses, fruits, and vegetables are staple foods around the world, and the calories from a single species of rice – Oryza sativa – sustain over 3.5 billion people. Plant fibres provide us with clothing, plant timbers provide us with building materials for shelter, and plant-derived compounds still provide the active ingredients in many of our most effective medicines.

Plants also provide the materials for some poisons, which have been used for centuries to commit heinous crimes. Ricin, for example, which is derived from castor beans, was used to poison the Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov in London in 1978. Even nicotine, found in nightshade plants (Solanaceae), can be a deadly neurotoxin when used in large quantities.

The Library’s Rare Book and Manuscript collections provide a wealth of materials to explore the fascinating topic of botany and plants – from sixteenth-century woodcuts illustrating medical botany, seventeenth-century tracts promoting food security, to murder trials. The Archive has a rich repository of documents that also tell the story of botany at the Inn, such as gardener’s bills and photographs. And, of course, the Inn has a beautiful garden with a rich and interesting past and present.

This exhibition linked materials from the Inn’s Archives, Rare Books, and Manuscript collections, combined with materials from the garden, to explore the splendid and diverse role that plants and botany play at the Inn. It was curated by Will Beharrell, Librarian at the Linnean Society, and Kate Jenrick and Renae Satterley, respectively Gardener and Librarian at Middle Temple, with the generous support of Victoria Hildreth, Assistant Archivist; Liane Owen, Book Conservator; and Siobhán Prendergast, Conservator.

To read more please see the online version of the exhibition.