Welcome to Middle Temple Library’s exhibition, Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court.

Introduction: Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court

The early modern Inns of Court have long been recognised as an intellectual and cultural hub. ‘Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court’ is an initiative that brings together an international community of researchers from a variety of disciplines working in this field. They run seminars, a blog, and provide a platform where researchers can share their work and bring published material to everyone’s attention.

This exhibition highlights some of the areas that the group has explored in their seminars and publications: recreation (fencing, revelling, and gaming); literary culture at the Inns; religion and preaching; learning the law and verbal skills; travel and exploration endeavours.

The text in the caption cards includes submissions from some of the people involved in the project: Blessin Adams, Penelope Geng, Jackie Watson, and Jessica Winston. Contributions have also been made by Wilfrid Prest and Sylvia Sumira.

A collection of essays produced by the project, Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court, is forthcoming from Palgrave. For more information and to sign up for the mailing list, click here.

Read the Archive of the month September 2021: Books, Bread and Beer - A History of Shops and Taverns at the Middle Temple.

Recreation

Innsmen enjoyed a variety of leisurely pursuits while at the Inns of Court, including dancing, fencing, gambling, and music. Revelling was also popular amongst Innsmen, as playgoers, performers and as authors of plays.

The Misfortunes of Arthur is a play “written in 1587 by Thomas Hughes, and other law students at Gray’s Inns, for performance before the Queen at Greenwich. In that venue, the Innsmen presented a prologue calling attention to their background and identity as law students, and thereby constructing for the queen an image of themselves as legal professionals: they are men whose legal training and serious dispositions make them central to the governance of the country”. – Jessica Winston

“Cultural, literary, and intellectual forms of play elevated Inns' members, while lower, disorderly forms debased them. Yet these modes of play were not wholly distinctive, nor mutually exclusive. Revels and high drama went hand-in-hand with feasting, drinking, and gaming … Rude, base, and at times libellous play was deliberately used by a group of serious-minded law students to develop auxiliary skills such as rhetoric, invention, and argument; to explore legal ethics and a broader kind of jurisprudence; and to put into practice humanist and medical methods of restorative play.” – Blessin Adams

Squabbling at the Inns

Sir John Davies (1569-1626) was a poet and member of Middle Temple. He fell drunk during the Middle Temple’s 1597/1598 Christmas revels, spoke insultingly of women, and had to be carried back to the Inn after falling asleep in a stall. This was allowed to happen despite the Inn’s proclamation that the feast of Christmas was meant to be celebrated solemnly. A few days later, Davies “practised factiously against the Prince of Love [i.e. Richard Martin], and earnestly stirred enmity betwixt him” and the members of Lincoln’s Inn. In the aftermath of the revels, he attacked Martin with a ‘bastionado’ while the latter was at dinner in Hall. He escaped by boat to Oxford, and was expelled and disbarred in absentia shortly after.” – Jackie Watson

A bastionado is a cane used to administer a blow, and originated from Turkey, where it was reserved for beating someone on the soles of the feet. It is not known whether Davies focused only on Davies’s feet …

Image © Trustees of the British Museum.

Richard Martin (1570-1618)

Richard Martin had been elected as the ‘Prince d’amour/Prince of Love’ for the 1597/1598 Middle Temple revels, which involved overseeing the participants’ skills in dancing, singing, and music. The performers (all members of the Inn) also had to demonstrate their skills in rhetoric and law. Martin was one of a group of wits that included Ben Jonson and John Donne (Lincoln’s Inn), and may have been one of the co-authors of the ‘Parliament Fart,’ an immensely popular poetic libel circulated in manuscript from 1607 onwards. “The poem’s characteristics of wit and parody invite comparison with the law sports of the Inns of Court Christmas revels; in both cases, parody relies on a heightened awareness of the codes and conventions that define an institution.” (Early Stuart Libels).

Fencing at the Inns

“Those who dedicated themselves to the study of law at the Inns valued such intellectual traits as a keen memory and verbal playfulness. In addition to his supreme intelligence, an Innsman in this period also cultivated a courtly physique. Ongoing research work on the performance of dancing and fencing at the Inns reveals that the men admired balance, strength, and quick-footedness. Not everyone [for example, John Davies] had the body to meet such strict standards”. – Penelope Geng

Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae (London, 1616)

Fortescue’s De Laudibus Legum Angliae (in praise of the laws of England) is best known as a legal treatise originally written circa 1470 for Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI. It is on display here to show Fortescue’s account of the ‘soft skills’ the Innsmen were learning. In the chapter regarding “the disposition of the generall studie of the Lawes of England, and that the same in number of students passeth certaine vniuersities”, Fortescue writes that Innsmen were taught to “sing, & to exercise themselues in all kinde of harmony. There also they practise dauncing, & other Noble mens pastimes”.

De laudibus legum Angliæ full text.

Daneau Lambert, Deux traitez nouveaux, tres-utiles pour ce temps … (Geneva, 1579)

This book is divided into two parts. The first is about witchcraft, and the second about the religious aspects of dice and card games. In 1628, Gray’s Inn decreed that “all playing at dice, cards, or otherwise, in the hall, buttery, or butler’s chamber” was forbidden, except for the twenty days at Christmas. Innsmen were loathe to obey such rules however. In 1730s the floor boards in Middle Temple Hall were replaced, revealing hundreds of pairs of dice were found, having fallen through floor joints over the years.

Letter of complaint

This copy of an anonymous letter addressed to Sir Geoffrey Palmer, ‘Mr Att[orney] Generall’ is dated 3 January 1668 by the modern Gregorian calendar, which starts each new year on 1 January, not 25 March as in the pre-1752 Julian calendar. So it was written just 14 months after the September 1666 Great Fire of London, which destroyed most of the medieval city, spreading almost to the Temple Church. This disaster was seen by many contemporaries, including the letter’s author, as God’s punishment for the sins of the nation in general and Londoners in particular.

While the Church of England had returned with Charles II in 1660, puritans (radical protestants) were still thick on the ground, not least in London. Disapproving of the habitual student gaming with cards and dice over the twelve days of Christmas in the halls of the Inns of Court, they regarded mixed dancing on Saturday night and into Sunday morning with real horror. This profanation of the Lord’s Day clearly required — if not the dire retribution meted out by Phineas in the Old Testament (Numbers, 25.7-11) — at very least a file of soldiers to bar revellers from the Middle Temple Hall.

Wilfrid Prest wrote the caption above, and produced this transcript of the letter:

Worthy Sir Its matter of much greif to good men and in itselfe a shame that such gameing is permitted in the Temples and danceing on the Lords day at nights what cann the consequences hereof be but further Judgment from God upon this poore shattered Cittie & perplexed Nation and debauching of youth, Oh who would have thought that the late Judgment of fire spared these 2 Halls & Societyes for this end? is this our requitall of God: dear Sir consider it, you are a greate parte of this Society of the Middle Temple, your authority will reach far, you have a great esteeme in the hearts of most, (I speake my owne heart, ye Lord Almighty knowes it) and ‘tis your due, who knowes but if yow would use your endeavour to suppreses this wickednesse you may prevaile and procure a blessing O stand up as Phineas did, and stay gods hand, his rod is still over us, shall none be found to appeare for God in such a day as this? are all our deliverances & mercys forgotten allready? God forbid, pray Sir concerne your selfe at this time in this matter if it be too much for yow at this time to stop ye gameing yet prevent if possible further danceing on the Lords dayes at nights doe your utmost, set some soldiers at the Hall dores if nothing else will doe, tis better you displease the Students, then that God be displeased & dishonored as he is by it every moment, deare Sir remember there is a day of account hastening on apace & what can you and your Brethren the Benchers of these Societies say and how can you and they answeare God then & your consciences in the meane time, that will stand still and see such wicked and ungodly doeinges in your howses as now there are? Consider it I beseech you, and the Lord give you that courage & that zeale for god as may make you successfull herein to his glory & your own comfort.

Jan. 3. 67. Your servant

Literary Culture at the Early Modern Inns of Court

“Many early modern poets and playwrights were also members of the Inns of Court, and these authors shaped the development of key genres of the English Renaissance, especially lyric poetry, dramatic tragedy, satire, and masque”. The Inns’ geographical placement between Westminster and the City meant that Innsmen were well-placed to take advantage of London’s literary pastimes, as spectators and participants. “Poetry, translation, and performance were recreation pastimes [and] these activities also defined and elevated the status of” Innsmen as active participants in England’s legal world. – Jessica Winston, Lawyers at play

Perhaps one of the most famous examples of their participation in literary culture is the 1634 ‘Triumph of Peace’ masque. It was performed by members of all four Inns for Charles I at Banqueting House in Whitehall. The masque was written by James Shirley (1596-1666, Gray’s Inn) and staged by Inigo Jones (1573-1652, Middle Temple). William Prynne (1600-1669, Lincoln’s Inn) famously attacked Queen Henrietta Maria’s participation in the masque and was rewarded by being sentenced to have his ears chopped off.

Otto Melander, Jocorum atque seriorum (Frankfurt, 1617)

Melander was a German lawyer who was critical of witchcraft trials. He had a sideline in publishing collections such as this, which is a compendium of jokes in Latin and humorous anecdotes. Blessin Adams has shown how early modern legal manuscript notebooks often contained non-legal texts alongside their more serious contents of moots and legal learning exercises, including ‘joco seria’ – humourous stories and jests. See for example Cambridge University Library’s manuscript CUL Dd.5.14.

Nikolaus Reusner Aenigmatographia (Frankfurt, 1599)

This is a collection of riddles that was once owned by John Donne (1572-1631, Lincoln’s Inn), as can be seen by his signature and motto, ‘Per Rachel ho seruito, & no[n] per Leah’ (I have served Rachel, not Leah). Donne’s motto, from Petrarch’s reference to Genesis 29, reveals that he chose a contemplative life over an active one. Donne started life at Lincoln’s Inn as a metaphysical poet, but later became Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Reusner was a prolific writer, who published at least 83 works during his life. This book is also part of the Robert Ashley bequest of 1641 that re-established a library at Middle Temple. Ashley had five other books by Reusner, including one on the Turks.

John Selden, Table-talk (London, 1696)

As can be seen here, Selden writes that “Popish books teach and inform; what we know we know much out of them. … He is a poor Divine that cannot sever the good from the bad”. Table-talk was a posthumous collection of Selden’s witty observations on a variety of ‘talking points’ recorded by Selden’s secretary Richard Milward (1609-1680). It is likely that his observations circulated in manuscript at the Inns of Court prior to his death. Catholic books, although often banned, provided valuable information about Catholic beliefs, which was helpful for Protestant critics. They also provided information about Catholic countries and their political situations- useful information for Protestant statesmen.

Aeschyli tragoediae septem (London, 1664)

This collection of Greek plays by Aeschylus was translated and edited by Thomas Stanley (1625-1678). It was donated by him to Middle Temple Library in 1667. It consists of the complete Greek text, with a Latin translation of each play. Stanley was a poet and classical scholar who lived at Middle Temple, next to his close friend, fellow scholar and Royalist, Edward Sherburne (1618-1702). Stanley published a number of works in his lifetime, including Poems and translations (1647), which includes a commendatory verses by Sherburne.

Image © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy in eight parts, (London, 1656)

In addition to producing translations of Greek plays, Stanley published this three volume work on ancient philosophers, concentrating on “those on whom the Attribute of Wise was conferred”. This, the second volume, includes accounts of the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism. It was purchased by the Library from a fund of £50 that had been donated by Sir Richard Pepys (1588-1659, Middle Temple), revealing the continued interest in classical authors and philosophy at the Inns of Court. Pepys was Samuel Pepys’ great-uncle. His second wife was Bartholomew Gosnold’s daughter, Mary. Gosnold (1571-1607, Middle Temple) and his wife Mary Goldinge helped establish the Virginia Company’s settlement in Jamestown in the early seventeenth century. He died there in 1607.

John Dryden, The medall (London, 1682)

This is a satire in verse on Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683, Lincoln’s Inn), the first Earl of Shaftesbury (and great-nephew of Robert Ashley). This is Dryden’s response to the Earl’s acquittal for treason in 1681, for which a medal was struck to commemorate the event. Although not a member of the Inn himself, Dryden was friends with Innsmen such as William Congreve (1670-1690, Middle Temple), and his plays were performed at venues beside the Inns, such as the theatre at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Christopher Brooke, The ghost of Richard the Third (London, 1614)

Christopher Brooke (d. 1628, Lincoln’s Inn) was friends with John Donne, and shared a set of chambers with him. This play contains dedicatory poems by members of Inner Temple, including William Browne (1590-1645) and Francis Dynne (dates unknown). On the title page, Brooke claims the poem contains more about Richard the Third than ‘hath been heretofore shewed; either in Chronicles, Playaes, or poems,’ a reference to the various publications and performances that were being circulated at the time, including the one by Shakespeare.

This spine label was found in one of the Library’s legal manuscripts (MS2O), a sixteenth/seventeenth-century book of entries by Richard Brownlow (1553-1638, Inner Temple). It is a tantalising clue that Brownlow, or his heirs, had a copy of Shakespeare’s The tragedie of King Richard the second, or The life and death of King Richard the Second.

Religion and preaching

After Mary I died and Elizabeth I became Queen, the 1559 Act of Uniformity made it compulsory to use the Book of Common Prayer in every church from 24 June 1559, and to attend church once a week, making it almost impossible for Catholics to practice their faith. Despite this, in 1577 the Privy Council accused the Inns of Court of being “greatlie infected with Poperie”. In 1581 a correspondent wrote to Sir William Cecil that “Papists are suffered at the Inns of Court”. Two such ‘Papists’ were Edmund Plowden (1518-1585, Middle Temple) and Sir Thomas Tresham (1543-1605, Middle Temple).

Attempts were made in the late sixteenth-century to force the Inns to conform, and in 1569, nineteen men were ordered to be expelled from their Inn. In 1577 Inner Temple drew up a list of 60 of its members suspected of recusancy. One of these, Richard Carewe, appears in the 1594/5 Recusant Rolls. Despite these attempts, Catholics continued to live at the Inns, protected in many ways by the their status as professional legal societies made up of very influential people.

John Donne, Pseudo-Martyr (London, 1610)

In response to the Gunpowder Plot, in 1606 the Oath of Allegiance was proclaimed in law, requiring all Catholics to swear an allegiance to James I, not the Pope. Many Catholics refused. John Donne’s Pseudo-Martyr was written as “an exercise in religious polemic, designed to convince an English Protestant readership that even someone with personal sympathies for Catholics can find strong arguments against their refusal to take the” Oath. Donne of course was famously raised a Catholic, and the exact date of his conversion to Protestantism is unknown, but it was at least by 1601, when he was married in a Church of England ceremony. He was for a time secretary (like Robert Ashley) to Sir Thomas Egerton (1540-1617, Lincoln’s Inn), a known recusant.

Communion books, mid-seventeenth century, MT/15/COM/1

Members of Middle and Inner Temple had to sign the communion book to show that they had taken communion in Temple Church. On 9 May 1669, one of the signers was Sir John Hoskyns (1634-1705, Middle Temple). Hoskyns became president of the Royal Society in 1682. He was friends with John Evelyn (1620-1706, Middle Temple), John Aubrey and other scholars. He was described as an awkwardly dressed man who might be taken for a ‘sorry quack’ because of it. He is not to be confused with the poet and wit John Hoski/yns (1566-1638, Middle Temple), who is described as ‘merry’ in the ‘Parliament Fart’, and who participated in the 1597-8 revels at Middle Temple.

John Sweet, Monsig[neu]r fate voi. Or A discovery of the Dalmatian apostata (Saint-Omer, 1617)

As per the title page, this tract was written by ‘C.A.’ (that is, John Sweet) “to his friend P.R. student of the lawes in the Middle Temple”. The ‘Dalmatian apostata’ is a reference to Marco Antonio de Dominis (1560-1604), who fled from the Popish dominions to England during the reign of James I, where he published a series of books against the spiritual primacy of the See of Rome. Sweet was an English Jesuit, who wrote this tract in response to de Dominis’s De Republica Ecclesiastica. It was printed by the English College Press in Saint-Omer, France. The Press was part of the English Jesuit College, established by the Company of Jesuits to train English Jesuit missionaries. The identity of ‘P.R.’ is unknown, but recusants were known to reside at the Inns in the early modern period.

Text courtesy of Internet Archive, Monsigr. fate voi; or, A discovery of the Dalmation apostata, ... 1617.

William Crashaw (1572-1626)

William Crashaw (1572-1626) was not only the preacher at Temple Church, but also a poet and bibliophile, who amassed a large collection of books while living at the Temple. He published a number of works in his lifetime, including this series of letters to Severin Binius (1573-1641) on the religious aspects of authority. In 1613, Crashaw attempted to sell his library to the Inn, but was turned down. His letter mentions “one of ye finest paire of globes in Englande”, a possible reference to the Molyneux Globes, but no further evidence exists regarding the Globes’ provenance.

Learning the Law and Verbal Skills

Learning the law in the early modern period was a complicated process, but one that relied heavily on verbal training, played out in mock trial learning exercises such as moots and case-putting. “Members of the Inns underwent communal exercises that tested law students' abilities beyond the memorisation of the common law, and the cut and thrust of legal argument also tested students’ skills in invention, argument, and reply”. – Blessin Adams

In an important book on Law as Performance, Julie Stone Peters has shown that legal training at the Inns, especially mooting, taught aspiring lawyers “not just in how to be a lawyer but how to look like one”. In the moots, members of the Inns took on roles as advocates, clients, and judges, and, in this way, the legal exercises fostered practices of “impersonation, dissimulation, and make believe”, all of which helped to shape “their identity as lawyers” as well as their sense of “the profession of law”. – Jessica Winston

Learning oratory and rhetorical skills came first from the Innsmen’s grammar school training, which was then augmented by their university education. Many grammar school masters used theatre techniques to train performance skills to their students. Robert Ashley acted in comedies as a young schoolboy, and was also taught to read Cicero, Quintilian, Seneca, and Ovid. He, like his Innsmen contemporaries, regularly participated in ‘disputations’ while at Oxford, honing his argumentative skills.

Image © Trustees of the British Museum.

Seneca, Opera (1672)

Seneca was a model orator and lawyer to Innsmen, who studied and translated his works. They were taught Senecan verse while still at school, and continued to study, and translate his works as adults. Seneca was a “classical version of the sort of rhetorician and politician that those at the universities and Inns of Court were trying to become” – Jessica Winston. This copy has a vellum binding decorated with a gold-tooled armorial device bearing the royal coat-of-arms, but its provenance remains unidentified.

Richard Mulcaster, Positions vvherin those primitiue circumstances be examined, which are necessarie for the training vp of children, either for skill in their booke, or health in their bodie (London, 1581)

Sir James Whitelocke (1570-1632, Middle Temple) wrote in his journal (later published as ‘Liber famelicus’) that his headmaster, Richard Mulcaster, recruited his students to act in plays that were performed for the court. Whitelocke wrote that he learned “good behaviour and audacitye” from acting these roles. This copy belonged to ‘Walter Hawgh’ (dates unknown), possibly the poet and official to the Archdeacon of Norwich. Mulcaster (1530-1611) was the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors’ School, and later headmaster at St. Paul’s School. In addition to this work, he wrote one other book on the education of children, The first part of the elementarie (London, 1581).

Christopher Saint German, The dialogue in English, betweene a doctor of diuinitie, and a student in the lawes of England (London, 1607).

Saint German (1460?-1540, Middle Temple), originally published this book in Latin in 1523. His book “popularized canonist learning on the nature and object of law, the religious and moral standards of law, the foundations of the common law and other issues regarding the jurisdiction of Parliament” (Law Book Exchange). It was an important work that went through multiple editions. This copy once belonged to a Henry Gardiner, dated 1609, and other owners, showing the continued popularity of the ‘dialogue’ to lawyers and students.

The moot book of Gray’s Inn (London, 1924)

This illustration depicts the 1556 Gray’s Inn Hall screen before it was destroyed in WWII. A report was written for Henry VIII in approximately 1540 on the constitution of the Inns of Court and their form and order of study. Its authors stated that moots took place during vacations every “night after supper, and every fasting day immediately after” six o’clock. Moots at Gray’s Inn took place in Hall, at the cupboard, and in the library. At Inner Temple, they were also known to take place in the old library.

Jakob Omphalius, De elocutionis imitatione ac apparatu liber unus (Cologne, 1537)

An early work on oratory and rhetoric, two key skills for barristers. This copy has contemporary marginalia, including a hand-written index, and notes on the verso of the title page, revealing how an early modern reader (but not necessarily a lawyer or Innsman) responded to Omphalius’s text.

William Fulbecke, A Direction or preparatiue to the study of the Lawe (London, 1620)

This copy also has contemporary marginalia, and signs of previous ownership made by one ‘John Kent’. The book is open to show what qualities a boy needs to study the law: “great regard of his speech”, and the ability to “deliver his opinion or argument in convenient and orderly sort, not after a rude confused and impolite manner”. Plus ça change!

Thomas Elyot, The book named the governor (London, 1544)

Elyot proposes an educational programme for potential lawyers, which includes a focus on the value of learning the skills of ‘ancient orators’. An early modern reader has conveniently marked this point in his copy, using a marginal bracket. This, the first educational treatise published in England (1531), was dedicated to Henry VIII. Elyot stressed the importance of learning from classical writers, and that ancient orators taught pleading skills, useful for both the courtroom and for moot exercises.

Travel, Exploration, and Colonialism

Both John Selden (1584-1654, Inner Temple) and Robert Ashley, through their impressive libraries, could be considered ‘armchair’ travellers. While Selden never left England, Ashley did travel to France, Holland and Spain at various points in his life. Both men acquired a large number of travel books for their libraries, a bibliographic process that mirrors Richard Hakluyt’s famous ‘armchair’ travel book, Principal navigations, a compilation of English travel accounts.

But other Innsmen did travel beyond the book. Armagil Waad (1510-1568, Gray’s Inn) was a government official who travelled in 1536 to Newfoundland, Canada. His son was Sir William Waad (1546-1623), who travelled extensively in Europe. By 1587 Sir William was back in England, and “became the terror of the English recusants”. The Library owns five books that once belonged to Waad, including René Goulaine de Laudonnière’s L' histoire notable de la Floride située es Indes Occidentales, a history of the French Huguenot colony in Florida (1562-1565).

John Winthrop (1606-1676, Inner Temple) travelled fairly extensively, including Venice and Constantinople, before emigrating to New England in 1634 where he became a political leader. He travelled between New England and Europe throughout his adult life, drumming up investment for new industrial ventures in the ‘new world’. He eventually became governor of Connecticut in 1657.

George Calvert (1579/80-1632, Lincoln’s Inn) was in service to Sir Robert Cecil, and in 1610/1611 gathered intelligence on the continent for him. Calvert was an early investor in the Virginia Company and East India Company, and established a colony in Newfoundland in 1621, which he visited in 1627. He also tried to establish a colony in Virginia, but for various reasons was unsuccessful. He converted to Catholicism in 1624.

In 2021, Emily Stevenson and Lauren Working created an exhibition in the Library examining the global networks of trade and exploration, with a particular focus on Middle Temple. Read the publication: From Middle Temple to Manoa: Global networks at the Inns of Court.

Viaggi fatti da Vinetia, alla Tana, in Persia, in India, et in Costantinopoli (Venice, 1545)

This work is a description of Iran, Turkey, Venice, and India, and contains accounts of voyages by made by Giosafat Barbaro (Tana in 1436, Persia 1471), Ambrogio Contarini (Persia 1473-77), and Luigi Roncinotto (Ethiopia 1532, Persia and India in 1529). As can be seen here, it has multiple signs of ownership, including that of William Ireland (d. 1570/1).

Tana was the name which the Genoese gave to their factory at Azov at the mouth of the river Don, in Russia. The book also “includes Benedetto Ramberti's account of the Turkish Sultan's campaign against the Portuguese settlement of Diu in northern India in 1538”. The famous dolphin and anchor printer’s device reveals that the book was printed by the Aldine press, and this is one of the very few travel books that the press published.

Daniel Browne, Browne 1624: A new almanacke and prognostication, for the yeare of our Lord God, 1624 (London, 1624)

Almanacs provided a range of information for their users, including astrological and planetary charts. Many users, such as Robert Ashley, used them as diaries and personal calendars. In this copy, Ashley recorded that he lent a book about Italy to Sir Robert Sherley (1581-1628); it was never returned. Sherley lived in Persia for approximately eight years, in the service of Shah ‘Abbas, who sent him to Europe as an emissary. He returned to England in 1623, via a stint in Spain on behalf of the Shah. Along with his two brothers, Anthony and Thomas, the Sherley brothers “earned a reputation in their day in pamphlet and play as champions of Christendom against the Turk”. One of these plays, The Travels of the Three English Brothers was written in 1607, based on the three men’s exploits. It is referred to by Francis Beaumont (1584-1616 Inner Temple) in his The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

William Bullock, Virginia impartially examined (London, 1649)

In this tract, Bullock chastised the Virginia governors for focusing too heavily on tobacco production, in lieu of other commodities. Tobacco saturated the market in England and caused bankruptcies for some investors. Bullock’s tract includes suggestions on how to improve the natural and economic conditions in Virginia, as well as descriptions of the land: “what this countrey affords of beasts, fowls, birds, and fish for foode”. It was dedicated to the Earl of Arundel and Lord Baltimore, George Calvert.

Middle Temple Library’s copy of this tract was one of the hundreds donated to the Library by William Petyt (1640/41-1707, Middle Temple and Inner Temple). Petyt was Treasurer at Inner Temple in 1701-1702. He was an ardent student of English historical records, and the author of “one of the most effective and powerful of the radical ancient constitutionalist tracts” of the late seventeenth-century, The Antient Right of the Commons of England Asserted (1680).

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, L'histoire naturelle et generalle des Indes, isles, et terre ferme de la grand mer oceane (Paris, 1556)

This is a French translation of Historia general y natural de las Indias, first published in Toledo in 1526. As can be seen here, it has a maxim on the title page, which Robert Ashley has ascribed to Seneca: ‘Ille mihi vivere atque frui anima videtur, qui aliquo negotio intentus praeclari facinoris aut artis bonae famam quaerit’ (only that man appears to me to be alive and make the most of life who by devoting himself to some enterprise, seeks fame for a glorious deed or good practice). The line actually appears in Sallust’s ‘The war with Catiline’. There is a pre-Ashley inscription on the title page as well, dated 1593: ‘Assai ben balla, a chi fortuna suona’.

Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557) was a Spanish bureaucrat and chronicler who spent time in what is now Panama and Nicaragua. All editions of this work are illustrated with woodcuts, some of which are based on his own illustrations. They include early depictions of a hammock, a pineapple and plantain leaves.

Hessel Gerritsz, Descriptio ac delineatio geographica detectionis freti, sive, Transitus ad Occasum, suprà terras Americanas, in Chinam atq[ue] Iaponem ducturi, recens investigati ab m. Henrico Hudsono Anglo (Amsterdam, 1612)

Gerritsz (1581-1632) was a Dutch cartographer. This is a Latin translation by Reinier Telle of Beschryvinghe vander Samoyeden landt in Tartarien. Gerritsz’s work discusses important exploration and commercial topics for the time: the Northwest Passage, Henry Hudson’s ill-fated voyage to Canada, Siberia, and the austral lands. The Latin edition differed slightly from its original Dutch, making Hudson’s voyage a more prominent feature. In Middle Temple Library’s copy of this book, facing the text regarding Henry Hudson (d. 1611), Robert Ashley copied information from the cartouches in the map of North America drawn by Henry Briggs (1561-1630). The Briggs map may have circulated prior to its inclusion in Purchas his pilgrimes (London, 1626). This publication contains the first published account of Hudson’s exploration of the northern part of what is now Canada. Hudson, like his contemporaries, was obsessed with finding a Northwest passage to Asia.

Image courtesy of Manitoba Historical Maps Flickr.

Robert Hues, Traicté des globes (Paris, 1618)

Robert Hues (1553 - 1632) was a renowned mathematician and geographer. While studying at the University of Oxford he was introduced to Walter Raleigh and his circle of sailors and navigators through his friend Richard Hakluyt. He became very interested in navigation and accompanied Thomas Cavendish on his circumnavigation of the world in 1586-1588. He may also have accompanied Walter Raleigh on his trip to Virginia in 1585.

In 1594 he published Tractatus de globis et eorum usu, which was dedicated to Walter Raleigh. This book was published to accompany and explain the use of a pair of globes made by Emery Molyneux in 1592, of which the only surviving pair can be seen here in the Library. It was also intended to encourage the use of practical astronomical navigation by English sailors. References to Raleigh, Cavendish and other English sailors are made on the terrestrial globe. This treatise was widely circulated and was translated into Dutch, French (seen here), and German. Curiously, the first English translation, A Learned Treatise of Globes, Both Coelestiall and Terrestriall: with their several uses was not published until 1638.

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