2017-2018 Material Witness sessions

Below are the descriptions for the Material Witness sessions that took place during the 2017–2018 academic year. These include the fellow who curated the session as well as the list of items that were displayed.

October 19, 2017 - "Experiencing Space: Images and Descriptions of Sites of Making, Knowing, and Selling"

How might we use two-dimensional sources, such as prints and textual descriptions, to understand experiences in three-dimensional space? How much can we learn about the spatial and experiential dimensions of human-made settings in which knowledge was organized and presented? To what extend did presenting nature have the effect of constituting knowledge about nature? Curated by our long-term Folger-Mellon fellow, Surekha Davies (Western Connecticut State University), the aim of this session of Material Witness was to brainstorm questions and methods for writing experiential histories of 3D spaces of knowledge-making. We explored spaces of epistemic activity and the presentation of expertise about the natural world, such as cabinets of curiosities, gardens, and apothecary shops.

Materials Displayed:

Folio AM101.K5 S4 1678 Cage: Romani Collegii Societatis Jesu Musaeum celeberrimum

160593: Historia Naturalis

SB 465 .H6 Cage (folio): Hortorum Viridariorum

SB 466. N4 G7 1670 Cage: Den Erbaren Huys-Houder of Medicyn-Winckel

AM 101.C7 1696 Cage folio: Museum Regium Seu Catalogus … ab Oligero Jacobaeo

AM101 D9 1692 Cage: Le cabinet de la Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève

ART Vol. f81 no.1-20: Nova reperta

B3599: The French gardiner : instructing how to cultivate all sorts of fruit-trees, and herbs for the garden: together with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural; six times printed in France, and once in Holland. An accomplished piece, first writt

GT5770 .S4 Cage: Panoplia omnium illiberalium mechanicarum aut sedentariarum artium genera continens

November 16, 2017 - “The Specter of the Archive: Paper and Political Practice in Early Modern Britain”

How did the massive surge in the compilation and usage of archives of political records transform the ways in which early modern Britons understood their government?  What kinds of new perspectives on politics were enabled by the increased inscription, preservation and circulation of both formal and informal evidence of political action?  Curated by Folger-NEH Long-term Fellow, Nicholas Popper (College of William & Mary), this session of Material Witness examines several “paper technologies” concerned with the sphere of politics that emerged in early modern Britain, with the aim of seeing how these instruments participated in and provoked shifts in political practice and epistemology.

Materials Displayed:

143- 248q : The charges issuing forth of the crown revenue of England, and dominion of VVales. : With the several officers of his Majesties courts, customs, housholds, houses, castles, towns of war, forts, bulwarks, forrests, parks, chases, with their several fees...

V.a.443 : A declaration how the King of England may support and increase his annual revenues being collected out of the records of the Tower ...

V.b.1 : Report of the State Papers in the State Paper Office submitted by John Brydall to Sir Robert Southwell, recommending its reorganization

STC 194.1 copy 1 : The repertorie of records : remaining in the 4. treasuries on the receipt side at Westminster. The two remembrancers of the Exchequer. With a briefe introductiue index of the records of the Chancery and Tovver: whereby to giue the better direction to the 

STC 24755.8 copy 1 : A discouerie of errours in the first edition of the catalogue of nobility : published by Raphe Brooke, Yorke Herald, 1619. and printed heerewith word for word, according to that edition : vvith a continuance of the successions, from 1619. vntill this pres

V.a.182 : Direction for search of records remaining in the Chancery, the Tower, the Exchequer, with the limbs thereof, the Kings Bench, the Common Pleas and other places

V.b.117 : A general collection of all the offices of England with their fee

V.b.113 : A general collection of all the offices of England with their fee

V.a.98 : A general collection of all the offices of England with their fee

ART 230- 993  (size M) : [The prosecuter's study]

January 24, 2018 - "Ties that Bind: Contracting Labour in Early Modern England"

This session focuses on the material traces of, and the tensions within, early modern attempts to contract service. How were the materiality and legality of labor and service contracts articulated and manifested? How and to what extent were these documents enforceable? Curated by Folger-Mellon Long-term Fellow, Urvashi Chakravarty (George Mason University), this session examines a range of legal instruments and ‘informal’ documents—including English apprenticeship indentures, Atlantic contracts for indentured servitude, printed books and manuscript letters—to explore the ways in which early modern material culture reflected and re-framed the fictions of consent that underwrote the performance of labor and service.

Materials Displayed:

Z.c.22 (38): Apprenticeship indenture between John Turke to Edward Fisher, citizen and alderman of London, skinner, and merchant adventurer of England

STC 10929: A diamonde most precious, worthy to be marked : instructing all maysters and seruauntes, how they ought to leade their lyues, in that uocation which is fruitfull, and necessary, as well for the maysters, as also for the seruants, agreeable vnto the holy S

X.d.734: This indenture witnesseth that [blank] doth put himself apprentice to [blank] citizen and cutler of London, to learn his art ...

X.d.735: "This indenture witnesseth, that John Holden, sonne of Humphry Holden of Erdington in the county of Warwick Esq. doth put himself apprentice to John Purdue, Citizen and salter of London to learn his art... [manuscript], 25 February 1688."

X.d.646: This indenture made the [blank] day of [blank] in the [blank] year of the reign of our Soveraign Lord and Lady [blank] ... do put and place [blank],  a poor child of the said parish, apprentice to [blank] ...

V.b.16 (15): Indentured servant contracts for the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Barbados

V.b.16 (59): Indentured servant contracts for the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Barbados

V.b.16 (35): Indentured servant contracts for the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Barbados

X.d.493 (7): Autograph letters signed from Mary Hatton Helsby to various recipients

L.a.598: Letter from Lettice Kynnersley, Badger, to Richard Bagot, [1608?] September 14

V.b.198: Miscellany of Lady Anne Southwell

X.d.454: Propositions concerning the map of London and Westminster &c: which is in hand by Wentsel Hollar.

February 15, 2018 - "Polyglot Poetics: Transnational Early Modern Literature"

The Folger Shakespeare Library’s collection of manuscripts and early modern printed books is regarded primarily as an English collection, with materials coming from the British Isles, and the vast majority of printed books from the London presses.  The collection is certainly very Anglocentric, but it also contains much overlooked European material.  In this session of Material Witness, curated by NEH-Folger Long-term Fellow Nigel Smith (Princeton University), we’ll look at some unusual, unique examples in the collection of important books printed in northern and southern Europe, especially those translated from one language into many different ones, English books annotated by continental owners, and the vivid working presence in British manuscripts of continental European books.

Materials Displayed:

K753.5 : The Earle of Holland, chief of adepts : his five and twenty yeares wonder-revelation, from the yeare 1660, untill the yeare 1685.

STC 22273 Fo.1 no.75 : Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies : published according to the true originall copies.

222- 791.1q : Const-thoonende iuweel, by de loflijcke stadt Haerlem, ten versoecke van Trou moet blijcken, in't licht gebracht : waer inne duydelick verclaert ende verthoont wordt alles wat den mensche mach wecken om den armen te troosten, ends zijnen naesten by te sta

Bd. w. PT 5736 A4 Cage : Aran en Titus

W.a.126 : Miscellany of reflections on literature, philosophy, and government

V.b.110 : Miscellany of Henry Oxinden

BS2617 .H4 Cage : Danielis Heinsij Aristarchus sacer, siue, Ad Nonni in Iohannem metaphrasin exercitationes : quarum priori parte interpres examinatur, posteriori interpretatio ejus cum Sacro Scriptore confertur, in vtraque S. Euangelistae plurimi illustrantur loci : acced

215- 890q : Iusti LipsI Politicorum, siue, Ciuilis doctrinae libri sex : qui ad principatum maxime spectant.

PQ 6427 F6 1578 Cage : Celestina

222- 243.1q : Celestina

V.a.173 : Commonplace book with many extracts from sixteenth century Latin authors

212- 716q : I. LipsI Politicorum, siue, Ciuilis doctrinae libri sex : qui ad principatum maxime spectant : additae Notae auctiores, tum & De vna religione liber

191- 729.1q : Iusti LipsI Politicorum, siue, Ciuilis doctrinae libri sex : qui ad principatum maxime spectant : additae Notae auctiores, tum & De vna religione liber

PA8545 .P7 1599 Cage : Politicorum

233- 171q : A discourse of constancy, in two books. Chiefly containing consolations against publick evils. Written in Latin by Justus Lipsivs, and translated into English by Nathaniel Wanley, M.A.

144- 161q : A discourse of constancy in two books written in Latin by Justus Lipsius.

173- 645q : Iusti LipsI de constantia libri duo : qui alloquium praecipue continent in publicis malis.

162- 198.1f : IustI LipsI Poliorceticon, siue, De machinis tormentis telis libri quinque : ad historiarum lucem.

PA8545 .P7 1599 Cage : Politicorum

181- 369q : Justi Lipsii De constantia. : Libri duo qui alloquium praecipue continent in publicis malis.

STC 15701 copy 1 : Sixe bookes of politickes or ciuil doctrine, written in Latine by Iustus Lipsius: which doe especially concerne principalitie. Done into English by William Iones Gentleman.

STC 15701 copy 2 : Sixe bookes of politickes or ciuil doctrine, written in Latine by Iustus Lipsius: which doe especially concerne principalitie. Done into English by William Iones Gentleman.

STC 15701 copy 3 : Sixe bookes of politickes or ciuil doctrine, written in Latine by Iustus Lipsius: which doe especially concerne principalitie. Done into English by William Iones Gentleman.

STC 15695 Bd.w. STC 15701 copy 3 : Two Books