Selling up
John Martin Robinson on the dispersal of a monastic library
The sale of the monastic library from Fort Augustus is a sad end for a great his- toric collection, and a cultural loss for Scot- land, although many of the more splendid treasures and the Scottish collections have been acquired by the National Library in Edinburgh and the University of the High- lands. It is particularly poignant for me as, when I was at school at Fort Augustus in the early 1960s, the library was a refuge and source of inspiration, and one of the influences which shaped my career as a his- torian.
The monastery library was, in theory, out of bounds to the boys. We had our own school library which was good in itself and had a comprehensive selection of contem- porary textbooks and modern literature. I was school librarian and we supplemented our book purchase grant in various enter- prising ways, such as a raffle, with the boys selling tickets to their family and friends in the holidays, while I solicited free bottles from Highland distilleries for the prizes. (They were surprisingly generous.) The monastery library was different; it was a peaceful haven far away from the noisy hurly-burly of the school and situated within the monastic enclosure. I was lucky to be able to spend one or two afternoons a term browsing there, and over the years came to love its old-fashioned bookish atmosphere. The library filled most of the ground floor of the monastic block and comprised the 18th-century barrack rooms of the Hanoverian fort (built on this strate- gic site at the end of Loch Ness by General Wade), which had been connected by pointed Gothic arches inserted by J.A. Hanson in the 1870s. Tall traceried Gothic windows faced over the lawns and the loch which stretched for 30 miles towards Inver- ness but seemed infinite in the northern afternoon light of spring or autumn.
Tall pitch pine bookcases contained about 50,000 volumes and there were Vic- torian folio cabinets and glass-topped dis- play cases full of intriguing treasures. Holland blinds in the windows protected the bindings from the harmful effects of sunlight and there was still the original Vic- torian linoleum with patterned borders on the floor, carefully polished by the lay brothers. Sitting on the library catalogue was a Chinese porcelain Buddha figure with a nodding head which was a nicely incongruous touch and has stuck in my memory for that reason. All the furniture, including chairs and writing tables, had been designed for the room by Pugin.
As to be expected in an establishment like Fort Augustus, there was a large theo- logical and philosophy section, with rows of vellum-bound scriptural works, exegeses, tracts and sermons. There was also a splen- did collection of books on Scottish history, literature, topography, Celtic subjects, Gaelic and Highland lore generally. It is this part of the library which has been transferred to the new University of the Highlands. From bookplates and other clues I soon discovered that the library was not just one library but a series of collec- tions which had been given to the Abbey over the years.
The nucleus of the Abbey collection comprised the manuscripts, archives and special treasures which the Benedictines had brought back to Britain from Germany when expelled in the 19th century. Fort Augustus was the successor to two historic recusant religious communities: the ancient Scottish abbey of St James at Ratisbon (Regensburg) and the English abbey of Sts Aidan and Denys at Lambspring near Hildesheim. This was demonstrated in the Abbey's arms which incorporated the emblems of both these predecessor abbeys as well as a stylised fort for Fort Augustus. The arms were printed on the Abbey's own printing press which was situated in the basement under the Monks' Refectory. It was still working in my time but had lost its quality by being modernised and electri- fied.
The greatest treasure of the library carne from Ratisbon. This was the Marianas Codex dating from 1080 with marginalia in Middle Irish, which is the oldest surviving written Gaelic. (This is now on loan to the National Library.) There were also 25 incunables, several of which were brought back from Germany. Another historic collection which formed an important component of the library was the Cassidy or O'Hagan Collection. This was a magnificent assemblage of recusant material including six copies of the Donal translation of the New Testament. These books were collected by Father Cassidy, an Irish Franciscan, and had been bought by Lord O'Hagan whose nephew was at school at Fort Augustus. Lord O'Hagan, on a visit, had been so impressed by the monastic liturgy (Fort Augustus was one of only three places in Britain in the late-19th and early-20th centuries that performed the complete Catholic liturgy), and the way in which the boys participated, that he entrusted the Cassidy Library to the Abbey.
The third important portion of the library were the Scottish books comprising the Gordon Collection and the Cameron- Head Library. The Gordon Collection was devoted to Celtic and Gaelic material and the early history of Scotland. It was acquired with funds given to the Abbey by Sir Robert Gordon of Letterfourie who had been a student at Ratisbon. The Cameron-Head Library was given by Mrs Christian Cameron-Head of Inverailort and was devoted to Jacobite history and the Highlands.
The Abbey librarian during my years there was Father Augustine Grene, a clas- sics scholar, who strove to uphold the civilised standards of an earlier age and lovingly cared for the collections about which he was knowledgeable. He is dead now, as is the particular brand of Anglo- Scottish culture which the library encapsu- lated. For, though I did not realise at the time, the library was partly rooted in the Oxford Movement whence had come many of the 19th-century Fort Augustus monks: figures like the Cary Elweses, Lane Foxes and especially Sir David Hunter-Blair who became the second Abbot of Fort Augus- tus. His presence lingered in the library. There were framed photographs of him looking grand but benevolent, and many of the books on the shelves had been specially bound under his direction by Maclehose of Glasgow in half vellum, gilt with green labels. He made a point of having the less accessible and less used books on the upper shelves handsomely bound so as to add to the attractive appearance of the library but not to be vulnerable to heavy hands. Abbot Hunter-Blair was himself a prolific author writing many essays on Scottish Catholic history, his travels in Europe and South America, heraldry and similar subjects, books of memoirs, and the biography of his friend and Oxford contemporary, the third Marquess of Bute, whose conversion to Catholicism inspired Disraeli's novel Lothair.
The books reflecting the interests of Hunter-Blair and his contemporaries were of particular interest to me, as they includ- ed heraldry and architecture including extensive series by Pugin and Viollet-le- Due, and Gertrude Jekyll on gardens. It was in memory of this that I gave to the library my own first book: The Wyatts: An Architectural Dynasty. I bought it back at the sale of the library's residue earlier this summer.
John Martin Robinson, FSA, is Maltravers Herald, librarian to the Duke of Norfolk and the author of 20 books on architecture and heraldry.
Previous page
