Leisure, Learning, Money and Friends: the Legacy of Sir Thomas Bodley

It was a matter of mild interest at Shrewsbury College that Miss Harriet
Vane, the well-known detective novelist, was spending a couple of weeks 
in College, while engaged in research at the Bodleian upon the life and
works of Sheridan Le Fanu.  The excuse was good enough; Harriet really
was gathering material, in a leisurely way, for a study of Le Fanu, though
the Bodleian was not, perhaps, the ideal source for it.  But there must be 
some explanation for her presence, and Oxford is willing enough to 
believe that the Bodleian is the hub of the scholar’s universe [9].

This passage from Gaudy Night, one of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, assumes that the reader is aware of the fact that the library at Oxford University is called “the Bodleian." The reader may go on to wonder why this should be so, and if she were to investigate, she would learn that the Bodleian Library, which is under the auspices of the university, not of any one college, bears the name of Sir Thomas Bodley who, though not its founder, was its benefactor and, indeed, its saviour.

Thomas Bodley was born in Exeter in the county of Devon on 2 March 1545, the son of a prosperous merchant and his wife. The Bodley family were ardent Protestants, and John Bodley, Thomas’s father, had engaged in such activist endeavors as helping to raise money to fund Russell's anti-Catholic troops in the Prayerbook Rebellion in 1549 [8]. Queen Mary’s persecution of the Protestants forced John Bodley to flee to Europe, where his family later joined him. After a brief sojourn in Germany, the Bodleys settled in Geneva, where twelve-year-old Thomas had the opportunity to study with some of the best-regarded teachers of the day.

I was at time of 12 Yeares Age; but through my Fathers cost and care,
suffitiently instructed to be Come an Auditor of Cheualerius in Hebrew, of
Beroaldus in Greeke, of Caluin and Beza in deuinitie, and of some other 			
proffessors in that Vniversitie…[3].

The death of Mary, and the ensuing accession of Elizabeth allowed the expatriates to return to England, where they took up residence in London. Bodley was soon sent to study at “the Vniversitie of Oxon, recommended to the teaching and tuition of Doctor Humpherey who was shortly after chosen the cheife Reader of deunitie, and President of Magdalen College"[1].

Bodley graduated from Magdalen College in 1563 and in the same year became a probationer fellow of Merton College. The next year he became an “admitted fellowe,” and in 1565, “by speciall perswation of some of my fellows, and for my private exercise, I vndertooke the publique readinge of a Greeke lecture, in the same College Hall, without requiringe, or expecting any stipend for it” [1]. He took a Master’s degree in 1566 and in 1569 was elected one of the University proctors. He remained at Oxford for the next few years, but then decided to enlarge his horizons.

…I waxed desirous to trauell beyond the Seas, for attayning  to the 
Knowledge of sume speciall moderne Tongues, and for the encrease of
my experience in the mannaginge of affayres: being wholly then addicted
to employ my selfe, and my cares, in the publicke service of the State[1].

Bodley spent four years traveling in Italy, France and Germany, and when he returned to England, he began his career in public service. He was appointed gentleman usher to the Queen, and served as Member of Parliament from Plymouth in 1584 and St. Germans in 1586[5]. He gave up his fellowship at Merton College in 1586 at the time of his marriage to Ann Ball, a rich west-country widow whose first husband had made his fortune trading in pilchards. It was the possession of this fortune which made it possible for Bodley to endow Oxford's Library[8].

The most interesting aspect of Bodley’s service to the Queen was as a member of Walsingham’s and Burleigh’s intelligence and counterespionage networks. He was sent on a number of secret missions: to the North German Protestant Princes in 1585, to Henri III of France in May of 1588, and to the King of Denmark and the Hanseatic towns in July of that year, urging them not to offer help to the Spanish Armada[5]. His longest term of service was in The Hague as Envoy to the United Provinces. Anglo-Dutch relations were strained, and Bodley expressed frustration with his task, complaining that his struggles were “as if I shoulde strive to keepe water in a sive”[4].

Bodley’s greatest ambition was to become Secretary of State, but his hopes were thwarted when he became caught in the rivalry between the Cecil family and the Earl of Essex, and in 1597 he decided to “take my full fairewell of State imployments…and so to retire me from the Court”[1]. Still an energetic and vigorous man at fifty –three, Bodley looked for ways to use his considerable talents in some kind of honorable service. He still had a great affection for his old college, and, remembering the desolate state of the University library, he made his decision.

…I concluded at the last, to set vp my Staffe at the Librarie dore in Oxon; being
throwghly perswaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth affayers,
I could not busie my selfe to better purpose, then by redusing that place 
(which then in euery part laye ruined and wast) to the publique vse of Studients[1].

Having decided this, Bodley wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, whom he did not know, offering to

take the charge and cost vpon me, to reduce it (the Library) again to his former vse:
and to make it fitte, and handsome with seates, and shelfes, and deskes, and all that may
be needfull, to stirre vp other mens benevolence, to helpe to furnish it with bookes, and
this I purpose to beginne assoone as timber can be gotten, to the intent that you may reape
some spedie Profitt of my Proiect[2].

The first University Library had been founded in the mid-fourteenth century by Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester. Between 1439 and 1444, the University received gifts of 279 manuscripts from Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of Henry V, and it was necessary to find more space to house the collection. A room was built over the Divinity School and was completed in 1488. However, a combination of unwise loan practices and lack of funding to purchase more books led to the decline of the Library, and it was finally dispersed by the commissioners of Edward VI. By the time Bodley became a student, the room was empty and unused[4].

Bodley felt himself to be completely qualified to undertake the project because he possessed what he considered to be the four necessary attributes:

I found my selfe furnished in a competent proportion, of such fower kindes of ayds,
as vnles I had them all, there was no hope of good successe:  for without some kinde of
knowledg…without some purse habilitie to goe throwgh with the Charge, without very great
store of honorable friends,…and without speciall good leasure to follow such a worke, it
could but haue proued a vayne attempt and inconsiderate[1].

Bodley consulted with his friend Henry Savile, Warden of Merton, and ordered desks and shelves based on those which had recently been installed in Merton’s library. He replaced the roof timbers, and paneled the ceiling with the arms of the University. By 1600, the work was almost finished, and Bodley turned his attention to the problem of filling the room with books. His diplomatic skills were undiminished, and he was able to persuade his wealthy and highly placed friends to donate books and money. One of these was fellow Devonian Sir Walter Raleigh, who donated 50 pounds[8]. He also had the foresight to hire Dr. Thomas James, a learned theologian, at a salary of 20 pounds per annum.

As Bodley began to collect books, he stored them at his London house until the Library had amassed a respectable enough collection that potential donors would be impressed, and would be even more eager to add their contributions. At last he felt that he had acquired enough, and the Library was finally opened in 1602. Dr. James was in charge of the day-to-day operations, but Bodley was very much concerned with its affairs, and wrote a constant stream of letters to James, asking for information and making suggestions, beginning in 1599 and continuing until his death in 1613[4]. In 1604, the Library was named for him by Royal Warrant, and was thereafter known as the Bodleian Library.

Bodley died in 1613, and in his lengthy and detailed will, he directed his executors, after disposing of his debts, to liquidate all his assets, and convey the remaining funds to the University for the continued “preseruation support & maintenance” of the Library[3].

Leisure, learning, money and friends[5]: Sir Thomas Bodley used all of these attributes and more to create and preserve a repository for some of the greatest works in literature, and to make them available to scholars, as they have been for the last 400 years.

References and Illustrations