THE GENESIS OF
COLLECTANEA CANTABRIGIENSIA

The Reverend Francis Blomefield is remembered as the primary author, publisher and printer of an impressive, history of Norfolk, which was left only half complete at the time of his death in 1752. However, his career as the historian of Norfolk came about almost accidentally, when about 1732 he was unexpectedly given access to, and encouragement to use an enormous collection of historical materials on this subject.1 Blomefield's earliest literary and historical ambitions were directed rather to the description of the antiquities of another county - Cambridgeshire, where he had been educated, and where he retained many friends. Throughout the twenty-odd years that he was engaged upon his great work, Blomefield never completely abandoned his original plan of publishing a work on some aspect of the antiquities of Cambridgeshire, and shortly before he died, it came to fruition with the publication of a curious small quarto volume entitled Collectanea Cantabrigiensia, or Collections relating to Cambridge, University, town, and county.2 As with everything else that was written and printed by Blomefield, this comparatively small work had a prolonged and very complex publishing history, experiencing a change of title, place of publication, and even of subject matter midway through the production process.

Blomefield's first historical writing developed from his hobby of making detailed notes of the monuments in the churches he visited, after the fashion of John Weever.3 This pre-dated his arrival in Cambridge in April 1724 as a sizar at Caius College and appears rather to have originated when he was a scholar at the Thetford Grammar School under the tuition of the Reverend John Price.4 The earliest surviving dated notes, relate to visits he made in the vicinity of Hunstanton in Norfolk in 1719 and of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk early in 1720,5 but these were probably predated by many of his collections for the churches in these two counties in the vicinity of his native village of Fersfield (including the market town of Diss) and of Thetford. Removal to Cambridge, not only opened up new fields of historical research, but also enlarged his horizons to the antiquities of a third county, although the summer vacations continued to be used for further visits to Norfolk and Suffolk churches.

During the 1720s standards of tuition and discipline at Caius, and in the University generally, were at their nadir, but nevertheless Blomefield had the good fortune of having an exceptional young tutor, James Burrough, who encouraged his charge's taste for scholarship and introduced him to some of the more scholarly members of the University.6 In particular Burrough appears to have introduced Blomefield to his cousin, an attorney from Thetford, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, named Thomas Martin. Martin was later to move to Palgrave in Suffolk, fairly close to Blomefield's home. He also had a number of influential antiquarian friends such as the Norroy King of Arms, Peter Le Neve, and Thomas Tanner, Chancellor of Norwich diocese.

One result of the poor standards at the University at this time was that the students had time on their hands to pursue any interest or dissipation they might choose. In the case of Blomefield, the young man's antiquarian instincts, the beneficial guidance or his tutor, or merely his lack of funds, led him to pursue his former hobby rather than any less reputable pastime. From a base at the centre of a comparatively small county, he was able to do this more thoroughly and systematically in the period 1724-1727, than would have been possible for the larger and more populous counties of Norfolk and Suffolk working from his home on the border between them. During the same period he also began scouring the libraries of Cambridge looking for printed or manuscript materials relating to the histories, properties, scholarships, and famous scholars of the various Colleges.7 The extent of Blomefield's work at this time may be charted by his reprehensible (although subsequently useful) practice of endorsing and historical manuscripts he examined with his own mark (a cross within a circle, sometimes followed by the date or his initials).8

The earliest reference to Blomefield's plans for the publication of his notes dates from June 1728 shortly after he left the University, when he was working as curate to James Baldwin, a family friend and rector of Quidenham in Norfolk. An answer to an enquiry he made of his friend Thomas Lawes, confirmed that a proposed history of Cambridgeshire being compiled by Thomas Rutherforth of Papworth was not in the press nor likely to be so in the near future.9 A few weeks before this he had spent some time working among the Ely Cathedral muniments.10 However over the next year Blomefield made little further progress, for it was a period when he held a number of temporary clerical offices until September 1729 when he was presented by his father to the living of Fersfield.11 Soon afterwards he took up his historical work once again, and early in 1730 he was asking Thomas Martin for a sight of Peter Le Neve's collections for both Diss hundred in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.12 He was also writing to another antiquarian, Beaupre Bell, for various transcripts from the fenland churches on the Cambridgeshire and Norfolk border.13 Similarly during the year 1731, a number of surviving letters indicate that he was still collecting materials for the Cambridgeshire history, and in particular transcripts of funeral monuments.14 However by 1732 all work on this county appears to have come to a standstill and the focus of Blomefield's attention thereafter became his native Norfolk.

The reason for this change was the sudden and unexpected transfer of Peter Le Neve's massive collection of historical materials primarily relating to Norfolk, from his former house in Great Witchingham to Thomas Martin's house at Palgrave. Martin had been one of two executor's appointed by Le Neve, who had wished to see his collections held in a public repository in Norwich.15 The other executor was Thomas Tanner who envisaged the collection being kept with the Cathedral muniments, but neither Martin nor Le Neve's young widow Prudence, would agree with this plan, and for two years no action was taken.16 However, during the autumn and winter of 1731/2, a number of unpredictable events came about. Firstly in the November, Thomas Martin's wife Sarah died shortly after giving birth to twins, leaving him with the care of eight young children. A month later Tanner heard that he had been elevated to the Welsh See of St Asaph, and had quickly to wind up his affairs in Norfolk prior to his consecration at Lambeth in January. In the same month, the marriage of Prudence Le Neve and Thomas Martin not only solved the domestic problems of the latter but also temporarily resolved the question of the custody of the manuscript collections.17 After a short period the couple moved to Martin's house, taking with them the collection. Martin knew that he was temperamentally unsuited to make full use of this collection in a work of historical scholarship, but equally he was aware that his young friend and comparative neighbour, Francis Blomefield would be qualified and able to do so.

This opportunity for making his reputation as a historical scholar was too important for Blomefield to pass up, but even so he did not lose sight of his original intentions, for when he issued proposals for the history of Norfolk, in the summer of 1733, he added after a request for the loan of materials that "any thing of this nature relating to Suffolk or Cambridgeshire, will be very acceptable; the author intending (if he meets with encouragement) to go thro' those two counties in the same method".18 At the time he estimated that the Norfolk history would take him just over two years to complete and publish in weekly parts.

In the event, no further progress was made on the Cambridgeshire project for almost a decade, as Blomefield quickly realised that he had grossly underestimated the scale of the task he had set himself, and of the amount of material at his disposal. He also added to his own burden of authorship by his dogged refusal to lose any control over the printing and publication of his works, which ultimately left him with no other option than installing and operating his own printing press.19 The first of his folio volumes was not therefore completed until 1739. His press was then left idle until 1741 when the second volume was announced. However throughout the 1730s Blomefield was simultaneously looking out for new material relating to events, appointments or developments at Cambridge, and would regularly cut such news items from the London and Norwich newspapers, and paste them in his manuscript volumes.20

Once the second volume of the History of Norfolk was under way, Blomefield was one again faced with the problem of keeping his press and his printer busy at those times when he had no material, which caused him to look again at his other historical collections. During 1742 he began to prepare a small quarto volume of miscellaneous antiquarian notes entitled Collectanea.21 He began the work with an account of an old parchment roll from Ely Cathedral, and of some other manuscripts in his possession, together with descriptions of a number of churches he had visited in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but he was soon forced to resort to his own manuscript collections of Cambridgeshire funeral monuments for further copy.22 In deciding to use these materials, Blomefield implicitly recognised that he would never be able to complete the full-dress topographical history of Cambridgeshire that he had originally envisaged. However, since it had already taken him a decade to cover five of the thirty hundreds in the county of Norfolk, and one half of the account of the city of Norwich, this was not a very surprising decision.

Having made the decision to use this material, Blomefield's printer was well supplied with copy, but the collection of general antiquities now began to have an inordinate emphasis on Cambridgeshire. It was therefore a small step for Blomefield to cancel his first 28 pages, which also contained material for other counties, and then to add the word Cantabrigiensia to his title. This decision apparently took place at some time after Blomefield's press was moved from his rectory at Fersfield to his house in St Giles' parish in Norwich, during 1743, possibly soon after the completion of his second volume of the history of Norfolk in 1745.23 By September 1745 only about ninety pages of Collectanea Cantabrigiensia had been printed, but once again Blomefield had run out of material and therefore requested the loan of some of the extensive manuscript collections of his friend, the Cambridge antiquary William Cole.24 In the letter returning one of Cole's volumes the following March, Blomefield expressed the wish of completing his volume during the following summer, and asked the opinion of his friend how he might replace the cancelled pages; "I am in doubt whither or no to fill up the first pages to fo.29. with the monuments in Ely Cathedral. But as Willis, Le Neve, & others have printed most of them; am apt to imagine that those in some other parochial churches, unpublished, may be as acceptable".25 Cole's reply is not preserved, but Blomefield ultimately followed his own inclinations in this matter.

By January 1746/7, and after nearly five years in production, Blomefield had about 220 pages printed, more than half of which were taken from the collections of William Cole. He now felt that his work was almost finished, and started to print several pages of addenda to the earlier entries, and again wrote to Cole to request any further additions, particularly as much of his original material was twenty years old.26 Cole seems to have responded by supplying further new material on the town (as opposed to the University) of Cambridge, and for a number of additional villages such as Grantchester and Trumpington, all of which was eventually added to the text after the addenda. Yet in spite of this new material, very little progress was made with the work over the next few years due in part to problems recruiting skilled workmen, smallpox epidemics in Norwich which prevented Blomefield from gaining access to his press, and his own poor health, coupled with the overriding demands of the third volume of the History of Norfolk. In February 1747/8 Blomefield was again writing to Cole saying that he hoped to publish Collectanea Cantabrigiensia at Michaelmas 1748, but by the following September this date had once again slipped to between Christmas and Candlemass 1749.27

The completed work, comprising 248 pages of text and a further twenty pages of indices was finally completed towards the end of 1750, and a few copies seem to have been distributed to Blomefield's friends at this time, although it was not advertised for sale in Norwich until December 1751.28 The reason for this further delay in publication may lie in the choice of dedication to Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, originally dated Norwich, December 24 1750. At this time the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses were engaged in a heated and acrimonious dispute with the remainder of Senate over the introduction of new regulations for the University. Blomefield may therefore have decided that the time was not appropriate for the publication of his work, with that dedication.29 Six months later when matters had cooled and a compromise had been arranged, Blomefield issued an extended version of the dedication (dated Fersfield 12 June 1751) in which he specifically congratulated the Chancellor on the introduction of the new regulations.30 However, in the event most copies of the book retained the original single-leaf dedication, although frequently with the date amended by hand from MDCCL to MDCCLI.

This delay also invalidated two further printed dates on the title page, and on the final text page. As they were also both given in roman numerals it was likewise possible for Blomefield to amend many of the copies by hand although as with the dedication, this was not always consistently done, and it appears that it was the sheets rather than the bound copies which were so altered. The imprint states that the work was "printed for the Author, at his house in St Giles's parish Norwich" although the printed proposals indicate that it was also distributed by booksellers in Cambridge, London, Norwich, Ipswich and Lynn.31 Also, in the intervening period between the original completion in 1750 and commercial publication a year later, Blomefield became aware of a number of errata, which therefore caused him to reprint the last section substituting the list of errata for a woodcut on the final page.

Collectanea Cantabrigiensia is an odd looking volume which presents a number of problems to the descriptive bibliographer, due in part to the prolonged publication period and number of different workmen involved, to the eccentric printing practices adopted by Blomefield's press, and to the overall lack of planning that went into the production. For example the sections (which are not signed) might contain two, four, six, or eight leaves,32 and there are also a large number of variant copies among the survivors, containing various combinations of cancels, and handwritten amendments.33 A wide range of type faces and sizes were used and various batches of paper. There is also a general lack of consistency over design and layout, such as in the use of italic types and small capitals, and the very variable number of lines on pages. Also mistakes and inconsistencies with running titles and catchwords, the poor quality of some of the presswork, and the existence of some surviving sheets which had been wrongly imposed,34 all indicate that the work came from an amateur press.

Blomefield set out his reasons for publishing the work, much of which was now out of date, in a final note:-

And now having gone through the several Places I have seen in this County, I thought it might not be improper to acquaint my Reader, that these Historical Collections were chiefly made between the Years 1724 and 1734, so that there may occurr several Things lost, since that Time; That which induced me to publish them was, my observing that nothing of the Kind for this County hath been hitherto attempted, and as I have continued the Inscriptions in all the College Chapels in the University, and those in all the Parish Churches in the Town, to this present Time; in that respect, the Work may be said to be perfect, and perhaps be not wholly unacceptable to some, on that Account; and as the County is but a small one, I should hope it might induce some other Person (whose Residence gives an Opportunity,) to visit and publish the other Towns, which I can never think of doing myself, by Reason of my distant Situation. Accept this therefore in good Part, and candidly Pardon such Errors of the Press as may have escaped my Notice.35

At no point did the author acknowledge the very considerable part played in the work by William Cole, other than by sending him the sheets as they were printed. As a result Cole added a rather sour note to the fly-leaf of his copy "This work was taken from my 6th Vol: of Cambsh: collections which I lent to Mr Blomefield & he kept them 6 months & copied & printed them before he returned them to me".36 However, years later Cole made use of Blomefield's original cancelled account of the Ely roll as part of his own contribution to James Bentham's History of Ely Cathedral, although on this occasion with full acknowledgment of the source.37

Shortly before Collectanea Cantabrigiensia was advertised in Norwich, Blomefield had been visiting London, where he gave a paper to the Society of Antiquaries, and then stayed on to do some research in the Rolls chapel.38 However, soon after returning to Fersfield for Christmas 1751, it became apparent that whilst in London he had contracted smallpox, from which he died the following month. His widow was left to dispose of the edition as best she could over the next decade.

David Stoker

Aberystwyth,

June 1989

1.         Francis Blomefield An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk 5 vols. (Fersfield, Norwich, Kings Lynn, 1739-75). Following Blomefield's death the work was completed by Charles Parkin. See David Stoker 'Blomefield's history of Norfolk' Factotum 26. 1988, 17-22

2.         F. Blomefield Collectanea Cantabrigiensia, or Collections relating to Cambridge, University, town, and county (Norwich, 1750). ESTC t144136.

3.         John Weever Ancient funerall monuments (London, 1631).

4.         F. Blomefield An essay I. 24-5.

5.         Bodleian Library Mss. Gough Norfolk 4-5, and College of Arms Ms. SC9.

6.         John Venn Caius College (Cambridge, 1901) 156.

7.         B.L. Stowe Ms. 807, Blomefield's Cambridge collections, begun by him whilst a student in Caius College in 1724, contains a large number of such short historical notices extracted from various sources, together with a descriptive account of the churches in Cambridge and their monumental inscriptions. Similarly Bodleian Library Mss. Gough Cambridge 2-3 contain similar collections relating to the city and county compiled c.1726-30, and Mss. Gough Cambridge 48-50 compiled c1727-30 were Blomefield's "Liber Transcriptorum Cantabrigiensium". Other rough notes by Blomefield relating to Cambridge appear in Cambridge University Library Ms. 3390.

8.         Many of these marks were noted by M.R. James in his catalogues of manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries, particularly in A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Gonville and Caius College 3v (Cambridge 1904-7). A transcript of the Annals of Gonville and Caius, made at this time by Blomefield from a manuscript in Caius Library, later led to the work being incorrectly attributed to him by John Ives, in his printed edition Select papers chiefly relating to English Antiquities (1773) - see the introduction to J. Venn The annals of Gonville and Caius (Cambridge, 1904) xii-xiii.

9.         Bodleian Library Ms. Gough Cambridge 3 fo.422 . Dated Reepham June 10th 1728. See also the D.N.B. entry for Thomas Rutherforth junior.

10.       The transcripts from this visit in April 1728 are included in Bodleian Library Ms. Gough Cambridge 50.

11.       Following ordination in March 1727/8 he became curate at Quidenham, and in July 1729 the temporary the rector of Hargham.

12.       Dated Fersfield 16 Feb. 1729/30. Cambridge Fitzwilliam Museum (Perceval Packet A).

13.       Four letters and a package of notes from Bell to Blomefield are bound in Bodleian Library Ms. Gough Cambridge 2, between fols. 213-269.

14.       Bodleian Library Ms. Gough Norfolk 2 also contains letters to Blomefield from John Dawney (March 13 1730/1- fo.300) and Thomas Hull (June 1 1731 - fo.584) each of which contained transcripts of monuments in Cambridgeshire.

15.       Public Record Office, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills 1729 No.633.

16.       Letter from Tanner to Richard Rawlinson dated 2 October 1735. Bodleian Library Rawlinson Letters 30 fo.31.

17.       For an account of the events surrounding the transfer of the Le Neve papers to Palgrave, see David Stoker The compilation and production of a classic county history University of Reading M.Phil. thesis 1982. 48-50.

18.       Proposals, ESTC t178674.

19.       D. Stoker 'Blomefield's history of Norfolk' 18.

20.       Many of these were pasted into B.L. Ms. Stowe 807.

21.       Richard Gough British topography 2 vols. (London 1780) I. 192.

22.       See Cole's note in James Bentham History and antiquities of the conventual and cathedral church of Ely (Cambridge, 1771) Appendix, 6. British Library copy G.3610 and Bodleian Library copy Gough Cambridge 85 both also contain the original pages, which were subsequently cancelled.

23.       The last definite evidence of the operation of Blomefield's press in Fersfield was a book label printed in March 1743. The second volume of the History of Norfolk, many copies of which have a Norwich imprint, was completed 31 May 1745.  Bodleian Library Ms Gough Cambridge 3 includes proof pages for pages 29-32, the accounts of Coton and Caldecote.

24.       Letter to Cole dated 10 March 1745/6 B.L. Additional Ms. 6400. fo. 168.

25.       B.L. Additional Ms. 6400. fo. 168. The references are to Browne Willis Survey of the Cathedrals of York, Durham, . . . Ely, Oxford and Peterborough. 3 vols (London, 1727-30) and John Le Neve Monumenta Anglicana 5 vols (London 1717-9).

26.       Letter to William Cole dated 14 Jan. 1746/7. B.L. Additional Ms. 6400. fo.171.

27.       Letter to William Cole dated 18 Feb. 1747/8. B.L. Additional Ms. 6400. fo.173.

28.       Norwich Mercury 28 December 1751. Price 5/- stitched.

29.       For details see D.A. Winstanley The University of Cambridge in the eighteenth century  (Cambridge, 1922) 199-220.

30.       The Trinity College Cambridge copy (and another in a private collection) both have the later extended dedication. By publicly siding with the Chancellor in this way, Blomefield was clearly hoping for some future ecclesiastical patronage in the gift of the University.

31.       Bodleian Library Gough Cambridgeshire 85 and 88 both include copies of the proposals for the work each dated in manuscript Christmas 1751.

32.       The collation for most surviving copies appears to be as follows:- [12 (+/- first leave) 24 3-88 9-142 156 16-238] but it would not be possible to be certain on this point without examining an unbound copy. Copies without the dedication would apparently have a collation of [1 24 3-88 9-142 156 16-238]., and those with the extended dedication would be [1 22 34 4-98 10-152 166 17-248]. pp. [iv]. 1-268.

33.       There appear to be nine details where copies may vary: - the three printed dates which may or may not be altered, the two versions of the dedication (and copies issued earlier without any dedication), an error in the printing of page 83 as 38, the replacement of a woodcut on page 268 with the list of errata, and the attachment of the title page to a stub (indicating that an earlier version was cancelled). Twelve surviving copies have been examined in the preparation of this article, and no two of these copies are exactly alike. The author would like to thank Mr Clive Wilkins-Jones (Norfolk County Library), Mr David McKitterick (Trinity College Library Cambridge), Mr Paul Morgan (Bodleian Library, Oxford), for their assistance in providing information about the copies in their respective libraries.

34.       Bodleian Library Gough Cambridge 85 contains extra copies of pages 161-4 which had been wrongly imposed.

35.    Collectanea Cantabrigiensia 248.

36.       This comment was subsequently transcribed into Michael Tyson's copy (B.L. G.3610) and a similar comment was added to the fly-leaf of Richard Gough's copy (Bodleian Library Gough Cambridge 33).

37.       James Bentham History and antiquities of the conventual and cathedral church of Ely (Cambridge, 1771) Appendix, 6. Similarly, Blomefield's cancelled account of Luton (Bedfordshire) church was subsequently reprinted by John Nichols in part 26 of Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica 4 vols. (London 1780-90) IV. 29-42.

38.       Letter to William Cole dated 26 Nov. 1751. B.L. Additional Ms. 6400, fo. 182 and Society of Antiquaries Minute Book Vol.7.