Subject Guide: Classics and Ancient History: Archives and Special Collections

Resources for some specific areas are highlighted in adjacent tabs, but resources for many more specific topics can be discovered by searching for the appropriate topic (such as Classics or Greek or Virgil etc) in Discover and by restricting the search to ‘Durham Archives’ or by searching the printed catalogue by selecting the topic as a subject or keyword and restricting the search to ‘Special Collections’ or ‘Ushaw College’.

Classics as an academic discipline

Since the very beginning of the university in Durham in 1832, study of the Classics has been an integral part of the education that an undergraduate received. Thucydides, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Tacitus, Cicero, Juvenal, Herodotus, Euripides, Livy and Virgil, for instance, were all on the syllabus for 1^st year students in the BA in Classical and General Literature in 1852. Greek and Classical Literature was one of the first chairs of the university to be established in 1833 (held initially by H. Jenkyns) (there is much on this in the papers of the first warden Charles Thorp). Classics was still prominent when departments were first formally established in the university in 1939, with the department becoming Classics and Ancient History in 1941.

The development of the subject and department of Classics and Ancient History in the university is reflected in the university’s own archive, in central, faculty and departmental files, in the records of the meetings of its various committees from Senate and Council down, in the exam papers, pass lists and mark sheets for the subject, and the university’s publications of such as the Gazette, Calendar, Journal, and Vice-Chancellor’s Reports, and newsletters and the like. The subject of course also featured in the syllabus at the Catholic seminary and associated junior school of Ushaw College (1808-2010) whose archive is still accessible at the former college.

The collections also include the papers of the classical scholars W.D. Lowe (1879-1922), Bishop Joseph Lightfoot (1828-1889), John Taylor (18^th century, Add.MS. 769), T.S. Evans (1816-1889), F.B. Jevons (1858-1936), and James Duff Duff (1860-1940) (Cambridge Latinist).  There are also a number of photographic collections of the remains of the Classical World in this country and beyond, from such as I.J.C. Foster (1908-1978), Alan Wiper (1932-1973), Thomas Romans (1876-1958), Prince Abbas Hilmi II (1874-1944), and in the Sudan Archive collections such as Sir Reginald Wingate (1861-1953) and F.T. Beckinsale (d1956), and also of the university’s Archaeology Department.

There is also material on the teaching of the subject at school in some of the correspondence in the Headlam family archive of the mid 19^th century when various sons report on their travails in the Classics at various schools to their father Arthur Headlam (1826-1909) whose papers also include various of his own studies in the Classics. Also the papers of the vice-chancellor James F. Duff (1898-1970) include his schoolboy classics work at Winchester.

Classical languages

For students of the Latin language, there is a vast amount of material written in the language in the collections. Many are the printed texts in books in the classical form of the language, exhibiting the style and vocabulary of the classical world. Many more are the medieval documents in especially the cathedral’s archive written, some in the more transliterative style literal translations of an English sentence with vocabulary to match, others in the more skilled, complex style of such as an episcopal or even papal clerk. There are also quantities of medieval manuscripts in the language in such as the Cosin or Ushaw manuscripts, whether texts for study, chronicles, services books for use in the choir, or personal devotional books of hours. Documents in Greek are scarce in the archive, barring a few part letters from Egypt at the height of the Roman Empire (Add.MS. 2067), but there are rather more printed texts in the language. Hebrew is also not unknown, with the occasional starr in the cathedral’s archive (in DCD 1.1.Ebor.15), and some printed Hebrew texts amongst the book collections.

Local collection

The Local Collection on open access in PGL in the Barker Research Library contains various editions of Latin writings of medieval figures such as Bede, Simeon of Durham and Ailred of Rievaulx. There are also printed editions of many local Latin texts in the volumes of the Surtees Society and other local record publishing societies such as The Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, and the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Record Series. The History of the Book collection, also on open access, has many volumes about medieval classical manuscripts from around the country, Europe and the world.

Classical texts

The Archives and Special Collections section of the Library in the historic Palace Green Library, includes major collections of rare books in the Bishop Cosin (nationally-designated), Routh, Bamburgh (rare editions of the works of Virgil, Aristophanes, Sophocles and Aristotle), Winterbottom, Maltby, Kellett (classical and medieval sources which influenced the writings of the 16^th century French physician Jean Fernel), Ellershaw (contains translations of modern English texts into classical languages), St Chad’s College and Richmond Grammar School libraries. These contain many early editions of classics texts, many in Latin, and also Greek, and much on classical antiquities and ancient history which can be used by researchers at Durham. The collections include not just texts but also such as maps and drawings of Rome such as in Hartmann Schedel's Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg, 1493) and Giacomo Lauro's Antiquae Urbis Splendor (Rome, 1612). ASC also provides access to arguably the most extensive surviving medieval monastic library in this country, that of the cathedral, which contains medieval manuscripts of a quantity of classical texts. These are supplemented by the medieval manuscript collections of Bishop Cosin and Ushaw College which are all accessible at PGL.

Many classical texts and works on classical antiquities are also available in the rich Catholic resource of the Big Library at Ushaw College, including the book collection there of the former English College in Lisbon, and also the collections of various Catholic parish libraries, including Weldbank, Dodding Green, Durham St Cuthbert, Middlesbrough and Lancaster Diocese. These collections are further complemented by the classical works contained in the libraries at PGL of the female religious communities of the Poor Clares of Woodchester and Darlington, and the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre whose library was largely built up in exile in Liege from 1642 to 1794.