Conferences: good for the soul!

The last few weeks have been quite busy on the Cwm library project, and have involved attending several fascinating conferences and giving papers.

First was the annual Swansea University Arts & Humanities Postgraduate Conference, held in the university's Wallace building on Friday 12 October. The theme of this year's conference was 'Crossing Borders and Pushing Boundaries': a specific, yet surprisingly widely interpreted theme that resulted in a wide variety of fascinating papers that truly demonstrated the breadth of research being undertaken at the several departments that make up the College of Arts & Humanities.

I presented a paper on the Cwm project to date, through the lens of the borders and boundaries theme. This enabled me to reinterpret my research thus far from a wholly new perspective, and to really emphasise the importance of borders in ensuring the survival of the Jesuit community at the Cwm. Proceedings of the conference will hopefully be published in the near future - watch this space!

I was also invited to give an update on the progress of the project to the Herefordshire Catholic History Society at their bi-annual meeting at the beautiful Belmont Abbey on 16 October - a small but very interested group of members were pleased to hear that the project was progressing well, and to hear updated numbers of books discovered, work currently being undertaken on provenance marks as well as the trials and tribulations of trying to piece together the history of this illusive library! Other papers given included an extract from research being undertaken on St Roger Cadwallader, which forms part of a forthcoming, much needed, biography on the saint.

Most recently, I attended a one day conference in London, organised by CELL (the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters) in Queen Mary University, London on 9 November. 'The Permissive Archive' Conference covered a wide variety of interpretations on the ups and downs of archival research, how research on one topic in the archives can often lead to new and unexpected avenues of research, and the various ways in which the archive is 'permissive', either as a result of permissions (or restrictions) from the archivist, different storage methods and of course, struggles with particularly horrible examples of palaeography!

It was a fascinating day, and gave me some new perspectives on the nature of my work in both the library and the archives, and highlighted lots of brilliant new research that is being conducted at the moment up and down the country. Lots more information on the conference website (see link above)

Conferences are always good for the soul - I always come away from a conference feeling refreshed and re-energised towards my research, and (more often than not) with new ideas, a different perspective, and new angles to explore. They are also a great way to engage with other academics, either working in the same field, or working in a totally different one - all researchers sometimes feel isolated and alone, due to the varied nature of the work we do, and it is always good to meet up with other people in the same position as yourself. If nothing else, having to explain your research to somebody with little or no background knowledge of your topic in a concise 'coffee-break' conversation is always challenging, and great practice for getting to grips with the essentials of the project and conveying them!

Project Update

Happy New Year! Time has flown by since the last post and the project is progressing rapidly!

All catalogues, lists and other finding aids available at Hereford Cathedral Library have now been looked at and cross referenced, and one list of about 350 potential books from the Cwm listed. All 350 books have been examined for marks of Cwm provenance or other signs that they may have come to the cathedral from the Cwm. The 350 books break down as follows:

1. 201 books that are definitely from the Cwm
2. 37 books that are probably from the Cwm, based on marks of ownership, subject material or other provenance records
3. 78 books that are written by or about the Society of Jesus, with no other information to tie them to the Cwm
4. 14 of the books have been ruled out as extremely unlikely to have come from the Cwm as existing information suggests they probably came from elsewhere
5. Finally, 20 of the books have only so far been put in the 'query' category, as not enough information exists to rule them out, or definitely include them. More work to be done on these!

These have all been organised into various files and folder, and have also all been entered into my database, which allows them all to be cross referenced and easily searched. Next task is to analyse them in groups according to marks or inscriptions - more on this to follow soon!

Books aside, the other areas of the project have also been developing. The week before last I was lucky enough to be invited to the second ever meeting of the Herefordshire Catholic History Society, a newly formed group of individuals with wide and varied research interests in all aspects of the Catholic history of Herefordshire and the surrounding areas. Those present at the meeting in the beautiful setting of Belmont Abbey were treated to a detailed and fascinating overview of the recently catalogued archives of the Abbey by archivist Brenda Warde who is also Secretary of the Society. Brenda kindly brought several samples of the many fascinating items available at the archive, as well as printed summaries of the catalogues. Research queries should be directed to Brenda via the Abbey website.

Chairman Desmond Keohane also invited me to give an overview of my research and the Cwm project to the Society, which everyone seemed very interested in, and I have duly paid my membership for the year and promised to come back and give a detailed talk on the project in due course! The group meets again in April and is always keen to welcome new members.

The meeting also allowed me to make contact with Mrs Margaret Kelly, who used to live in the Cwm farmhouse that the Jesuits used, and is extremely knowledgeable about the history of her former home! She was able to give me many useful snippets and several new leads to follow up. Mrs Kelly also very kindly took me back to the Cwm with her and put me up for the night, which allowed me to get a real feel for the truly isolated location of the farm, as well as its ideal location near 3 county borders, as well as the Wales-England border.

Borders were of course extremely important for the Jesuits at the Cwm and the recusant community, as pursuing JP's only had jurisdiction within their own county, so to be able to flee into a different county (or country!) reduced the chances of capture. It was a real privilege to get a glimpse of the day to day surroundings of the Jesuit community at the Cwm, and an experience I hope to repeat soon!