Page 5, 16th July 1965

16th July 1965

Page 5

Page 5, 16th July 1965 — WESTMINSTER ARCHIVES Giant task faces 'big dig' man A SMALL
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WESTMINSTER ARCHIVES Giant task faces 'big dig' man A SMALL

group of men ' gathered round a table at Cardinal Heenan's residence in London during the week with the unenviable task of deciding what Westminster's new, full-time lay archivist could be expected 'to do.
The archivist hasn't yet been appointed. But whoever is chosen from the present short list of three will probably have a long, hard job ahead of him (or her, for I understand that some•of the most professionally suited applicants are women).
If the job means continuing the examination of what has already been catalogued—perhaps about half the total collection—this in itself will he a very big task and will take about 12 years to complete. But if—and this seems the most worthwhile task—it means unearthing records which, for one reason or another, are not in the archives, then it will take on even bigger dimensions.
It will be difficult, partly because of the existing conditions at Archbishop's House—the archives are bursting at their seams—and partly because of the confusion caused by a peculiar breakdown in the filing system there.
To get some idea of the extent of the problem and the contents of the archives, I spoke to the man who knows most about them. He is Fr. Bernard Fisher, teacher at the Cardinal Vaughan school near Holland Park, one-time secretary to Cardinal Griffin, and one of the foremost authorities in the world on St. Thomas More.
On and off for the past sixteen years, Fr. Fisher has snatched twilight hours after school, the weeks between the appointments of archbishops, and has given his holidays to putting the archives into shape.
"I think the next archivist must try to recover and build up the records between 1865 and 1910, and deal with the material in the Curial offices. There is virtually a complete gap for those years," said Fr. Fisher.
Apparently early on in the 18th century, London became virtually the national headquarters of the Church in England. Everything was carefully filed and put away as soon as it became redundant. Naturally, when the Hierarchy was restored the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster retained his national image.
This meant that all national affairs were dealt with from his office, while diocesan affairs were settled in the curial offices—and never the twain did meet. "Unfortunately this has led to a chaotic system of filing and a lack of the need to preserve documents," says Fr. Fisher.
But he adds, almost with a sigh of relief, that from 1501 right up to the Restoration. and from the 1930s up to this week, the records are more or less accurately filed and boxed— particularly the recent ones. which were put in order by
Mgr. Derek Worlock, secretary to the Hierarchy.
When Fr. Fisher, who has been trying for about 12 years to have an archivist employed full time, took over the job in 1949, the archives were in poor shape. Basically they consisted of 49 beautifully bound volumes containing all the official papers of the Church in times of persecution, a mass of miscellaneous but often priceless documents and manuscripts, and the famous Douai Diaries which have been loaned to St. Edmund's, Ware.
But, mysteriously, the records stopped at 1793. The missing 60 or 70 odd years were later recovered from 13 dusty boxes discovered beneath the Cathedral, and so far Fr. Fisher hasn't had enough time to catalogue some of these.
One of his big problems has always been shortage of space. For instance, if you are being interviewed in the small interview room the cupboard at your right hand shoulder holds about 50 boxes of Cardinal Wiseman's papers; the large French ward. robe outside the Cardinal's throne-room is packed tight with half of Cardinal Hinslev's papers; and you will find the remainder upstairs behind green curtains outside the nuns' rooms.
"However." says Fr. Fisher "I. think Cardinal Heenan is now considering plans to remedy this situation by creating a completely new department to house the archives."
The early ones relate to times of unrest and controversy within the Church and of the attacks made on it over the years. They contain most of the Royal signatures, those of Queen Eliiabeth I's Council, eye-witness accounts of martyrdoms, and of the famous Gordon Riots of the East End.
There is also a complete list of Martyrs in a delicate copperplate hand—that of 'Topeliffe, Queen Elizabeth l's chief torturer—and a series of disputations showing how the Infanta of Spain was "undoubtedly the rightful successor to the throne".
For obvious reasons, there are few Missionary registers in the archives, but in one which has been fully restored by the Guild Hall, a missionary priest tells how he was betrayed by a "fallen Catholic", dragged across the Yorkshire moors— "from the moors of Yorkshire, 0 Lord deliver us," he writes)— and was tried and imprisoned at York Castle.
While there, he performed a controversial marriage between a young man about to be hanged for his part in the '45 Rebellion and a young pregnant girl due for life deportment to the colonies. "I did it that good may come of it," he wrote.
Another interesting section of the archives contains a virtual mountain of documents from Selby Abbey, some dating back to the 12th century; the Stuart papers, a collection on their own; and long series of letters from agents in Rome.
Unfortunately, Fr. Fisher, explained, the Rome letters are all marked "in-tray" and so tell of one of the most interesting periods in the Church's history here, in reverse. Behind the letters lies the story of an age when men were more belligerent than they are today, and priests fought each other openly with the pen or any suitable weapon that lay near at hand.
Incidentally, nearly all the people who visit the archives at Westminster, which are open all day on weekdays, are Americans, most of them scholars who browse through the cupboards and libraries at Archbishop's House for weeks on .end.
Even more interesting is the fact that about fifty per cent of these scholars turn out to be non-Catholics.
DONAL MUSGRAVE




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