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His library—preserved on Van Pelt’sL sixth floor—is one of the great campus spaces, Mr. Lea is not stopped,” Benjamin Disraeli once but there’s a lot more than that to know warned, “all the libraries of Europe will be removed to .” In the end, the libraries of Europe about historian and civic reformer “If stayed home, but the only thing that could stop Henry Charles Henry Charles Lea. Lea was that which stops us all. During his long life (1825-1909), Lea acquired an estimated by dennis drabelle 20,000 books, many of them rare, on his subjects of interest: medieval history, legal history, ecclesiastical history, the , and witchcraft—with special attention to the per- secution of dissidents and eccentrics in the name of religion.

58 MAR | APR 2014 THE GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREG BENSON THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAR | APR 2014 59 And when he couldn’t buy or borrow a Bradley C’19 Gr’25, as “a mere youth Lea collecting books, especially ones on the desired item, he paid to have it copied. discovered and named no less than 133 ecclesiastical topics that came to fasci- His collecting was no mere hobby. He new species of mollusks, and, what is still nate Lea. The French Revolution and the mined old books and documents to write more remarkable, 2 new genera.” The lad revolutions of 1848 had stripped church- new ones of his own. This passion for also produced poems, literary criticism, es and monasteries of their possessions, original sources set Lea apart from most and translations from classical Greek books included, and he benefited from of his peers, helping to make him—in the while mastering Latin and assorted mod- the consequent flooding of the market. words of Edward Peters, a Penn history ern languages. (As a full-fledged scholar, In 1858, Lea published his first work of professor emeritus who is an authority he was able to read Greek, Latin, French, historical analysis, a review of a book called on Lea and his library [“The Immeasurable Spanish, and Italian with ease, and could The History of Normandy and England. Curiosity of Edward Peters,” May|June deal with Hebrew, German, Dutch, and Meanwhile, he made partner in the family 2003]—America’s “greatest scholarly his- Sanskrit.) But this polymathic precocity firm and then, in 1865, became its sole torian of the nineteenth century.” took its toll. Unable to rein in his lunging owner. Despite Dr. Mitchell’s cautions, not Though Lea owed his education to his curiosity, the boy suffered from frequent to mention the burdens of being a husband parents, a private tutor, and his own wide and father, Lea took on a plethora of civic reading, rather than to institutions, he duties, notably at the Union League, which became a Penn supporter and trustee. In he and others founded after the Civil War 1925, his children Arthur and Nina carried broke out. As a Philadelphia gadfly and out a wish expressed in Lea’s will by giving reformer, his greatest coup was helping to the scholarly portion of his library to the bring down the Gas Trust that had domi- University and, for good measure, throwing nated the city’s economy and politics for in an endowed professorship in his name. decades. On the national level, he was so They sent over to Penn not only the books, disgusted by federal patronage abuses that but also their habitat: the two-tiered, shelf- he served as president of the Civil Service lined Victorian Gothic reading room incor- Reform Association. porated into the Lea residence at 2000 Until his retirement from publishing in Walnut Street in 1881. For many years the 1880, Lea had to cram his historical donated books and room were housed in research into what Peters describes as the old Furness Library (now the Fisher Fine “the odd hours he had remaining after Arts Library), whose 34th Street façade is the several other lives he led had exhaust- still inscribed “THE HENRY CHARLES LEA ed their claims on him.” Striking a similar LIBRARY AND READING ROOM.” When note at a 1911 commemorative tribute to Van Pelt Library was completed in 1962, the Lea, the Shakespeare scholar Horace Lea legacy migrated to the top floor, where Howard Furness asked rhetorically, it remains—a tenebrous sanctum in which “Would not an historian of Philadelphia you almost expect a raven to come flapping express his conviction that there were down and croak, “Nevermore”—unchanged headaches. He joined the family business here during the last half century two men amid the rest of the floor’s recent extensive in 1843 but continued to pursue his avoca- both bearing the identical name, one striv- renovations [“Gazetteer,” July|Aug 2013]. tions. After four years of capping off a ing and prominent in the heady fight of full day’s work with hours of study and politics and reform; the other a modest was the son of a mixed mar- writing, he collapsed. and sequestered scholar, leading a clois- Lea riage: Quaker on his father’s For relief he turned to an old friend, Dr. tered life of historical research?” Not side (the primordial American Leas came S. Weir Mitchell, the foremost American surprisingly, in later life the one-man duo over in 1699 on the same ship that brought neurologist of his day [“The Case of S. Weir had been plagued by headaches again, William Penn to the New World for good) Mitchell,” Nov|Dec 2012]. Mitchell pre- along with spells of impaired vision. and Catholic on his mother’s (the Careys scribed his old standard for this sort of founded the Philadelphia publishing thing, the rest cure, but the best Lea could Health permitting, Lea focused on medieval house that became the Lea family’s main- manage was to slow down for a few years— history and law, which led him naturally stay and lasted, under various names, a period in which he continued to hold his to the Christian Church, with its powerful until 1994). Henry and his older brother day job, got married, and read voraciously. influence on trial and punishment. His enjoyed a comfortable and stimulating After dropping poetry and science to first book, Superstition and Force: Torture, childhood, with their tutor accompanying concentrate on history, Lea prepared to Ordeal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval them on European tours that brought to resume scholarly work by acquiring Law, which came out in 1866, gives a good life the history he taught them. books from American and European deal- sense of Lea’s interests and range. The The precocious Henry was still a teen- ers. In doing so, he joined a wave of book- book’s overarching subject is the judging ager when he began publishing scien- buying that filled out many an American of earthly disputes not by humans but by tific papers; according to his biographer, university library. Indeed, the mid- to God, who is thought to express his will by the late Penn English professor E. Sculley late-19th century was a fine time to be awarding victory or loss in a contest of

60 MAR | APR 2014 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE some sort, or by the occurrence or non- subjected to a form of ordeal by water, in occurrence of an event. In the ordeal chap- which one’s veracity was put to a sink-or- ter, Lea’s erudition carries the reader from swim test. In 1583, magistrates of Lemgow ancient Rome, where a holy snake was in Lower Saxony stripped three accused called upon to settle disputes by either witches naked and threw them into a eating or spurning a proffered cake, to stream, in which they “floated like logs of 15th-century Florence and the fate of wood.” Although their buoyancy might well Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), an have been greeted as a sign of divine favor, excommunicated Dominican preacher and this was not the case. Lea sums up the pre-Reformation scourge. twisted logic by which the floaters were As Lea tells it, an outdoor competition convicted: “Sorcerers, from their inter- was set up to test the validity of Savonarola’s course with Satan, partake of his nature; claim that the Church could do with a thor- he resides within them, and their human ough house-cleaning. Two champions, one attributes become altered to his; he is an representing Savonarola and the other his imponderable spirit of air, and therefore Franciscan rivals, would walk through a they likewise become lighter than water.” bonfire, and whichever fared better could Thus, the deck was stacked against the claim victory for his side. On the appoint- poor women before the ordeal started: the ed day, however, “quibbles arose about very thing that would proclaim their inno- permitting the champions to carry cruci- cence—sinking—might also drown them. fixes, and to have the sacrament with them, This is grim stuff, but Lea could display about the nature of their garments, and ardor by affirming that Savonarola had a sense of humor when appropriate, as other like details, in disputing which the endeavored to commit the sacrilege of he did in a satire written during the Civil day wore away, and at vespers the assem- burning the sacrament … [Savonarola] was War. The Episcopal bishop of Vermont blage broke up without result.” The popu- taken prisoner, and after undergoing had authored “Biblical View of Slavery,” lace felt so cheated of a good show that frightful torture, was hanged and burned.” a pamphlet arguing that since slavery they “easily gave credit to the assertions Given the people’s blood-lust, Savonarola was countenanced in both the Old and of the Franciscans, who stimulated their probably never had a chance. Nor did those New Testaments, there could be no objec-

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAR | APR 2014 61 tion to it on religious grounds. In 1863, preserve the proper amount of toleration Lea replied with a four-page “ View for intolerance, and the warmer become of Polygamy,” purportedly written by a my convictions of the evils which have Mormon named Mizpah. Mizpah points sprung from the vast theological struc- out that the bishop’s reasoning could ture erected upon the simple and sublime apply with equal force to polygamy: as primal truths of Christianity.” far as the prophets and the savior are concerned, it’s just a fact of life, record- ed without comment. Not even Solomon’s here is no reason to think that Lea harem of “seven hundred wives, prin- meant for the library in his (long- cesses, and three hundred concubines” gone) Walnut Street house to be (I Kings, xi, 3) elicits so much as a divine- Tspooky—his interest in witchcraft didn’t ly inspired raised eyebrow. fully ripen until the last years of his life. With commentary by Edward Peters, “A But as reincarnated in Van Pelt, the old Bible View of Polygamy” was republished ous notes for the unfinished work were room’s shelves, panels, and pillars of east- to honor him on his retirement in 2009. published in 1939. ern black walnut make a fitting backdrop In light of a federal judge’s recent decision If the reader senses anti-Catholic ani- for tomes on the dark arts—Rupert Giles, that portions of Utah’s anti-polygamy law mus in Lea’s work, that is not a baseless the librarian/Slayer trainer in the TV-series are unconstitutional, Lea’s Biblical schol- perception. (As a young man, however, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would feel right arship may be in for a revival. he had opposed anti-Catholic riots in at home there. Lea’s slant-top desk anchors Among Lea’s many other books are An Philadelphia.) His misgivings about one end of the room, and a decommis- Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy Catholicism had to do with its anti-lib- sioned fireplace the other. Rolling ladders in the Christian Church (1867), a three- eralism during the 19th century and with affixed to the shelves conjure up a vision volume History of the Inquisition in the a feature he did not want to see import- of an agile scholar darting up, down, and Middle Ages (1888), a three-volume History ed to the : the Church’s sideways to nail down a reference. of Auricular Confession and Indulgences privileged position in many European But the 21st-century visitor needs help (1896), and a four-volume History of the countries. In a letter to a fellow scholar getting around—for one thing, the col- Inquisition in Spain (1906-08). At the written in 1869, Lea summed up what lection answers to six different catalogu- time of his death, he was working on a his research had taught him about reli- ing systems, some left over from Lea’s history of witchcraft; edited by the Penn gion: “The more I investigate the history heyday. This writer’s guide was David historian Arthur C. Howland, Lea’s copi- of the Church the less easy do I find it to McKnight, director of Penn’s Rare Book

62 MAR | APR 2014 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE and Manuscript Library. McKnight ush- nicate with devils, namely, “the methods But he must have been an A-plus father, ered me to a different reading room, a by which such abominations are consum- as witness his children’s willingness to clean, well-lighted place serving the spe- mated.” The co-authors go on to consider go beyond the letter of his will. Along with cial collections as a whole. There I stowed the mechanics of copulating with an incu- paying to have his books and their phys- my belongings in a locker, handed over bus, a male evil spirit with only one thing ical envelope moved to the Penn campus, my ID, filled out a request slip, and on his mind. This leads them to the most the younger Leas established a fund to agreed to take notes in pencil only. tantalizing question of all: “whether the maintain the library as a living organism. Going for broke, I asked for what is per- actual venereal pleasure is greater or less” (As of this writing, income from that fund haps the most treasured item from the than it is with a mortal man. Much discus- is being used to acquire books on the original Lea holdings: a 1496 edition of sion ensues, but no clear outcome. The Mexican Inquisition.) And in addition to the infamous Malleus Maleficarum—The question, it would seem, can only be the chair at Penn, the children endowed Hammer of Witches, originally published answered on an incubus-by-incubus basis. one each at Princeton and Harvard. in 1486 and a sequel of sorts to an earlier Bound by no discernible standards of book called The Hammer of Jews. The what constitutes evidence, the two newer Hammer was written as a handbook Dominicans manufactured an elaborate for inquisitors by two Dominican monks taxonomy of devils and those who con- who plied that trade in Germany. Penn’s sort with them. Although today we are copy, acquired by Lea from a Philadelphia entitled to dismiss The Hammer as a bookseller in 1876, is an example of incu- farrago of nonsense, in its time it was nabula: books printed before the craft of no laughing matter. Its suggested pun- printing was standardized circa 1500. To ishment for “high treason against God’s page (delicately) through this venerable majesty”—that is, witchcraft—was the artifact is a daunting experience—the vel- rack. By the time the witch-hunting craze lum covers are in good shape, but the died out around the year 1700, an esti- binding is starting to come loose, and mated 50,000 women (and a few men) suddenly it dawns on you that you’ve got had been executed, and The Hammer five-plus centuries’ worth of fragility in bears no small responsibility for this your hands. As for the contents, the words slaughter of the innocents. present themselves in double columns of squat Gothic script that would pose a chal- know a lot about Lea the lenge even if your Latin were up to snuff, We bibliophile and scholar, not and the text rumbles along without inden- so much about the private man—which tations; instead, paragraphs are indi- may be the way he wanted it. At the dedi- cated by handwritten marks made in red cation ceremony for the Lea Library in ink—a process known as rubrification. 1925, a eulogist described Lea as “modest, Fortunately, the reader can get a flavor of unobtrusive—I might also say shy and The Hammer from translated excerpts in a retiring.” The modesty is corroborated by 21st-century book, Witchcraft in Europe, Sculley Bradley, who explained that Lea’s 400-1700: A Documentary History, co-edit- doubts about what may be his master- ed by Peters and Alan C. Kors, Peters’s suc- piece, The History of the Inquisition in cessor as Penn’s Henry C. Lea Professor of Spain, kept him from dedicating it to his Above all, Lea will be remembered for History. The Hammer—a compendium of longtime friend Weir Mitchell. Yet as his books and the tools he acquired to make the two Dominicans’ firsthand “knowledge” demonstrated by his civic bulldogging, use of them. Asked if any member of today’s and what they’d heard through the witch- Lea was no milksop. He once said of him- Penn faculty has Lea’s command of so craft grapevine—justifies the scholar self that when he hit a man (figuratively many languages, David McKnight said he ’s description of it (in speaking), he “liked to hear him squeal.” couldn’t think of one. Lea’s thirst for knowl- the November 5, 2007, issue of The New He could be stodgy, at least where the edge played havoc with his health, but he Republic) as “a strange amalgam of future of Philadelphia was concerned. recovered and juggled his days and hours Monty Python and Mein Kampf.” Lea opposed both the location of the pres- and minutes, and somehow managed to In one passage, The Hammer authors ent city hall and the building of what is be all things to all people while writing betray their root prejudice: “Let us con- now the Parkway. path-breaking history until almost the last sider [woman’s] gait, posture, and habit, in This backward-looking perspective prob- day of his life. Still intact as a collection which is vanity of vanities. There is no man ably reflected Lea’s nostalgia for his and an ambience, his library stands as an in the world who studies so hard to please childhood, when Philadelphia, in enduring tribute to its maker’s intellect the good God as even an ordinary woman Bradley’s words, “still maintained some and industry. ◆ studies by her vanities to please man.” of the aspects of the quiet Quaker village, Dennis Drabelle G’66 L’69 is an editor of The Among several possible paths of inquiry, with its red brick, and walled gardens, Washington Post Book World. His most recent I took one pertaining to women who for- its green, leafy open spaces.” book is The Great American Railroad War.

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