Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, note of case hearing on 4 September 2013 A Traictise declaring and plainly prouyng, that the pretensed marriage of Priestes… is no mariage (Case 6, 2013-14)

Application

1. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) met on 4 September to consider an application to export a printed book with annotations and manuscript additions, A Traictise declaring and plainly prouyng, that the pretensed marriage of Priestes… is no marriage. The value shown on the export licence application was £116,500 which represented the hammer price at auction plus buyer’s premium. The expert adviser had objected to the export of the book under the third Waverley criterion on the grounds that it was of outstanding significance for the study of the history of the and for the study of the history of the book.

2. Seven of the eight regular RCEWA members present were joined by three independent assessors, acting as temporary members of the Reviewing Committee.

3. The applicant confirmed that the value did not include VAT and that VAT would not be payable in the event of a UK sale. The applicant also confirmed that the owner understood the circumstances under which an export licence might be refused and that, if the decision on the licence was deferred, the owner would allow the book to be displayed for fundraising.

Expert’s submission

4. The expert adviser had provided a written submission stating that the printed copy of and Thomas Martin, A Traictise declaryng and plainly prouyng, that the pretensed marriage of Priestes… is no mariage (London, 1554), was extensively annotated in the hand of John Ponet, (c.1514-1556), and contained on interleaved pages a substantial manuscript work by Ponet, comprising draft passages and working notes for his book-length reply to this treatise.

5. Quarto (195 x approx. 140mm), on paper, re-bound in a mid-nineteenth century morocco binding, the printed book consisted of 288 pages, many of which had been heavily annotated. Significantly, it had been interleaved with approximately the same number of blank pages, most of which bore manuscript notes by Ponet (140 full pages). Both printed book and manuscript were in good condition.

6. The expert told us that the provenance of this volume was obscure, presumably it was in Ponet’s library in Strasbourg at the time of his death and it may have been among the books acquired by Sir from Ponet’s widow. It was presumed to have been in the collection formed by Joseph Mendham (1769-1856) and presented in 1869 to the library of the Law Society. It was loaned by the Law Society to Canterbury Cathedral Library from 1985 until 2012, when it was withdrawn for sale. (The manuscript component of this volume was entirely overlooked by the published catalogue of the Mendham collection (1994). It has remained unknown to scholars of reformation history and to biographers of its author).

7. The issue of clerical marriage was one of the touchstone controversies of the Reformation, beginning with Luther himself. John Ponet was a major contributor to the debate in England, publishing his first tract in defence of clerical marriage in 1549, the same year in which it was made legal by Act of Parliament. The manuscript under discussion sheds light on the next stage of the debate, and reveals in detail how Ponet (in exile) worked up his rejoinder to the attack on his views which had been mounted in print by Stephen Gardiner and Thomas Martin (although published under the name of lawyer and polemical writer Martin the text is usually attributed to Gardiner). In response, Ponet’s tone is confrontational, personal and frequently indignant. The manuscript annotations are a discontinuous mixture of working notes and rough drafts, revisited over a period of time; they combine relentlessly systematic logical argument with rhetorical point-scoring. The expert’s own brief comparison of Ponet’s manuscripts with the published version of his reply suggest that the manuscript represents an early stage in the formation of his argument as many passages were significantly changed at a later date or not published at all .Evidence of this sort was extremely rare and of great significance for scholars interested in authorial processes and the adversarial culture of publication in sixteenth-century England.

8. Finally, this manuscript bore witness to the critical period in the mid-1550s when the fate of the English Reformation hung in the balance, as Queen Mary restored the doctrine and personnel of the Catholic Church. One such doctrine was clerical celibacy and one such person was Stephen Gardiner, who had been ejected as Bishop of Winchester, replaced by Ponet, and then reinstated. In the pages of this volume, two Bishops of Winchester, each having previously dispossessed the other, are seen locked in controversy.

Applicant’s submission

9. The applicant had stated in a written submission that they did not believe the book meet the second Waverley criterion as it was of limited aesthetic interest. They did not dispute that the book had a connection to national history in particular; the English Reformation under Edward VI, and that it was of some significance for a particular branch of learning or history. However, while being a rare and interesting survival the applicant was not convinced that the book was of sufficiently outstanding significance to meet the first and third Waverley criteria.

10. When questioned the applicant stated that the published catalogue of the Mendham collection was a strict bibliographical listing and was not designed to indicate copy-specific details such as manuscript annotations and would not have been required to provide any detailed information regarding the text or manuscript annotations.

Discussion by the Committee

11. The expert adviser and applicant retired and the Committee discussed the case. There was some discussion of the importance of John Ponet and he was felt not to be a figure of such great historical significance to the English Reformation such as Thomas Crammer or Sir Thomas More, although he was bishop of a major diocese. However, it was agreed that the book under consideration - a combination of printed text and corresponding manuscript annotations - was an extremely rare survival and its value chiefly lay in its ability to demonstrate the extraordinary revelation of thought in progress. The disparity of John Ponet’s annotations and the later published text made it of even greater interest to scholarship.

Waverley Criteria

12. The Committee voted on whether the book met the Waverley criteria. No members voted that it met the first or second Waverley criteria. All ten members voted that it met the third Waverley criterion. The book was therefore found to meet the third Waverley criterion i.e. on the grounds that it was of outstanding significance for the study the history of the English Reformation and the adversarial culture of publication in sixteenth-century Europe.

Matching offer

13. The Committee recommended the sum of £116,500 as a fair matching price.

Deferral period

14. The Committee agreed to recommend to the Secretary of State that the decision on the export licence should be deferred for an initial period of two months. If, within that period, Arts Council England received notification of a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the book, the Committee recommended that there should be a further deferral period of three months.

Communication of findings

15. The expert adviser and the applicant returned. The Chairman notified them of the Committee’s decision on its recommendations to the Secretary of State. The applicant confirmed that the owner would accept a matching offer at the price recommended by the Committee if the decision on the licence was deferred by the Secretary of State.

16. The Expert Adviser agreed to act as Champion for the book if the decision on the licence was deferred by the Secretary of State.