The Conservation of Archbishop Swayne’s Register
Following conservation, the Register of Archbishop John Swayne has now been digitized and is available alongside D.A. Chart’s calendar of the register in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.
Over the last six hundred years, the Registers of the Archbishops of Armagh have been disintegrating because they were damaged by mould, eaten by insects and worn by hands leafing through their fragile paper and parchment pages. Their accessibility was restricted to prevent the medieval words they contain from crumbling along with the paper on which they were written. Following conservation, the Register of Archbishop John Swayne (PRONI DIO/4/2/3) has now been digitized and is available alongside D.A. Chart’s calendar of the register in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.
Swayne’s register is a rare composite of medieval documents in Latin, French and Medieval English. They give a unique insight, not only into Swayne’s administrative and ecclesiastical authority as Primate of Ireland which extended into both English and Gaelic lands but the everyday lives of the people around him, through landholding, financial and legal records. This manuscript also includes Swayne’s personal register before he was appointed Archbishop and includes records from his attendance of the Council of Constance. This international assembly resolved the papal schism with the election of Pope Martin V as the sole legitimate pope ending the long-running ecclesiastical and political divide. The contents of the register, therefore reflect both the heart of European politics at the Papal Curia and the dynamics of power brokering as the senior ecclesiastic on the edge of Christendom.
Over the last year, the Register of Archbishop John Swayne has received conservation work at PRONI, funded by the VRTI. Structurally fascinating, this register started off as four books in loose sections of paper, produced in papermills across Europe.
It was then bound with calf and pasteboards in the early 17th century which still survives. As part of this historic binding, the centrefolds of the bifolios were repaired so that sections could be sewn together and spine could move. Little attention however, was given to the text block more widely which was still at risk of crumbling. D. A. Chart, when producing his calendar (also available in the VRTI) noted the register was ‘frail and requires very delicate handling … where text has now become defective or illegible.’1 With the historic repairs failing too, it was important to stabilise the register before digitisation and inclusion in the VRTI.
The conservation treatment carefully disbound the register so the paper folios, could be gently washed and consolidated with a weak gelatine solution (a traditional size in the paper making process) to strengthen the friable paper fibers. As the mould damage probably occurred in the 16th century, there were large areas of folios which are now, unfortunately, already lost. These losses were infilled with kozo paper and wheat starch paste. Tracings were taken of the bifolios before treatment so the paper folios could be precisely re-aligned when folded back into sections for binding.
When the binding was deconstructed, careful record had been taken of the section structure, sewing supports, boards and detritus which had fallen into the gutter of the pages and can be seen in the image gallery. Where possible, these original elements of the 17th century binding were reused. The sewing supports were replicated with leather and alum tawed skin supports but they were laced into the original boards. These were first covered in new calf leather with the 17th century calf adhered on top.
Swayne’s Register is now available to researchers and the public to leaf through online or access in the PRONI Reading Room, providing unprecedented access to the rich source of medieval documents contained within.
Book 3, folio 154v before treatment, after consolidating the folio, rebound in the register and the digitized image for the VRTI.
Book 2, folio 1v and 2r before treatment, rebound in the register and the digitized image for the VRTI.
Book 3, folio 140v and 141r before treatment, rebound in the register and the digitized image for the VRTI.
Resewing the consolidated sections onto leather sewing supports wrapped in alum tawed skin, replicating the 17th binding.
Image showing the archival hierarchy of the Register of Primate John Swayne, Archbishop of Armagh
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