The Henson Journals

[15]

Friday, October 12th, 1923.

The Liber Vitae of the church of Durham is a composite document, of which the nucleus is the list of some 3,150 names classified according to their bearers' rank in the world and in the Church composed in the ninth century at Lindisfarne. This MS., the penmanship of which is enhanced in beauty by the arrangement of the names in letters alternately of gold & silver, was probably brought to Durham at the end of the following century, when the body of St Cuthbert found its final resting–place there….In our Liber Vitae no distinction is expressed between the living and the dead…It lay upon the altar, in the sight of the congregation & ready to the celebrant's hands. Although the long & ever growing list of names which it contained wd not be read publicly, & it was probably seldom opened save for the purpose of inscribing additions, it was a silent reminder to the priest & to the assembled convent of the living & departed, whose prayers were joined with their own. & of the duty of remembering collectively those whose names were written in its pages…

Liber Vitae, Surtees Society, CXXXVI, Intro.

[16]

I frittered away the whole morning in writing letters, including one mean, indispensable opinion refusing to exert myself for the relief of the necessitous German pastors and their families. The Rev. R. H. Tillard, the curate of S. Columba, Southwick, came to lunch. He has accepted an invitation from the Bishop of Nassau to go out for three years to his diocese, & he would like to remain on the list of the Durham clergy. I said that if he did not prolong his absence from the diocese beyond the 3 years of his agreement, I should be glad to receive him back again: but if he continued longer abroad I could make no promise.

Mrs Gow & Mrs Hodgson Fowler came to lunch.

The former told me that her uncle, the late Canon Farrar of Durham, used privately to give away to poor students whatever money he received in fees. She said that he left particular instructions that all his papers wd be destroyed, & that these instructions were faithfully obeyed.

Ella's cousin, Christina Smith and Miss Rait the governess, came here on a visit. I was as civil as the circumstances permitted!

I sent John the Bride of Lammermoor, as he had no book to read, & had read none of Sir Walter's. He has reached the 7th Standard in his school, and ought to be equal to the Waverley novels: but this is a feeble generation.

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