Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 2, 2007|Volume 35, Number 20

One of the Law Library's oldest and largest printed books, this copy of the "Decretum" was printed in 1471 (16 years after the Gutenberg Bible). The "Decretum" is considered one of the most important books about canon law.

Reaching into the Past:
Rare Books at Yale Law School

This issue of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar marks the debut of "Encore," an occasional feature showcasing articles that have been printed in other University publications.

This article originally appeared in the spring 2007 issue of Yale Law Report, the Law School's alumni magazine. An online version of the Yale Law Report can be found at www.law.yale.edu/YLR.

Much has been made of the magical properties and immortality of a good book. In the 14th century, Chaucer espoused that from old books comes new science. In the 1800s Thomas Carlyle wrote "All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books." Marcel Proust, writing in the early 20th century, likened books to angels keeping watch with outspread wings. And then, in 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said this: "Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die."

The librarians at the Lillian Goldman Law Library certainly show an enthusiasm for their paper and ink charges that rivals these poetic musings. But their approach to the Law School's rare book collection also contains an element of measured practicality. "You can't get too distracted by how beautiful books are," says Rare Books Librarian Mike Widener. "They are beautiful, but we're not interested in building a trophy case. These books are tools, and they're here for people to use."

Today the Lillian Goldman Law Library boasts a rare book collection that is among the best in the world. Much of the collection was acquired in the early 20th century by Law School librarians whom Widener calls "visionary." Thanks to that collecting foresight, and to financial and in-kind donations, the collection numbers roughly 22,000 volumes, with some manuscripts dating back as early as the 11th century. In addition to a strong collection of early Anglo-American court reports, digests, statutes, monographs and trials, the library has early books from most European countries and strong holdings in international law. And then there is the Blackstone collection, which is the foremost collection of books by and about Sir William Blackstone, the 18th-century English jurist whose "Commentaries on the Laws of England" served as a reference for the framers of the United States Constitution.

Matching the breadth and depth of its rare book collection are the Law Library's resources for housing, preserving and providing access to its rare books. That, though, was not always the case.

"In the past, this library -- even though it was central to the institution -- wasn't very secure," says Law Librarian Blair Kauffman. "A lot of extremely valuable books
sat on open shelves, and some of them did disappear."

The library lacked the temperature and humidity control so important to the preservation of books until librarian Morris Cohen (now professor emeritus of law and professiorial lecturer in law) arrived at the Law School in 1981. Under Cohen's leadership, the library gained specially designed stacks and a rare book cataloguer devoted to organizing the collection. In the late 1990s, the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room was added as a permanent home for the growing collection.

Lying below the stained glass windows and iron filigrees of the library's main reading room are the newest additions to the rare book collection -- 1,641 Roman and canon law books recently acquired from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

The French Penal Code is humorously illustrated by Joseph Hémard in this 1920s Paris edition, part of the Yale Law Library collection. Only two copies of this book exist in American libraries today.

Giant vellum-bound volumes line the metal bookcases, many of them with ridged spines, some of them with soft, finger-worn covers. The volumes include medieval and Renaissance commentaries, teaching texts, early court decisions, and much of the 19th-century scholarship written by German legal historians. The oldest of the books dates to 1500 A.D., with many of the books originally belonging to German or Austrian law libraries. A quick scan of the shelves shows spines marked with titles such as "Deficiones Rot: Roman Pamphilio" and "Thesaurus -- Juris Roma." A 30-volume set of the decisions of the Roman Rota sits in close proximity to a book on Roman water law, which illustrates the hydrodynamics of rivers and streams.

As one of the greatest legal research institutions in the world, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York once collected materials from across the world, amassing an extensive collection of materials on Roman and canon law. By the end of the 20th century though, the Bar's library had become a practitioners' library and no longer focused on its rare book collection.

Kauffman was appointed to the Association of the Bar's advisory board in the 1990s and saw that the Bar's rare book collection was being stored in what he calls "less than optimal conditions." The books were not catalogued, and temperature and humidity control were relatively non-existent. Kauffman began a conversation with the Bar, offering to house the books in the Law School's library while preserving access for all Bar members.

"Books are never as powerful individually as they are as a collection. They have synergy; they work as a collection. We wanted to help ensure that they remain together," Kauffman says.

In late summer 2006, following a full six years of talks about a possible transfer, the books were packed by experts in rare book transport and moved directly to Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. There they were placed in a special freezer and stored at 70 degrees Fahrenheit for four days in order to kill any insects. (A look inside a few of the larger volumes shows evidence of worm holes -- perfectly circular, tiny tunnels cutting from cover to cover in some places.)

Over the next year, the books will be catalogued, and then made available to researchers. "We really want to make it possible for people to access the collection," says Kauffman. "Ensuring access is paramount for future generations of researchers and for the intellectual life of the school."

In addition to being used by individual researchers, volumes from the rare book collection sometimes make their way into course curricula. John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, is among the most frequent patrons of the rare book collection, and encourages his students to use the collection as well.

In the middle of the fall term, Langbein's History of The Common Law class used three of the rare book collection's legal "Year Books" during a lesson on chancery law. Year Books (which began in the reign of Edward I and were kept through the reign of Henry VIII) record the arguments of attorneys and judges for cases in the royal courts at Westminster. Having used modern English translations of Year Book cases, Langbein's class had a chance to examine early books with accounts of those same cases. The oldest of the books was a medieval manuscript -- a Year Book of cases dating from the reign of Edward III and Henry IV. The class also examined an early printed version from the 16th century and a compilation of Year Book cases dating to 1679.

Now, in the age of digitized books, many primary sources can be found with the click of a mouse. But seeing historical documents on a computer screen can be a very different experience from handling them. The very feel of a book -- its size, its heft, the three-dimensional nature of the lettering -- can make a difference in how one reads its pages.

"To see how doctors worked 200 or 300 years ago, you can look at the instruments they used," Widener says. "With lawyers, what do you have to examine? You have the one thing they came in contact with. You have their books. The books they used, the books they wrote in, the books they read until the bindings fell apart. A book is the one place a law student can come in contact with lawyers of the past."

Second-year student Gustav Eyler has recently been spending time in the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room in hopes of just that type of contact with history. Eyler is writing a paper on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 for Reading the Constitution, a course taught by Akhil Amar, the Southmayd Professor of Law. Eyler's research involves the question of why southern states agreed to abolish slavery in the Northwest Territory -- a question that Eyler believes has not been adequately answered by historians.

Among the sources that Eyler has found most helpful is a historical account of the Northwest Ordinance written on the 50th anniversary of its passage.

"There is something exciting and truly interesting," Eyler says, "in being able to review the primary source -- to see and hold a document and make your own interpretation."

-- By Kaitlin Thomas
Associate Editor, Yale Law Report

Curiae & Avalon

In addition to serving as a home for rare books, the Law School hosts two projects devoted to digitizing historic documents.

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School (www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm) creates and hosts digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government. Created by William Fray, deputy director of information technology services and manager of network services at the Law School, Avalon's postings span from a document on agrarian law written in 111 B.C. to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Researchers interested in U.S. Supreme Court documents can visit the Law Library's Curiae Project website (http://curiae.law.yale.edu/). Curiae's homepage features direct links to information about the most commonly cited Supreme Court cases, while its advanced search features allow researchers free access to Supreme Court records and briefs.

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