When English professor Jane Toswell‘s father arrived at Western in the late 1940s on a hockey scholarship, he found two things he loved: tables laden with as much milk as a young man from northern Ontario could want, and a defenseman position that kept him skating backwards into pucks, sticks and elbows.
After a year of taking hits, he made a practical decision. Toswell once asked her dad, “why did you give up the scholarship?” Her father replied: “Jane, I wanted to have some teeth.”
Decades later, that memory would guide Toswell to an extraordinary find – a 15th century Dominican Book of Hours containing prayers to Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of dentists and those suffering from toothache.
“A manuscript with prayers to Saint Apollonia just kind of spoke to me,” said Toswell, program director of medieval studies at Western.
Following her father’s death in 2012, Toswell’s mother decided to make a gift to the university in honour of her husband. She chose Western Libraries rare book fund. As a scholar who has devoted her career to studying medieval manuscripts, particularly early medieval England psalters and texts, Toswell knew she wanted to select a manuscript for the collection.
“I’m a manuscript person. This is what I love,” she said. “But my father was a hockey and football coach who later became a guidance counsellor. These were not obvious paradigms for medieval manuscripts. It took me a while to find the right one.”
The manuscript she ultimately selected, acquired from the dealer who had sold Western its very first manuscripts when the medieval studies program was established, is a remarkably complete 15th century Book of Hours – a personalized prayer book that offers an intimate window into medieval devotional life.
Toswell’s gift marks an important milestone as the first donation to Western Libraries’ newly established rare books fund, which enables supporters to contribute funds directly toward acquiring rare materials that support teaching and research across disciplines.
A resource across disciplines
The Book of Hours exemplifies the scholarly value of these acquisitions. While it serves as a cornerstone resource for medieval studies, it also supports teaching and research in classics, history, English, French and related fields as part of Western’s active medieval manuscript collection.
“I love seeing books that really represent not the highest end or the rarest aspects, but really the most common usage of a manuscript,” Toswell said, examining the beautifully justified script and alternating red and blue initials at its unboxing with graduate student James Kenneth.
“Most everyday books would have been more like this – something a Dominican friar might have carried with them, used for daily prayer, small and light enough to fit in a saddle holster.”
The manuscript features a complete calendar with saints’ feast days marked in red and black (the origin of our phrase “red letter day”), prayers in both Latin and German and meticulous hand-drawn initials that reveal the careful planning behind its creation.
Despite being nearly 600 years old, it’s missing only one page – an astonishing level of preservation. Working with primary sources like this manuscript allows students to engage directly with history.
“You can see the process,” Toswell said, pointing to a correction where a medieval scribe crossed out an error and added the proper word in the margin. “It’s almost like you’re sitting there with that scribe. We all make mistakes when we’re writing – this gives you a glimpse into their world.”
For Toswell, the gift brings together her father’s Western story, her mother’s generosity and her own devotion to medieval manuscripts. In selecting a Book of Hours with prayers to Saint Apollonia, she found the perfect way to honour a young defenseman who once chose to keep his teeth – and stayed connected to Western for the rest of his life
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