Modus notandi: Sir Charles Cavendish’s notes on Thomas Hobbes and Walter Warner

Abstract This paper seeks to make a contribution to the history of early modern note-taking by examining the note-taking practices of Sir Charles Cavendish (1591–1653). Rather than viewing the notes as records and memoranda for strictly personal use, Cavendish’s notes are seen as a repository of information which he shared with other scholars. Note-taking and the recording of “quaeres” are shown to be socially extensive, involving exchanges via correspondence or in-person encounters, and sometimes involved more than two people. A close examination of manuscript notes on Walter Warner’s theories concerning the circulation of the blood and notes on Thomas Hobbes’s draft of De corpore reveal that Cavendish often gathered extracts from different sources on the same topic on the same manuscript page and was actively engaged in questioning the sources he was perusing and engaging others in those questions.