Tag Archives: medieval expert

St Valentine’s – a minor day in a medieval calendar packed with festivals

The feast of St Valentine has been associated with love since the Middle Ages. Back then Valentine was one of many saints honoured in the Christian calendar alongside major religious festivals, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

The martyrdom of St Valentine in British Library Royal MS 2 B VII, f. 243.

In medieval times people lived their lives according to the liturgical – or ceremonial – year. But many festivals on the religious calendar also tracked seasonal changes, marking the darkest and lightest times of year, times of planting, harvesting or using up stored food, or signalling the need for people to tighten their belts in periods of traditional shortage.

Little is known about the St Valentine who was martyred on February 14. There are several Valentines in the Catholic martyrology so it’s unclear whether he’s the same saint mentioned by John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, the first English poets to associate the feast of St Valentine with the mating impulses of birds – which were thought to begin looking for their mates on February 14 (this may have been associated with the sounds of the first songbirds after winter).

But what we do know is that Valentine was not one of the more important saints venerated by medieval people – nor was his feast one of the 40 to 50 festa ferianda, or celebratory festivals, which required people to abstain from work in order to fast and attend mass.

Candlemas

Far from being the main event in February, as today’s British high street retailers would have us believe, St Valentine’s Day was vastly overshadowed by Candlemas on February 2 – or to give it its proper name, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – which commemorates when Christ’s mother presented her holy child in the temple 40 days after his birth.

Each parishioner participated in a solemn candlelit procession before hearing mass and offering a penny to the church. How people celebrated the rest of this work-free day is not clear – though records of other religious holidays reveal that singing, dancing, playing games, drinking, watching plays and feasting were standard forms of entertainment, despite being frowned upon by church officials. Secular distractions aside, Candlemas had huge popular appeal because it celebrated spiritual renewal through Christ’s light in the darkness of winter. It heralded the end of the cold season and the candle stubs blessed by the priest were believed to ward off evil and protect the bearer from harm for the rest of the year.

Shrovetide

Another festival that has echoes today was Shrovetide, a carnival period before Lent that ran from Septuagesima Sunday until Shrove Tuesday – or as it is popularly known, Pancake Day (Mardi Gras). Shrovetide was similarly well-liked because it provided the opportunity to make merry before the strict rules governing diet, sex and recreation kicked in for the 40 days of Lent, when fasting was obligatory and marriages forbidden.

Second only to the festivities witnessed throughout the 12 days of Christmas, when excessive feasting, music, dancing, and games were the order of the day, Shrovetide, was a time for ordinary people to indulge in food, drink and raucous entertainments, watch plays, and play the popular – but dangerous – game of football.

Shrovetide also had a practical function. It legitimised the consumption of the last of the food stored over winter before it turned bad, allowing people to prepare mentally and physically for Lent at a time when there was traditionally a shortage of food. The carnival atmosphere also offered a release from the frustrations of winter. Taking its name from the act of shriving – or confessing – sins, Shrovetide captures the very essence of how the medieval calendar absorbed, governed and brought meaning to everyday life.

To everything a season

Of course, there were many other holy days, or holidays, providing occasions for celebration. Christmas, Easter and Pentecost (which celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples after Christ’s ascension) were the principal religious periods – balancing penitential fasting and solemnity with time away from work, merriment and gift giving. And the outdoor revels of early May and summer also played an important role in people’s lives, giving rise to secular rituals such as “Maying” (gathering blossoms and dancing around the Maypole, etc), mummings and various forms of secular and religious plays. Events such as these took full advantage of the spring and summer months, with warmer days providing ample opportunity for large numbers of people to gather together outside and celebrate the natural seasons of rebirth and growth.

The complex seasonal rhythms of the liturgical year remained consistent in England right up until the Reformation, when the observance of saints’ days was abolished and events in the temporal cycle were modified. That some of the Catholic feasts, such as Valentine’s Day, Shrove Tuesday and Halloween (All Hallows Eve) survived the Reformation to remain in our cultural calendar today, is undoubtedly due to the rituals and traditions that secular folk attached to them, an issue that brings us full circle to St Valentine.

Be my Valentine

By the end of the Middle Ages, the meaning of Valentine’s Day had expanded to incorporate human lovers expressing their feelings in hope of attracting or reaffirming a mate. In February 1477, one would-be lover, Margery Brews, sent the oldest-known “Valentine” in the English language to John Paston, referring to him as her “right welbelouyd Voluntyn”. At the time Brews’s parents were negotiating her marriage to Paston, a member of the Norfolk gentry, but he was not satisfied with the size of the dowry offered by her father.

The earliest English Valentine from Margery Brews to John Paston. British Library.

The couple married shortly after, so Margery’s heartfelt letters clearly appealed to her beloved. While we have to wait until the Tudor period to witness the now familiar concept of bestowing material gifts on one’s Valentine, it is Margery’s Valentine that best captures the essence of how the saint’s day transformed from being a lesser-known feast on the medieval liturgical calendar to one of the most important days of the year for hopeful and hopeless romantics, regardless of religion.

Further Links:
A reading of Margery’s letter in Middle English is available on this page.
An earlier blog post on medieval Valentines is available here.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Fantastic Medieval Beasts and Where to Find Them

Last week I was asked to write about my Five Favourite Medieval Hybrids for BBC Radio 3. I’ve been pondering the enduring appeal of mythical beings since I started work on a cultural history of the mermaid, but this feature, and the release of the next instalment of the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, has got me thinking once again about the powerful place fabulous creatures hold in our imagination and how that maps onto the physical places they are meant to inhabit.

Alexander the Great carried by Griffins in London, British Library Royal MS 20 B xx, f. 76v

Hybrid beings like merfolk, centaurs, and sphinxes, reside in a twilight realm. They have a foothold in two worlds – human and animal – yet belong to neither. They often have sentience and speech, yet visually they epitomise chaos, a convergence of opposites, an impossible binding together of body parts that shouldn’t co-exist.

In the Middle Ages, hybrid creatures were frequently used to explain our existence and teach Christians how to live good (or bad) lives. Inherited from the Classical tradition, the sirens and their enchanting song, for example, became an emblem of the devil, ever ready to lure sinners to their destruction with the sweetness of worldly pleasures. The mermaid, on the other hand, might encapsulate vanity. Commonly depicted with a mirror and comb, the accoutrements of pride, she would often appear in manuscripts and churches as a warning against sin. Yet her hybrid body could also be used to represent positive dualities, as the fourteenth-century religious plays known as the Cornish Ordinalia show. Here the mermaid is employed to explain the concept of Christ’s dual nature (part-man, part-god).

Sirens planning an attack on sleeping sailors in ‘The Queen Mary Psalter’, British Library MS Royal 2 B VII, f. 96v

While the bodies of these fantastic creatures could be used to ponder or explain what it meant to live in a fallen world, where corporeal forms could deceive or influence those who gazed upon them, the landscapes inhabited by liminal creatures such as the mermaid, the werewolf, or the centaur, were equally useful for reflecting on the dichotomies of our existence. Typified by duality, the mermaid’s element – the sea and watery regions of the land – could nurture mankind by providing food and connecting cultures, or it could destroy life and civilisation. It was fierce and impenetrable, it was temperamental and unpredictable. It could give and it could take away.

In religious literature and art, the sea often figures as a transitional space: a place of change and transformation for those adrift upon it. Once an individual embarks on a sea voyage, planned or otherwise, they are never the same. A good example is the Middle English poem Patience, which tells the story of Jonah, who must patiently suffer the trails God sends. Another is the breathtaking Anglo-Saxon poem known as “The Seafarer“, which uses the vastness of the winter sea to focus on the isolation of the individual. Even the story of the first founding of Britain, which prefaces the Middle English Prose Brut, begins with a sea voyage. After murdering their husbands to gain independence, 33 Syrian princess are cast adrift on the ocean, only to wash up on the shores of ancient Britain and found a race of giants by copulating with spirits of the air.

The wilderness or dark forests of Western Europe, were equally dangerous environments for medieval folk. Unsafe, uncharted, and unknown, the medieval imagination populated them with sharp-toothed beasts like werewolves, inscrutable fairies, or wildmen known as wodwoses. The creatures in these spaces are always used to test the humans that venture into them and challenge their way of life. The knights of Arthurian romance, like Sir Gawain, are repeatedly confronted with such trials, as is the eponymous hero of the Middle English poem, Sir Orfeo.

A knight killing a wodwose in London, British Library Royal MS 10 E iv, f. 74v

In thinking about how fantastic creatures and their environments work together to isolate humans and take them beyond the known, the mappable, and the ‘safe’, the literature and art of the Middle Ages can offer us new insights into the medieval mind and how it tried to make sense of the world. In the same way, our own enduring fascination with mythical creatures, such as dragons, unicorns, and griffins, allows us to exercise the power of our own imaginations and ponder what a world filled with fabulous, and often uncontrollable, beasts might mean for the human condition.

The quest to find fantastic creatures in the wild and secret places they inhabit is also the search for ourselves.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

Five Fantastic Medieval Beasts and Where to Find Them (BBC Radio 3 website)

The Beauty of the Bestiaries (also featured on Being Human Festival Blog)

London's Bloody Tower plays host to Game of Thrones Season Five

The star-studded world premiere of Game of Thrones’s fifth season has taken place – in the UK, at the Tower of London. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting venue for a show based on George R. R. Martin’s notoriously brutal novels.

Like the fictional Red Keep built by Aegon the Conqueror at Kings Landing after his War of Conquest, William the Conqueror founded London’s iconic fortress to subdue the locals after the Norman Conquest and reinforce his dominance as the new monarch. And 900 years on, the Tower has become synonymous with political intrigue, imprisonment, torture and death – a reputation that stems largely from the late 15th and 16th centuries, when several kings, queens and martyrs were imprisoned, murdered or executed within and around its walls.

During the Wars of the Roses, the medieval conflict that inspired Game of Thrones, King Henry VI was confined in the Tower twice by his dynastic rival, Edward IV. Not unlike Aerys II, the “mad” Targaryen king, who incites Robert Baratheon’s rebellion in the back story to the series, Henry VI’s ineffectual leadership and madness triggered the historic civil war.

A prisoner for more than five years, Henry was murdered at the Tower following the death of his only son and heir at the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471). His execution, like the slaughter of mad king Aerys and his immediate heirs, was followed by a period of relative peace. But when Edward IV died in 1483, political wrangling resumed and the Tower once again provided the backdrop for the next stage of the conflict: the controversial disappearance of Edward’s sons, the “Princes in the Tower”.

Sons and queens

The slaughter or disappearance of young heirs and bastards is also a disturbing and recurring motif in Game of Thrones, resonating with the medieval and Tudor obsession with bloodlines and succession.

Jamie Lannister throws young Bran Stark from a tower at Winterfell to prevent his incestuous affair with Cersei and their illegitimate children being discovered. Theon Greyjoy fakes the murder of Bran and Rickon Stark to secure Winterfell by butchering two proxies. Joffrey orders the Gold Cloaks to massacre Robert Baratheon’s bastards. Rickard Karstark kills Tywin Lannister’s nephews. Craster sacrifices his newborn sons to the White Walkers. All are innocent children, and all fall victim to the morally ambiguous “game” being played by the leading Houses of Westeros.

The prime responsibility of the noblewomen, such as Cersei Lannister, Margery Tyrell and Sansa Stark, is to provide the next generation of kings. They are therefore also at the heart of the political machinations. And here, too, the series draws inspiration from the real medieval and Tudor women associated with the Tower.

In his pursuit of a male heir, Henry VIII famously had his politically sharp consort, Anne Boleyn, imprisoned and executed at the Tower on charges of treason, adultery and incest (the same crimes embraced by Cersei Lannister). This example will be particularly fresh for those who watched the BBC’s Wolf Hall.

Queen of the Roses

Henry VI’s widow, Margaret of Anjou, was likewise incarcerated in the Tower after a decade-long struggle to secure the crown for her son, Prince Edward. A formidable and proud French woman, who married for political purposes, Margaret was unafraid of engaging with the factionalism of her husband’s all-male council. She fought fiercely, if not always astutely, when her son’s birthright came under attack, and made strategic alliances wherever she could – most notably by marrying Prince Edward to the daughter of her former enemy, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, better known as the “Kingmaker”.

Captured after leading the Lancastrian army against Edward IV at the aforementioned Battle of Tewkesbury, where her son was killed, Margaret avoided her husband’s grim fate and was eventually ransomed, returning to France to live out her days in relative obscurity.

If aspects of Margaret’s story sound familiar it’s because she is one of several resilient historical women who inspired the characterisation of Cersei Lannister. While Cersei’s future is uncertain, we’ve seen her fight to influence and fortify Joffrey’s sovereignty and this season promises to follow her struggle with Margery Tyrell for control of King Tommen, her second son.

Ravens and crows

It’s impossible to avoid a final comparison between the Night’s Watch, or “Crows”, who swear to be “the shield that guards the realms of men” at the Wall, and that other species of the crow genus – the raven – which said to protect the kingdom by its presence at the Tower. According to tradition, if the ravens ever leave, the Tower and the realm will fall.

By the same token, one can’t help wondering what will happen to the Seven Kingdoms if the crows defending the northern frontier are slain, or forced to flee, by the White Walkers. In future seasons, Bran and the mysterious three-eyed raven doubtless have an equally important role to play in the defence of the kingdom.

But for the time being, the imminent series of Games of Thrones will continue to delight and terrify its audience with the same bouts of intrigue, scandal and brutality that have contributed to the Tower’s notorious reputation and popularity.

If winter is coming, then so is more bloodshed, for, as Tower prisoner and martyr Sir Thomas More once said in his account of Richard III’s acquisition of the crown, “king’s games” are “for the more part played upon scaffolds”.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

London’s Bloody Tower plays host to Game of Thrones Season Five

Sons and queens

Queen of the Roses

Ravens and crows

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Medieval Maps of Scotland

Today Scotland votes on whether it should become an independent nation or remain part of the United Kingdom.

The issue of Scottish independence is an old one, dating back to the Middle Ages when various English kings attempted to claim dominion over the land through military and diplomatic campaigns. A Scottish succession crisis in the thirteenth century led to The Wars of Independence, which continued into the late fourteenth-century and were swiftly followed by the Anglo-Scottish Wars. The latter continued, on and off, until 1603 when Scotland and England became united under a single (Scottish!) monarch, James VI of Scotland, also known as James I of England.

Capture of Wark Castle in British Library Royal 18 E i.

For me, one of the most powerful representations of the historical conflict is the first map to focus solely on Scotland. It was produced during the Anglo-Scottish Wars of the fifteenth century by an English soldier called John Hardyng, who was sent to Scotland as a spy by Henry V. Hardyng’s mission was to obtain documentary evidence of English hegemony and map the country, finding the best routes for an invading army.

For three and a half years Hardyng gathered intelligence for his king, creating detailed maps, plans and documents to support England’s supremacy. Though Henry V never lived to use them, Hardyng later incorporated the materials into his Chronicle of British history and presented them to Henry VI and Edward IV. The map surviving in the earliest copy of Hardyng’s Chronicle, British Library MS Lansdowne 204 (which we can date to 1457), has the accolade of being the earliest independent map of Scotland.

Hardyng’s Map of Scotland in British Library MS Lansdowne 204 (orientated with west at the top).

Though it’s compellingly accurate for an early cartographical representation of the realm, and is clearly informed by sound knowledge of Scottish topography, its function is largely symbolic. Accompanied by a detailed itinerary that outlines Hardyng’s invasion plan and offers information on distances and geographical points of interest, the map depicts Scotland as an attractive country, packed with impressive castles, religious houses and walled towns. Its purpose is to show Scotland as a prosperous realm that the English king would benefit from ruling.

Most interesting is the way in which Scotland is cut off from England. The sea surrounds the country on three sides and two rivers seem to sever Scotland from England near the Anglo-Scottish border (shown on the left of the image) .

Matthew Paris’s map of Britain. British Library Cotton Claudius D vi (f. 12v)

Matthew Paris’s Map of Britain in British Library Royal 14 C vii (f. 5v)

Although Hardyng’s map is the first to chart Scotland by itself, representations of a physically independent Scotland, or one almost detached from England, are common in earlier maps. Matthew Paris’s famous depictions of Britain in British Library MSS Cotton Claudius D vi and Royal 14 C vii show ‘Scocia’ precariously balanced on top of ‘Anglia’, while the image of the British Isles on the stunning Hereford Mappa Mundi shows Scotland floating alongside its neighbour. Another fifteenth-century map in Harley 3686 separates the countries once again.

Britain on the Hereford Mappa Mundi (left).

Britain on the Hereford Mappa Mundi (Scotland separated left).

Britain in British Library Harley 3686 (f. 13).

Even when Scotland is firmly joined to England, as it is below in British Library MS Harley 1808, medieval artists rarely added the kind of detail found south of the border, giving the country an empty or sparsely populated look.

Map of Britain in British Library Harley 1808 (the map is orientated with South at the top).

This is presumably because few medieval people south of the borders had any real contact with, or knowledge of, Scotland to complete the gaps in earlier representations they might have seen. One notable exception is the incredible Gough Map in the Bodleian Library.

The Gough Map, orientated with east at top. Bodleian Library MS Gough Gen. Top. 16.

Even Hardyng’s map, which is to be treasured for the information it contains, depicts the Scottish highlands as terra incognita: wild, unknown territory best avoided by travellers or invading armies. The earliest version of the map shows this space empty apart from vegetation, much like Harley 1808, but later versions fill the extreme north with the image of a large castle representing ‘The Palais of Pluto, king of Hel, neighbore to Scottz’ [The palace of Pluto, king of Hell, neighbour to Scots].

Pluto's Palace of Pride in British Library MS Harley 661, f. 188.

Pluto’s Palace in British Library MS Harley 661, f. 188.

Blending various traditions that associate the devil with the north and Pluto with wealth, this cartographical feature takes us beyond real geography into the realm of anti-Scottish propaganda; Hardyng draws on the animosity that had grown out of centuries of conflict between the two nations to produce a map that speaks to the political and ideological concerns of his own troubled times.

For more on Anglo-Scottish relations in Hardyng’s Chronicle see my article in The Anglo-Scottish Border and the Shaping of Identity, 1300-1600, ed. by Mark P. Bruce and Katherine H. Terrell.

My short BBC film on Hardyng’s Scottish mission and why he incorporated the maps into his chronicle is here.

On His Majesty's Secret Service: Henry V's Spy and Scottish Independence

One of the highlights of being a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker this year has been making a short film with BBC Arts. The film offers a little taste of my work on John Hardyng, a fifteenth-century solider who fought in Henry V’s army during the Hundred Years’ War with France.

Three years after Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt, Hardyng was sent to Scotland to obtain evidence of English sovereignty over the realm, and to map out an invasion route, should the king wish to assert his claim of overlordship. My film explores the connection between Hardyng’s espionage and the Chronicle of British History that he wrote several decades later during the Wars of the Roses.

On His Majesty’s Secret Service: Henry V’s Spy and Scottish Independence

The Appeal of King Arthur Across the Centuries

This is an illustrated transcript of The Appeal of King Arthur, a feature I wrote for BBC Radio 3. Broadcast on 24 June 2013. Downloadable as a BBC podcast here.

King Arthur returns his sword in British Library MS Additional 10294.

Picture the scene. Arthur, legendary king of the Britons, glances pensively across the glassy surface of a deep blue lake. The softest of ripples breaks the brooding silence as a glittering sword cuts the surface, flashes reflected sunlight, and thrusts towards heaven held aloft by a slender arm clad in shimmering samite, signifying that Arthur rules by divine providence. ‘Listen!’ interrupts Dennis, a medieval peasant rising from the dirt to mock Arthur’s investiture of Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake, ‘strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.’

This scene from Monty Python’s award winning Spamalot is part of a musical send up of the Arthurian myth that has appealed to audiences the world over. Its satirical irreverence makes it an odd bedfellow for other Arthuriana in the public imagination like Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur or the BBC’s Merlin, yet each retelling of the myth is testament to its enduring hold across the centuries. What is it that continues to draw us to Arthur’s story and why does it lend itself to such radically different treatments?

Monty Python’s Spamalot

Arthurian fiction has always flourished during periods of social and dynastic collapse. In the twelfth century, the first complete account of Arthur’s reign in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, furnished Britain with a national epic to mitigate a succession crisis. Fast forward eight centuries, to Kennedy’s assassination and we find his presidency idealised as the Camelot era, or, more recently, Merlin, running for five successful series throughout a global recession. In each example Arthur is a touchstone for strong leadership and accord, showing what society could achieve, but never does.

Merlin introduces Galahad to the Round Table. BnF Français 343.

Merlin introduces Galahad to Arthur and the Round Table. BnF MS Français 343, folio 3r.

Beginning of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, British Library Arundel 10, f. 2.

While Geoffrey uses the legend to reimagine British history as a series of seamless dynastic successions attuned to the imperialism of his Norman overlords, Merlin espouses a multicultural Britain, free of class distinctions, where magic, not race or social background, is a focal point for prejudice. Magic becomes a moral barometer reflecting popular anxieties and aspirations. While Morgana uses it for personal gain, Merlin’s magic is socially beneficial, helping characters like Arthur and Guinevere, the servant-come-queen, fulfil their potential for common good. As we sympathise with Merlin’s struggle to reconcile personal and public responsibility, his endless vigil for Arthur’s return parallels our contemporary desire for stability in social and economic adversity.

The BBC’s popular Merlin series

Literature produced during the Wars of the Roses, similarly manifests the concerns of its original fifteenth-century audience. Written when aristocratic factionalism encroached on, and overturned, royal authority, Thomas Malory’s highly influential Morte Darthur depicts the desolation of the Arthurian kingdom as a constitutional crisis reminiscent of the struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York. Remarkably for a medieval romance, it articulates the voice of the lower born men facilitating the noble feud. The silent masses that ordinarily acquiesce to royal power grow weary of war and switch their allegiance to Mordred.

Brother against brother: the Destruction of Arthur's Realm. British Library MS Additional 10294.

Civil War: The Destruction of Arthur’s Realm as depicted in British Library MS Additional 10294.

While Malory leaves us in no doubt that the people are ‘new-fangle’, or inconstant, the text reflects genuine concerns about the role of large groups in maintaining or changing the status quo. Malory’s Arthur prompts its audience to ask persistently relevant questions: where does true power reside, how is it transferred legitimately, and what is the relationship between a leader and his people?

Detail of Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, British Library MS Additional 59678, f. 35r.

Those questions also underpin Dennis the peasant’s rant in Spamalot, as the satirical collision of royal absolutism and proletarian power opens up serious debate about modern systems of governance under the guise of Arthurian parody.

As a narrative of nation and community exploring the human condition, Arthur’s rise and fall is the story of civilisation itself locked in an endless cycle of beginnings and endings. That is why Arthur has and always will be the once and future king.

Arthur stood on top of the names of all the kingdoms subject to his rule. British Library MS Royal 20 Aii.

Edward Burne-Jones’s ‘The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon’, one of many popular Victorian depictions of Arthur .

'Smale Stufe and Goodes': Elizabeth Woodville's Signature and Will

On Friday I posted about contemporary depictions of Elizabeth Woodville. Today, I’d like to share four other documents relating to her.

The first, British Library MS Royal 14 E iii, is a fourteenth-century book of Arthurian Romances. Originally owned by Charles V and VI of France, the book passed to John, duke of Bedford (the first husband of Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg) in the early fifteenth century.

British Library Royal 14 E iii, King Arthur's Court.

British Library Royal 14 E iii, miniature of King Arthur’s Court.

It was later owned by Sir Richard Roos of Gedney and his niece, Eleanor Haute, who inscribed ‘Thys boke ys myne dame Alyanor Haute’ on folio 162. However, it’s another name, ‘E. Wydevyll’, inscribed just above Eleanor’s that makes this manuscript so interesting. It may refer to Elizabeth’s brother, Edward Woodville, but it could equally be a reference to Elizabeth, perhaps even her autograph, from a time before she was queen.

: ‘E. Wydevyll’ and Eleanor Haute’s inscription in British Library MS Royal 14 E iii, fol. 162r.; The first folio of the book also contains the names of two of Elizabeth’s daughters, ‘Elysbathe the kyngys dowter and Cecyl the kyngys dowter’, providing a clearer connection between the book, the royal household, and the queen.

: The names of Elizabeth’s daughters ‘Elysbathe and Cecyl’ in British Library MS Royal 14 E iii, fol. 1.

Another document that leaves us in no doubt what Elizabeth’s royal signature looked like is a letter from the queen to the Bishop of Lincoln dated 1477. A professional scribe copied the actual letter, but ‘Elysabeth’ signs it at the bottom.

Letter from ‘Elysabeth’ to the Bishop of Lincoln, 1477. Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. A. 289, f. 7r.

This autograph is almost identical to the one she signs in 1491, confirming receipt of her annuity from Henry VII.

Elizabeth’s signature from 1491.

The following year, on 10 April 1492, Elizabeth made her will at Bermondsey Abbey, where she was residing. She had nothing of consequence to bequeath to her surviving children, so she left her blessings and instructions for her ‘smale stufe and goodes’ to be used to settle any debts ‘as farre as they will extende’:

‘In Dei nomine, Amen. The xth daie of Aprill, the yere of our Lord Gode MCCCCLXXXXII. I Elisabeth, by the grace of God Quene of England, late wif to the most victoroiuse Prince of blessed memorie, Edward the Fourth, being of hole mynde, seying the worlde so traunsitorie, and no creature certayne whanne they shall departe frome hence, havyng Almyghty Gode fressh in mynde, in whome is all mercy and grace, bequeath my sowle into his handes, beseechyng him, of the same mercy, to accept it graciously, and oure blessed Lady Quene of comforte, and all the holy company of hevyn, to be good meanes for me. Item, I bequeith my body to be buried with the bodie of my Lord at Windessore, according to the will of my saide Lorde and myne, without pompes entreing or costlie expensis donne thereabought. Item, where I have no wordely goodes to do the Quene’s Grace, my derest doughter, a pleaser with, nether to reward any of my children, according to my hart and mynde, I besech Almyghty Gode to blisse here Grace, with all her noble issue, and with as good hart and mynde as is to me possible, I geve her Grace my blessing, and all the forsaide my children. Item, I will that suche smale stufe and goodes that I have be disposed truly in the contentacion of my dettes and for the helth of my sowle, as farre as they will extende. Item, yf any of my bloode wille any of my saide stufe or goodes to me perteyning, I will that they have the prefermente before any other. And of this my present testament I make and ordeyne myne Executores, that is to sey, John Ingilby, Priour of the Chartourhouse of Shene, William Sutton and Thomas Brente, Doctors. And I besech my said derest doughter, the Queue’s grace, and my sone Thomas, Marques Dorsett, to putte there good willes and help for the performans of this my testamente. In witnesse wherof, to this my present testament I have sett my seale, these witnesses, John Abbot of the monastry of Sainte Saviour of Bermondefley, and Benedictus Cun, Doctor of Fysyk. Yeven the day and yere abovesaid’ [from J. Nichols, A Collection of all the Wills, now known to be extant, of the Kings and Queens of England, pp. 350-51].

Elizabeth died on 8 June 1492. Four days later, she was buried beside Edward IV at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

St George’s Chapel, Windsor

‘Smale Stufe and Goodes’: Elizabeth Woodville’s Signature and Will

On Friday I posted about contemporary depictions of Elizabeth Woodville. Today, I’d like to share four other documents relating to her.

British Library Royal 14 E iii, miniature of King Arthur’s Court.

: ‘E. Wydevyll’ and Eleanor Haute’s inscription in British Library MS Royal 14 E iii, fol. 162r.; The first folio of the book also contains the names of two of Elizabeth’s daughters, ‘Elysbathe the kyngys dowter and Cecyl the kyngys dowter’, providing a clearer connection between the book, the royal household, and the queen.

: The names of Elizabeth’s daughters ‘Elysbathe and Cecyl’ in British Library MS Royal 14 E iii, fol. 1.

Letter from ‘Elysabeth’ to the Bishop of Lincoln, 1477. Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. A. 289, f. 7r.

This autograph is almost identical to the one she signs in 1491, confirming receipt of her annuity from Henry VII.

Elizabeth’s signature from 1491.

Elizabeth died on 8 June 1492. Four days later, she was buried beside Edward IV at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

St George’s Chapel, Windsor

Professor Sarah Peverley

Medievalist, Book Historian, Broadcaster. Lost in the Fifteenth Century.

Tag Archives: medieval expert

St Valentine’s – a minor day in a medieval calendar packed with festivals

Candlemas

Shrovetide

To everything a season

Be my Valentine

Fantastic Medieval Beasts and Where to Find Them

London's Bloody Tower plays host to Game of Thrones Season Five

Sons and queens

Queen of the Roses

Ravens and crows

London’s Bloody Tower plays host to Game of Thrones Season Five

Sons and queens

Queen of the Roses

Ravens and crows

Medieval Maps of Scotland

On His Majesty's Secret Service: Henry V's Spy and Scottish Independence

On His Majesty’s Secret Service: Henry V’s Spy and Scottish Independence

The Appeal of King Arthur Across the Centuries

'Smale Stufe and Goodes': Elizabeth Woodville's Signature and Will

‘Smale Stufe and Goodes’: Elizabeth Woodville’s Signature and Will