16 March 2016
Justifying Women Writers: A Medieval Poet Speaks Out
Today we are beginning a series of posts about medieval women. Our first post shines a spotlight on a highly educated, shadowy female poet. Contrary to popular belief, there were quite a number of famous medieval women writers and readers, and the British Library is lucky enough to look after a range of texts made for, written by, and even copied by women writers, from ninth-century Mercian prayer books (such as Harley MS 7653) to the Book of Margery Kempe (Add MS 61823, perhaps the earliest surviving autobiography of an English person) to the works of Christine de Pizan in the lavishly illustrated Book of the Queen (Harley MS 4431) to a collection of Latin, French, and Italian prayers translated and copied by the twelve-year-old future Elizabeth I as a New Year’s present for her father, Henry VIII (Royal MS 7 D X). Elizabeth really went the extra mile when it came to presents: not only did she translate and copy the text herself, she even embroidered the manuscript’s cover with Tudor roses and her father’s and stepmother’s initials.
Embroidered front cover from the ‘Prayerbook of Princess Elizabeth’, England, 1545, Royal MS 7 D X
However, medieval women writers did not always have an easy time, according to a poem written by a medieval woman about women writers in the newly digitised manuscript Add MS 21499, ff. 77v-78r.
Detail of a line with a female pronoun from the poem ‘Laudis honor’, England (Bury St Edmunds?), 12th century, Add MS 24199, f. 78r
The author of the poem appears to be female, because she uses the female pronoun ‘grata’ in the penultimate line. In her learned poem, which is full of classical allusions, she claims that she has been exiled by ignorant rulers who disapprove of her writing, and asks the muse Clio to leave her as she won’t need her help any more. ‘Art is my crime, and my genius’, she laments. (The poem is edited and translated in The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard, by Constant J. Mews, translated by Mews and Neville Chiavaroli (2nd edn, 2008), pp. 164-66).
Detail of the poem ‘Laudis honor’, Add MS 24199, f. 78r
The poet also suggests that the (male) leaders who have banned her writing might just be jealous of her talent, since she could see no theological reason for banning women from writing:
‘Now if only I knew what wickedness our writing might be....
Much writing will not stop me from being good,
Writing allows me, not forbids me to know God.
We believe and know rationally that God exists
And also that what we do God does not forbid...
Your mind desired to condemn what it could not do...
Compose verses, you slanderer of verse, so that I may think
That you of course can create but do not want to.
I would be acceptable to you if my writing were acceptable:
Equal genius usually reconciles two people!’
The identity of this brave and outspoken poet is unknown, although it has been suggested that the writer might be Heloise, the noted female writer from early 12th-century France.
Detail of a later medieval miniature depicting Heloise teaching, from the poems of Pseudo-Heloise, Low Countries (Bruges), c. 1450-1483, Royal MS 16 F II, f. 137
In 1129, Suger, the powerful abbot of Saint-Denis, sanctioned the expulsion of Heloise and her nuns from their convent in Argenteuil on charges of misconduct, which might have inspired a poem about exile such as the one in Add MS 24199. The classical allusions echo the language of some of Heloise’s letters to her former lover, Abelard; but the writer may equally have been an anonymous female scholar who refused to be silenced.
This woman's poetry did find more appreciative audiences. The copy of this poem which has been digitised has been associated with Bury St Edmunds, an all-male house in East Anglia. The poem is an enigmatic testament to an extraordinary woman whose identity remains uncertain and a reminder of how often women’s voices have been muted through history.
Alison Hudson
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01 March 2016
A Calendar Page for March 2016
For more information about the Bedford Hours, please see our post for January 2016; for more on medieval calendars in general, our original calendar post is an excellent guide.
Calendar page for March from the Bedford Hours, France (Paris), c. 1410-1430, Add MS 18850, f. 3r
March sees the beginning of springtime proper, and these folios from the Bedford Hours reflect all the contradictions of the new season.
Detail of miniatures of a man cutting vines and the zodiac sign Aries, from the calendar page for March, Add MS 18850, f. 3r
At the bottom of the first folio is a miniature of a man hard at work trimming vines with an unusual-looking tool; he appears to be working in the dead of night, under a starry sky. Next to him is a rather jaunty-looking ram, for the zodiac sign Aries.
Detail of a marginal roundel of Mars, from the calendar page for March, Add MS 18850, f. 3r
The roundel in the middle right margin depicts an armoured warrior with a forked beard, holding a sword and a pike. This (literally) martial gentleman is intended to represent Mars, for as the rubric explains, ‘the pagans called the month of march after their god of war’.
Calendar page for March, Add MS 18850, f. 3v
The beauty of spring is reflected in the decoration of the March calendar pages, adorned as they are with bluebells, roses, and less realistically, golden leaves. The roundels illustrate the season further, depicting, as the rubrics tell us, how in March ‘everything becomes green’, and below, ‘how in March thunder and storms are born’.
Detail of marginal roundels of a two scenes of March weather, from the calendar page for March, Add MS 18850, f. 3v
- Sarah J Biggs
26 February 2016
Caption Competition Number 4
Sometimes we come across images that are just perfect for creative captions. Here is one from an Apocalypse manuscript which has recently been fully digitised, Harley MS 4972. It is filled with great images, including some weird hybrid concoctions. So, over to you, dear, witty readers: how would you caption this image? The winner will be announced on the blog early next week.
Detail from Apocalypse in Prose, South-east France (Lorraine), 4th quarter of 13th century- 1st quarter of the 14th century, Harley MS 4972, f. 14r
Update 26 February 2016
Thank you for all of your entries. We are delighted to announce our Caption Competition Winner!
That winner (of eternal fame in the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts section) is M. Mitchell Marmel: "H'm. Wonder if St. Brigid can turn this into bacon?" Honorary mentions also go to those who sent us unconventional styles of captions, such as sound files.
Didn't get the joke? Read our previous post about St. Brigid's magical, alchemical abilities.
Brigid’s fire, from a manuscript of Gerald of Wales’ 'Topographia Hiberniae', Royal MS 13 B VIII, f.23v
23 February 2016
Shakespeare: British Library Manuscripts in Washington D.C.
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of the William Shakespeare, arguably the world’s greatest playwright. Special events, performances and exhibitions will be held around Britain and across the world to celebrate Shakespeare and his literary legacy, and the British Library is delighted to have loaned a number of significant manuscripts to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s exhibition Shakespeare, Life of an Icon.
This fascinating exhibition brings together some of the most important original documents relating to Shakespeare’s life and career. One of the exhibition highlights, loaned to the United States for the first time ever by the British Library, is a page from ‘The Booke of Thomas Moore’, which is believed to contain Shakespeare’s own handwriting (Harley MS 7368, folio 9).
Page containing Thomas More’s speech to the rebels, thought to be written in the hand of William Shakespeare, Harley MS 7368, f. 9r
‘The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’ traces the rise, career and downfall of Henry VIII’s staunchly Catholic Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who was executed for treason on 6 July 1535 for refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy over the Church in England. British Library Harley MS 7368 is the sole surviving copy of the play and its great importance lies in the fact that it is thought to be the only literary manuscript to survive from the pen of England’s greatest playwright, William Shakespeare.
The original text of the play was written sometime between 1596 and 1601 by Anthony Munday in a draft that is now lost to us. However, Munday also made a fair copy of the play for use as a theatre company’s official playbook. The copy was therefore submitted for a licence to Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels, who noted the cuts and revisions that he required to be made to politically sensitive scenes before public performance. It was most likely in response to Tilney’s censorship notes and deletions that the play was extensively revised c. 1603-4 by the dramatists Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood and William Shakespeare, as well as a copyist whose task it was to pull together the original text and the later revisions to create a performable play. As a result, Harley MS 7368 is a complex patchwork of collaborative writing, revision and censorship.
Detail showing Edmund Tilney’s marginal instruction calling for major changes to be made to the script, Harley MS 7368, f. 3r
The first section of ‘The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’ centres on the Evil May Day riots of 1517. Thomas More, as under-sheriff of the City of London, is portrayed as taking a leading part when he makes an eloquent speech to quell the riots led by angry native Londoners against French and Lombard immigrants living in London. Edmund Tilney strongly objected to the insurrection scenes and ordered them to be cut from the play. No doubt his censorship was influenced by the fact that the play coincided with a period of economic instability and citizen unrest against ‘aliens’ and ‘strangers’. On the basis of stylistic, linguistic, palaeographic and orthographic evidence, the replacement insurrection scene and More’s powerfully persuasive and conciliatory speech to the rebels are now widely accepted as being the autograph composition of William Shakespeare.
More begins his speech by expressing his horror at the inhumane behaviour of the rebels and tells them that their actions are an affront to the majesty and dignity of England and royal authority. Using logic and clear reason, More appeals to the rebels to change their view of the strangers and to see them as fellow humans and victims of prejudice. He also warns the insurgents that they risk encouraging other discontented groups to resort to violence in order to settle their grievances, which will lead to the disintegration of society into a state of unruliness and chaos. Lastly, on folio 9, currently on display at the Folger Shakespeare Library, More tells the rebels that by breaking the King’s law they have sinned against God himself because ‘to the king god hath his offyce lent / of dread of Iustyce, power and Comaund / hath bid him rule, and willd you to obay’. More therefore urges the angry mob to turn themselves in peacefully and await the mercy of the King. In this respect, the play presents a distorted account of history and Thomas More’s rise to power for it was troops acting under the command of the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Norfolk that restored order and not in fact More’s eloquent speech.
The British Library is happy to be supporting Shakespeare, Life of an Icon which is open in Washington D.C. until 27 March 2016. Pages from ‘The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’ will be on display in the British Library’s exhibition, Shakespeare in Ten Acts (15 April – 6 September 2016).
Andrea Clarke
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20 February 2016
Fashion Goes Medieval
King Priam of Troy sends his son, Paris, to Greece. Grand Chroniques de France, Paris, c. 1320-30, Royal MS 16 G VI, vol. 1, f. 4v
It's that time of year. London Fashion Week began today. To celebrate, we have decided to republish an important op-ed piece we published 18 months ago. We were delighted to see some medieval inspired looks at the Dior Fall '17 couture show, which we suspect was inspired by the V&A's Opus Anglicanum show. However, we feel there is more to be made of the marriage of fashion and medieval culture.
Here’s a run-down of some looks we want to see next season.
- The Wimple/Barbette
It hasn’t been on-trend since c.1550, but we think it’s time it made a come-back. Team with killer heels for maximum impact.
Detail from La Somme le roy, France, late 13th century, Add MS 28162, f. 9v
A scalloped hem will give your wimple a more relaxed feel. Perfect for a first date.
Detail from a historiated initial, Israelites consulting the Lord, from a Bible, England, ?London, c. 1400-25, Royal 1 E IX, f. 56v
- Statement Headpieces
The fascinator has had its day. Millinery needs to get theatrical.
Detail of the queen of Macedon and her ladies from ‘Histoire d’Alexandre le Grande', Paris, late 1420s, Royal MS 20 B XX, f. 7r
Experiment with diaphanous fabrics for an improbable, wind-defying look.
Jean de Courcy is led form the Forest of Temptation by the Seven Virtues from 'Chemin de vaillance', Bruges, Master of the White Inscriptions, late 1470s, Royal MS 14 E II, f. 194r
Offset a linear silhouette with head-wear more suited to bee-keeping.
Lady out hunting, Alphonso Psalter, England, c. 1281-4, Add MS 24686, f. 13v
Even a monochrome outfit can be made to stand out with some serious underpinning.
Detail of Christine de Pizan presenting her work to Louis of Orléans from 'The Collected Works of Christine de Pizan', Paris c. 1415, Harley MS 4431, f.95r
3. Upsized Outfits
Outfits? The attire of one person? It’s starting to look at bit dated. We want to see clothing put together with an eye for a person’s surroundings. For example, stockings should be matched to the robes of nearby bishops.
The Coronation Book of Charles V of France, Master of the Coronation Book of Charles V, Paris, 1365, Cotton Tiberius B VIII f. 48r
Or your horse.
Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, mounted, being assisted by his wife and daughter-in-law, The Luttrell Psalter, Northern England (Diocese of Lincoln), c. 1325-50, Add MS 42130, f. 202v
4. The Bocking
We’re calling it the Bocking. It’s the stocking-boot. The shoe-boot (shoot) was big on the high street recently, but this year we want it to be all about the continuous sharp-toed stocking-boot.
The longer the toe, the better. Preferably so long, your shoe extends into the personal space of people nearby or over the lip of an image frame.
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(Left) Le Songe du vergier, Paris , Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy, c. 1378, Royal MS 19C IV, f 1v
(Right) Detail, Philippe de Mézières presenting his treatise to Richard II of England. Philippe de Mézières, 'Epistre au roi Richart', France, 1395-6, Royal MS 20 B VI, f.2
5. Beards: Bigstyle.
The hipster beard is big right now, but it can be bigger. Think beard meets onesie.
A Wildman (Wodewose) from the Genealogy of the Infante Dom Fernando of Portugal, Lisbon and Bruges, Antonio de Holanda and Simon Bening, 1530-4, Add MS 12531 f. 1
~ Mary Wellesley
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11 February 2016
The Earliest English Poet
Today is the feast day of Caedmon, the first known English poet. As well as being the first named poet in the English literary tradition, he is also a significant figure in the history of people who hate singing in public, people who develop new talents later in life, and of cowherds.
Caedmon’s work and the story of his life are described in the Ecclesiastical History of English People written by the eighth-century monk, Bede. An eighth-century manuscript of this work-- which was possibly even copied at Bede’s own monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow-- has recently been uploaded to our Digitised Manuscripts website as part of our Anglo-Saxon digitisation project. Sadly, it was damaged in the Ashburnham House fire in 1731, but it is still somewhat legible. In it, Bede gives us some biographical detail about Caedmon. Although we might imagine that English’s first poet would have been a highly educated individual, Caedmon was, in fact, a cowherd at the monastery of Whitby who did not take religious orders ‘until he was well advanced in years’. In this sense, Caedmon is a remarkable figure in Bede’s history, as he is one of the few non-elite figures to get a mention.
Detail of initials from Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, England (Wearmouth-Jarrow?), mid-8th-early 9th century, Cotton Tiberius A XIV, ff. 25r
Little in Caedmon’s early life suggested that he might become one of the greatest poets of his age. Ever the retiring type, he was so shy about singing or speaking in public that, according to Bede, when people began singing at parties, he would leave ‘as soon as he saw the harp approaching him’ (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv.24).
Page containing Bede’s account of Caedmon, from Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, England (Wearmouth-Jarrow?), mid-8th-early 9th century, Cotton Tiberius A XIV, ff. 144r
It was only later in life that he began to write verse and compose song. Bede recounts how one night, when he was sleeping in the cowshed, Caedmon had a vision. When he woke, he remembered the song he had sung in his dream, and astounded everyone at the abbey with his beautiful poetry. Later on, he would impress the monastery’s leaders, including the abbess St Hilda, with his capacity to compose verse on complex theological topics which the monks and nuns discussed with him. (Caedmon might make a suitable patron saint for interdisciplinary work.)
Unfortunately all but one of Caedmon’s poems are lost. The sole surviving example is known as Caedmon’s Hymn and survives in manuscripts of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Some manuscripts provide a Latin translation, while others give a Latin translation and an Old English version. The different Old English versions use various regional dialects, including Northumbrian and West Saxon. One of the manuscripts containing the West Saxon version of this very precious literary fragment is British Library Cotton MS Otho B XI. The manuscript was unfortunately also damaged in the fire of 1731, but an early modern transcript of it survives (British Library Additional MS 43703). In Old and Middle English c. 890-c.1450, Elaine Treharne translates Caedmon's hymn into modern English as:
'Now we ought to praise the Guardian of the heavenly kingdom,
The might of the Creator and his conception,
The work of the glorious Father, as he of each of the wonders,
Eternal Lord, established the beginning.
He first created for the sons of men [children of earth in West Saxon version]
Heaven as a roof, holy Creator;
Then the middle-earth, the Guardian of mankind,
The eternal Lord, afterwards made
The earth for men, the Lord almighty.'
The hymn is a work in praise of God. It grabs the reader from its opening word ‘Nu’, meaning ‘Now’, making the poem feel immediate. From there it proceeds to celebrate all of creation in a mere nine lines. Like all Old English verse, it uses musical alliteration. It closes, powerfully, with the word ‘allmectig’, ‘Almighty’, in praise of God.
Detail of an initial from Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, England (Wearmouth-Jarrow?), mid-8th-early 9th century, Cotton Tiberius A XIV, ff. 79v
Bede’s point, in his story about Caedmon, is that poetry is transformational, mystical and god-given. For, according to Bede, ‘no other English poets could compare’ with Caedmon, the humble late-comer not trained by human teachers, whose poetry in turn transformed and inspired those who read it in the Anglo-Saxon period and beyond.
~ Mary Wellesley and Alison Hudson
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01 February 2016
A Calendar Post for February 2016
For more information about the Bedford Hours, please see our post for January 2016; for more on medieval calendars in general, our original calendar post is an excellent guide.
Calendar page for February from the Bedford Hours, France (Paris), c. 1410-1430, Add MS 18850, f. 2r
The calendar pages for February are just as lavishly decorated as those for January, filled with coloured initials and gold foliage. At the bottom of the first folio is a miniature of another pleasant winter labour, that of warming oneself before a fire. The gentleman in this scene has just removed one of his boots and is extending his foot towards a roaring fire, presumably after coming in from the cold.
Detail of the miniatures for warming oneself and the zodiac sign Pisces, from the calendar page for February, Add MS 18850, f. 2r
Alongside is a miniature of two fish connected by a single line, hovering above an ocean and below a star-studded sky – this for the zodiac sign, Pisces.
Detail of a marginal roundel with Februa and flowers, from the calendar page for February, Add MS 18850, f. 2r
Above in a roundel is an elegantly-dressed lady in a red dress trimmed with ermine; she is holding a bunch of flowers close to her face. This unusual scene is explained by the rubrics at the bottom of the folio, which describe how this month is named after a woman called ‘Februa’, who ‘according to the poets’ was the mother of Mars, the god of war. Rather unusually, she is said to have conceived her son by ‘kissing and adoring a flower’.
Calendar page for February, Add MS 18850, f. 2v
The remaining saints’ days are laid out in the following folio, with a bit of space left blank because of the shortness of the month. The roundels once again illustrate the bottom verses, which describe a procession around the city and the annual February Festival of Fools.
Detail of a marginal roundels of a city procession and the Festival of Fools, from the calendar page for February, Add MS 18850, f. 2v
- Sarah J Biggs
18 January 2016
Elves and Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
Recently, three beautiful Mercian prayerbooks from the late 8th and early 9th century have been uploaded to Digitised Manuscripts as part of our Anglo-Saxon manuscripts digitisation project. These manuscripts, which were probably made somewhere in what is now western England, are notable for a variety of reasons: the distinctive initials, the earliest known copy of a Lorican prayer (a prayer of protection developed in Ireland), and the use of female pronouns in some prayers, suggesting they may have been made or owned by women.
Initial with a biting beast from the Royal Prayerbook, England (Kingdom of Mercia), late 8th- early 9th century, Royal MS 2 A XX, f. 17r
Initial from the Book of Nunnaminster, England (Kingdom of Mercia), late 8th- early 9th century, Harley MS 2965, f. 4v
Detail of a Latin prayer with female forms (‘ut pro me d[e]i famula oretis’), from the Harley Prayerbook, England (Kingdom of Mercia), late 8th- early 9th century, Harley MS 7653, f. 1r
One of these prayerbooks-- the Royal Prayerbook, Royal MS 2 A XX-- is also notable for containing one of the earliest known written reference to an elf (ælf or ylfe in Old English). Unlike the heroic and otherworldly beings of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth saga or Santa’s jolly assistants in American literature, the elf in this text seems to be rather sinister. The prayer in which the elf is mentioned seems to be an exorcism: ‘I conjure you, devil of Satan, of (an/the) elf, through the living and true God...that he is put to flight from that person’ (translated from the original Latin by Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), p. 72).
Detail of a prayer mentioning an ‘ælf’, from the Royal Prayerbook, Royal MS 2 A XX, f. 45v
The association of Satan with an elf or someone called ‘Elf’ may reflect pre-Christian beliefs in Anglo-Saxon society. We have no direct written evidence for pre-Christian society or even later popular beliefs amongst the Anglo-Saxons; however, belief in elves features in later medieval accounts of Norse paganism, which may have shared some elements of its mythology with Anglo-Saxon paganism. The author of this prayer may have compared Satan to an elf to help his or her Anglo-Saxon audience understand who Satan was and what his powers were.
Elves also have negative connotations in Bald’s Leechbook, a collection of Anglo-Saxon medical remedies and diagnostic guides which has also now been digitised and put online (for more information about this manuscript, see our post Bald’s Leechbook Now Online). On the page shown below, there are charms which suggest elves could cause pain in domestic animals. Elves are also associated with diseases of the head and with mental illness in the leechbooks.
Charms possibly mentioning elves and reference to King Ælfræd (see below), Bald’s Leechbook, England (Winchester?), 1st half of 10th century, Royal MS 12 D XVII, f. 106r
Likewise, in Beowulf, elves (spelt ylfe) were included amongst the races of monsters. They are mentioned in a passage which, translated from the Old English by Seamus Heaney, claims:
‘...out of his (Cain’s) exile there sprang
ogres and elves and evil phantoms
and the giants too who strove with God’
A passage mentioning elves, from Beowulf, England, 1st quarter of 11th century, Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 134r
However, elves may not always have entirely negative connotations in Anglo-Saxon lore. In the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, many members of the West Saxon nobility gave their children names that included the element ‘ælf’: perhaps the most notable example is Alfred, or Ælfræd, the Great. Charters list many Ælfstans, Ælfgifus, and Ælfrics, although it is unclear if Anglo-Saxons chose names because they sounded like the supernatural beings called 'elves' or just as part of longstanding naming traditions. (See, for example, Fran Colman’s The Grammar of Names in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)).
Very beautiful women were sometimes also compared to elves, although these texts suggest that such elfin beauty could lead to trouble. In the Anglo-Saxon poem about Judith, the Biblical heroine is described as ælfscinu, or beautiful like an elf.
Judith described as an elfin beauty, from Judith, Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 202r
Thus, Anglo-Saxons imaginings of elves may also have been more complicated than our limited sources can reveal. Indeed, an early 10th-century glossary distinguished between different types of elves, such as mountain elves (dunelfen) and wood elves (wuduelfe), and used them to translate different types of nymphs from classical mythology.
Detail of a glossary comparing nymphs to different types of elves, from a fragment of a schoolbook, England (Abingdon?), 1st quarter of 11th century, Add MS 32246, f. 21r.
These are just a few of the references to elves in Old English literature. These references have sometimes been used to portray the Anglo-Saxons as superstitious and even credulous, but they appear in texts that exhibit complicated theological ideas, advanced linguistics, and even powerful medical remedies that have been verified using modern scientific techniques. And the idea of elves continues to fascinate many people to this day. So please click over to Digitised Manuscripts to explore these manuscripts and their elves.
Alison Hudson, Project Curator: Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts
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