Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance: Popular Culture in Town and Country

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Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance Popular Culture in Town and Country

Elisabeth Salter

Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance

Also by Elisabeth Salter SIX RENAISSANCE MEN AND WOMEN: Innovation, Biography, and Cultural Creativity in Tudor England (forthcoming 2007) PIETIES IN TRANSITION: Religious Practices and Experiences, c. 1400–1640 (edited with R.G.A Lutton) (forthcoming 2006)

Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance Popular Culture in Town and Country

Elisabeth Salter

© Elisabeth Salter, 2006 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–9179–9 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–9179–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salter, Elisabeth, 1972– Cultural creativity in the early English Renaissance : popular culture in town and country / Elisabeth Salter p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–9179–0 (cloth) 1. Popular Culture – England – History. 2. Renaissance – England. I. Title. DA380.S25 2006 306.0942⬘09024––dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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Contents Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

x

1 Reconstructing Perception and Experience I: Evidence

1

Introduction Current approaches in cultural history Being reflexive Reconstructing individual experience What is the evidence? Conclusion

2 Reconstructing Perception and Experience II: Vocabularies

3

1 3 6 9 11 18

20

Introduction An illustrated example: the last will and testament of John Aunsell Identity: what constitutes John Aunsell’s identity? Appropriation, performance, and translation Consumption and emulation Reception and representation So what is cultural creativity? Conclusion

21 30 36 38 42 44 49

Inheritance and Property

50

Introduction Social adaptation Linguistic creativity and perceptions of property Conclusion

50 50 61 72

v

20

vi

Contents

4

Possessions

75

Introduction: on the uses of detailed description The attribution of value ‘Modes of expression’: some possibilities Conclusion

75 77 86 91

Life-fashioning

95

5

6

7

8

Introduction What is life-fashioning? Fashioning fashionable apparel and practices The transmission of ideas about performance Conclusion

95 96 97 104 109

Death-fashioning

111

Introduction: textual evidence for memorials Textual evidence, textuality, and memorialisation Was there a change in commemoration between c. 1450 and 1560? Commemoration and performance Conclusion

111 121 128 133 135

The Creativity of Reading

137

Introduction Bequest evidence for the nature of textual culture The study of reading The creativity of reading: a case study Conclusion

137 139 149 153 162

Conclusions

164

Notes

171

Bibliography

208

Index

225

Preface The title Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance: Popular Culture in Town and Country may need some explanation. The purpose of this book is to participate in a debate as a modest response to the current crisis of interpretation. The terms I have chosen to use in the title need definition. ‘Cultural creativity’ I explain later, but in using ‘early English renaissance’, my aim is twofold: to provide a partial description of the period covered in this book (c. 1450–1560) and to link that partial description to the concept of ‘renaissance’. So, while I acknowledge that this period is one of significant political, ecclesiastical and cultural change, my intention is to avoid the suggestion that it marks the transition from the medieval to the early modern, with the assumptions and expectations associated with each. However, in using this phrase I do not wish to impose a new dominant category. At the same time and ironically, the people who form the subjects of this book are not those traditionally considered as major players in the culturally élite business of Renaissance. They are not, by and large, geniuses, brilliant artists, members of the literary canon or great orators. But they are, as I demonstrate throughout this book, crucial actors in the production and perception of all kinds of change and transition throughout this period. Perhaps there should be a question mark in my title, and not a colon: Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance? This irony leads to a consideration of ‘popular culture’. I do use this term loosely. I use it to avoid persistently making a dichotomy between élite and non-élite. And in using this term, I mean not to allude to a class-based separation between the rich and the masses, but rather to signal the wide availability of the practices and processes considered in this book for people living in town and country. And ‘town and country’? If the other terms need justification then so should this. I use this phrase not to indicate a rigid separation between urban and rural but rather to include, in my consideration of cultural creativity, people living in a wide range of settlements. When considering people and their experiences it seems to me better to think of places as sites of flow and transmission rather than structures with rigid boundaries. There is however an important geographical issue raised here. The book focuses geographically on people and places from a region that vii

viii Preface

might be defined, however loosely and problematically, as the ‘metropolitan hinterland’. Perhaps the cultural creativity of the people in town and country in this region is particularly great because of the influence of London. This is a question demanding further investigations of cultural creativity in other locations. Above all this investigation seeks to draw attention to the vast amount of detailed evidence, previously neglected but widely available, for the study of cultural creativity in this period. It is also an intervention with the aim of encouraging a richer description of the past.

Acknowledgements There are too many people to thank – family, friends and colleagues. If I name some I shall miss others, but I hope you like the book and recognise pieces of it from conversations and other occasions we have shared. There are a few essential acknowledgements to make. I want to express my gratitude to what was the Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Tudor Studies at the University of Kent (c. 1990–2003) for providing me with an intellectual home, and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for supporting me through postgraduate study, 1999–2003. I would like to mention those people who attended to my doctoral thesis and very much more, namely Dr Nicky Hallett, and Professors Peter Brown and Steve Ellis; and also the people at Palgrave Macmillan who have always been supportive. And finally to Andrew Butcher, thank you. I think this book is for you.

ix

Abbreviations AC Beds CRO ABP/R3 BL BL MS Add. BL MS Eg. BL MS Harl. BL MS Stowe CCMTS CKS CKS DRb. Pwr

CUL CUP Econ. Hist. Rev. EETS EUP GCL HUP IHR JES JMEMS Kurath & Kuhn

LMA ACS LP

MUP NA E

Archaeologia Cantiana Bedfordshire County Record Office The British Library British Library Manuscript Additional British Library Manuscript Egerton British Library Manuscript Harleian British Library Manuscript Stowe Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Tudor Studies Centre for Kentish Studies, Centre for Kentish Studies, Diocese of Rochester (Registers of Wills), vols 1–12 (c. 1450–1558) Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Press Economic History Review Early English Text Society Exeter University Press Gloucester Cathedral Library Harvard University Press Institute for Historical Research, University of London Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Kurath, H., S.H. Kuhn and R.E. Lewis (eds in chief) (1954–2001) The Middle English Dictionary, 12 vols (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan) London Metropolitan Archives, Archdeaconry Court of Surrey Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, Preserved in the Public Record Office, The British Museum, and Elsewhere in England, 21 vols (1862–1965) Manchester University Press National Archive, Exchequer

x

Abbreviations xi

NA PROB NA SC NA STAC NA OED OUP P&P AHEW UCalP UChP PUP USP Vulgate YUP

National Archive, Probate Records (10, Original Wills; 11, Registers of Wills vols 1–40, c. 1450–1558) National Archive, Special Collections National Archive, Star Chamber National Archive Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press Past and Present The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 8 vols, general ed. Joan Thirsk University of California Press University of Chicago Press Pennsylvania University Press University of Stanford Press Biblia Sacra, Iuxta Vulgatem Versionem (Stuttgart: Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969) Yale University Press

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1 Reconstructing Perception and Experience I: Evidence

Introduction Cultural Creativity is about the ways that ordinary people in town and country creatively define themselves, their families, and their social networks. It is about the identity of men and women associated with social categories such as husbandman, yeoman, urban gentleman and artisan. And importantly, it is about the very active and creative role of such ‘ordinary people’ in the definition of identity. The book explores, for the period c. 1450–1560, inheritance strategies; personal possessions and their meanings; the daily fashioning of identity; attitudes to commemoration after death; and the interactions between imagination and daily life. The book is also about how the surviving textual evidence may be used to reconstruct these perceptions and experiences; and the implications of such reconstruction for cultural history in the current crisis of interpretation. Above all, this book emphasises the cultural significance of the creative imagination. The chronological period covered by this book (c. 1450–1560) falls between our current, traditional, categories of the ‘late medieval’ and the ‘early modern’. This is not an accident, but it does raise issues of terminology. The term used here to describe this period of time is ‘the early English renaissance’. This chronological period has been traditionally viewed as one of immense change and transition. This is partly because of the need to make distinctions between the late medieval and the early modern in order to justify our traditional chronological divisions. In general, the focus here is not so much on any major transitions associated with overarching narratives of this period – Reformation, new individualism and renaissance, the emergence of a consumer culture, the rise of London, a population explosion and so on. Rather, the focus is on 1

2


the much smaller-scale changes and transitions experienced and inaugurated by townspeople and villagers during their daily lives. And indeed, one very significant proposition of this book is that if the nature and experience of the huge transitions between the late medieval and the early modern are to be better understood, then it is essential to consider the everyday experiences of small-scale change and transition. This book is about the ways that ordinary individuals viewed and made their identity. It is about how townspeople and villagers adapted to their changing environment through the incorporation of new ideas and practices; and it is about how such people effected change. This subject demands that the contemporary perceptions and experiences of those individuals are prioritised over the imposition of categories and analytical frameworks produced at a later date. Therefore detailed empirical evidences of cultural practice are employed throughout, in order to reconstruct contemporary experience imaginatively.1 A significant proportion of the evidence for the lives of these ordinary people is documentary; although, as it happens, some of the most revealing documentary evidence describes material culture, both large and small objects, including property, goods, commemorative stones and apparel. Ordinary individuals creatively used the texts and objects available to them in order to present and make statements about their own identity. This ‘making of statements’ is described here as ‘cultural creativity’. Throughout, the uses of these texts and objects are interrogated, asking questions such as: What is the significance of different styles of apparel for the construction and display of individual and group identity? How are land and property used in the definition of family and kin relationships? What does the detailed description of certain luxury and domestic goods indicate about an individual’s perception of those goods? And, what is the symbolic significance of that commemorative request for that particular individual and those he or she leaves behind? Always, these questions are asked within the underlying question: how are these issues represented and perceived through text? The subject matter of this book – its attention to detailed reconstructions of contemporary perceptions in the early English renaissance, and the focus on social process by examining the practices of daily life – forms part of a distinctively new direction in cultural history. It is therefore important to stress at the outset that from within its particular subject, this book also constitutes an intervention into how cultural history is approached in general. It constitutes a response to the ‘hermeneutic crisis’, or ‘crisis of interpretation’, currently faced by a number of scholarly disciplines.2 The methods adopted here are the

Reconstructing Perception and Experience I: Evidence 3

response to this current interpretative crisis. The approach to historical reconstruction taken here should therefore be understood not as fully articulated and defined, but as part of a personal process of negotiating the fraught issues of interpretation and method with which one is faced as a post-, or perhaps mid-, crisis cultural historian. The route chosen here through the interpretive crisis is an ethnographic one, which means that detailed evidence for the experiences and daily practices of ordinary people is crucial to the mode of working. It is essential to consider the detailed evidence for the everyday processes of change and transition if the overarching transitions and changes occurring in the period c. 1450–1560 are to be further understood. A very significant proposition of this book is that individuals of the early English renaissance actually formed an understanding of their own experiences and practices of the ever-changing world through their own uses of the evidence that survives. In other words, detailed descriptions of the nature and quality of objects, goods, property, and the choices concerning the display and performance of individual identity that these entail, were actually employed by ordinary individuals in the production, representation, and alteration of their own perceptions of themselves and the world around them.

Current approaches in cultural history The crisis of interpretation The crisis of interpretation results from trends in historical and cultural inquiry recently identified by a number of scholars. These trends embody the current atmosphere of scepticism about the nature of knowledge and an associated loss of confidence in absolute explanations.3 Over the last thirty years there has been an ever-growing need to insist on the complexity of the past, as part of the impact of post-modernism, post-structuralism and critical theory with its insistence, ‘not just on the complexity and diversity of human minds, but their capacity to play’.4 Some responses to the crisis of interpretation have resulted in ‘purposely polemical’ writing about the nature of inquiries about the past.5 Such calls for critical disobedience tend to be fundamentally at odds with the outcome of the process of negotiating a method represented by this book.6 Practising cultural history In some ways this book is undoubtedly a ‘cultural history’, belonging within a long-standing and broad scholarly field which itself has a

4


complex history of development.7 The nature of this book’s response to the current impasse in cultural hermeneutics also presents an intervention into ways of approaching ‘cultural history’ or ‘cultural studies’.8 Certain particular aspects qualify it as a cultural history, including its focus on issues connected to mentalités, in this case the modes of thought and representation of non-élite individuals in regional society.9 As a ‘history from below’ subject, this book also corresponds with more recent trends in cultural history which have seen a move towards analysis of ‘marginal and deviant people’, instead of the ‘élites and those in power’.10 And, the use of anthropological investigations is consistent with the trend in cultural studies to look at the ‘territory where history and anthropology meet’.11 Roger Chartier, for example, has proposed that cultural historians should make it a priority to be concerned with the ‘internalized intellectual schemata’ of representation through which the social world is constructed, differently, by different social groups, for their own purposes.12 And this relates to a growing interest in ‘history from below’ because it allows the language of the historical subject to ‘speak for itself’.13 This book focuses on such representations with a sensitivity to the linguistics of representation.14 Another distinct aspect of the cultural history in this book is its close examination of detailed evidences for everyday life and daily practice. This focus on everyday life theoretically aligns it with methods of theorising from practice, rather than about practice;15 and not with recent work that theorises about everyday life and practice without recourse to detailed evidence.16 My focus is on the detailed evidence of daily life over a relatively short space of time, making it also distinct from recent assessments of everyday life, which focus on very long periods of time.17 Cultural history, empiricism, and the issue of truth An approach to understanding the past that has sought to legitimate the process of writing the historical narrative as an objective reconstruction of facts is ‘empiricism’. Such an approach has long been criticised as ‘naive realism’, by philosophically-minded historians.18 Empiricists adopted a scientific attitude, a rationale at its strongest when this sort of knowledge could still make claims to a ‘meta-narrative of scientific objectivity’, producing a ‘reliable’ account of the past.19 Geoffrey Elton, for example, proposed that whereas the natural scientist’s experiment is essentially a construct, the historian ‘cannot invent his experiment’ because it has a ‘dead reality independent of enquiry’.20 This kind of history deals, or dealt, in ‘historical concrete’, rather than ‘speculative constructions’.21


Empiricism is relevant to the negotiation of a method represented by this book because of the large amounts of ‘empirical’ evidence used here.22 But one question necessary to ask the ‘empiricists’ is this: How do you know when you are being objective? The subtext of this question being whether there is any such thing as objective analysis of evidence or simply different kinds of subjectivity.23 For empiricists, there truly seems to be a belief that a requirement of doing history is the ‘objective pursuit of the truth’.24 Empiricism is just one among many approaches to historical interpretation caught up in the current vogue for asking questions about the nature of the different approaches and practices.25 The questioning tends to involve a strong critique of the empiricists’ certainty about the ‘pursuit of truth’ and a consequent denial that truth is relevant.26 However, while Hayden White’s axiom that all history is fictive seems appropriate in the post-modern climate of uncertainty, it is what follows from the acknowledgement that ‘truth’ is subjective, shifting, and contextually situated which marks the break between the attitude taken in this book and the current tendency to deny the legitimacy of even attempting to reconstruct the past.27 The problems with critical disobedience are not that it advocates creativity – indeed, this book is a creative construction of a partial truth through imaginative reconstruction. But the tendency to rejoice in a proposal that we cannot recover the past is worrying because it encourages interpreters to lose sight of the significant possibilities for interpretation made available by detailed scrutiny of empirical evidence. This book does in many ways take an empirical approach, but it is not in the ‘empiricist mode’.28 It is a historical ethnography. But despite claiming the usefulness of anthropological ethnography, this approach does not follow the quasi-scientific rationale proposed by Keith Thomas in 1963.29 His suggestion that in comparison with anthropology, the ‘selective use of incomplete evidence upon which the writing of history must necessarily depend, appears flimsy in the extreme’, seems now to teeter on the edges of empiricism, as it presupposes that there is the possibility of a complete (truthful?) reconstruction of a society.30 In this book, detailed empirical evidence of cultural practices is employed in order to reconstruct contemporary experience imaginatively.31 This is at odds with approaches making claims that ‘history’ cannot act as a ‘censor’, because the categories appropriate to contemporary experiences themselves provide very appropriate censors for what may be understood or articulated in a given historical period.32 The method of interpreting evidence used here involves finding the

6


significance of what was empirically recorded in relation to the situation in which the evidence was produced. And in doing so, it adheres to the notion that ethnography is partial and that ethnographic truth is problematic. Such an advocacy of partial truths should not be understood, reductively, as ‘the banal claim that all truths are constructed’.33 Despite partiality it is possible to assess the quality of ethnographic accounts by distinguishing between ‘good fictions’ and ‘bad fictions’. This book therefore seeks to go beyond that banality by making careful interpretations of the past that are achieved by detailed examination of detailed evidence. The intention is to produce a ‘good fiction’.

Being reflexive The ‘cultural history’ practised here has involved an examination of the textual forms used in written evidence. This is a practice that has traditionally been viewed as the preserve of text critics, not historians.34 Profoundly influential in this endeavour has been James Clifford and George Marcus’s seminal essay collection, Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. It is concerned with writing anthropological ethnography but raises fundamental implications for using archive material, the role of the interpreter, and the nature of the reconstruction produced. Over the last few decades, ethnographic writing has developed towards a refusal to accept that ethnographies present an objective reality.35 Such refusals have developed from the Geertzian concept of ‘thick description’, which refers to the process of interpreting meaning from the multiplicities of inference and implication faced by an ethnographer.36 In a reflexive approach to ethnography, the role of the ‘ethnographer’ is of ‘inscriber’, and ethnography is seen as interpretative of ‘the flow of social discourses’ in an attempt to ‘rescue the “said” of such discourses from its perishing occasions and fix it in perusable terms’.37 Self-reflexive ethnographies of past or present societies therefore employ a ‘cultural poetics’ to reflect the ‘interplay of voices, of positioned utterances’ which constitute a piece of writing.38 Constructing ethnographies from dialogues is more than simply the presentation of actuality, but involves locating cultural interpretations within many sorts of reciprocal contexts. The writing of such ethnography involves negotiating between realities that are ‘multi-subjective, power-laden, and incongruent’.39 The implications of these approaches to anthropological ethnography are substantial for historical ethnography.40 This ethos fundamentally questions the authority of the writer to


‘represent cultures’.41 It acts as a reminder and an inspirational incentive to acknowledge, in the act of writing, the negotiation between historical subjects, the fragmentary recording of their lives in the archive, and oneself as the interpreter producing a written analysis. The ‘reflexivity’ employed in this book is not so much concerned with the artful positioning of the preposition ‘I’ within the written analysis (although this is not unconsidered). This is because the dialogue of the historical voices is already much more extensively mediated by the written archive than is the dialogue of a recent ethnography, rendering my personal ‘I’ less of an interjection than if it occurred amongst the other ‘Is’ of the speaking subjects in an ethnographic dialogue. My reflexivity here is much more concerned with a negotiation between levels of dialogue, of speaking ‘Is’, variously constrained by the written archive. It is only by a process of imaginative reconstruction that the subjects present in the written archive are seen and that what I hear of what they choose to say is understood and recorded as fully as possible.42 Ethnography, location, and interpretation In recent years, there has been a move towards regional and local reconstructions of the past. The movement has arisen from a fairly widespread acknowledgement that the regional and local dynamics of particular places are significant for assessing culture, society, and politics. But the concept of what constitutes a place is fundamentally problematic. In the empirical tradition, one would assess the nature of a place according to the presence or absence of a standard set of formal or informal structures: parishes and their boundaries, court jurisdictions, and manorial lordships; topography, settlement, urbanity, agriculture, and economy including trade and occupation; levels of wealth drawn from lay subsidy evidences. The Victoria County History series provides exemplary constructions of place based on these structures. These are structures whose examination is itself dependent on the types of evidence surviving for English medieval and early modern society. More recently, there has been greater attention to the particular dynamics of specific places within counties, often known as communities or localities. The idea that these structures convey the nature of a place, particularly the experience of living in a place, is a fiction. Concepts of place based on contemporary perception and experience are much more fluid than an analysis based on these structures will allow. The evidence considered here does however have a geographical focus, which I describe as the ‘metropolitan hinterland’, which is itself problematic to define.43 The settlements within the metropolitan

8


hinterland are considered as sites for the flow of ideas rather than distinct entities with fixed boundaries. I propose that the metropolitan hinterland is a ‘place’ with a distinct set of cultural influences acting on the everyday life and daily practices of individuals living in and travelling through this geographical location.44 The problematic issues associated with the concept of what constitutes a place are part of an interpretive tension produced by mixing an ethnographic approach with the requirement for broader geographical coverage. The choice of whether or not to prioritise place is also sometimes restricted by the nature of the available evidence and its rates of survival. This tension is unresolved. The ethnographic ideal is all very well when dealing, as anthropologists do, with discrete communities. It is entirely legitimate for anthropologists to produce whole books devoted to Yanomami, Marakwet, or Iban.45 As Keith Thomas remarked some forty years ago: ‘The majority of modern anthropological studies have been concerned with the small, isolated community, and it is upon analogous historical communities that one would expect their findings to shed most light.’46 This is, perhaps increasingly, not practicable for studies based on the reconstruction of lives from the past, using ‘historical’ evidences, despite the theoretical imperatives. On proposing detailed reconstructions of the lives of ordinary people in one particular community, the accusation of ‘local history’ echoes around any editorial board meeting. But there was never a parochial concern with ‘local history’ in the research and writing involved with the production of this book, although there is most definitely a concern with detailed reconstruction. By necessity, and to state the obvious, detailed reconstruction involves working with smaller units of analysis than does a more broad-brush approach. Thus, with the hope of achieving a balance between geographically specific contexts, the requirement to expand beyond one locality, and the necessity of a detailed ethnographic approach, a case study structure is used throughout. Case studies are used both in the structural organisation of the chapters and in terms of the organisation of specific themes within each chapter. This use of case studies also forms part of the explicit and implicit critique of those approaches to the writing of cultural history that have continued to demand a narrative, despite the increasing scepticism about narrative in the climate of interpretive crisis.47 How does this work? Well, the book is organised in chapters; each takes a particular theme relating to current scholarly interests, and makes detailed exploration of social process. This produces a set of related case studies that endeavour to make detailed inquiry, with the


broad scope and interdisciplinarity demanded of this kind of (new) cultural history.48 By definition, these chapter-based case studies also each, and in sum, constitute an example of ‘rigorous partiality’.49 The case studies, individually and combined, seek to celebrate the complexity of the past, while also indicating the significance of the detailed examples for general understandings of society, and social change, in the early English renaissance.50 Each chapter takes a subject area associated with current themes in the cultural history of society and economy in order to examine, in detail, the experiences of cultural and social change called here cultural creativity. In part, this mode of writing reflects the sporadic survival of evidence for popular culture in this period, but significantly it does not seek to make an apology for the nature of the evidence. Rather, this structure celebrates the sporadic, fragmentary, nature of the surviving evidence for experience and practice in the period c. 1450–1560, and seeks not to pretend that such evidence can be moulded into seamless narratives. This structure, very significantly, also reflects the very nature of experience and practice in any particular culture. It is, therefore, the ethnographically inspired combination of theoretical breadth and empirical depth which qualifies this as a new development in the cultural history of early English renaissance society whose significance reaches beyond county boundaries or narrow chronologies.

Reconstructing individual experience The fragmentary evidence concerning individual lives enables a re-evaluation of the traditional narrative of culture and society in the period c. 1450–1560. The individuals whose lives appear in this book are not merely generalisable and typical facets of an already established narrative.51 The legitimacy of a subject which studies the construction of identity by men and women whose individual lives are not generally recorded in the grand narratives of history owes a debt to the small-scale studies of microhistory and also to the large-scale studies of the Annales School.52 By scrutinising the views of the miller of Friuli, Carlo Ginzburg revealed details about the mentality of one peasant that would otherwise have been lost behind the general heading of ‘heretic’.53 However, rather than being about religious or social heresy, a significant argument for the importance of this book beyond specific localities is the very conventionality of the behaviour of the relatively large number of individuals who are studied. There is also a debt to pay to some pioneering scholars in medieval and renaissance studies.54 The approach I take has

10 Cultural Creativity in the Early English Renaissance

fundamental differences from the Marxist ideology associated with an interest in the peasantry, although such work has to some significant degree helped to legitimise the detailed consideration of the lives of ordinary individuals living in this historical period. The desire to listen to otherwise unheard voices of men and women of the early English renaissance has indeed driven my research.55 This might on the surface seem similar to the new historicist agenda proposed as a ‘commitment to the value of the single voice’.56 It is not. The rethinking of traditional generic and disciplinary boundaries associated with new historicism has been influential on present approaches to cultural history and for that reason I owe a debt to them. However, my methods and intentions have crucial differences from this agenda. Lisa Jardine suggested of new historicism, that its ‘criticism has brilliantly excavated the way in which a kind of issue-grounded explication de texte or close reading can elucidate our own cultural assumptions’.57 It is expressly my intention to attempt to overcome the natural tendency to privilege present-day contemporary issues in my consideration of evidence. This is not to deny, foolishly, my reflexive involvement with this texte, but rather to see my own reflexive presence as a starting point in the elucidation of cultural process. Fragments of popular culture I use the term popular culture to refer to those practices, views, and experiences shared by and available to the majority of the population. This is not a class-based definition. There is often only fragmentary evidence for the way the majority of the population lived and thought; yet the word ‘fragmentary’ is sometimes used, negatively, to suggest ‘implausible’.58 Sounding a more positive note, it is important to stress that the detailed consideration of individual fragments of evidence actually provides special access to popular culture.59 Focusing on the individuality and self-consciousness of non-élite subjects also implicitly questions the notion that it is not possible to examine popular mentality in the early English renaissance without looking through the distorting lens of high culture.60 The documentary evidence on which this book is based is indeed ostensibly under the control of institutions such as church and court, but it is the implications of the subtle nuances of the appropriations of these discourses, by townsperson and villager, which are significant for this exploration of cultural creativity. The research and writing for this book begins with a conception of reconstructing these people’s individual lives and experiences as necessarily a process of patchwork. What is sewn together in any such


discourse or narrative are indeed isolated fragments of evidence. The disjointed evidences of individual perceptions might be called ‘anecdotes’, but only if anecdotes are understood as integral parts of a historically contingent patchwork. The anecdote has been claimed as a new historicist tool, which is ‘irritatingly antithetical to historical discourse’.61 To reiterate, in my method of analysis the way to define the appropriate boundaries of the patchwork of ‘historical discourse’, and therefore the way to use these ‘anecdotes’ of individual representation, is by adherence to the categories of contemporary perception made manifest by the evidence itself. This definition of appropriate boundaries is in contradistinction to the ‘arbitrary connectedness’ often associated with new historicism.62 The question, ‘How do we know what is “proper?” ’ betrays this propensity for ‘arbitrary connectedness’.63 My answer to the question of what is proper is found in the intricate process of crafting a patchwork whose pattern is properly governed by categories that are defined by contemporary perception.

What is the evidence? The evidence used here is textual. This is not to deny the importance of using the evidence of material culture.64 ‘Material’ evidence has equal validity, rather than being a useful add-on to arguments that may only be proved by the written word.65 When discussing the textual evidence, I use words such as ‘impression’ to propose what the evidence seems to indicate, along with words such as ‘suggests’ and ‘implies’. These are not throwaway words used carelessly. In fact, through my use of words such as ‘impression’ I am signalling my commitment to a theoretical position that denies any sense of certainty concerning the factual nature of textual evidence. By this I mean that I am denying positivist and materialist attitudes towards such evidence, and the search for a kind of truth that such approaches entail. All the texts used in this book are made up of ‘structures of representation’. It is these structures and the ways they are used that form the evidence for personal perception and experience in the early English renaissance. Textual culture in the early English renaissance This book is based on the fact that the ordinary people of this period lived in a textual culture. Such a proposition may rest on a seminal work concerning the extent of literacy in English society in this and earlier periods.66 There is substantial evidence to indicate the involvement of ordinary individuals in the occasions surrounding the production of


text, known as ‘literacy events’, although they did not necessarily have the more technical skills needed for ‘literacy practices’, such as writing.67 Evidence for the spread of educational provision throughout England, c. 1100–1700 seems to corroborate the suggestion.68 Textual culture played a major role in the creative definition and negotiation of contemporary perceptions about selfhood. Issues surrounding text and textuality are powerfully evocative in national and international arenas of political, religious, and social debate in the early English renaissance; text is also employed as a powerful tool at the level of the individual in popular culture. One example is a request for commemoration by an innholder of Southwark, Stephen Burdon, made in 1503. This sums up some key issues concerning the use and power of textual culture for this individual and others like him at this date: I wyll that myn executors undernamed do by an ymage of seynt Roke of the price 6s8d and do cause to be writ in text letters this reson [orison] Pray for the sowlys of Symon Burdon and Margarete his wife with all their children And this reson to be naylid upon a litill borde and a lantarne horne upon it and that borde of writyng naylid fast to the fote of the saide ymage and gevyn to puttenham churche by guldeforde Item I bequeth to the same churche a dirigie boke of Parchment and a printed premer with II cheynes to be tyed, one of theme on iche side of the quere ther with, and the oreison wryttyn upon each, on the outside, who so redith on this boke, of your charite pray for the soules of Simon Burdon and Margarete his wyf with all ther childreyn69 This small example – just one amongst a vast array – gives an insight into the textual culture of the sixteenth century and how it is experienced and employed. This is a particular instance of an attitude to text as a means of conveying personal memorial. The memorial works over generations in this instance as the Simon and Margaret mentioned here are the parents of this Stephen. This request also provides some sense of the book culture of the ordinary individual which encapsulates the transition between manuscript and print cultures. The request for charity ‘inscribed’ into the primer indicates the importance of family in commemoration. Here, also, is something of the materiality of text; it is to be written on a board for display under the very fashionable light of a horn lantern. This is precisely the kind of evidence that provides a direct insight into the uses of textual culture at the level of the popular. These


are also the kinds of instances that should be examined, alongside popular literatures, if we are to reach a fuller understanding of popular literacy and reading in this period, and the implications of literate practice in the relationships between text and mentalité.70 This book seeks to discover the significance of textual culture for the formation of identity in popular culture, and the extents to which text was used creatively in these processes. This project began with a recognition of the rich value of evidence such as that provided by Stephen Burdon’s request, and proceeded with a closer questioning of the implications of such textual discourses employed in individual testamentary strategies. The kinds of discursive strategies to which I refer are as follows: in 1522, Beatrice Leche of Gravesend stated that ‘whereas Agnes Kebyll hath giffen towards a bell I brass pot I give to the same bell making of ii pottes’;71 in 1517, to qualify his bequest of a newly purchased barn as a ‘church house’ for the use of the churchwardens at his parish church, William Grigg of Greenwich explained that it should be used ‘to the intent that if there be any meete or drink given to poor people . . . [it] . . . be distributed among them with in the same house because it is not lawful to eat and drink within the church’;72 and in 1548 John Hilmar, a citizen and free mason of London, dwelling in the parish of St Olave, Southwark, requested ‘my bodye to be buryed within the chapel of the Trinitie before the altar beneth the steppes ther as I have layd a marbull stone all redy for my buryall with certain pictures’.73 A first-level question is: What insights do such descriptions of goods, property, and burial practices give to our understanding of contemporary perception and meaning? But, the more interesting question is: How were these textual descriptions used by these individuals in the production, representation, and alteration of perception and meaning? The textual sources In the absence of other personal records, the last will and testament (hereafter ‘will’) constitutes the single most abundant source of evidence for the reconstruction of individual lives in popular culture, and it is the most abundant source of evidence used here. Apart from wills, a range of other surviving administrative documents and literary texts is examined. The administrative records mainly comprise charters, deeds, lay subsidies, rentals, accounts including churchwardens’ accounts, and inventories.74 The literary texts mainly comprise devotional and moral literature. As far as is possible, none of these texts have been treated at face value in a positivist fashion. The use of textual sources for the analysis of non-élite perceptions begins from a premise that the


individuals represented by these texts were sufficiently literate to use them self-consciously. Using the last will and testament A substantial number of testamentary texts, more than six thousand, have contributed to this book, alongside other types of textual and material evidence. However, the evidence is not treated quantitatively, despite the numbers of surviving texts. This is because if the will text is used to access individual perceptions and experiences, it is quite irrelevant to abstract a single aspect from a thousand texts with the hope of finding patterns, as such patterns would have borne no relation to the individual understanding of this aspect for the text’s producer and recipients. Thus despite the available numbers, their individual role as fragmentary incidences providing evidence for the lives of individuals is celebrated.75 When analysing the will, this kind of ‘qualitative evidence’ of the personal is recoverable from the extensive detailed descriptions given to particular items and requests. It is the detailed nuances of the representation and expression of personal choice in these documents that form a central source of evidence for cultural creativity. The detail employed in these texts should be seen as part of a broader spectrum of detailed description present in other forms of literature including the fictive and devotional. My attention to detailed description in these texts signals the development of a new approach to the analysis of social process. The will has been a vital source of evidence for recent approaches to pre-modern social and cultural history, which have sought closely to reconstruct the details of society, economy and belief at a regional level.76 Particularly useful are arguments concerning the use of wills not as a ‘massive source’ of ‘anonymous traces’, but as ‘integral texts’ with their own internal coherence.77 Underlying the ‘ethnographic’ method of analysing textual evidence adopted here is that the production and/or reception of the will text is considered a self-conscious act; the last will and testament was itself self-consciously manipulated or appropriated, as part of the process of cultural creativity.78 This is subtly different from the use of these documents as primarily evidence of particular issues concerning, for example, domestic space, religiosity, or kinship. Instead, my approach has similarities with Nathalie Davis’s concern with ‘how sixteenth century people told stories’ in legal texts, which involved an examination of the intersections between legal discourses and ‘contemporary habits of explanation, description and evaluation’.79 This enables an assessment of how people manipulated narrative conventions, to


make sense of the unexpected and how they ‘built coherence into immediate experience’.80 However, in explaining her choice to study letters of remission, Davis dismisses other plentiful sources, including wills, because they are ‘dominated by notarial sequences and formulae’.81 I propose that wills from c. 1450–1560 provide abundant personal and biographical evidence. The survival of this very particular kind of evidence does of course determine the sites at which individual and personal choices may be reconstructed. This is only a problem insomuch as it is not possible to reconstruct the full complement of structures for perception and experience. Considering these documents at an individual biographical level also opens up questions of the representative value of each piece of evidence. But why not consider these individual examples as significant within the broader context of their production and reception? The will provides access, where access through other forms of evidence is absent, to the cultural processes through which individual identity is understood, negotiated, performed, and manipulated. I refer to these cultural processes as ‘appropriative acts’.82 The uses of this textual culture by ordinary individuals should not be understood in relation to the single act of producing a testamentary text, but must be seen within a broader cultural context of the role and use of these and other texts in society. A dismissive view of the will’s significance is that because its production is probably near the end of a life, its effects on individual identity, however profound, are insignificant because they only last for the five minutes of a few last breaths on a deathbed. However, if the cultural context of the will text and will-making is understood within its broader social relevance, then an individual document and this genre must be seen as active aspects of the textual culture of society. This includes the role of the administrative archive in the assessment of the past, the formation of a version of the past, and the production and negotiation of the present; and the role, alongside this, of fictional literatures in the conceptualisation of past, present, and future.83 It is therefore important to imagine the continued presence of testamentary texts within family, group, or place over generations, during the contestation, implementation, and negotiation of the provisions and requests that each one makes. Alongside the copious amounts of indirect evidence for the amount of thought that went into the production of a will text during the life of the testator, there occasionally survives direct evidence for a process of careful consideration and reconsideration near to the point of death. For example in July of 1524, a memorandum was added to the will text


of Richard Goodman that had originally been produced in the February of that year, as follows: that furthermore the said Richard Goodman in the moneth of July then Immediately ensuying lying in his death bedde in the parish abovesaide on St Margarettes day being wensday at after none and the xx day of the said month with other day and daies of vi following as the xxiti xxiiti xxiiiti xxiiiiti xxvti xxviti being Thursday fryday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday with other Caused the said last will oone twys or thries to be redde before him and afftrwyd ratified approved this said testament always to stand for his last will and not to be changed then nor yet after forever84 He died in the November of the same year. This approach to wills also reflects recent, detailed, research, which has preferred to focus on ways in which the formulaic will document, as written by the scribe, is mediated by interventions of individualised description, taste, and perception.85 I regard wills as forms of literature: they are produced by an author, and used by their readers, subject to certain generic constraints, and constructed from an inter-referential negotiation between various kinds of written texts. At a mundane level, constraints on the expressiveness of the will are due to its structure as a formulaic text and a legal instrument ostensibly governed by the rules of court administration and the scribe’s writing practice.86 But for this book, the will needs to be understood as a document produced in very particular circumstances by individuals considering their death, as a record of a person’s specific intentions for the post mortem replication of household and family identity, at both a practical and symbolic level. The will is made at, or in consideration of, a very significant moment in the life-cycle. Personal requests and choices therefore carry symbolic weight that are often infused with religiosity and a level of spirituality induced by the individual’s awareness of the waning hold of the materiality of the world on them. At the same time as marking the relinquishing of worldly position, the will also marks the presence of an individual at the time of their death – their status, achievement, knowledge – and it also looks to the future of the material world without the individual, through its benefactors, by looking to the maintenance and advancement of family through inheritance, as well as the continued remembrance of the testator through


commemorative acts. Because of the significance of the role of the testamentary text as a final statement of identity, the goods and property bequeathed are understood to carry with them significant aspects of an individual’s identity. The individualised description given to an object therefore confers on it a ‘biographical’ status.87 But wills provide only valuable partial glimpses, not revelations of the extent of the property and wealth enjoyed and transmitted by an individual during their lifetime. In some ways it is the very formulaic quality of these texts that permits glimpses of personal choice and individual perception. Deviations from the generic requirements or an embellishment of detail not obviously needed to fulfil the legal function provide this betrayal. And indeed, beyond deviations, wills are peppered with relatively long personal narrative incidents of a very specific kind such as this story provided by Philip Malpas in his will text, in 1469: Also where as it hath been demed and furnyshed by the said Sir Thomas Cooke heretofor that I the said Philip Malpas was the cause of tarrying and taking of the goodes of the said sir Thomas Cooke which were taken in a ship which I was in upon the see whan I last passed over the see. I the said Philip malpas for myn argmentall and discharge in that behalf sey and declare verily upon my conscience that I was never the cause of suche said tarrying or taking of the said ship and goodes of the said Sir Thomas Cooke therin. And that the same ship with goodes was never so tarried nor takyn in my cause or defaute as I will answer unto god88 Or this narrative provided by Margery Prentoft in her will text in 1532: Item for the great payns and labours that Robert Prentofy my husband hadd and dyd and for the kindness that he shewed me at the tyme of my wrongful imprisonment I gyve and bequeathe hym all my londs and right tytell89 Or this pitiful recrimination addressed to his wife by Thomas Costhe in an undated will of the mid-sixteenth century: . . . for god knoweth I have lyen longe sick upon hire hondes and have spente it all that ever I have and moore that I have borrowed of honest folks whereafter followeth my dettes rehersid90


Or this codicil to his wife added, under the advice of his overseers, by John Sparrow a month after producing his will text in 1539: If Robert Baltron wyll not behyve himself toward my said syster not cherysshe his as a man oughte to doo with hys wyffe according to the lawes of godd but forsaketh her company and goth awaye from her then I wyll that the saide Joanne my wife with the adviyce mynd and councell of the said John Hoth myn overseer fees and kepe the said Agnes my sister honestly as well in mete & drynke & clothing during and as long as it shall please her91 And, other individuals appear to exploit the function of the will as a declaration of intention – either public or private – in order to elaborate their own personal narrative. One particular example of this is the existence of ‘wills’ made in preparation for a pilgrimage journey, such as that made by Giles Johnson of Gravesend in 1495. The reason for the construction of his text appears to be because he was, in his own words, ‘In tending with goddess grace to pass over the see in pilgrimage to the holy blod of Voylsnake’.92 The concept of ‘appropriative acts’ incorporates the sense of the individual’s self-consciousness about the way s/he is constructing him/herself while s/he is engaged in those appropriative acts.93 The ‘performative’ aspect of appropriative acts also calls on Jacques Derrida’s notion of citation – his ‘always already’ idea about the nature and use of symbolic codes – and places it within the realm of practice in a specific cultural context.94 In the particular context of producing testamentary (or other written) texts, the individual is aware that s/he is involved with a ritualised practice: a ritual ordained by the legal requirements of the administrative court, and performed, subverted, and ‘tangled’ by the testator (or writer/reader). The idea that ‘appropriative acts’ are performative also calls on David Parkin’s proposals about the ‘metaphorical drama’ of the performance of ritual.95 Specific contextual situations govern the nature of the performances of individual identity and inform the perceptions of this individuality which is negotiated during these performances.96 My analysis of the representation of identity in testamentary language is also influenced by the growing field of linguistic anthropology, in which linguistic constructs are seen as intimately related to culturally and situationally specific concepts, such as ‘self-hood’.97

Conclusion In introducing the subject of this book, this chapter has sought to explain the background to this inquiry, indicating how it relates to


current trends and problems in the production and writing of cultural history. This book actually forms my response to the current critical impasse. As the textual evidence used throughout to recover perception and experience was itself crucial to the formation of the ideas and practices associated with perception and experience, my explanation of this response has also examined issues associated with the interpretation of these texts. The following chapter continues in this introductory mode by examining the theoretical vocabularies associated with this investigation of cultural creativity in the early English renaissance.

2 Reconstructing Perception and Experience II: Vocabularies

Introduction In order to describe (through a twenty-first century scholarly discourse) the ways that townspeople and villagers understood themselves and the world around them in the early English renaissance, it has been necessary to use some theoretical terminology. Initial responses to the word ‘theoretical’ might either be positive or negative, depending on the reader’s sensibilities. So it seems appropriate to make an initial statement of intent, not an apology, regarding the use of certain terminology. The use of abstract theoretical words and phrases such as ‘representation’, ‘construction of identity’, ‘appropriation’, ‘transmission’, ‘consumption’, ‘reception’ – all of which are explained in more detail below – is intended to reflect a sense of the dynamic (or at least non-static) situation in which individual and group identity was formulated in this period. These descriptive words do indeed often arise from very recent theoretical vocabularies used to understand cultures and societies both in the past and in the present.1 The immediate justification for their use is that the approaches these vocabularies signal also prioritise issues of contemporary perception and experience. In this chapter, some of the vocabularies that I use are examined with reference to one particular example of the kind of evidence used throughout this book. This is a last will and testament, made in 1516, by a man called John Aunsell, a merchant tailor and citizen of London, dwelling in Southwark. This particular text is taken because it provides useful illustrations for all the theoretical terms I wish to explain. It is a particularly interesting will text, but this is not to say that it is abnormal in any way. Its formulaic structure, the requests made, and the bequests given, are all entirely conventional. 20

Reconstructing Perception and Experience II: Vocabularies 21

All the terms described in the first sections of this chapter contribute to the understanding of what is meant by ‘cultural creativity’. The approaches and abstract concepts discussed here arise from various disciplines, and they constitute what might seem an eclectic array. Their multidisciplinary range is justified by the fact that the combinations of experiences that inform an individual’s identity are themselves eclectic. The name I give to this process through which identity was constructed, performed, and understood by ordinary individuals of the early English renaissance, is ‘cultural creativity’. The chapter ends by describing in more detail what is meant by ‘cultural creativity’ and how the term arises.

An illustrated example: the last will and testament of John Aunsell Below, the will of John Aunsell is transcribed in its entirety. Aspects of this text are then discussed in more detail to illustrate what is meant by a collection of abstract theoretical terms used throughout this book. The whole text is reproduced here because a consideration of the abstract concepts is most meaningful when related to the entire text. In the name of god Amen. the xviii daye of August the yere of our Lorde god MlVc xvi. I John Aunsell Citizen and merchant taylour of London in the parish of Saint Olave in Southwerke in the Countie of Surrey in my good hole mynde and memorie in my good Remembraunce being doo make ordeigne and dispose this my present testament and last wyll in maner and forme folowing ffirst I bequeth and Recomende my soule unto Almyghty god my maker and my Redemer and to our blissid Lady the Vyrgin his mother Saint Mary And to all the holy company of hevyn And my body to be buried afore Jesus in the body of the churche of Saint Mary Overie in Southwerke aforesaid And I wyll that myn Executors do agree with the prior of the same place for the said Buriall as they shall thinke most necessary for all the chargeis there unto belonging. Also I will my body to be hadde afore my buryall to the parish churche of Saint Olave where I am parisshonir to And there to have a solempn dirige and masse Also I will there be a doctour of divinitie and doo make a syrmonde of the lif of saint John the Baptist sometyme the saide masse whyle in the saide church of Saint Olave Also I bequeth to the high aulter of the same churche of Saynt Olave for my tythes neglygently forgotten vi s viii d Also I bequeth to the high aulter of


saint Mary Overeys my mother churche vis viiid Also I bequeth to the high altar of saint Mary magdalene overy iiii s Also I bequeth to our lady Brotherhed of Saint Olaves in money xs and a torche of xviii lb and more Also I bequeth to the susterhod of Saint Anne of the same churche vis viiid and a torche Also I bequeth to the Brotherhoode of Saint Clement in the same churche vis viiid and a torche Also I bequeth to the Brotherhed of saint Katherines in Mary Magdalene aforesaid vis viiid and a torche Item I bequeth to the susters of saint Anne in the same churche vis viiid Also I bequeth to the Reparacions of the same churche of Mary Magdalene aforesaide xxs Also I bequeth to the hight aulter of the paroche churche of our lady of Asshewell half a quarter malt Also I bequeth to the Brotherhed of saint John the baptist of the same churche ii quarters malt Also I bequeth to the bachelers lyght of the same church di a quarter malt Also I bequeth to the Brotherhed of Jesus of Baldocke a quarter of malt Also I bequethe to the brotherhed of the Trynitie of Saint Thomas in Southwerke a torche Also I bequeth to the ffraternitie of the Merchaunt taylors of London A nutte potte garnished with sylver and all gilt with the picture of saint John the Baptist stonding on the lydde. Also I wyll there be an Obytt kept as long as the world shall contynue in the churche of saint Mary Overys where my body resteth by the maister and wardeyns of the ffraternitie of saint John the baptiste of the merchaunt tailors of London aforesaide and there an hers [hearse] to be sett as they doo for other. And the master to have for his Labour xxd the iiii wardeyns iiiis the clerke viiid the Bedyll vid Also I wyll they sett me in their bedrolle to pray for me as they doo for other every quarter day And when deprofundis is doon that the maister or one of the Wardens delver to the same ii preestes iid the sum of the iiii quarters viiid to the saide ii preestes a yere Also vd to the maister and the iiii wardens to offer at the same masse an obytt and when the dirige is doon I wyll the maister and the wardens clerke and Bedyll drynke when dirige is doon where as it shall please them vid And after the masse doon viiid in like wise Item to the wexchaundler the some of the charges is ixs xid so restith of xiiis iiiid a yere iiis vd and that I wyll remain for ever more to the Reparacions of the hall of the merchaunt tailors of London aforesaid Also for the more suretie of the same I have given unto the master and wardens of the ffraternitie of saint John the Baptiste of Asshewell in the Countie of hertforde then being master Wyllyam Sowster gent, Thomas Nicholls yoman and Wyllyam Aunsell Brother to me my place sett and Lying in the same towne Asshewell on the Corner of Chepyng the heddes and thornesyde


abuttith south est and North on the Kyngs high Waye and thether syde abuttith on Reyngnarde whele wright on the west with a horse mylle to the same belonging with all thapurtenances to the same place belonging The wiche saide place I bought of John Phylipp of the same towne Carpenter with a medowe cloose at Simwell next the cloos of Sir Lewys Orell Knight on the Northe and the hedde abuttith on the kyngeshighway on theast And thother abuttith towards heyngisworth on the west and thother side abuttith on a close of Thomas Warde of London Mercer on the south side to have and to hold unto the saide Maister Wardens and to their successors of the saide ffratrernitie for the tyme being for ever more in this condicion that they shalle paye to the maister and wardens of the ffraternitie of saint John the baptiste of merchaunt taylours of London xxs yerely aslong as the world shall contynewe on saint Blases day only And that the maister and the ii wardens of saint Johns of Asshewell shall enfeoffe the said Maister and the ii wardens of the saide ffraternitie of the Merchant taylours of London in the foresaid place and landis with all thappurtenances as their councell shall advise them best for the suretie of the same And after the foresaide xxs so be received by the handes of the saide maister and wardens of the merchaunt tailors of London And they stonding in suretie of the same on saint Blases day only so received than I will the master iiii Wardens Clerke and bedyll kepe myn obytte at saint Mary Overy aforesaid after my diceas on saint Symonde and Judes day the xxvii day of October the dirige on the evyn and the masse on the morowe. Also I wyll and charge the master of the merchaunt taylours of London to pay the same day of Symonde and Jude whan the masse of Requiem is doon to the priour or to his deputie vis viiid yerely the same day onely and vid to the secular sexten The Residue I wyll the Priour have it to Reparacion of his Bellys Also I wyll charge the master of the fraternite of Saint John of Asshewell And his ii wardens kepe an Obytt for me and for all christen soules in the chapel of Saint John of the same churche xs yerely as long as the world shall contynue And the master to have for his Labour viiid and the ii wardens xiid the ii churchewardens viiid if they be there if not and any of them Lacke to be gevyn in charitie. Also to iiii preestes xvi[d]. And if any Lacke to be given in charitie. Also to the clerke of the same chaurche for his duetie Ringing of the bells the dirigie and the masse xiid and if he Ring but the dirge whyle but vid and the Residue to be given in charitie the master and the ii wardens for offering at the masse of Requiem iiid Also to the Belman for going about the town to pray for John, John and Elizabeth and all


christen soules iid Also to vi men clerks that usith to helpe the quire xiid Also to fyve children vd Also as is accustume after dirige and masse in breade and chese xviiid Also in ale iis Sum ixs Also I wyll that the saide master or ii wardens doo pay to the wardens of the same churche yerely aslong as the world shall contynue iiis iiiid on saint Symonde and Judes day onely Sum of their charges of the merchant tailors of London and the obytt in Asshewell and the iiis iiiid to the church wardens of Asshewell aforesaid to the edificacion of the same churche for ever Sum xxxiiis iiiid. And the Residue of the saide place with the Orcharde Croft medowes and Clooses and the Arable lande I gyve for ever more to thuse of the ffraternitie of saint John the Baptist of Asshewell they performyng my wyll as is aforesaid Also I wyll and charge the same personis that shalbe thus charged in no cause breke this my wyll as is aforesaide as they wyll answere afore god at the day of Judgement after I have prformed this according to my wyll as I entende to doo as Councell shall advyse me so I may convenyently do it if not I trust myn executors or deputes wyll see it doon According to my wyll. Also I wyll that if the maister or the ii wardens of saint John of Asshewell or any of their successors breke anny day of this my wyll and obytt shall forfeytt to the Brotherhed of Jesus of Baldocke xxs And if they fayle the space of iii yeres then I wyll the saide ffraternitie of Jesus of Baldocke that they entre in the saide Landes and tenementes as their own enheritaunce according to this my wyll doing as the ffraterntie of saint Johns of Asshewell shulde doo. Also I bequeth to John my Brother Rycharde sonne dwelling with olde Cokes flehmonger a howse in ffrogonale in Asshewell upon the Corner of the Almes lane on the south syde with a voyde grounde of the gyft of wyllyam Sewysters of Slytton gentylman of the hold of saint John of Cambridge. Also I bequeth to the same John to helpe hym in his occupacion after his yeres service iiiili sterling and a blake gown price twelve shilinges. Also I bequeth to Thomas Aunsell sonne to my Brother Rycharde a house in Asshewell on the Corner est and South in Chepyng next the tenement of Nicholas Tryge the wiche tente the saide John purchased of John Strasell of Essex charter hold and iiiili in Redy money Also I bequeth to Wylliam Aunsell sonne to my Brother Rycharde xxxii akers and iii Roodes of Arable lande lying in the feldes of Asshewell the whyche I the saide John purchased of Wyllyam Holdr of yardeley the wiche x akers holdith by dede and xxii and iii Roodes holdith by copy of the lorde of Westminster and xxx shepe wedders and ewes. Also I bequeth to John my Brother Wyllyam sonne a tenement with a gardeyn that I purchased of my


saide Brother in Chepyng next the tenement of Wyllyam Letchworth Both ar on the North syde and next the tenement that I purchased of John Roo Skynner of London of the hold of saint John of Asshewell and xxx shepe Also I beqyeth to Wyllyam Aunsell son to my brother Wyllyam the tenement that I purchased of John Roo Skinner of London in Chepying next the tent of John Tekell baker on the south side with^ ii acres and an half of arable lande belonging to the same in Newmandarne of the hold of Master handen and thirty shepe wethers and ewes. Also I bequeth to Thomas Aunsell sonne to my Brother Wyllyam sevnty Acres lande wiche I purchased of Edwarde Tryge in the feeldes of Asshewell and Morden felde as by dede more plainly shewith of the holde of the knight of Shingell & thirty shepe wethers and ewes and x quarters malt All the landes and tenements that I have bequeathed with goodes moveable and unmoveable what so ever they be bequethed unto the said six sonnes ii brothers children being no of age having no possession of this my wyll so to depart to god that any of them being of that caas of deth than I wyll that they or any of them lyve shallbe heires to other having the goodes and possession indifferently among them and if they all six die then it shall remayn to the next of the kynne Also I bequeth to Jane my doughter a place with an Orcharde the wiche I purchased of Rycharde wright of Asshewell in the west ende next the tenement of Sir Nicholas Appleyarde knght and thother side abbuttith on Sir Thomas Perlott clerke Nowe the tenement of saint John of Asshewell on th’east side with medowes, pyttylles at wattysforth mede with lii acres arable lande in the ffeelds of Asshewell with all the Landes and pastures belonging to the same sometyme John Drapers the wiche I gyve to the saide Jane my doughter duryng her lif and she have any heire male of her bodie lawfully begotten then I wyll the saide heir male shall enioye it to their use for ever more and if she dye without issue of heire male then to Remayne to Joanne my Brother Wyllyams doughter nowe the wif of Wyllyam Bagelthwayte she having issue heire male. Also I bequeth to the same Joanne a standing cupp percell gilt with a cover with a columbyne in the bothome Also to the same Joanne a maser with a wyddowes hedde in the bothome Also I bequeth to Amy my Brother Wyllyam doughter nowe the wif of Thomas Bentley for her sake a forgeyvness unto her husband of twenty marcs and all other Rerage if there be any. Also I bequeth to the same Amy in redy money xls Also I bequeth to Joanne the doughter of the saide Thomas and Amy twenty shepe and xxs in money towarde her marriage Also I bequeth to Joane [‘Jane’] my


doughter the wif of Thomas fforde one of the three goblettes that I bought at Anwarpe clene whyte pounsid Also I bequeth to the same Jane doughter a standing maser with a cover and a flower in the bottom Also I bequeth to the same Jane a sylver pott weyng xiii oz di with a lambe on the lydde Also I bequeth to the same Jane tenne score ells white hossombrygges to make shirtes and smockes to occupye her self. Also I bequeth to Wyllyam Aunsell my brother my leest Nutte with a cover that I bought of Mowesdale the goldesmyth garnyshed with sylver and gilt. Also to the same Wyllyam vi spones with saint John the Baptist on thendes of them Also I bequeth to the same wyllyam an hundreth shepe whethers and Ewes be fyve score Also I bequeth to the same Wyllyam my seconde levery gowne of blue furred with blake cony Also to the same Wyllyam A vyolett gowne furred with ffechewes2 and my best Russett gowne furrid with ffox and iiii yerdes of blake a typpett and a halte price xxs Also I bequeth to the preestes of pappy where as I am brother if they come to my buryall iiis iiiid Also I bequeth to henry my prentyce tenne score ells white ossombriges and iiii marc in mony Also I bequeth to Elyn fforthe the doughter of Jane my doughter iiii marc in mony Also I bequeth to Elizabeth fforth doughter unto the saide Jane iiii marc in mony And either of them die or both then the next childe of her body lawfully begotten to enioy both their saide partes like as they shulde have doon Also I bequeth to ffelyce my wif ii places sett and being within the towne of Asshewell with gardeyns Crofts medowes and arable Landes belonging to the same to have and to hold to the same ffelyce during her lif the wiche furst I purchased of John Starling of the same towne sett and lying in the west ende next the Lande of Sr Lewes Orell knight on the west and the hedde abuttith on the kinges high waye on the North and theother syde abuttith on my place towardes the West and the yarde syde orcharde and Crofte abuttith on the South with xliii Acres of arable Lande belonging to the same The seconde place is sett and lying in the saide town of Asshewell with all the appurtenances clooses arable Lande Croft and Orcharde there unto belonging the wich was sometyme John Smethes of the saide towne of Asshewell wiche saide place I purchased of Rauff Cadwell of Asshewell aforesaid thone side therof abuttith on Sir Lewys Orell knight on the east syde and theorcharde cloos and place abuttith on the south syde of the kinges high waye And the hedde abuttith on the kingeshyghwaye on the northe syde the wiche saide ii places with all their appurtenances aforesaide I gyve to ffelice my wif during her natural lif And after the desceas of


the saide ffelice I wyll it remayne to thissue of heire male of Jane my doughter of her body Lawfully begotten and if the saide Jane have noo issue of heire male after the disceas of felice my wif then I wyll it remayne unto my brother Wyllyam. And if that he dye than I wyll it shall remayne to theldest of the six sonnes and he to enioye it for ever more Also I wyll that an honest preest do syng for me and for my father and mother John, John and Elizabeth in the churche of our lady of Asshewell the space of ii yeres and he to have for his wagis vili sterling and iiis iiiid a yere for breade and wyne & waxe at the aulter of saint John the baptiste the hole some xiili vis viiid Also I wyll that my debytes after my buryall doon or the monthes day come doo buy a stone garnisshed with ii pictures a man and a woman and above that a pictour of the holy Lambe with a litle scriptour under his foote saying the holy lambe with a picture of the pellycane saying at his foote in a lytle scripture the goostely birde saying in a scripture from the mannes hedde the ii Johannes pray for the thirde Also the scripture under the foote of the man and woman saying thus saye that this wryting Reede and see beholde this worlde it is but of vanytie under this marble stone lyeth John Aunsell merchant taylour both body and bone for his soule and all christen soules In the worship of jesu and the trinitie say a pater noster and an Ave And under this scripture fyve men children and five women children whiche John deceassed as it shall please god. Also four Scotchens at the iiii Corners of the saide stone with tharmes of myne occupacion and thearmes of London and all to be guilded in fyne golde and the same stone to be vii foote long and iiii foote over And the price thereof to be [. . . gap . . .]. And all my goodes moveable and unmoveable my wyll performyd in anywise my debts paide the Residue of all my goodes I gyve unto ffelice my wif whome I make myn executrice and Wyllyam Aunsell my Brother myn other execut And he to have as is aforesaide plate and other stuff within named and all his costs and charges to me warde horsemeate and mannes mete to be alowid Also I wyll there be bought viii newe torchis of the weight of xviiilb or xxlb at the moost a pece for my buryall and that there be iiii persones that be dwellers in the paresh of Mary Magdalene Overey and iiii persones suche as be dwellers in the paresh of saint Olaves and they eight every of them to have a ffrisid gowne and a hode and every of them viiid in mony I wyll they ^be suche persones that hath been honest and of good name and fame And after the same dirige and masse of Requiem doon the same eight torches to be devided as is aforesaid Item I bequeth to John Roger the sonne of Robert Roger of Asshewell


a blake frisid gowne a bonet a doblett a pair of hosen ii shirtes and a pair of shoos and xxs in mony Also I wyll that myn Executors do pay unto the master and wardens of the merchant tailors of London for all their charges and costes for their Councell and them self for the surance of myn obytt aforesaide xxs The whiche shalbe paid of the master or Wardeyns of the ffraternitie of saint Johns of Asshewell aforesaide on saint Blases day only Also I will that the saide master and Wardeyns of saint Johns do receive of Rycharde clerke of Asshewell aforesaid taylour vili goode and Lawfull mony of Ingland the wiche the saide Rycharde is bounde to me by Reentre to pay on saint Blases daye onely xxs and that I wyll the saide Maister and Wardens shall have the saide vili towards their charges of the foresaid house and Lande afore rehersid of iiili by the yere Also it is I bought a place of Robert starling sett & lying in the west ende of the saide towne of Asshewell as by dede thereof more playnelyer doth appere wych saide place I wyll the saide Robert shall have it with the Landes thereunto belonging upon this condicion that the saide Robert shall pay at one payment xiili sterling to myn Executors within vi wekys after my disceas Also I doo make myn Overseers Rycharde Cooper Letherseller and I bequeth hym a playne hope of gold the wiche I have usid to were on my forefinger xxs in mony iiii yerdes of blake with a typpett price xviiis Also I doo make myne Overseer of this my Laste wyll Wyllyam Bagelwayte Stockefisshemonger and I bequeth hym for his Labour a playne Ryng of gold the wiche I have usid to were on my Lytle finger xxs in mony and iiii yards of blake with a typpett price xviiis Also I gyve and bequeth to the saide Wyllyam Aunsell my Brother a place with thappurtenances sett and lying in the Merkett stede in the Towne of Asshewell aforesaid and it abuttith on the comyn grene on the Northe And thother syde abuttutes on Nicholas Trygge of Stamfforde on the south and the yerde asyde abuttith on Thomas Marten on theast with a gardeyn on thother side the waye longing to the same wyche place I bought of Edwarde Trygge and sometyme was Hawleys Also I wyll the saide place with thappurtenances after the disceas of the saide wyllyam that it remayne to one of the six sonnes of the saide Wyllyam and Rycharde of their bodies Lawfully begotten Brethren both unto me the saide John that it distende to theldest of the saide vi sonnes Also I gyve and bequeth to Thomas fforth grocer iiii yerdes of blake with a typpett price xviiis and xis in money and beside forgyveness of all the debts he owith me from the begynning of the world unto the day of my disceas Also I forgyve Wyllyam Bagtwayte that married Joanne my brothers


doughter all the duetie he owith me from the begynnyng of the World unto the day of my disceas Also I forgyve my brother Wyllyam all the debtes that he owith me as is aforesaid except whete barly and Malte that Restith in his handes and other mennes handes there aboute and other debts that be owning unto me in the same towne of Asshewell Also I gyve and bequeth unto Amy bygrave suster unto my brothers Wyllyam wif iii yerdes of sadde northern tawney to make hir a gowne ii smockes a pair of shoos and ii quarters malt Also I wyll that myn Executors and Overseers do make no more charge the day of my buryall for no dyner makyng but for suche as be my wif Lovers and friends with mine Executors and Overseers and their frendes And there to be spent the same dyner and soper and there be any xls And also I wyll there be spent in the churche amongst preestes and clerkes and other poore people iiiic cakis and Bunnes Sum xs And in cheese if the time be therafter iis to be divided in cauntelles3 And ii Barrels of Ale and a kylderkynne of single Bere Sum ixs Also I wyll there be no plate occupied at the churche but white Cuppes and white disshes the some of the charges doon in the churche of saint Olaves is xxis beside the Cuppes and disshes that I putto the discrecion of myn deputies Also I wyll there be spent in the churche of saint Mary Overies whan dirige is doon among the Chanons and the Belle Ryngers in Cakes other breade and Chese iis And i kirdelkyn of Ale of iis Sum iiiis Also I forgyve Robert Boulton all the duetie that he owith me from the begynnyng of the world unto the day of my disceas excepte vili And that he and denys his wif agree with ffelice my wif myn Executrice towarde her chargeis in the payments and performance of my wyll Also I gyve and bequeth to Elizabeth Newington wedowe a Redde mantell price viiis and a blake gowne price xs Also I wyll that Immediately after my disceas that my Laste Lyverey gown furred with backes of ffoynes4 be sold by myn executors and the money therof to goo to the performance of this my wyll Also I wyll and charge my saide Executors that after my disceas that they nor none of them do take or cause to be taken a lre [letter] of the Bisshop or of his deputeis wherby my wyll shal be disannulled as they shall answere before god at the day of Judgement Also I wyll at my monthes daye when my masse is doon that my debuties have home to my house the master and the wardens with ii presstes And all that hath been Wardeyns with Naybors such as they shall thynke moost necessarie of the parisshe of saint Olaves and of mary magdalene overy where as I have Lengest contynue at And to be spent at that dyner vili xiiis iiiid And that day to Soper I wyll my poore neighbors


be at to have the Revercion of that same dyner And if there be no supper as the daye may falle I wyll they be hadde to brekefast on the morowe Also to Joanne my doughter iii yerdes of blake for a gowne price xiis Also Joanne Bagtwayte iii yerdes of Blake price xiis Also to Alice my prentice I forgyve and Release all her yeres after my disceas And I wyll she have a gowne of blake price xs Also I bequeth to my wif suster the wif of Robert Bolton iii yerdes of blake price xiiis iiiid and xiiis iiiid in money. In Witenes wherof to this me present testament and Last wyll I have sette my seale the day and yere abovewritten Also I John Aunsell do make surrendr of all my copyhold unto ffelice my wif master Towll of London draper And Wyllyam Aunsell of Asshewell Also I bequeth to Elyn Cooper the wif of Richarde Cooper a gowne cloth of blake price of xiis And to the parisshe preest of saint Olaves vis viiid Also I forgyve Sir Thomas Bagthawyte xxxiiis iiiid due to me at Easter Last past Also I forgive Banks dier of any obligacion of ixli v li to be paid unto myn Executors iiiili Hiis testibz pro me .d. Joannem par curat ecclie sancti Olavi pro me .d. Joannem Ewmyn Willm Branche Willm Blaicke John Bower John Taverner Thomas fforde

Identity: what constitutes John Aunsell’s identity? As a statement of identity made in consideration of a very significant moment in the life-course, a will text lends itself perfectly to a discussion of the concept ‘identity’.5 In this text, John Aunsell describes himself in a number of different ways using a range of different categories for description. The first thing to say, therefore, is that John Aunsell’s sense of his individual identity is multi-form.6 It is made up of a number of different elements. At the most basic level, these elements include his name and occupation. But there is also a range of other elements contributing to his identity, including various places, various other people such as his family and friends, and various requests for the continued remembrance of his life. Because they all relate to a single individual, the categories through which an identity is constructed are connected and are not entirely discrete units. An individual such as John Aunsell must also choose from the set of categories available to the specific period and place in which he lives. But, as the following examination of identity as constructed through a last will and testament shows, an individual could use and manipulate these categories, and the ways they are connected, in a self-conscious manner.


Name, occupation and fraternity The basic units of name and occupation as presented in this text govern much of the complexity of individual identity, so they serve as a useful beginning to illustrate the range of issues associated with the concept ‘identity’. As this will text shows, those basic units are themselves laden with many levels of meaning. The name ‘John’ seems a crucial element in John Aunsell’s definition of himself. Symbolic associations with this name connect to various aspects of his individual identity, as well as to his identity in relation to the various groups to which he belongs including his family in both the past and the present, and several pious and secular fraternities. The opening phrase of the will identifies this individual by his name as John Aunsell, in an entirely expected formula used almost invariably in this kind of text.7 But as the text unfolds, the convolutions involved with the ascription ‘John’ become increasingly clear: Aunsell appears to construct aspects of his own identity by association with other Johns. One of the most prevalent of these associations is St John the Baptist. For example, Aunsell requests that a sermon of the life of Saint John be said at his dirge in St Olave’s church; he belongs to various fraternities of St John the Baptist; he asks for prayers to be said at the altar of St John in Ashwell, Hertfordshire (for his parents and himself, his father also happening to be called John); he uses the symbolism of St John on his commemorative stone; and he bequeaths various objects with figures or symbols of St John the Baptist to his family and associates. The name John is also present as a means of identifying John Aunsell as a member of a group, specifically an extended family of relatives and kin. The name of Aunsell’s father, John, has already been mentioned. But there is also a recurrence of the name John in Aunsell’s extended family. Both of Aunsell’s two brothers (Richard and William) have sons called John and these are almost certainly the eldest son in each case, as they are mentioned first in the list of bequests given to the sons of each brother. It is probable that our John Aunsell was also the eldest child. It also seems likely that the John theme has been continued, as closely as possible, in the system for naming female children: Aunsell’s brother, William, has a daughter and granddaughter named Joanne; and Aunsell’s only daughter is also called Jane (or Joan).8 So, while the name John is used by Aunsell as part of his own method of relating his own identity to a range of symbolic cultural references, the importance of this name to his extended family also helps to illustrate the ways that


associations with family members (through name) were important elements of an individual’s identity in this period. Aunsell uses the name John as a means of organising a set of symbolic references, which help in the forming of his identity. The ways that the theme of ‘John’ is being used here – to request commemorative prayers, to design a tombstone, to structure a funeral service, to show allegiance or belonging to groups such as fraternity or family – are all entirely conventional for this period. Aunsell’s activity of forming his identity, or at least a representation of his identity within the terms of this particular textual discourse, is the process inferred by the phrase ‘construction of identity’. The occupation of John Aunsell is stated near the beginning of his will. He is a merchant tailor and a citizen of London. The importance of this occupational status as part of his identity is indicated in several ways during the will text. One very clear expression of the significance both of being a tailor and his London connections is found on his request for a commemorative tomb, which is to display the ‘. . . four Scotchens at the iiii Corners of the saide stone with tharmes of myne occupacion and thearmes of London and all to be guilded in fyne golde . . .’ Aunsell leaves various bequests to the fraternity of his occupation, and also makes various requests of this fraternity for after his death. One of his main gifts to the fraternity is a ‘nutte potte garnished with sylver and all gilt with the picture of saint John the Baptist stonding on the lydde’. The general tenor of the requests is that the master and wardens of the guild make provision to pray for his soul, in various ways including putting his name in the bede roll of the fraternity. Both the gifts and the requests therefore provide an illustration of the significance of this occupation for the identity of the individual called John Aunsell both while he was alive and after he is dead. But, alongside his family, this is not the only source of a group identity because he also expresses allegiance to some other groups, which are specifically pious fraternities; as well as expressing allegiance to other saints’ cults by gifts to particular altars. He belongs to pious fraternities and cults situated in various different churches in Southwark and beyond. Within Southwark, his allegiance is split between several institutions including his mother church of St Mary Magdalene Overie (where he wishes to be buried), his parish church of St Olave, and the hospital of St Thomas. Within his parish church, Aunsell’s allegiances are split between four fraternities and two sororities – an unusual possibility found in Southwark. Outside of Southwark, Aunsell also belongs to the guild of St John the Baptist in Ashwell, Hertfordshire; a place which is clearly also very important to him in terms of his family identity.


Place and family A specific place may be significant for the identification of an individual within a family and its past. John Aunsell’s will provides a clear example of this with regard to his use of Ashwell in Hertfordshire. Ashwell is not only a site for the material support of his family in terms of land, property, and wealth; the church of Ashwell is also a site for the commemoration of the lives of his parents and himself; and his property in this town is used to provide material insurance for his spiritual arrangements concerning the various provisions for his soul. Members of Aunsell’s family, such as his brother William, appear to be already in residence in this town indicating that this location remains a site for geographical identification with his family. He uses the property he owns for two specific purposes: for spiritual insurance and for the maintenance and enhancement of various family members’ wealth. John Aunsell leaves his ‘place’ with a horse mill, orchard, and various other lands to the fraternity of St John the Baptist of Ashwell. This involves a complicated arrangement with several conditions that payments for various prayers for his soul be made by both this fraternity and the fraternity of the same name in London. The arrangement he makes is mutually beneficial to the two fraternities as each gains from the payments made by the other, both using the resources provided by this piece of property. This arrangement ensures that provision for Aunsell’s soul be made. Such provision is one of the conventional roles of these fraternities, but in using this complicated arrangement, which brings together what might be seen as two competing institutions (in the sense that both compete for Aunsell’s membership), Aunsell is manipulating this conventional role of the fraternity. In so doing Aunsell is manipulating two social institutions that help to constitute his identity. The possibilities for multiple membership of such fraternities is further manipulated by Aunsell as he ordains that yet another fraternity, that of Jesus of Baldock, should receive the benefits of this property if the other two default on their payments. John Aunsell’s use of property for the material benefit of his family also helps to cement the connections between himself, his extended family, and this particular place. He gives property (land and buildings) and sheep to at least four of the six sons of his two brothers, Richard and William (it is not clear whether or not the land given to the two remaining sons of William is in Ashwell). Aunsell also gives property in Ashwell to his immediate female relatives (his wife, Felice, and daughter, Jane). Felice is to receive two places with land, gardens and orchards, which are to be inherited by Jane (his only surviving child) if she produces male


heirs, or else go to his brother William. While being entirely conventional, the focus on male heirs in this instance also indicates that Aunsell is interested in preserving the connection between the Aunsell name and the property owned by his family in Ashwell. The pragmatic construction of identity The examples of name, occupation, fraternity, family, and place illustrate the multifaceted nature of an individual’s identity – in this instance the identity of John Aunsell as represented through a will text. One implication of this example is that identity was constructed from a range of culturally embedded choices; and that this construction was self-conscious and involved the manipulation of various structures.9 Within this culture, there were many different and distinct possibilities for an individual to choose from. The choices available to individuals of the early English renaissance are distinct in many ways from the choices and categories available in the twentyfirst century. This means that present day categories of units that constitute identity do not necessarily apply to an analysis of this different culture. The issue of understanding the concept of identity from the perspective of a different culture has recently been recognised by anthropologists such as Marilyn Strathern, who suggests that it ‘is not to imagine one can replace exogenous concepts by indigenous counterparts; rather the task is to convey the complexity of the indigenous concepts in reference to the particular context in which they are produced’.10 To understand the ways that these categories of perception work in society, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is useful. This term summarises all the practices of everyday life that an individual learns through direction and accident, by virtue of living in a particular society. Habitus may be used to locate the construction and perception of identity within a regenerative system of ‘regulated improvisations’ that implies connections between identity and its transmission.11 This is a structural concept, but it does allow identity to be based on fluidity up to a point, because it describes a cultural situation of practices in which the creative negotiation of interpersonal relationships is continuous. However, this concept does not quite encompass the creative role of an individual in the construction of his or her own identity because Bourdieu does not allow sufficiently for subjectivity.12 That said, the concept of habitus is nevertheless useful, if the subjective involvement of an individual such as John Aunsell in the practice of constructing his identity is added into the model.


Many of the various possibilities available to an individual such as John Aunsell were concerned with allegiance to different groups such as fraternities. It might be said that in belonging to various different such groups, there would always be a situation of partial belonging, and perhaps of competition within the individual between these different allegiances. In recent anthropological theory, the different kinds of identification system available to a single individual have been termed ‘ethnicities’. This term allows individual identity to be viewed as ‘impermanent’, and always in a process of ‘adjusting itself to the specific circumstances of any ethnic interaction’.13 A further implication of the John Aunsell example, which connects to this modern theoretical vocabulary of ethnicities, is that identity was constructed through a pragmatic process of using what was available. John Aunsell’s lack of surviving male heirs, for example, required him to use his brothers’ sons as a main source of preserving family identity in Ashwell. The recurring theme of ‘John’ also illustrates this mixture of pragmatics and careful design in the construction of identity: a number of references to St John, such as the sermon and commemorative prayers at the Ashwell altar, are clearly chosen by John Aunsell from a range of other possibilities. Other references to St John, however, are not only chosen but also serendipitously relevant to Aunsell’s identity: the clearest example of this is the fraternity of the merchant tailors in London, which happens to be called the fraternity of St John the Baptist. Aunsell did not give the fraternity its name, but it does lend itself very well to his own intense concerns with the symbolism of St John as expressed through his various Johnrelated bequests and requests. Similarly, although probably chosen by Aunsell from within a range of possibilities, the fraternity of St John the Baptist at Ashwell is also intensely relevant to his own construction of a set of symbolic references used to express his identity. And the particular relevance of the Ashwell fraternity also points to the influence of the past on the formation of an individual’s choices – the interest in the name John probably stretches back through at least two generations of Aunsells. The various social institutions, or fraternities, to which Aunsell belongs are all units in the multiform structure which constitutes his individual identity. They are also institutions that give the individual a place within a group – or a group identity. Aunsell is able to use what are in effect the competing functions of two fraternities of the same name for the benefit of his soul after his death. What this engineered interaction between two social institutions amounts to is a manipulation of boundaries; where boundaries are taken to mean the edges of a unit of


individual identity.14 The formation of an individual’s multiform identity uses social institutions; the individual is therefore able to ascribe to a range of particular groups with different and similar functions. The multiple levels of interaction between individual identity and group identity make problematic the relationships between the collective and the individual.15 The seminal work of Frederik Barth is influential on this kind of approach to identity and ethnicity (and culture). Three ‘central tenets’ of his analysis of ethnicity are that ethnicity is a form of social organisation, that the ‘critical focus for investigation becomes the ethnic boundary that defines the group rather than the cultural stuff that it encloses’, and that the ‘critical feature of ethnic groups is the characteristic of self ascription and ascription by others’.16 And, using current critical vocabulary, it is possible to discuss the ‘flux of culture’ and its relation to ‘ethnic processes’, which ‘sustain relative discontinuities in this flux and thereby provide a basis for ethnic identity’.17 In this way of thinking, ‘culture’ is understood to be more about diversity than homogeneity.18 The concept of culture is discussed in more detail at the end of this chapter. The issues of individual identity are considered in more detail in chapters 5 and 6, where I focus on the uses of material culture in the process of self-fashioning. One of the main sources of textual evidence for this is the last will and testament. Essential to this examination of identity is the idea that acts of fashioning are necessarily ‘performative’. Chapters 5 and 6 are therefore built around what are effectively fragmentary instances of evidence for the performance of cultural creativity, which are drawn from a wide range of different types of source that refer to different cultural situations. This is appropriate, although not straightforwardly analogous, to the concept of individual identity as made up of fragments and contradictions.19 The analysis of cultural creativity throughout this book focuses on personal perception and experience in conjunction with perceptions of family and group identity.

Appropriation, performance, and translation The discussion of what constitutes John Aunsell’s individual identity provides plausible evidence to suggest that he was self-conscious about the construction of himself through this particular text. He used available structures of identity such as various social institutions or fraternities, the symbolic and familial resonances of his first name, his occupation and status as a citizen of London, in the process of producing a written text that summarises the personhood of John Aunsell.


In my discussion of the last will and testament as a form of evidence, I used the term ‘appropriative acts’ to refer to the means by which individuals such as John Aunsell used these types of text. This phrase refers to that process whereby John Aunsell used the structures available within his culture in the constitution of his individual identity. The appropriative acts examined throughout this book are the acts of villagers and townspeople in England as they produce and use written texts and objects for the negotiation of their perceptions about individual, family, and group identity. The phrase ‘appropriative acts’ is used to indicate the focus on process rather than the more structuralist focus on acts of appropriation in terms of their origins.20 This emphasis on process fits with recent theoretical approaches to what has become a popular word.21 The increasingly ‘shifting’ and ‘blurred’ ‘cultural boundaries’ of the twentieth century have played an important role in such reassessments of post-colonial discourse and the ‘pervasive postcolonial crisis of ethnographic authority’.22 John Aunsell’s text specifically raises issues of performance. For example, referring to the duties of the fraternity of St John at Ashwell in return for the property in Ashwell, the will states: I gyve [it] for ever more to thuse of the ffraternitie of saint John the Baptist of Asshewell they performyng my wyll as is aforesaid Also I wyll and charge the same personis that shalbe thus charged in no cause breke this my wyll as is aforesaide as they wyll answere afore god at the day of Judgement after I have prformed this according to my wyll as I entende to doo as Councell shall advyse me And in another instance the phrase the ‘performance of my wyll’ is used to refer to Aunsell’s wife’s role as executrix. These are conventional uses of the word ‘performance’ in this context and they refer specifically to the carrying out of the requests made in the will text. But, taken at a more abstract level, and in connection with the self-conscious production of this will text by John Aunsell, it makes sense to use the phrase ‘performance of identity’. In using ideas of performance, a debt is owed to linguistics and its speech-act theorists.23 Some descendants of speech-act theory are particularly relevant, especially pioneering work in gender studies, which looked to ideas about citation to trace the ‘rules’ of conventionality through which the performance of gender is enacted and negotiated.24 Ultimately, these modes of theorising are not directly relevant to my concerns as in effect they affirm the existence of cultural specificity but do not explore the practical details of its processes.


However, I employ Jacques Derrida’s performative notion of citation at a number of different levels, from the processes by which a written record is derived, imagined and constructed, to the influence of actions on personal experiences.25 Throughout this book, my emphasis is on practices of the performance of identity in specific cultural situations, and not theories about the performance of identity. The acts of appropriation examined in this book need also to be understood in relation to current concepts of translation. Translation of texts or other cultural products is now generally understood to constitute a change in meaning.26 I understand translation as having equivalence with appropriation, the implication being that culturally produced motives for the change of meaning associated with an act of translation may also be associated with an act of appropriation.27 This is not an idea of translation as an imposed meaning by a dominant ‘translator’ onto a ‘reader’.28 It needs to be understood that for both an act of translation and an act of appropriation, the meaning of the resulting ‘text’ remains flexible, and available for ‘cultural creativity’, with the possibility that meanings may be different for translators than for the ‘readers’.

Consumption and emulation The concepts of consumption and emulation run throughout this book and they are connected with the concepts of appropriation and reception (discussed below). Issues associated with consumption and emulation also occur throughout John Aunsell’s last will and testament. At a basic level, John Aunsell’s text provides illustrations of his consumption of material goods and his emulation of style, but each of these aspects of his life are of course laden with many meanings and implications.29 A detailed consideration of what consumption means to an individual like John Aunsell helps to begin explaining my use of these concepts. John Aunsell gives a number of different kinds of goods to a range of beneficiaries. In Aunsell’s culture, material goods had a different level of value to the value attributed to goods in this present society of mass consumerism. The giving of ‘heirlooms’ in the early English renaissance is therefore particularly poignant, and relevant to an individual’s construction of him or herself as a person (see Chapter 4). The kinds of goods given by Aunsell fall into several categories, which are entirely conventional for this period: these may be roughly summarised as metal ware, clothing, and jewellery. As a citizen of London it can be assumed that John Aunsell was not poor, and the objects he owned seem to bear


that out. However, it is important to stress that the objects given here do not amount to all the goods he owned during his life. The purpose of this examination of the goods given by John Aunsell is specifically to illustrate how the concepts of consumption and emulation are addressed throughout this book. Some of the silver objects bequeathed by John Aunsell have already been mentioned in connection with his intense interest in the symbolic associations of the name John. In all, he bequeaths seven silver vessels of various kinds and a set of six silver spoons, these go to family members with the exception of the one given to the fraternity of merchant tailors. Aunsell’s niece Joanne (daughter of William) receives two objects, a standing cup with a cover and a columbine in the bottom and a maser with a widow’s head in the bottom. Aunsell’s daughter, Joan, receives three vessels: one of three goblets bought at Antwerp which is white silver and decorated or ‘pounsid’ (probably an embossed design); a standing maser with a cover and a flower in the bottom; and a silver pot weighing 13–12 ounces with a lamb on the lid. Aunsell’s brother, William, receives his ‘leest Nutte’ pot with a cover bought from Mowesdale the goldsmith and garnished with silver and gilt; and six spoons with St John the Baptist on the ends of them.30 Although this evidence is concerned with gifts given rather than gifts received, it does provide useful evidence for the goods owned by such individuals. More particularly, the descriptions associated with the goods provide evidence for perceptions of those goods. I use the term ‘consumption’ to refer to these issues of the culturally constructed perception of goods. This relates to recent theoretical vocabularies relating consumption to production in a way that includes the possibilities for choice in the reception and perception of such goods.31 It seems plausible to suggest that within the range of possible goods Aunsell has specifically chosen silverware as one category of heirloom. This is a choice based on individual taste, but it is also a choice mediated by the particular cultural conditions in which Aunsell lived, and this choice may also have been informed by Aunsell’s sense that an individual of his social status ought to give silverware as an heirloom gift perhaps as a means of aspiration and self-identification by using taste in silver to classify his identity.32 If consumption is understood within its complexity of contextual situations and ‘cultural competences’ this makes problematic straightforward notions of emulation.33 Throughout this book, I seek to understand consumption – however conspicuous or inconspicuous – as an active process, at the levels of symbolism and everyday practice.


Aunsell’s gifts of silverware help to illustrate how his consumption of goods is connected to the construction of a symbolic set of references (and these are symbolic references that are integral to his construction of personhood). Aunsell gives three silver items relating to the symbolism of St John: the pot with the figure of St John given to the fraternity of merchant tailors; the silver pot weighing 13–12 ounces with a lamb (the symbol of John the Baptist) on the lid given to his daughter; and the six spoons with St John the Baptist on the ends given to his brother. In the context of Aunsell’s intense interest in the symbolic resonances of his first name, these gifts provide a good illustration of the ways in which choices about consumption connect with individual identity, at both a symbolic and practical level.34 Different social groups play out, define, and contest the valuation of particular commodities, performing acts of consumption in particular arenas.35 This approach to consumption queries generalised definitions of the symbolic meaning of a particular kind of commodity. Such arenas for performing consumption are integral to my proposition that appropriative acts are a ritualised form of representation. Testamentary texts are one such arena. John Aunsell refers to the specific purchase of his silver goods at particular places or from particular people, almost as if he had purposely collected these objects. All the objects are also described carefully using a range of categories of description including style, provenance, weight and so on. Alongside identifying which item is which, these descriptions also appear to be very personalised. This is perhaps clearer with Aunsell’s bequests of jewellery, which is admittedly a kind of object that lends itself to particularly intimate forms of description. Aunsell leaves two items of jewellery, both gold rings, to the two overseers of his will. These are described as a ‘playne hope of gold the wiche I have usid to were on my forefinger’, and ‘a playne Ryng of gold the wiche I have usid to were on my Lytle finger’. Such very personal kinds of description seem to go beyond the issue of relating the consumption of goods to specific social classes or groups. Thus, whereas recent analyses of valuation tend to focus on social groups/classes, the examination of consumption in this book looks beyond the social group to evidence of value-perceptions made by individual and family. Emulation is in many ways too old-fashioned a concept for the subject of this book. However it remains useful if emulation is understood not as a simple one-way activity of copying, but rather in terms of interaction, fluidity, non-resolution, and multiple meanings. One poignant example lending itself to a consideration of emulation in John Aunsell’s will text is his request for a commemorative tomb. The particular


elements in Aunsell’s multiplex tombstone design that are dripping with emulation are the two sets of symbols involved with the four ‘scotchens’, or escutcheons, that he requests: described as being of his occupation and the arms of London. Seen in terms of a simple act of copying, this request should be described as Aunsell’s emulation of noble and aristocratic tomb designs on which there was often depicted the heraldic trappings of the particular family. It may well be that Aunsell is copying the use of these kinds of symbolic signifiers of identity by making what should have been heraldic symbolism into the signifiers of a merchant tailor and a citizen of London. However the way that he copies this idea for the representation of individual identity is better described as an act of appropriation because in converting from heraldic symbolism to townsman’s symbolism he is significantly altering the nature of the symbol. Aunsell appropriates this method of symbolising identity. The signs of identity produced in these escutcheons do not represent the issues of family tradition and identity signified by heraldry; they now represent one individual’s association with a particular craft and also that individual’s association, through his craft, with a particular place, London. Aunsell’s request for escutcheons needs also to be considered in relation to the rest of his tomb design. This is a design that involves a range of symbolisms including a further emphasis on the theme of ‘John’, which appears to be so important for this individual elsewhere. The precise nature of Aunsell’s use of the John theme in the tomb is not entirely clear. Aunsell’s request, for example, for a scripture coming from the man’s head saying ‘the two Johns pray for the third’ is obviously an emphasis on the theme of John. However, it is not entirely clear who the three Johns are in this instance. It seems likely that the first John is the man from whose head the script issues, and he probably signifies John Aunsell while alive; the third John would presumably be the dead John Aunsell lying in the tomb. But who is the second John? This may be what is described as ‘the holy lambe’ (the same symbol for John the Baptist as appears on one of the silver pots). John Aunsell’s escutcheons need to be understood as acts of appropriation within the context of a whole range of personally constructed symbolic units that are to be pieced together on the tombstone. In terms of the will text, these units themselves also operate within a wider sphere of symbolic references. When added together, the units on the tombstone amount to a summary that seems appropriate to this individual, for the continued commemoration of him after his death. So, although the various aspects of his tomb design – pelican, figures,


the lamb, various captions and verses, the escutcheons and so on – are all entirely conventional, the combination in this instance is entirely personal to John Aunsell. The signifiers of identity that are available for emulation are therefore subject to a ‘diversity of meanings’, depending on the context in which they are used, and the particular perception of the emulator.36 Throughout this book, texts such as John Aunsell’s, which provide valuable evidence for perception and experience in the popular culture of this period, are used to assess experiences of consumption. This includes the consumption of goods, household space, and fictional writing. People such as John Aunsell had highly developed views about taste, style, and individuality and these are expressed, in part, through their consumption practices.37 This book asserts the need to consider the nature of individuality and individual choices before c. 1550, calling into question a still remarkably prevalent idea that individuality was not asserted before this date.38

Reception and representation John Aunsell’s will text directly addresses the subject of reception with regard to how this text is to be ‘performed’; but also, towards the end of the text there is something of a threat concerning the fulfilment of his wishes: Also I wyll and charge my saide Executors that after my disceas that they nor none of them do take or cause to be taken a lre [letter] of the Bisshop or of his deputeis wherby my wyll shal be disannulled as they shall answere before god at the day of Judgement This clause directly addresses how the will text is to be used (or how it is not to be ignored) after Aunsell’s death and as such it concerns the reception of this text in the wider community. There are other aspects of this text, which directly relate to the public reception of the will text, and these also relate to the public performance of this text. Quite conventionally, Aunsell also makes requests that several ‘receptions’ take place in the public events surrounding his funeral with the various provision of ale and food for the congregation. These types of request help to indicate the situations in which a text such as this is performed in the public sphere. They are about the public reception of such a text and as such they provide some insight into the workings of textual culture in this kind of society. The text being publicly performed through these


events is also the encapsulation of the identity of an individual as constructed from the practices and symbols that are culturally available. Aunsell’s preparations for his wakes provide direct evidence for how the reception of such a text works; but there is also a whole range of other issues of reception that this text illustrates. All will texts are laden with anticipated acts of reception that are set up in the heirlooms bequeathed to family and associates. At a more abstract level, the acts of appropriation involved with Aunsell’s use of certain symbolic schemes should also be seen as receptive. In both the anticipation of reception in gift giving and the construction of a symbolic set of references Aunsell is involved in the evaluation of cultural meaning, or in other words, a process of reception. The testator is therefore analogous to a reader who is seeking and producing meaning from a text. The whole situation of receptions illustrated by John Aunsell’s text is also conditioned by that text, and the very particular circumstances involved with its production both at the individual level (in consideration of death), and at the broader contextual level of the culture of willmaking in the early English renaissance. There is a necessary balance between his personal choices, and the requirements that certain rules be obeyed, both of textual convention and of contextual convention. These rules condition the nature of all the acts of reception associated with the production and consumption of this text. In recent theoretical work, amidst the general excitement about the importance of issues concerning ‘reading’ or ‘reception’, some theoretical scholars have seemed to ignore these contextual rules. This tends towards a situation of denying the material reality of the ‘text’ being received, giving the reader uncontextualised primacy.39 My approach to the issues of reception evinced by texts like John Aunsell’s is to negotiate, with the aim of employing an interpretative practice that is somewhere between intentionalism and pragmatism. The consideration of contemporary perceptions and experiences is essential in this interpretative practice. This negotiation of reception – of how meanings are made and how they are perceived – is also concerned with investigating, ‘the process by which a meaning is produced historically and differences in sense arise’.40 This process requires practical application to detailed evidence in order to assess the particular reader’s appropriations as he or she reads, writes or uses a text. Everything about John Aunsell that may be explored from his will is framed within a situation of representation. The entire practice of interpretation involved with understanding John Aunsell’s identity, his acts of appropriation, his practices of consumption, and his own processes of


reception, are all framed within this textual discourse. The word ‘discourse’ is a loaded term in current theoretical vocabulary and as such it is essential to pay it some attention here, specifically in relation to the theoretical inheritance of this term and how I use it to discuss textual practices. Textual practices form part of a broader issue of ‘ “world as representation” (a world fashioned by means of the series of discourses that apprehend and structure experience)’.41 This book makes reference to the word ‘discourse’ and it must acknowledge the debt to Michel Foucault on this point.42 But, my use of ‘discourse’ is concerned with ‘plural uses and diverse readings’, in which discourses are available for appropriation by the non-élite as well as those in power.43 My examination of the role and use of various texts in the construction of identity is based on the evidence that these administrative, legal and literary discourses were available for appropriation by the villagers and townspeople that used them. The kinds of analytical questions associated with this examination of discourse are: ‘Who speaks? Who writes? When and where? With or to whom? Under what institutional and historical constraints?’44 I believe that there are important issues concerning how the word ‘discourse’ can and should be used and that these issues require development for finding a way out of the current interpretative crisis. For clarity in this book, however, my predominant use of the term ‘discourse’ is firstly with reference to ‘legal discourse’, by which I mean the formal language of the court as reflected in the last will and testament. In order to make distinctions between different levels of textuality occurring in the testamentary text, however, I also use some other terms to describe different kinds of ‘language’ (by which I mean the generic use of words). For example, I use ‘personal parlance’ to refer to how personal choice is written; I use ‘rhetoric’ to refer to the formulaic structure of the language in the testamentary text, and to allude to the performative nature of the will; and ‘vocabulary’ to describe specific word usages. I also use the idea of testamentary or textual ‘representation’ in order to maintain a sense that written texts are constructed rather than transparently truthful; and I have used the related concept of ‘cultural production’ with regard to the nature of testamentary evidence for the consumption of goods.

So what is cultural creativity? The ways that ordinary individuals understood and defined themselves in the early English renaissance is described in this book as a process of ‘cultural creativity’. At present, the subject of ‘cultural creativity’ tends


to occur within anthropological and ethnological writing.45 My approach to creativity is concerned with cultural process: here, creativity is defined simply, as ‘activity that produces something new through the recombination and transformation of existing cultural practices or forms’. In this approach, the word ‘innovation’ is in many ways synonymous with creativity.46 Or, to use another synonym, creativity has been defined as involving, ‘the acceptance of the novel in a social environment’.47 Novelty and innovation are, in these instances, to be seen as distinct from what is now a rather more conventional approach to cultural process, which looks to the ‘improvisation’ of possibilities within a particular framework.48 Themes that tend to arise in the cultural process approach to cultural creativity include relationships between nationalism and local identity, carnival, musical innovations, gift exchange, and the effects of commoditisation. However, shifting this interest in cultural process into premodern society signals a separation from the anthropological project. This is because anthropologists have generally understood cultural creativity as symptomatic of the ‘spark of the incessant innovation of modernity’.49 This is a modern world that experiences ‘the rupture of traditions, market integration, community dispersal and the pursuit of a better life through superior technology and products’. If not an absolute requirement, then, modernity and the ‘global cultural field’ are at least seen as primary factors in a recent explosion of cultural creativity.50 The shift of this subject into pre-modern society therefore presents a separation from that focus on distinctly modern cultural systems. However, because of the geographical location of many of their subjects, the structures that the anthropologists deal with are still not entirely distinct from those of pre-modern English society. Despite its focus on a globalised economy, for example, anthropological views of cultural creativity have been very much concerned with the ‘local agendas’ of cultural creativity in specific communities and groups.51 These local agendas, alongside the issues of rupture, market expansion, commoditisation, and community restructuring are also common currency in studies of pre-modern English society. Anthropological definitions of culture form a fundamental basis to the subject of cultural creativity. Very influential has been Clifford Geertz’s semiotic definition of culture as ‘webs of significance’, the analysis of which is an ‘interpretative one in search of meaning’.52 But more recently, scholars have sought to understand culture as less coherent than this explanatory model suggests.53 Roger Chartier, for example, identifies the ‘subtle game of appropriations, reutilizations


and redirections’ involved in cultural transmission, noting that ‘differing cultural configurations criss-cross and dovetail in practices, representations, or cultural products’.54 Renato Rosaldo suggests that ‘rather than the self-contained whole made up of coherent patterns, culture can arguably be conceived as a more porous array of intersections where distinct processes crisscross from within and beyond its borders’.55 James Clifford writes, ‘ “culture” is always relational, an inscription of communicative processes that exist, historically, between subjects in relations of power’.56 And Jean-Loup Amselle refers to ‘culture’ as a ‘reservoir of conflictual or peaceful practices used by its actors to continually renegotiate their identity’.57 The implications of such approaches, which see culture as a dynamic process, are that (although working within the restrictions of historical contingency) symbols, signs, and representations have disrupted meanings, which are dependent at least in part on the pragmatic context, and are available for creative innovation.58 This use of ‘disrupted meanings’ is not intended to replace a simple concept of structure with a simple concept of complexity.59 Understanding culture as dynamic also informs the concept of ‘contingency’, which is necessary for understanding specific local instances of cultural creativity. The ‘mestizo logic’ of social phenomena, for example, provides a way of exploring how the imposition of categories in order to define culture involves a process of de-contextualisation.60 This understanding of ‘contingency’ is based on the importance of acknowledging the influence of continued interactions of ‘contextual’ factors on the formation of any social phenomenon. This means that the process of renegotiating identity central to cultural creativity needs to be understood within the cultural contexts of individual and family, and analytical categories should be made with this particularity in mind. These renegotiations of identity constantly incorporate particular factors not necessarily expected by the interpreter and not necessarily included in a static, categorising, definition of this or that culture. These incorporated ‘factors’ have some kind of logic for the incorporator, in a particular moment and situation.61 At the heart of the processes of cultural creativity discussed throughout this book, are the disrupted meanings that occur through the reception and consumption of the symbols, signs, and representations used in the making and understanding of written text and material object. Usages of language provide a particularly good source of evidence for the disrupted meanings of cultural categories, and their renegotiation.62


Culturally creative individuals Individuals of the early English renaissance had at their disposal a whole range of structures, or ‘sites of practice’, through which they could formulate individual and group identities. These sites of practice were negotiated and assessed through the structures of representation present in textual discourses. The sites of practice investigated in this book include the definition and negotiation of family and kinship bonds, perceptions of the built environment, ideas about lifestyle including views on luxury and domestic goods and their fashions, and also choices concerned with a person’s continued existence beyond life – about commemoration and memorial. These issues of constructing identity are at the heart of ‘cultural creativity’. This means that in any community, cultural creativity was operating, continuously, at that mundane level. That said, it is also the case that there exist certain individuals who appear to be particularly culturally creative. These people probably occupy a special position as agents of cultural change. The precise possibilities for manipulating these sites of practice also varied according to the specific geographical location and the cultural influences at work on that particular place. In general, local custom had a direct influence on everyday practices, as with the existence in a certain location of particular processions or pageants or systems of land rights. Some places in England, by virtue of their contacts with London, were subject to metropolitan influences on a daily basis whereas for other places, at a greater distance, the influence of London culture was weaker. The borough of Southwark, for example, so close to the City of London and yet still jurisdictionally distinct, was strongly influenced by the presence of London citizens with their knowledge of London tastes and London business. Southwark, like other places on the Thames, was also influenced by the cosmopolitanism of incoming and outgoing traders, as well as having its own community of Flemish refugees. A place such as Greenwich also experienced distinct combinations of influences by virtue of its location on the Thames, the presence of the moveable royal household, its proximity to London, the combination of religious and lay landholders, and its cosmopolitan range of residents.63 In many ways the cultural dynamics of towns such as Greenwich or Southwark provide exceptional conditions for mixing the extraordinary with the mundane; a mix that appears to be conducive to cultural creativity. The idea that there are sites of practice for cultural creativity adds to the problem of what constitutes a place. A structurally based assessment


of the nature of individual settlements such as Greenwich or Southwark cannot account for the cultural influences acting on these settlements and the people living in them. This chapter’s discussion of theoretical perspectives as illustrated by John Aunsell’s will text indicates that to understand cultural creativity it is imperative to look beyond community, social group, or social class to personal choice and individual expression. This is not to deny the influence of place, family, and group on individual cultural creativity; and indeed some such influences are considered in this book, especially with regard to the transmission of ideas and practices. Throughout this book, some particular types of individuals and their groups recur as being particularly significant for the transmission of ideas about cultural creativity. Two specific groups are the servants of the moveable royal household, and the citizens of London. Both groups appear to play a significant role in the transmission of ideas: for the citizens, this is by virtue of their residence in the hinterland communities of London; and for the servants, this is by virtue of their position on the edge of a very distinct culture of élite tastes, styles and practices. These particular groups of individuals are arbiters of cultural creativity; they interact with and circulate sets of ideas throughout the geographical region loosely defined as the metropolitan hinterland. This book aims to find a path though the analysis of cultural creativity in this period. My hypothesis concerning the interaction between place and cultural creativity is that there is a set of distinct cultural influences acting on the geographical area loosely defined as the metropolitan hinterland. The dependency of these influences on geography is not specific to settlements such as town, village, or community, but determined more by the flows of ideas circulating through the settlements that constitute the metropolitan hinterland. The influences on cultural creativity in the ‘place’ defined as the metropolitan hinterland operate at a meta-settlement level. For this reason, there are specific sites of practice for cultural creativity in this ‘place’, which appear to be remarkably homogeneous. Further investigations of different parts of England are required in order to test the hypothesis concerning the distinctiveness of the metropolitan hinterland as a ‘place’ with particular sites of practice for cultural creativity. Further comparative studies of cultural creativity in single towns or localities are also needed to test the extent to which locality is significant in determining the particular ways that sites of practice are used. The origins of cultural creativity need also to be investigated through prosopographical analysis in order to assess the extent to which structures such as family, education, occupation,


and low-level patronage systems determine the sites of cultural creativity in the early English renaissance.

Conclusion The theoretical intersection between ‘identity’, ‘appropriative acts’, ‘translation’, ‘performance’ and ‘cultural creativity’ is significant for the approach taken in this book, particularly with regard to how ‘change’ is understood and analysed. The ‘appropriative acts’ involved with being culturally creative are understood as part of a ritualised process of understanding, performing, and modifying individual and group identity. This takes a view of rituals as processes of negotiation, which involve ‘tangled states’.64 Such rituals are enacted through the use of modes of expression. The ‘tangle’ implies that the motives, understandings, and receptions for particular actions (in a ritualised situation) are not always fully coherent, or fully understood by the participants in that ritual; and choices about what ritual to perform and its outcome depend on practicalities (the pragmatic context).65 The appropriative acts of producing and using the structures of representation available in text and object are indicative of small-scale adaptations made in response to the largerscale changes in society and economy. In this book, these acts are analysed in terms of the nature of the process rather than by means of counting because ‘[e]stablishing the existence of changes by means of counts of objects or motifs fails to grasp the processes of transformation at work’.66 Appropriative acts also constitute acts of change themselves. But it is also necessary to question the extent to which rituals and their modes of expression (the rituals involved with the production and reception of text and its symbolisms) do, of themselves, hold meaning.67 What these meanings may have been, and how they were construed, forms the subject of the remainder of this book.

3 Inheritance and Property

Introduction Land and property were important constituents of wealth and identity in the early English renaissance. The period c. 1450–1560 has traditionally been viewed as one of change and transition in association with a set of broad trends that connect land and property with demographic change, urban decline and restructuring, opportunities for upward social mobility, and shifting relations between lords and peasants. These issues have been significantly influential on the development of traditional approaches to the social and economic history of this period in general. But the nature and experience of the changes occurring cannot be explained through those traditions. In this chapter, I propose that a more culturally-based ethnographic examination of small-scale detailed description provides a new way of understanding how land and property was used in social adaptation, how property was perceived and experienced, and how change was accommodated. The use of written text was crucial in the formation and production of these ideas and practices concerning land and property. The first half of this chapter describes the possibilities for social adaptation, and in the second half I examine how the production and use of detailed textual description were employed in the creative activity of forming, representing, and altering perceptions of built property and living space.

Social adaptation The background Traditional approaches have tended towards a scrutiny of local dynamics in recent years because of the perceived inadequacy of general 50

Inheritance and Property 51

models for social and economic change in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.1 One aspect of the ‘agrarian crisis’, for example, that has been particularly receptive to detailed local reconstruction is the land market, where ‘engrossment’ through the purchase and/or inheritance by one individual or family of a number of small pieces of land provides an opportunity for the increase and consolidation of a plot.2 Locally-based studies of the manipulation of the land market have produced a model for a multi-phased mechanism which conferred on these communities both adaptability and resilience.3 The focus of this book on individual creativity makes problematic the simple concept of (upward) social mobility, favouring instead a complex concept that incorporates a range of social adaptation and restructuring, some of which may have enabled or caused upward or downward social mobility.4 With its tendency to query definitions and experiences of ‘decline’, the restructuring model is symptomatic of the current crisis in interpretation, and much more appropriate to the ethos of this book than are the general narratives of decline.5 Some qualification of the term ‘restructuring’ is also necessary. The approach taken here is concurrent with recent research which explains ‘restructuring’ in terms of multiple levels of success/decline/restructuring and relocation.6 In the midst of the interpretive crisis, there is a gradual shift towards ethnographic approaches. This involves taking an ‘anthropological turn’ in the study of subjects such as family and kinship; and particularly important for the purposes of this chapter is a consideration of the nature of contemporary perceptions of these structures of social cohesion and identification. The anthropological turn involves an invigorated drive to relocate the subjects of investigation, both the people and the sources, as active players in the constructed narrative.7 It still seems to be mildly contentious to focus on small-scale units of individual, family and group in the examination of fifteenth and sixteenthcentury subjects, particularly in relation to popular culture. I have therefore mainly turned to anthropological approaches, along with some other recent more ethnographic scholarship on the social history of the English economy and society.8 Modern ethnographic approaches have been important for a relatively long time in the study of household, family, kinship, and inheritance.9 Perhaps this is because, with these subjects, it is clearly necessary to consider ‘subjective, cultural, symbolic or emotional [factors]’, in contradistinction to the ‘objective, material, structural or institutional factors’.10 In Family and Inheritance, for example, Jack Goody acknowledges the importance of complexity, subtlety and contradiction for the focus


on ‘social and cultural patterns; institutions and mentalités; formal and informal structures of people’.11 Some historians have adopted a more ethnographic style in order to investigate issues of family and life-cycle. David Cressy’s examination of the ‘experiences’ of birth, marriage and death by ‘all sorts’ of men and women in Tudor and Stuart England, for example, adopts a necessarily ‘wide-ranging, eclectic, and ecumenical approach’ for such a subject.12 Kinship terminology is notoriously complex and more recently it has been observed that the variation in terminologies and meanings between different cultures has implications for the study of perceptions of kin and family.13 Anthropological kinship studies now tend to view perceptions of kinship as specific to particular societies, opening the field to accusations of cultural relativism but also stimulating further investigations of local meanings.14 The current scholarly tendency to deconstruct the concept of ‘kinship’ has involved making distinctions between rules, behaviour, and terminology.15 These distinctions are important for considering the manipulation of individual and group identity in renaissance society.16 A consequence of this developing approach is that kinship is understood to be always in the process of being created.17 And through these approaches, anthropological interest in ‘personhood’ has developed.18 Recently, it has been proposed that understandings of ‘relatedness’ are dependent on everyday practices at specific points in the life-cycle.19 The analysis of social adaptation Individual and family identity and social networks were creatively defined through the transmission of land and property. More attention to detailed evidence is needed in order to examine the inheritance strategies used in the process of social adaptation in the period c. 1450–1560. For clarity here, ‘land’ is distinguished from other kinds of ‘property’, although there are various problems of definition concerning types of both land and property. With descriptive terms such as ‘tenement’ and ‘messuage’, for example, the extent to which land is or is not a part of these property units is not completely clear. This is illustrated by a fragmentary Greenwich rental of 1455.20 Here, most of the entries are ‘tenements’ rented at between 2d and 6d to named individuals. It is unclear whether these tenements involve land although that rented to William Aunsell includes ‘aliis terris’ (other land) suggesting that there is already land with it. A number of the entries appear to include what is called a ‘piece’ of land. For example, Walter Hale rents a tenement and piece of land lying in the field called Chapelfield. It is not clear that the


tenement and the land are necessarily located in the same place; this is suggested by the inclusion of ‘adjacent to’, as descriptive of a particular situation rather than an assumed condition, for the land and tenement rented by Robert Cheesman. The kinds of land most often mentioned in the evidence from the metropolitan hinterland are arable, woodland, pasture, and marshland. Land falls into two main categories, ‘freehold’ and ‘customary’. Absolute distinctions between these are problematic, and these problems increase during the course of the period c. 1450–1560, because of changes in tenure which encouraged systems such as leasehold.21 Evidence for ‘customary land’ tends to be found in the records of the manorial courts, where it is usually acquisition that is recorded.22 Evidence for ‘freehold land’ tends to be found in the testamentary record, where plans for transmission are recorded.23 Issues concerning land have dominated the historiography of changing society and economy in England. However, the evidence from the metropolitan hinterland shows that it is important to include a whole range of other property types. Most of the testators who bequeath more than a few pieces of land also bequeath various kinds of property including tenements, houses, mills, shops, wharfs, inns, barges and agricultural stock. In general, court roll and testamentary evidence suggest that most owners of land and property held a range of different kinds of freehold and customary land rather than specialising, for example, in solely arable land or woodland, alongside property.24 There is also, however, evidence to suggest that particular individuals and families may have prioritised certain types of land or property. Marsh is one form of land that has been identified as particularly popular for accumulation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.25 Marshland was sometimes owned alongside other types of land and property in one location.26 Others owned marsh in a number of different locations.27 Evidence of ongoing disputes concerning rights in pieces of marshland called ‘town-mans-marsh’, also indicates the value of this kind of property.28 Strategies for accumulation and transmission The textual evidence for land and property ownership indicates that in the period c. 1450–1560, individuals in both rural and urban communities used a number of different strategies for accumulation and transmission. It has been suggested that southern counties were relatively wealthy in this period.29 The waterways connecting London and the Continent in this area are particularly significant, as are the quality and variety of its soils, especially the cropland and woodlands. The land


market in the metropolitan hinterland has been identified as particularly active partly because of the relative prosperity and proximity to London.30 In some counties, such as Kent, it has been proposed that peculiar landholding customs encouraged accumulation and engrossment by fostering ‘individualism’, ‘private enterprise’ and ‘individualistic economic activity’.31 Both court roll and testamentary texts provide evidence for engrossment and the opportunities for accruing wealth that this practice entails.32 Such land was frequently purchased or inherited in small units at a particular location. These units might constitute a mixture of freehold and customary land and property.33 The units of land could be accrued by one individual or by several members of the same family, to consolidate an ‘estate’. A similar strategy might also be used to enable one family to own a number of buildings in a particular location.34 Such families might subsequently become manorial lords in the location of their accumulation. One example is the descendants of William Pole (alias Morris) of Gravesend and Milton, Kent, whose interest in domestic and luxury possessions is discussed in the following chapter. His heirs were granted the substantial lands of the manor of St Mary Graces in this locality at the Dissolution.35 In general, a combination of buildings and land was used for accumulation. In 1493, Thomas Davye of Shorne, for example, mentions most of his land in pieces of between one and ten acres together with the ‘lately purchased’ tenement with four buildings ‘builded’ on it with marshes at ‘Westmarsh’.36 In 1539, John Sparrow of Southwark gave to his wife land and houses ‘edified’ in the parish of St George on land held of the Abbot of Bermondsey, one tenement ‘where I now dwell’ and 20 acres in St George’s field held of the St Thomas Hospital there and a tenement ‘next the white hart’ held of Robert Bewkenor, two acres in George Field and ‘certayn lands at Clapham’ held of John Worsell.37 Some individuals, such as William Pole stand out as property accumulators.38 Land and property could be accumulated and transmitted in a variety of ways, which relate to the legal processes by which tenure and ownership were structured.39 The evidence from the metropolitan hinterland suggests that people were able to manipulate these various structures to the benefit of themselves and their families. One example of manipulation is the use of ‘alienation’, a process whereby land or property is removed from the portion that would constitute the ‘birthright’ of heirs.40 The nature of the alienation may be identified at the time of will-making. The immediate sale of land or property, for example, is


sometimes used in order to pay administrative costs for the will, or to pay the testator’s debts.41 Frequently, land and property are bequeathed on a temporary basis, often for the lifetime of a wife, after which there are a number of options available. Sometimes the stated intention is that the land or property be sold after the death of the original inheritor, either for profit or to fund spiritual concerns; at other times, it can revert to another named owner.42 Sometimes, different aspects of a piece of land, such as its profits and the produce gained from it, may be apportioned out to several different inheritors. The practice of dividing one item of property into different inheritable units is seen clearly in bequests of barges in the Thames port of Gravesend. Barges are treated and described as though they were commodities that may be separated into parts smaller than a single barge. William Byrch a yeoman gives ‘tides’ without barges; and William Munden left to his wife, a barge plus appurtenances and ‘my whole tide [of the Thames] the which I have among the company’.43 The various forms of alienation take advantage of the legal possibility for renting parts of the use of land and property rather than employing it all directly. For some individuals and families, these rents were themselves a source of accumulated family wealth.44 The formation of networks An important tool for social adaptation was the active formation of networks using specific relationships such as family, kinship, and occupational or status groups. It is noticeable that one significantly prosperous individual is always likely to have connections with other similarly prosperous individuals. This might be signalled by bequests of property, or by requests that members of the particular family act as feoffees for land, or overseers and executors of the will.45 Will evidence indicates that Thomas Davye of Shorne in Kent, for example, is connected to John Johnson a London citizen with interests in Shorne marshland in the late fifteenth century.46 Family and kinship networks were also constructed at the time of producing inheritance strategies in the last will and testament. When detailed evidence for a specific group of family or kin survives, it is possible to examine the various methods adopted.47 Engrossed land may be strategically distributed among children and heirs using legal instruments like alienation (as when different aspects of a property such as profits or residence in one location are bequeathed to more than one heir); or a form of partibility (as where pieces of neighbouring accumulated land are bequeathed to more than one heir in order to create multiple loyalties in one location).48 In the use of such strategies,


kin are defined on a contingent basis depending on the requirements of the family and the survival of particular individuals at the moment a text is being constructed. This might involve the employment of indirect kin as heirs if direct heirs are lacking, and also multi-generational planning which looks beyond the immediate generation of heirs to the next. Occupational groups are also used for defining networks. The variety of evidence for occupations is greater in the testaments examined of c. 1531–60, than for those earlier in date.49 The towns closest to London generally have higher occupational diversity, perhaps because of the London citizens and the royal household employees who appear in the testamentary record in palace settlements such as Greenwich, Eltham and Richmond from c. 1520.50 It may be that occupational names are explicitly used in the will in order to form and signal networks of connection between particular groups or affinities. From c. 1530, there also appears to be an increase in the number of occupational titles attached to the names of beneficiaries mentioned in wills. Gravesend ‘watermen’ Thomas Cope and Andrew Coward, for example, each name at least one other waterman, and Coward also refers to a skinner.51 And, the witnesses for William Green, tailor, are Alex Pattenson, baker, James Farrowe, waterman, and Hugh Turgosse, skinner.52 The status of ‘yeoman’, and the use of this term, may have been particularly significant for defining networks in this period. In Havering, Essex, urban yeomen form a specific status type who tended to form networks of individuals ascribing to this group.53 There is evidence to suggest that particularly from c. 1530, groups of yeomen throughout the metropolitan hinterland formed networks of connection through family bonds, commercial relationships, and civic responsibility.54 The term ‘yeoman’ describes individuals with a range of different levels of wealth, and with different strategies for property accumulation. Most are noticeably wealthy, although testamentary and subsidy evidence of others such as Dennis Horseley and John Basse of Gravesend does not indicate such wealth.55 The sparse will of relatively wealthy Robert Potter of Gravesend also acts as a reminder that will texts do not provide a precise index of wealth.56 The opening request that his body ‘go to the worms’ may indicate his Protestant tendencies.57 Neither is the yeoman network based solely on landholding: in the will of Henry Warren of Greenwich, for example, property is not described in detail. He only mentions the lease of one house plus seven acres of ground perhaps indicating that his commercial interests are more focused on material goods, which he mentions in profusion in his will.58 The extent of the property bequests


of yeomen such as John Montayn and Hugh Proves provides evidence for their substantial wealth.59 Their subsidy payments, between 1541/2 and 1551/2, also indicate their position at the top of the wealth pyramid.60 It is apparent that these Greenwich individuals belonged within a network of successful yeomen.61 For example, John Montayn is the witness to the will of another yeoman, John Reynolds (Montayn’s widow, Elizabeth, was first married to this John).62 And Hugh Proves gave to one of his sons an inn with ‘the figure of the Angell’ and a house, which he had leased to Henry Warren.63 Accumulation by outside investors Individuals with particular commercial interests who were resident in nearby urban centres such as London also took opportunities to accumulate land in particular locations.64 Marshland in the metropolitan hinterland was important for London butchers from c. 1500, and perhaps from earlier in some counties.65 John Johnson called ‘gentleman’, the son of Thomas Davye’s associate, for example, seems to have settled in Kent and requests burial near the grave of his father, in Shorne. Although this John’s will of 1514 is not very detailed, it is clear that by the time of his death he had benefited from his father’s investments, such as the Shorne marshland he inherited in ‘Grenemarsh’.66 There are also provincial analogues to this trend. The acquisition of land by Colchester townsmen in neighbouring villages for commercial investment has been identified as significant.67 The testament of Edmund Porrege from Shorne, made 1558, indicates that he took the opportunities offered by the ‘urban’ property market in Gravesend and Milton.68 So numerous are the rents owed to him that he keeps a book of reckoning, with ‘bills and charges for each house’. These properties include an inn named ‘The Harrow’, which is in the High Street and has a barn. Like many of the property dealers living close to the Thames, he also holds a number of wharfs, has some shares in a timber business and a few leases of pasture in the common of Milton. Porrege may be an example of a townsman who, near the end of his life, chose to move to more rural surroundings.69 There are also individuals such as Jervase Frank of Shorne, who had investments in inns at Gravesend, but whose will reveals his interests in rural property including tenements in Shorne Street, marsh and arable lands in Shorne, and horses.70 Frank was also fervent about the defence of his rights to three hundred acres of land and woods in Milton next Gravesend.71


Language and evidence Sylvia Thrupp’s proposition that successful London citizens chose to move to the more pleasant surroundings of nearby countryside has been influential, although the cultural implications of this trend have not been assessed in detail. The presence of such investors in a community may have affected the local economy, but importantly London citizens also played a significant role in the transmission of ideas and practices from the city to the provinces. They acted, in other words, as agents of cultural transmission. In the metropolitan hinterland, the presence of London citizens in the communities and in the evidence is very marked and very significant for this area. Substantial numbers of London citizens emerge from the testamentary records of any of the settlements in the metropolitan hinterland and this raises various issues of interpretation. The London citizens in the testamentary evidence for the metropolitan hinterland may be divided into two categories. The first category includes those individuals without any specific knowledge of the local communities in which they own land and property, which might be in a number of counties, north and south. The second category includes individuals who not only own land and property but have also have taken up residence in the London suburbs, often in nearby towns such as Southwark and Greenwich. Individuals in the first category are less interesting in terms of the cultural dynamics of their influence on local society. Throughout the period c. 1450–1560, they form a distinct group of landowners, different from residents. Their property tends to be described with much less detail as, for example, simply ‘land and tenements’. This lack of precision occurs in a number of ‘London’ testaments, which are very detailed in other respects, including descriptions of property in London. Hugo Payne’s intricately detailed bequest of London tenements (cited below) contrasts with the description of simply ‘land and property’ in the town of Greenwich which he bequeaths to his wife Elizabeth ‘to do as she like’.72 Payne clearly does not wish, or need, to express a detailed interest in his Greenwich holdings. Similarly, the description by citizen of London and brewer John Wandesworth of the village of Denton as ‘by Gravesend’, uses concepts of geographical proximity very different from the testaments of Gravesend (or Denton) residents.73 These examples are reminders of important considerations concerning the precise circumstances in which these evidences were produced. The wills of these London citizens tend to be produced in the Prerogative Court of


Canterbury, and not the local Consistory Courts. It therefore might be argued that the intervention of the writer, a London scribe without the detailed knowledge of a local scribe, is influential in the production of imprecise descriptions. However, in Prerogative Court wills of the second category of London citizen there is often substantial detail concerning his non-London place of residence and perhaps other places proximate to that. This strongly suggests that the extent of a testator’s personal interest in his properties is influential on decisions about whether detailed or imprecise descriptions of particular places are recorded in the last will and testament. In 1500, for example, John Dawson a citizen and leatherseller of London requested to sell his ‘capital mesuage’ in Southwark lately bought of William Erle of Nottingham, ‘as it is enclosed there with the garden sett in the south part of the said Capital mesuage which is enclosed with watere there’ and another mesuage, ‘called the high house set on the east side of the Capital mesuage with oute the mote and a voyde pece of ground stretching out to the wharf there’.74 And John Aunsell’s bequests of land and properties in Ashwell, Hertfordshire emphasise his demonstration of strong spiritual and familial connections with this location by using the detailed descriptions sometimes found in charters and deeds.75 Moving beyond description The strategies for social adaptation used in the metropolitan hinterland provide more than simply a plethora of empirical evidence. The textual descriptions of these strategies provide evidence for the processes by which individuals could self-consciously manipulate their wealth, inheritance customs and familial relations while defining and utilising networks of relationship. The strategies for accumulation and transmission show that the structures for social adaptation were perpetually present, which indicates the possibility for the perpetual involvement of these individuals in a creative process of reconstituting individual and family identities and social networks. Very detailed analyses of the inheritance strategies of particular families, when evidence permits, also indicates the extent to which the manipulation of the structures of inheritance practices may be personalised according to specific circumstances.76 In the unresolved tension of this book between an ethnographic approach and the requirement for geographical coverage, there has emerged an important issue concerning structures available for


social adaptation. While being available for personalised manipulation, it is apparent that the structures available for the creative manipulation of inheritance are not specific to any particular locality or settlement. And indeed, the testamentary and court roll evidence indicates that individuals exploited the same structures in various different settlements. There are, in other words, ‘meta-structures’ which are partly dependent on the legal discourses and rhetoric associated with the textual evidences in which they are found and not entirely dependent on the precise geographical location of a specific community. The lack of local specificity concerning the meta-structures of textual description used for social adaptation across the metropolitan hinterland poses some interesting questions about concepts of community or place in relation to the ownership and perception of property and land.77 The perception of property and land at the abstract level of structures for the manipulation of inheritance was not solely determined by experiences of specific locations in specific communities. However, there are also some intensely place-specific kinds of property and land: marshland, for example, appears to have particular significance, uses, and types of owners in the metropolitan hinterland. There are also some types of property that appear to be particularly characteristic of individual settlements and therefore particularly important in the inheritance strategies adopted there. Inns, for example, are a particularly significant feature in the property economies of towns such as Southwark and Greenwich. Inns served as profitable holdings as well as places for making profit.78 And boats, specifically ‘barges’, are particularly important in Gravesend, and perhaps in other Thames ports, throughout the period c. 1450–1560. The importance of boats also indicates the role of Gravesend as a ‘portal community’, which grew because of its geographical position. The use of these vessels is clearly part of the town custom: Ambrose Basse, waterman, of Milton and Edward Clegent of Gravesend both mention this issue. Clegent’s description is, ‘. . . all parts in a barge and tides of Gravesend with parcels and commodities to it ... to the oulde use and custom of the towne of Gravesend’.79 And, Basse leaves his wife ‘all the whole tide or tides by order, course and time as it falls according to custom of the town of Gravesend and all parts of a barge and the tackle to it’.80 Boats also appear in the property bequests of Southwark residents, although rather than barges these appear to be fishing boats, like the ‘Peter Boat’ bequeathed in 1537 by William Sacks to his unborn child whether male of female, with ‘halff my nettes’.81


Linguistic creativity and perceptions of property The background It is possible to get a closer glimpse of individual attitudes to private and public property by examining in detail the ways that architectural spaces such as houses, rooms, and inns are described. The production and use of detailed description is a very significant site for the creative activity of forming and representing perceptions of property and possessions. The examination of contemporary perceptions and experiences of architecture is a newly developing field, which is at odds with traditional analytical practices in architectural history which have tended to impose typologies of building style.82 The purpose here is to explore the modes of expression used for property and to ask how the different vocabularies for describing property are used creatively in combination and what the interaction of these vocabularies indicates about perceptions and experiences of such property. In the last will and testament, the fusion of legal rhetoric and personal parlance provides evidence for the perception of household space. But even in testamentary texts, there are other uses of property that must influence these perceptions. The role and purpose of public display in the use, perception, and description of buildings needs also to be considered, in relation to the use of legal and personal languages The broader social and economic changes occurring in the wake of the Black Death may have afforded a rise in the standards of the buildings occupied by the non-élite, although any patterns of variation are not easily explained in local economic or ethnic terms.83 Significant changes in the organisation of architectural space marked by houses with more rooms and less open space have been proposed for the period c. 1300–1700. These changes have been interpreted as a ‘closure’ hypothesis which is based on a theory that changing perceptions of what denoted status are shown in a general trend from the prioritisation of the structure of a house to that of its contents.84 This is too overarching a claim to address in this book. However, there is a temptation to equate the evidence of testamentary descriptions of property and possessions in terms of the closure hypothesis: in testamentary evidence, building structures are generally described in less detail than the possessions kept within them; and this differential increases across the period c. 1450–1560 as the extent of detailed descriptions attributed to possessions increases markedly. Aside from any major transition in ideas about possessions and the spaces in which they are kept, there are also straightforward and logical reasons for differences between descriptions


of property and ‘stuff’, which lie in the differing natures of these items; ‘stuff’ often being more decorated and intricate than space. Recent modes of interpreting the perception of space and property use textual or linguistic analogies by employing concepts such as metaphor.85 The method of conceptualising space in terms of text has played an important role in the development of more recent academic interests in the linguistic construction of cultural categories.86 There is, however, a prevailing tendency to analyse space in structural terms, seeking distinctions between types of space, such as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, both in the analysis of real spaces and also in the analysis of literary tropes that express issues of moral and social order through concepts of space.87 But for this consideration of the creative manipulation of perceptions about property and space, it is useful to think in terms of a fluidity of meanings rather than in structuralist terms. Instead of a dialectic between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, a more fluid approach looks to a dynamic sense of the experience of moving between the two spheres.88 My focus is on textual representations of ‘property’ rather than ‘space’. I make this distinction because in using testamentary text, the legal language of property plays a significant role in the representation of properties alongside personal expressions of description. Property laws and the documents containing legal property transactions are concerned in large part with the definition and preservation of rights in particular locations by certain named parties.89 The legalities of property law formed a complex mass of rules and regulations concerned with the jurisdiction of the landlord, nationally constructed laws of tenure, and local custom. Aspects of this system were relatively unfixed and subject to variation and even individual preference. The various vocabularies used to describe property ownership can be used to elucidate perceptions of property.90 These vocabularies relate to and are derived from the legal discourse of ownership, combined with the personal parlances of individual preference employed for the construction of a last will and testament. The legal discourses and personal parlances are fused in the construction of testamentary descriptions of property. The nature of this fusion has implications for understanding contemporary perceptions of property, including domestic living space. This analysis begins from a premise that property ownership is influential on the definition and re-negotiation of group and individual identity and personhood.91 The (manorial) court was an important site for performing the legalities of property ownership. Clearly, the court was also the place for acting out and recording disputes concerning property.92 The courtroom


was therefore a site where ordinary individuals became familiar with legal discourses of property and the public performance of their own rights. Much of this legal language and practice is designed to cope with areas of community tension. Similar recourses to the past, and to the community’s customary traditions, are found in the legal languages of other urban records, such as the custumal.93 Such references also occur in the records of perpetual dispute, such as tithe payments.94 It is reasonable to suggest that, through the administering and recording of these disputes and its other legal functions, the court is influential in the construction, definition and negotiation of community identity. The working knowledge of legal terminologies and practices that an involvement with the court enabled might have informed the administrations of people’s own everyday accounts for the management of family and household, as well as influencing their choices about testamentary provision. The rhetoric of property in testamentary evidence There is nothing unusual about descriptions of property themselves, and many scholars have used them. However, by looking at these descriptions more closely, it is possible to gain further understanding of contemporary perceptions of these properties. Testamentary text actually acts as an influence on an individual’s perceptions of property. Testamentary descriptions of property and living space enabled the individuals who produced and read them to imagine, consider, and accommodate transitions between old and new structures. Through their contact with textual representations, contemporaries were permitted to imagine the continuity of spaces over generations in a way that also enabled and accommodated the perpetual process of social adaptation and change. This way of approaching property descriptions provides a new way of understanding the imaginative processes involved in perceptions of property; or in other words, how renaissance people themselves theorised property. There are significant relationships between the legal language of the preservation of rights to maintain the status quo and the perpetual and fluid situation of accumulation and engrossment in which these same property owners are involved. Through the rhetoric of property descriptions, tensions between continuity and change are presented, not necessarily for resolution, but for consideration. Of the property described in the wills of the metropolitan hinterland, as elsewhere, much is concerned with listing, describing, and clarifying the nature of the properties for the legalised provision of inheritance. Alongside the practice of


listing property in the last will and testament as part of the representation of accumulation and engrossment in the provision of inheritance, it is useful to consider how the various vocabularies of property description are employed to convey the accumulative process, because this enables the imaginative reconstruction of factors affecting perceptions of these properties and living spaces. Describing one or more properties Property descriptions are given in lists of units, with a set of standard expressions to indicate location, size, tenure and so on. An average piece of property might be described as: this piece attached to that piece lately purchased of a named individual, abutting the building of some other individual with a passage through to a type of field which is called an old name: Bequests made in 1543, by Hugo Payne a London citizen, provide an unusually detailed example of such a ‘processual’ property description: To Elizabeth my wife all tenements in Faister Lane under the Priest’s chambers during my lease and also seven other upright tenements being at 20s rent each there. Also five tenements without St Martin’s gate towards Cheapside with a lease that she pay to the chief lord also a tenement with two shops lying in Pouchmakers’ Court in which [are] two Pouchmakers one of them is named Andrew Eames the other John Symonson and the tenement opens into St Martin’s Lane in which tenement Francis Woodlake doth now inhabit and he had the same by lease for some years, my said wife to have four other shops in the same Pouchmakers’ Court for lease one is a tenement of William Morgan, Pouchmaker one is the tenement of Francis Wood, one is the tenement of Bowen Faith and one is the tenement of Margery Markeson, at 40s per annum [. . . other tenements . . .] To my wife, the lease of a tenement called ‘The Great Shop’ in the centre, opening into the Pouchmakers’ Court in the tenement of Rowland Johnson, Cordwainer, £5 6s 8d per annum and another tenement next in the adjoining tenement of John Bristow, Pouchmaker, at £4 per anum and another adjacent to the Great Shop next to a door of an alley called ‘The Bell Alley’, at 20s per annum ... To my wife, one house next [to] the store house with a loft over it, being part of the Dean’s lodgings and she pay 4s per annum to the chief lord.95 Descriptions such as this appear to anticipate and convey a traversing movement around the physical structure itself.96 Significant changes in


such property descriptions have been proposed for that transitional period between the late medieval and the early modern, c. 1400 and 1600. This has been likened to a tendency towards a ‘scientific’ and ‘cartographic’ system, and away from the old ‘medieval’ system based on vicinities, landmarks, and people.97 In Hugo Payne’s will, however, the ‘medieval’ system still persists. The standard forms employed to describe each property are used repeatedly, adding clauses with words such as ‘adjoining’ or ‘abutting’ as new pieces of property are added to each expanding unit of ownership. The impression of this is of a non-static situation of expanding space. Here any motivations for accumulation are related to the perpetual situation of strategic provision and improvement during the process of social adaptation. The expansive and fluid units for building complex descriptions of properties form a contrast to the intensely focused and often emotive descriptions attached to particular moveable objects, although this is not to suggest that emotive terms are absent from descriptions of property. In 1530 Thomas Ellis of Southwark a servant of Sampson Clayton, for example, bequeathed to his master ‘for his paines taken with me my howse that my father gaffe me by his bequest’.98 Differentiating between rooms in one property Further to the description of properties as accruable units, individual living spaces are also divided into portions for legal reasons. It is useful to examine how this is done to assess the further implications it has for perceptions of property. One common reason for such house-division is in order to make provision for a widow. These descriptions often use the same ‘processual’ language, for example, John Furner of Yalding who, in 1522, left to his son George a house and various properties, he to ‘suffer his mother to have a chamber next within the street door and fire &c in the hall and necessaries and take the profits of a little garden, with free coming and going whilst a widow’.99 In structural analyses of provision for widows, it has been suggested that such descriptions represent the worries of testators about order, household units, and (changes in) social control on the death of the head of a household.100 Detailed descriptions by room are not only used to present a widow’s rights. In 1560, Thomas Mayne of Southwark described all his property as units, such as the two tenements bequeathed to his daughter with, ‘two chambers over the same, the dore of the same tenements opening into the streate and also the appurtenances to the same belonging . . . situated in the northe side of my dwelling house & a kitchen adjoining at the west end of the same tenement and is part of the same . . .’ To


another kinsman he left, ‘one little tenement or newe house with appurtenances latelie buylded situated the north side of my yarde adjoining to the ground of Richard Hurches’.101 Sometimes, household stuff enters into the legality of such arrangements, as in the provision made by Richard Mickilhall of Gravesend, for his wife, Margery.102 Margery is to receive various properties including a messuage and barn in Milton called ‘Coppyd Hall’. If she remarries she is to be bound to John, their son, and the churchwardens so that, ‘she shall not take away no hearth coverture in the house, [or] close press neyther no bedsted nor cupboard but it remain to the heirs of the said Richard’. The descriptions of these goods are generic, simply for the purposes of this legal arrangement, rather than being elaborated with the qualitative details used for the heirloom goods discussed in Chapter 4. Identifying particular rooms Living spaces and their particular rooms are sometimes also described with language that exceeds the simple generic term such as ‘chamber’ or ‘parlour’. Chambers, for example, may also be given descriptive names such as ‘swan chamber’, ‘blue chamber’, and ‘press chamber’.103 Agnes Payne of Gravesend has a ‘hunting chamber’ and an ‘apple chamber’.104 This system of identifying rooms may be associated with the conventional practice of naming rooms in inn houses.105 Other room descriptions indicate various levels within the living space, such as ‘low’ and ‘high’.106 In 1517, William Grigg left, ‘the hanging in the low chamber (beneath) at Greenwich ... and all bedsteads in the low chamber and in the outward houses there’.107 William Mursett, yeoman, of Greenwich left to a female servant, one cupboard with four openings standing in the low chamber, three best cushions and hangings in the lower chamber, a barred chest in the low chamber, and other ‘stuff’ in the hall.108 Such terms referring to the structure of the building may also be of significance in relation to perceptions of the status of certain rooms.109 It may therefore be significant that Mursett’s ‘stuff’ in the ‘low chamber’ is given to his servant. A personal definition of a specific room may also be made by using several generic terms, as in Ralph Tybolde’s bequest in 1560 to his cousin of all household stuff in Southwark, ‘now in my lofte called the myddle chamber in my dwelling house’.110 Where individual rooms within the living space are described precisely, it tends to be during the description of specific material goods. In the most common situation of identifying household stuff by its room, goods are described by their situation in particular rooms. In 1537,


Nicholas Hord gave a red chest ‘standing at my bedde hede’ to one nephew and ‘a chest standing nexte to the cheyst aforesaide under the wyndow’ to another nephew.111 In 1523, Richard Goodman gave to his tenant Henry Bishop, ‘a salt With a cover parcel gilt, i goblet of silver parcel gilt vi spoons of silver weighing all xxviii ounces, my joined tabull standing in my parlour and my joined cupboard in the hall’.112 The specific nature of domestic culture is expressed, in such bequests, by the precise identification of relationships between particular spaces and particular objects.113 Conveying a static definition of a room Sometimes, the room itself becomes the vehicle for the bequest of specific types of goods. Here a whole room is given to the beneficiary; the nature of that room, such as a parlour or chamber, is described in terms of the goods kept in it. In 1506, for example, Thomasina Sheky of Greenwich bequeathed to a kinswoman all of her hall ‘as it is garnished with tables, bankers, cushions, chairs, stools and cupboards’.114 Similarly, in 1511, Agnes Newark of Greenwich bequeathed to her daughter Emma Cook all of her great chamber or the parlour and all its apparel ‘as it stands’.115 Here, the descriptions of the goods are also generic, implying that the descriptive details found elsewhere are not a priority. In 1547, Elizabeth Smyth of Milton bequeaths the goods in her second bedchamber ‘evyn as is stands’ and the implements in the swan chamber ‘as it is there’.116 This identification of rooms by their contents at that moment in time is not just a woman’s system; in 1537, Jervase Frank of Gravesend bequeaths to his son, Robert, his moveable stuff described as, all implements of the household as it stands in the parlour ‘at this day’.117 These bequests convey a sense that the testator considers the contents of that room, as they are, to be particularly significant. This may be for the purposes of identifying the specific goods to be bequeathed to a particular testator, or it may indicate the testator’s desire either for the maintenance of this room for posterity just as it stands or for the recognition and remembrance, by the beneficiary, of the testator’s choices about that particular room. Whatever the precise intentions of such a bequest, that a room may be given in its entirety implies a perception of such rooms as definable by their contents. This system seems to imply that a basic set of particular types of goods is understood to belong with a particular room. The basic set of ‘stuff’ perhaps makes the room what it is. More detail than the generic term for these goods is not required because the testator is conveying their bequest through the shared knowledge of what is commonly contained in such a room.118


But sometimes, both generic and precise descriptions of goods are found in the same bequest: Agnes Newark also bequeathed to Anne Cook, a kinswoman, ‘one chamber over my head whole, complete with bankers, cushions, chests and all in the chamber except my gowns one table cloth of diaper one towel diaper twelve napkins of diaper one goblet of silver six best silver spoons, a maser with a prente [print] and one salt of silver’.119 The generic descriptions are used for the precise identification of the room and its contents, while precise descriptions are needed to identify those goods that are excess to Agnes’s conception of what that room is. These goods are not to be included with the generic chamber. Similarly, in 1538, Thomas Massey of Southwark bequeathed to his wife, ‘all her apparel and her juells & her chamber as yt nowe stondeth with brass pewter and other implements of household’. What is meant by ‘her chamber’ is not described in detail, but clearly ‘brass pewter and other implements’ were not an expected part of it nor were apparel and jewels.120 The significance of linguistic manipulation The perception of a room’s space as a structural entity which is conveyed by bequeathing such a space ‘as it stands’, is not entirely at odds with the apparent changeability of describing property, accumulatively, in terms of small units that may be increased by adding other units. These accumulative and static descriptions are in fact fused within the testamentary text in a manner that is significant for understanding perceptions of property. The identification of a room in terms of its goods provides the impression that this ‘room’ could in effect be ‘translated’ into any building structure. A sense of posterity is conveyed and perhaps experienced, therefore, by the very moveability of the goods, which are understood to constitute a particular room. The detailed specification of excess goods, however, adds fluidity to this static structural situation and embraces the possibilities of changes and discontinuities in personal living spaces as expressed through personal choices about the placing of luxury domestic goods. These representations of personal choices about goods are enmeshed into the representations of domestic property and other accumulated properties in the construction of provisions for inheritance. The publicly recognised and performed linguistic structures of custom and law therefore impinge on, and are affected by, the language of personal choice about private living space, and its provision to family and kin. Far from emphasising dis-ease with the idea of changing ownership and changing hierarchies, these descriptions appear to


accommodate and allow the fluid transition between the old and the new as part of the creative process of social adaptation.121 Public buildings and charity Perceptions of property are not only influenced by the fusion of the discourse of law and the parlance of personal choice. Descriptions of ‘public’ buildings are also significant in the formation and adaptation of ideas about both public and private property. Bequests of public buildings indicate that for some testators it was important to be personally identified with specific communal spaces. These buildings may be designed for the use of particular settlements, for selected functions for the benefit of all, or for particular ethnicities (or groups) within it. London citizens and individuals with London connections employed a whole range of opportunities to be associated with a public building. John Jordan, citizen of London, requested that his annuity of 5 marks on land in Wingham, Kent, should revert to a range of causes including an extension of the house of St Augustine at London.122 Other Londoners celebrate their citizenship by providing money for the renovation of their guildhalls. In 1485, John Parys, a pewterer, bequeathed a cloth of gold for the burials of members of his craft, together with £10 for the purchasing of a ‘hall’ for them, within one year.123 One of the most common types of public bequest is for repairs to the church. London citizens often made provision for churches not in London, like Richard Goodman’s donation of 33s 4d to St George’s Southwark, ‘towarde the bulding of the newe werke of the churche’, and a further £3 6s 8d when the roof ‘is sett up and covered with leed and stone’.124 Provincial individuals engaged in such public building bequests too, usually with an associated request for prayers. In 1471, Thomas Wright of Cobham in Kent, for example, left 13s 4d for lead to repair the nave of the church there, and 6s 8d for the water ducts of the local college.125 Particular ecclesiastical building projects sometimes provided a focus for such bequests, such as the battlements of St George’s chapel at Gravesend, which became popular from the mid-fifteenth century.126 More unusual bequests include the provision for an almshouse made by Thomas Davye in 1493.127 This was to be at a ‘high house’ lying in Shorne, besides some tenements that he owned and leased. Davye requested that the almshouse should, ‘continue for ever as the law will’. On a similar theme, in 1476 Roger Rokeby of Dartford gave 5 marks for the rebuilding of a hospital at Milton.128 And, in 1517, William Grigg of Greenwich adapted what was, by the sixteenth century, a customary gift


to the poor into a more elaborate bequest involving one of his buildings. He left his recently purchased barn that was annexed to the churchyard: to remain in the hands of the churchwardens ... perpetually to endure to the intent that if there be any meete or drinke given to poor people as any bearing month mind of other dirges that then the same meet and drink be distributed among them with in the same house because it is not lawful to eat and drink within the church and also the said churchwardens to occupy the said house with all maner of such busyness as is to the pleasure of god and profit to the said church and so to continue as a church house for ever129 The bequest of these buildings makes explicit some relationships between the construction of identity and the construction, use, and experience of built space. The investment of individuals in communal buildings is an act of display to associates and intimates in the community as well as to any unknown visitors, both in their own time and in the future. The public and the private The relationships between display and the bequest of property are not confined to the public sphere of charitable benefaction. Perhaps more intimate than the provision of buildings for public use, but apparently adopting a charitable attitude similar to almshouses, is a condition made by Richard Cooke of Southwark in 1513. He left various lands to his cousin on condition that, ‘he to keep reparacion as well of the almons houses as of the other houses according to my leese And he shall take no rent of my houses that pour almons folks dwelleth in nor also put in or put out any of the said almons folks without assent of Mercy my wife’.130 Part of the same system affecting understandings and experiences of property is the bequest of items in particular rooms that are visible to the outside world. Perryn Betts of Greenwich, for example, gives to her son (in-law) and daughter two beds, two cupboards, some pewter and all the household stuff as it now stands ‘in the parlour being in sight’.131 This perhaps indicates that the goods are visible from the front of the house, maybe through a window onto the street. Perryn also refers to a different room as ‘the next parlour’, which presumably is not so much in public view. And, a glimpse of perceptions of neighbourhood sometimes emerges from the bequest of a household object, as with the widow Barbara Johnson’s gift of a violet gown, in 1510, to the wife of John the hatmaker ‘next my dore’.132


The inn is another kind of public site important for the representation of personal status which provides helpful evidence for elucidating perceptions of property. Inns were used for accumulation, negotiating family networks, and inheritance, and were particularly important in the economy of the Thames ports.133 They provided stopover places for the busy Thames routes to and from London or the Continent, and across to Essex. The perception of inns incorporated their roles as both commodities for the increase of private wealth and status, and sites for the public display of this. Groups of kin, perhaps ‘inn dynasties’, seem to use inns as part of their strategy for preserving and augmenting their accumulation of property.134 In 1549, for example, William Burston of Milton bequeathed four separate inns to his wife and son.135 Two of these, ‘The Bell’ and ‘The Greyhound’ he had inherited from his father, Thomas.136 Onto one of the others, ‘The Angel’, William had built new chambers, but it also consisted of cellars, ‘backways’, barns and gardens. ‘The Angel’ and the fourth inn called ‘The Sarcen’s Head’ were both occupied by men defined by William as ‘my farmer’. His other items of property included tenements at ‘Cornish Cross’, and all wharfs, quays and a barge, which he had also inherited from his father. This he had probably augmented himself, with the further wharfs that he mentioned and the ferry with a house belonging to it. The profits of all this property, together with various land he had recently purchased were, in the first instance, to pay for Richard’s bringing up, ‘with lernyng’.137 Inns are a useful illustration for the complex sets of referents informing perceptions of built space. As shown above, they were used as a commodity for property accumulation, which assisted the construction and advancement of these individuals’ private concerns of family and kin. As such they were part of personal wealth, described in documents with the customary legal jargons of rights and ‘processual’ definitions. An inn was also on that most fluid cusp between the public and the private, being a dwelling house and also an important public place where a community could gather together.138 The description provided by Richard Rutland, a fletcher of Southwark, in 1532 of the lease in his ‘house or inn called The George’, indicates the multifunctionality of these buildings. Also in the same lease was, ‘a shop and the house over the shop and the chamber be hynd the shop parcel of the said inn called the George’.139 Inns might also be used as courtrooms, as was the inn bequeathed by John Jordan in 1480. He left 20s to the manor and all citizens of Rochester for the building of a tenement called ‘The Dolphin’ in which the court of the city (civitatis) should be held.140


Inns became a focus of concern about disorder in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, perhaps in recognition of their role as places for the spread and dissemination of news, gossip or discontent with certain community authorities. Like the charitably bequeathed public buildings, inns might also have been a site for the public recognition of the social position of their owners and tenants, which was otherwise signalled more privately in the form of the written agreements mentioned above. Like ‘The Chequers’ in Canterbury, other inns might have been useful for the public display of tastes in building styles.141 Decorative features, such as signs, may have provided an opportunity for the public expression of artistic taste and of the wealth to indulge it. Proto-Protestant Richard Asheley, for example, describes the inn he bequeathed to his wife as ‘with the sign of a swan’.142 This explicit reference to the sign, when most inns would simply be described by the name, might indicate a particularly prestigious sign hanging above the building. Such signs may have signified a particular status of inn; and perhaps, by implication, a particular status of inn owner.143 The significance of descriptions of public buildings Alongside the more private concerns of personal property and inheritance, the will is used to describe property that is very much in the public domain. The descriptions of these properties should be seen in the context of a complex interplay between the perceptions of private and public property. This also adds depth to understanding experiences of the negotiation of relationships between continuity and change through property, because these public properties call attention to the role of such property in the public performance (textually and in material reality) of individual status and identity, at a given moment and for posterity. In a system where the legal languages of property identification record several generations of previous owners, for example, it is likely that the charitable provision of public buildings had an accompanying expectation that the benefactor would be remembered for several generations on account of his or her display of charitable giving.

Conclusion There are huge amounts of evidence for the ownership and inheritance of land and property. This evidence is frequently used in reconstructions of the past, particularly since the interest in detailed local analysis of manors and communities has developed. In this chapter I have sought to show how this abundant form of evidence goes beyond descriptive


detail, because it enables a recovery of the strategies employed for social adaptation. This very plentiful evidence therefore provides insight into the processes by which individuals could self-consciously manipulate their wealth, inheritance customs and familial relations while defining and utilising networks of relationship. These structures for social adaptation were perpetually present, which indicates the possibility for perpetual involvement in the creative process of reconstituting identity. The combination of personalised manipulations of strategies for social adaptation together with the use of supra-local structures effecting and representing these strategies makes problematic the tendency to seek to define chronologies of change that apply equally to a whole location; and this is particularly the case if experiences of property and land, and the strategies used for their inheritance are considered. Examples given here from the late fifteenth century, for example, indicate that throughout the period classically defined as a ‘slump’, some families are engaged in the acquisition of wealth. This evidence calls for a different understanding of concepts such as ‘decline’ and ‘upswing’, which consider more closely the experiences of particular individuals and families in the continuous and creative activity of negotiating and adapting to the changing society and economy, using the structures of representation available in texts such as the last will and testament. In the will, the fusion of legal languages of property with individualised descriptions of living space has implications for interpreting contemporary perceptions of buildings. These implications arise from the textual integration of ideas and experiences about private provision, family tradition, legality, and local custom. The legal language of changing, accumulative, property is combined with the tendency to represent units of living space as if they were permanent and unchanging between generations. Ultimately, the combination of these different kinds of language is permissive of the creative interventions required for social adaptation, and their manipulation permits an acceptance of change while at the same time drawing attention to personal preference and individual choice. However, interpreting these perceptions is necessarily complicated by other uses and roles of buildings. Testamentary evidence also frequently includes the provision of public buildings. While allowing the public recognition and remembrance of an individual, these bequests should also be seen in the context of the use of public buildings, such as inns, for private advancement, together with public expressions of status and taste. And this multiple real and symbolic use of public buildings might also be viewed in connection with the possibilities of using private


rooms to engage in display, and the perpetuation of such display, across generations, through bequest. Interpreting the multiple-manipulation of these languages of legal discourse and personal parlance does not, and should not, result in a single interpretation about perceptions of space and property. But what it does indicate is that through their contact with textual representations of living spaces and other buildings, contemporaries were permitted to imagine the continuity of space(s) over generations in a way that also enabled and accommodated change, in style, situation, and perception; and, importantly the public and/or private display, or performance, of such change. What I have called here, the ‘performance of change’ is one aspect of the self-consciously creative acts of defining identity through the use and appropriation of textual discourses.

4 Possessions

Introduction: on the uses of detailed description Across the period c. 1450–1560 people were in possession of a wide range of goods, including domestic everyday and luxury items, tools of occupation, agricultural equipment, and apparel. Choices about possessions were represented and expressed through the use of writing and by manipulating and negotiating different types of linguistic detail. The detailed descriptions of possessions found in texts such as the last will and testament are crucial to understanding how perceptions of luxury and lifestyle were formed. The existence of detailed descriptions is well known, but their importance has not thus far been examined. The choices made by testators about the representation of ‘detail’ and ‘quality’ in the description of heirloom goods are crucial to analysing the structures of understanding associated with the consumption of goods. It is by close examination of the descriptive detail in this evidence that creative interventions in the attribution of value are revealed. Writing in the 1570s, William Harrison proposed that opportunities for the consumption of goods had changed during the previous century, and he identified the ‘south country’ as being particularly endowed with goods, even among householders of the ‘lowest sort’.1 The presence and diachronic change of detailed descriptions of possessions across the period c. 1450–1560 indicates a possible chronology of changing choices about lifestyle.2 The diversity of these descriptions raises questions about the factors influencing the creative production of lifestyle choices. The cultural creativity examined throughout this book necessitates a consideration of individual expression and representation. The focus on individual choices about consumption in this chapter therefore differs 75


from studies of the dynamics of taste based on social groups (or classes).3 This investigation of the experience and perception of possessions also resists the strongly empiricist traditions associated with the analysis of consumption and commercialisation, such as economic explanations or quantitative analyses.4 Detailed statistical evidence makes interesting patterns for assessing the ownership of categories of goods and may on the surface appear more legitimate than an approach which prioritises personal perceptions and experiences.5 But statistical approaches simply cannot encompass the issues of personal choice and the creativity of choices that are the subject of this chapter.6 And indeed, the categories adopted for statistical analysis may be entirely misleading. I argue instead for the centrality of considering personal choice: when considering popular experiences of this commercialising society, the subject then necessarily shifts away from markets, money, and any transition from feudalism to capitalism, towards more detailed considerations of ideas about lifestyle and perceptions of luxury material goods.7 There is not a great deal of evidence for the consumption of goods for individuals below the level of the élite.8 Detailed evidence for changing practices in the wake of rising living standards does not survive in abundance, although responses to these changes do survive in the form of statutory measures such as sumptuary legislation.9 Detailed descriptions of heirlooms do however survive in the last will and testament. Heirlooms are a special kind of possession. They are symbolic and chosen from within the range of goods owned by individual testators. There are, therefore, significant relationships between the representation and the consumption of heirlooms: heirlooms are distinctly important in their own right for the expression of sentiments concerning the relationship of the giver of a particular possession to its recipient; the nature of the transmission of the giver’s ‘biography’ through this ‘biographical object’; and the perpetuation and memorialisation of that giver’s identity in the process of keeping-while-giving.10 Heirlooms are also not necessarily goods of economic value, as their value is determined greatly by the personal investments made in them.11 Heirlooms may be defined as ‘inalienable possessions’, which carry increasing levels of personal information and, therefore, value, as they are passed between people.12 The transmission of inalienable possessions such as heirlooms provides a personal and sentimental connection between the past and the present. It therefore acts to enable and legitimate the reconstitution of social identities through time. So, such possessions are a force for the maintenance of continuity whilst also enabling the process of change.13

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The interventions made by testators as they attribute meaning to their heirloom possessions through writing constitute acts of change, or innovation. The factors that affect the value of heirlooms include culturally embedded knowledge of worth, alongside personal ideas associated with the object’s biography. The attribution of value involves the valuer in a creative intervention that enables the renegotiation of identity. Changing attitudes to heirlooms should therefore be seen as analogous to any changes in opportunities for consumption.

The attribution of value Six categories of heirlooms Heirloom possessions recorded in wills fall into six general categories. These may be roughly summarised as furniture (mainly beds, tables and chests); apparel (predominantly gowns, also shoes, doublets, shirts, hats and a wide variety of other items);14 furnishings (mainly curtains, cloths, and cushions); metal ware (brass, pewter, silver);15 jewellery (mainly rings and beads); and books. There are two main ways in which these categories of goods are bequeathed which may be summarised as ‘secular’ and ‘pious’. Most heirlooms are secular gifts given to family and other associates. Pious gifts are those given to parish churches and other religious institutions. The descriptions of both secular and pious goods are often very detailed, providing evidence for their quality and variety. The use of detailed description suggests two possible situations: firstly, that description is necessary for the identification of a specific object, indicating that the testator owns a number of similar items; secondly, and very significantly, that the details of style, appearance and indeed ‘biography’ are an important feature of the experience of that object indicating that it is perceived by the testator in comparative and qualitative terms. For both situations, the precise nature of the words and phrases used to describe the object provides clues to perceptions of luxury and lifestyle, where the use of detailed description indicates sensitivity to the aesthetics of consumption. Two previous studies In two previous studies, I have proposed that for a group of settlements within a radius of fifteen miles, there could be significant distinctions and variations in the use and perception of particular types of goods, across the period c. 1450–1560; and that these differences were not solely dependent on wealth.16 These propositions are based on descriptions of the six categories of possessions in will evidence, alongside the


evidence of taxable wealth in lay subsidy accounts. The comparison of descriptions raises questions about the influence of wealth on the ownership of possessions and also on the decisions made about their representation. These comparisons of evidence strongly indicate two main patterns: firstly, that the use of detailed descriptions for possessions increases towards the end of the chronological period, and is markedly greater in the period c. 1520–1560 than c. 1450–1520; secondly, that there is a greater diversity of possessions and a wider variety of more detailed descriptions in the settlements closer to London. Wealth as measured by lay subsidy emerged as just one of many factors which influenced personal choices about lifestyle and its representation in testamentary evidence, c. 1450–1560. Geographical location also appears to be significant. In terms of the metropolitan hinterland, the two studies would suggest a hypothesis that this ‘place’ is separated into bands of consumption patterns that are determined by geographical distance from London; and that residents of settlements on the immediate hinterland of London, such as Southwark and Greenwich, have a more developed sense of the aesthetics of material culture. But geographical distance from London is not the only other determining factor: from the two studies, a relatively large diversity of possessions and descriptions is found for one particular town, which is more distant from London but located on the Thames. This qualifies the significance of geographical distance from London, indicating that there are other specific cultural influences affecting the perception of possessions. In the case of this town, Gravesend, one such influence is likely to be its role as a port. As well as being situated on the busy Thames route to London, Gravesend was also a site for crossing to Essex and as the number of inns in the settlement attests, a place through which people passed from Kent, Essex and the Continent, on the way to and from London and the more northern counties of England.17 I proposed that certain categories of possession appeared to be particularly significant markers for the distinctions in heirloom consumption between settlements. Metal ware and jewellery are a useful illustration.18 Brass vessels are chosen as heirloom goods throughout the period, although in those settlements that exhibit the greater range and diversity of possessions, brass is most frequently used as one object in a composite gift. Pewter, which has been identified elsewhere as a significant marker in this period, appears in will evidence at different dates in different settlements; appearing regularly from an earlier date, about 1470, in the settlements which exhibit the greater diversity of possessions; and later, from about 1540, in those exhibiting less diversity.19 Silver ware

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and jewellery are described copiously in wills made by testators resident in those settlements that exhibit the greatest diversity, which are generally closer to London and more urban. In these instances, silver ware and jewellery are often also included in composite gifts made up of multiple items from these categories. Bequests of silver ware and jewellery are relatively sparse in settlements more distant from London, which are more rural. The patterns for silver ware and jewellery bequests tend to suggest that there are differences in the systems of evaluating goods which are dependent to a significant degree on the urbanity of the settlement, its proximity to London and probably, therefore, on levels of wealth. In general there is a movement towards heirlooms of increased absolute value in the settlements closer to London in this period, especially from c. 1520. Proximity to London and associated issues of wealth are not the only determinant however. In the Kentish example of Gravesend, as cited above, it may be that the relatively high levels of multiple silver ware and jewellery bequests, especially from about 1520, may have been accelerated by those other cultural factors which are not solely concerned with geographical distance from London. The two studies of differential consumption sought to assess the perception of goods in popular culture. As such they form useful hypotheses concerning the nature of heirloom goods in popular culture in this period, the regional variation in perceptions of these possessions, and the chronology of changing consumption. Evidence from the metropolitan hinterland suggests that the findings of these two studies, which are based on north Kent, would be replicated for other counties. The intention of this chapter is not to further test that hypothesis, because its use of the quasi-statistical issues of the ‘frequency’ of certain heirloom items alongside evidence concerning levels of wealth is too much influenced by that temptation to empiricism which dominates the study of consumption. What is needed in order to assess the cultural creativity involved with the perception and representation of possessions in the early English renaissance is an investigation which looks more intensively at the nature of the detailed descriptions used to attribute value. That is how this chapter now proceeds. Deconstructing the six categories The six general categories of possessions are a retrospective imposition useful for summarising the nature of the evidence, but almost entirely artificial in so far as they relate to the practice of constructing heirlooms. It is the case that the possessions most frequently bequeathed relate to these categories, although there are many possible variations within


each category. So it is plausible to suggest that there are sets of cultural rules that determine which possessions are most appropriately used as heirlooms; and the six categories roughly correspond with those rules. But the rules are themselves subject to variation; and possibly to specific transitions in the period c. 1450–1560 as new types of possession enter into this symbolic sphere. While these six categories are appropriate enough for a generalised summary of heirloom goods, then, they cannot encompass the issues of personal choice associated with attributing meaning to heirloom possessions. This is one very good reason against statistical methods that employ these categories and also a very strong justification for considering wills as texts with their own individual coherence rather than repositories of evidence to be abstracted in categories. In this highly symbolic sphere of gift-giving, the decisions about which possession(s) to give, and to whom, are always significant. The choices made therefore constitute the production of a system of symbolic meanings. There is a great variety in the ways in which items from the six categories of goods are combined in order to construct a specific gift for a specific beneficiary. Sometimes, single items are given; sometimes composite gifts are produced using items from one or several of the six categories. As well as being influenced by the cultural rules, these choices are also influenced by the pragmatic issue of what goods are available for giving. Some testators have a very obvious system for organising their heirlooms in single or/and composite gifts, and these systems usually indicate an obvious hierarchy of personally attributed value. With other testators the system employed is less clearly interpreted and this may or may not indicate that he or she was less clear in the determination of a symbolic system. It is tempting to suggest that individual testators who are particularly creative have a very pronounced method of producing symbolic references in their choices about heirloom gifts. John Aunsell’s use of the John theme is one example, and others are discussed later in this chapter. Crucial to the production of the personal set of symbolic references is the detailed descriptions associated with the objects. The descriptions attached to heirlooms were very important for the attribution of value by testators. These descriptions are therefore very important to understanding the perception of those goods, and also the perception of value. The detailed descriptions of possessions involve a wide range of ways to attribute value to items from all the categories of description. The following examples give a sense of the range. In 1469 Thomas Porter, citizen and tailor of London, dwelling in Southwark, left

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to his cousin Agnes various bedding including a covering of worsted ‘brawdered with a gentil woman’.20 In 1487 Gilbert Banaster of Greenwich left silver ware to each of three daughters, including ‘a chafed cupp of sylver parcel gilt Koveryd weying xxx unces and a maser with a brode band Koverid’, ‘a pece of sylver parcel gilt chafed with a sterre in the bottom with a knopp without a kovering’, ‘a litil maser with a print in the botom’, ‘my sylver spones the knoppis called diamond poynte and a maser that I hadd with hyr moder with a rounde bonde and a bossell weyng xiii unces’.21 And in 1494 Parnell Rogers of Southwark bequeathed a lot of goods including a coverlet ‘wrought with clowdes’; she also sorted her silver spoons into ‘sorts’ according to their monetary value including ‘the 3d sort’ of which she had twelve with ‘round knopps’.22 In 1495, John Pykenham left to a kinsman a cross of gold with ‘a great rynge with roses’.23 In 1510, Joan Radyshe of Southwark left, among other things, ‘vi silver spoons with saint george on the ends’, and twelve cushions such as those with ‘the hartes on’ and ‘three with grene and rede’. In 1515 Agnes Newman of Greenwich left ‘six silver spoons of twelve apostles with knopps of gilt’. In 1530 Katherine Styles of Greenwich left ‘to my husbaunde styles daughter late hewsters wife ... a towel of diaper with Katherine wheles. Item to her husband walter a ringe of goold whiche her husband hewster gave to my husband stiles’.24 In 1531, Richard Rutland, a fletcher, left to a kinswoman various household goods and also ‘a lytell payr of beads of corall with viii spaces gawded with sylver a ryng hanging upon the same beads of sylver gylte’, the round table in the hall and a ‘lokyng glass set in glas’. A clause is added that if she die before her marriage then the goods be appraised and the value distributed to the poor in alms.25 In 1537, Emma Cooper of Southwark left a carpet of ‘checker work’.26 In 1537, Alice Hanserde left to her son a ‘sqare rynge of goulde’ and a ‘rynge of goulde wrethed’.27 In 1539, John Gylys of Southwark left a ‘cubbord with two doores left standing in the haule’.28 Other possessions, particularly cloth and clothing, are sometimes described with reference to a geographical place. In 1497, for example, Richard Brown described the colour of a gown as being of French ‘tawney’.29 John Arnold described two pillows as being of the Bristol type. John Aunsell described material left for making gowns and smocks as ‘iii yerdes of sadde northern tawney’.30 London recurs in this context. London russet is the most common example, particularly in the 1530s and 1540s, but there are also other London types of colours and materials.31 Thomas Marshall of Greenwich for example gave one gown of London russet ‘furred’ with rabbit and one gown of London blue ‘welted’ with


‘tawney’ velvet.32 John Sparrow of Southwark gave several gowns of London ‘tawney furred’ with black lamb, and one of London russet ‘garded with russet velvet and forefaced with foxe’.33 Nicholas Banbrigge of Richmond gave various clothing including gowns of London russet and a gaberdine of London russet lined with ‘Seynt Thomas Worsted’.34 Thomas Blanke of Guildford, gave a gown of tawney colour ‘lyned with saynt Thomas worsted’. Categories of description The detail and variety of personal descriptions of possessions is seductive, but in order to conduct an analysis should not the descriptions attached to goods be categorised and generalised? Such summarisation might form a useful starting point for analysis. At the first level of generality, these descriptions can be divided into different categories, such as descriptions of style, the material of the object, evaluations of relative worth, information concerning the biography of the object including where it was kept, and information concerning the biography of the giver or recipient. Furniture and metal ware provide a useful example of the possibilities for description using these categories. These items are bequeathed throughout the period c. 1450–1560 but with an increase in specificity and variety from about 1520. Descriptive terms associated with tables include ‘spruce’, ‘green’, ‘counter’, ‘tressle’, ‘round’, and they are described as being kept in particular places in the house such as ‘hall’ or ‘parlour’. In the same period, chests may be described with terms such as: ‘spruce wood’, ‘joined’, ‘great’, ‘flat’, ‘long’, ‘best’, ‘little’, ‘carved’, and ‘ship’. Combinations of these terms are used to describe single objects. In 1528 William Pole of Milton near Gravesend, for example, bequeathed, among a large number of other items, a ‘table standing in the newe Chamber paynted with grene’, a ‘flat chest with double locks’, and a ‘shipp chest standing in my Chamber’.35 There is a plethora of possible descriptive terms to use for silver ware in the same period. The items are most often vessels such as goblets and masers, salt cellars, or spoons. For vessels, descriptions include the weight of the object in ounces or troy weight or its size in terms such as ‘little’, or ‘great’; the type of vessel such as goblet, standing cup, drinking cup, maser; the shape of the vessel, including whether it has feet or a cover and decorative aspects such as ‘bands’ ‘bosses’, ‘powncing’, shapes such as flowers and faces described as ‘on the bottom’, and verbal inscriptions.36 For spoons, terms include a whole range of types of head and knob such as lions, maidens, saints and apostles generically or

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specifically named, or sets of Christ and the apostles, and knobs of a particular material such as diamond. For pewter goods there seem, interestingly, to be fewer descriptive terms and this may reflect its recent entry into the symbolic economy. In this context the presence of an inn, in 1500, called ‘the Pewter Pott’ in Southwark is interesting.37 When mentioned, pewter is often described simply in the generic term of the object or using the collective term for the set of twelve plates saucers and cups known as a garnish. I have found very occasional uses of a description based on style, such as pewter ‘of the silver fashion’, and pewter ‘of the new sort’.38 And one description of a ‘pote with a long neke of peauwter’.39 William Pole’s descriptions of metal ware include, ‘my best brass pott two candlesticks of the best ... a goblet of silver a litill standing cupp of silver with thre silver spones my best maser bounde with silver and gilte ... a salt of silver with a cover parcel gilt three silver spones with maydenes heds’.40 Deconstructing the descriptive categories The descriptive categories are in themselves problematic. For a start, the terminology used is not always easily placed within one of the descriptive categories. ‘Spruce’, for example, is used to describe some furniture usually chests or tables. But ‘spruce’ is not only descriptive of the kind of material from which the object is made, it is also descriptive of a culturally resonant issue concerning the importation of this wood from the Baltic in this period. As well as describing the wood, ‘spruce’ should then perhaps also be understood as a term descriptive of the object’s biography which is itself imbued with issues of value and status. Other terms are also equally laden with cultural references. The marks often described as on ‘the bottom’ of drinking cups, for example, may relate to an interest in aspects of display associated with social drinking in this period.41 A closer look at any will containing bequests of possessions also immediately opens up some problems with the proposed categories for descriptive terminology. Just as the six categories of possession are used in a range of ways and combinations to construct different kinds of heirlooms, so the proposed descriptive categories are also employed in various ways. The meanings of the descriptive terms are relative rather than absolute. We cannot say that the silver cup described by one testator as ‘little’ is ‘little’ in the same way as another silver cup thus described by another testator, and so on. In other words the term in itself does not carry symbolic meaning. Rather, descriptive terms are used relatively, although each descriptive term must imbue an object with sufficient


meaning to render it useful. Used relatively, descriptive terms have the potential to convey meaning at both practical and symbolic levels. One way of getting closer to the meanings of these terms is to treat the individual will text as a distinct sphere of meaning. In a practical sense, ‘little’ may be used to distinguish between various objects mentioned in one text and may therefore, although not necessarily, be compared to another cup perhaps described as ‘great’. In a symbolic sense ‘little’ could be used to convey a certain aspect of the use of the object as something for special occasions or not for drinking; or ‘little’ might indicate affection for the object. The comparison of bequests in one will enhances the possibilities for understanding the attribution of meaning to particular objects through the use of descriptive terms. In William Pole’s text, the little standing cup (with a cover) is described in a bequest to his eldest son Robert which also includes a silver goblet and the best maser. One assumes that the little cup is identified as being smaller than the other two silver items, and also perhaps more for display than for drinking. Further clues are found elsewhere in this text, where Pole makes distinctions concerning which silver ware is used on a daily basis. Amidst a range of objects, he leaves to his wife ‘a maser that is daily occupyed’ and ‘half a dosyn of silver spones of them that be occupied daily’. All the silver vessels mentioned in the bequest to Robert are now qualified by this distinction concerning daily use. A similar case for examining the internal references of the specific text is represented by Pole’s bequest of silver girdles to his three close female kin. To his wife he leaves ‘the girdell she did were the day she was maried’, to his first daughter Amy ‘a girdell of silver called a domysyne with a litill cheyn of silver and a silverbell’, to his second daughter Agnes ‘a girdell harnest with silver’. In making these three bequests (all of them part of large composite heirlooms) Pole has created a gendered set of symbolic references, which move from the intimacy of his wedding day to gifts that look forward to the marriage of his daughters (the date they are to receive their heirlooms). The gendered system of organising the heirlooms also appears to be in operation with regard to jewellery, which only the women receive. Pole also bequeaths his wife ‘her wedding rynge of golde’, and a pair of coral beads mounted with silver gilt. To Amy he leaves a pair of white jasper beads mounted with silver, an ‘Image of Saint Mighell of mother of perle closed in silver’, and a hoop of gold. To Agnes he leaves a pair of ivory beads mounted with silver, and a silver ring. The first mentioned and probably elder daughter appears to receive more jewellery than the second.

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But there is more to say about the ways that meaning is attributed to William Pole’s heirlooms. Each of the examples so far quoted have been partial renditions of a specific bequest. Pole bequeathed a collection of items to each of six family members (his wife, Joanne; three sons, Robert, William and Christopher; and two daughters, Amy and Agnes, mentioned in that order). Each of Pole’s bequests to his family members contains items from each of the six categories of objects. For the five children the items appear to have been grouped into roughly equivalent lots, although these also appear to be graded, perhaps according to economic value or newness, and with the gender differentiations. Each of the three sons, for example, is given a bed and bedding but Robert is to receive a ‘standing bedde in the newe chamber a fetherbed a bolster a coverlidde of tapestryewerke two pair shetes’, William is to receive a ‘a feather bed with all the apparel as it standeth’, and Christopher is to receive, ‘a standing bedde in the olde chamber with all the apparel a pillowe with a beere iiii paire of sheets’. Each of the bequests continues with a long list of other items, but the bed example gives a clue about the ways that the gifts seem to be graded in this instance. The first son receives the most elaborate set of bedding to go with the bed that is also kept in the ‘new’ chamber. This may be compared directly with the third son’s bed that is kept in the ‘old’ chamber. ‘Old’ and ‘new’ are here used with a specific resonance; several of the other items given to Robert are also associated with newness, such as the green table, and six new cushions. The women also receive some bedding. Pole’s wife is bequeathed a bed in the parlour together with all hangings and apparel, which might be the significant main bed of the household. The gendered system appears to be in play again for the bedding given to the second daughter, which is described as ‘a coverlet the matche that my wife hath’. Within the sets of items corresponding to the six main categories of possessions, Pole also bequeaths some very distinctive items and adds some further very particular descriptions, which add to his ways of attributing value. For example to William his son, Pole bequeaths ‘my chaire covered with Red lether’. Chairs are very rarely found as heirlooms in this period. Pole also gives outdoor items to his wife in amongst all the household goods. These are kinds of wood described very precisely as ‘vi loods of billet [OED: thick firewood] x loods of Bavyn foure loods of shorte woode’. The precision of these descriptions, although conventional, shows Pole’s own conception of fine distinctions in types of wood, indicating a specialised knowledge that informs his understanding of these goods. Pole also left some indoor utility items such as the ‘presse standing in the presse chamber’; the andirons


in the hall; the cauldron standing in the furnace. The embellishment of these descriptions with the position of the item in the house provides further details of what Pole’s living space was like, but also more significantly perhaps, tend to suggest the importance of those places for his conception of these utility objects. The descriptive term added to one of his coverlets also adds a different dimension of distinction based on the biography of the object. This is a ‘lynnen Coverlid of Norffolk making’.

‘Modes of expression’: some possibilities The logical conclusion of this deconstruction of the categories used for descriptive terminology is that in order more fully to understand the ways in which symbolic meaning is made by an individual such as William Pole, it is necessary to examine the internal references of each individual will text. Uncovering the significance of John Aunsell’s repeated uses of the symbolism of John the Baptist would certainly imply this necessity. But perhaps it is possible, before taking this extreme step, to propose a set of culturally appropriate types of description within which symbolic meaning tends to be construed, in the metropolitan hinterland at least; or in other words some ‘modes of expression’ through which sets of symbolic references tend to be produced. Such modes of expression provide insights into the modes of understanding the nature of these possessions. The following paragraphs pursue some possible modes of expression for culturally resonant types of description, these are: ‘naming’, ‘inscription’ and ‘pious conversion’. Naming Issues of naming, particularly saints’ names, are sometimes used as part of a symbolic reference system. John Aunsell’s uses of symbolism associated with his name provides a particularly clear set of references which make connections between the Christian name John (his name and his father’s), several fraternities of St John the Baptist, the visual imagery of his tombstone, and some of his silver ware. Other individuals also seem to use the symbolism of specific saints in their attribution of value to possessions. In 1509, John Arnold of Southwark, for example, also appears to value references to St John the Baptist. This may relate to his Christian name as with Aunsell, although the John theme is less explicitly used in Arnold’s will. He left a silver cup to his daughter Elizabeth which is described as being ‘of silver gilt with a bosse in the bottm sett with pieces of silver & gilt and within the same bosse there is graven

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seynt john the Baptiste in blake enamel’. He also left various bedding including a coverlet of tapestry work with ‘thymage of Our Lord upon it’ and bedding apparel of ‘stayned werk with thymages of Seynt John Baptist and Seynt Dorothe upon it’.42 Ralph Willoughby makes repeated references to St George. Although this is clearly not in connection with the Christian name he uses, it is another example of an individual’s interest in one specific saint that impinges on the ways he describes his possessions. Willoughby wishes to be buried before the altar of St George in Southwark, and he leaves to the brotherhood of St George two altar cloths ‘of russet velvet bordered with garters beryng the armes of sent george’.43 John Scragges of Southwark also appears to find symbolic resonance in the relationship between his Christian name and a saint, this time St John the Evangelist. In 1534, he bequeathed to the guild of leather sellers in London a ‘stondyng cuppe with a cover chafed and well gilt having upon the cover a vane and on either side of the vane is an egill and John Scragg graven under the egill’; he also left ‘three gilt goblettes with a cover pounced havynge graven upon the knoppe of the cover in lyke wyse an egill for John and Scragge’; and a further three goblets engraved as the others all to ‘thentent that the company of the same shall have my soule in the more tender remembraunce & devoute prayer’. There is another example of a similar type of bequest to the same fellowship: John Chapman, a citizen and leather seller of London, bequeathed a standing cup of silver with a ‘falcon’ on the cover.44 These two examples indicate that these men’s choice of gift may also have been influenced by family traditions, as there is a close kin relationship between these two families (Alice Chapman, who made her will in 1503, is described as ‘formerly Alice Scragges’). These examples indicate one possible mode of expression through which personal symbolic references may be conventionally conveyed. Inscription Objects, particularly silver ware and jewellery, are sometimes described in terms of the verbal or visual inscription on the item. In 1490, John Baker, merchant and roper of London living in Greenwich, bequeathed to his relative Elizabeth a range of silver cups including one standing cup partly gilt ‘chafed personally’, presumably engraved with his name, and with its weight described as ‘xxxi ounces or i quart of troy weight’.45 In 1495, William Tilghman, whose unusual book bequests indicate that he was highly textual, bequeathed to his brother a ‘maser of myn being in his keeping with these letteres T Y on the print


therof’.46 And in 1531, Mary Bunyan of Kew left ‘one ryng of gold with jhesus theron’.47 The nature of inscriptions and the ways they are described indicates that these marks add symbolic value as well as being useful for identification. There is a further kind of inscription which is created by virtue of making written descriptions of possessions, rather than because of writing on the object. These ‘inscriptions’ are distinct from the other forms of descriptive detail because the system they use to attribute value is through specifically intimate or personal details that tell a story about the heirloom object. The last will and testament is a particularly important site for making such descriptions. Jewellery is perhaps one obvious site for personalised descriptions that relate to close relationships and particular parts of the lifecycle.48 As part of a short will made in 1502, Joanna Flower of Gravesend bequeathed to Alice Herd, ‘a ring of gold the which I wore upon my finger at my time of sickness’. The description of this ring recalls a specific and important time in the life of the testator when perhaps Alice cared for her.49 Other testators make reference to a specific time through their jewel bequests by making specific references to the production of their last will and testament. Robert Whatnall of Greenwich, for example, made a gift of a gold ring to his ‘ghostly’ (spiritual) father, a chancery priest called William Broadbent; this he describes as ‘one gold ring as appears now on my finger’.50 Widow Agnes Newark also bequeaths a gold ring to Master Edward Skerne described as being ‘on my finger’;51 Agnes’s bequest is similar to Robert Whatnall’s in that it is given to her overseer and witness. It is possible that these gifts were decided upon during the time that these people were writing the text. Other descriptions inscribe a piece of jewellery with particular family significance. In 1531 John Gregory of Southwark, for example, left to his servant Vincent a ‘payr of coral beades gauded with silver whiche was his fathers’.52 Other individuals make it clear from the descriptions given to their rings that these were tokens of betrothal. In 1495 Robert Gylmyn bequeathed to his son John ‘the ring of gold I and Cecily my wife were weddid together in’, alongside a number of his wife’s clothes including what are described as her, ‘best girdle of colour red and harness as she was wont in her life to wear and also the clasp or hook of silver she was wont to wear’. Gylmyn’s bequest of his wedding ring to his son signals the particularly poignant possibilities associated with jewellery heirlooms and their descriptions. But Gylmyn’s particular desire to emphasise his wife’s ownership of a range of goods also signals the possibilities for personal reflection on intimate relationships and significant

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moments in the lifecycle which are part of the attribution of value to these symbolically charged possessions. Jewellery is not the only possession through which very personal relationships are inscribed in order to attribute them with value. In 1534 Syrress Ownelles of Southwark, for example, left to ‘mistress blacke in part recompense of such paynes many tymes taken with me a salt silver with a cover and all the stuff in the chamber and the kitchen in my house ... whiche chamber is now hanged with dornex’.53 Sickness is a theme of obvious significance in the will text, and sometimes beds are valued accordingly. Richard Rutland left to a couple, the bed ‘in the new hall’ which ‘lyeth upon the bedsted that I my selfe be now upon’ with the added detail of ‘iii curteyns a joined for me that stond by the bed’. Beds are also sometimes inscribed with value connected to their use by the recipient. In 1510, widow Barbara Johnson left to her servant Katherine van Basse various household goods including the bed that Katherine used to lie in ‘as it stondeth’ and three gowns, ‘that I have made for her’.54 Some testators also use narratives of personal inscription to construct a hierarchy of giving: in 1513, Richard Cooke of Southwark gives personal biographies to his possessions relating to their ownership and use and he also grades them according to their quality, from the best to the second, third, fourth and fifth. He bequeathed to his brother John a best gown, best doublet, harness and dagger ‘as I do wear’ and a goblet of silver ‘that was my brother williams’. And then to his cousin Richard Cooke, he leaves the second gown and second doublet ‘as I do wear them’ and a lytell salt silver ‘that was my brother williams’, and so on for three more cousins.55 Other attributions of symbolic value by inscription are more concerned with economic matters. In 1510, Garrard Van Sconebergh bequeathed to William Warner a merchant ‘a standing maser whiche I plegged owte for him’.56 And, in 1530 Henry Hedge of Mitcham yeoman, bequeathed to John Customs the ‘detts owing to me ... for rye malt and wheat 20s whereon for a pledge I have a payr of beads of coral with silver & gawded gylted and with a ryng and a crosse hanging upon the said bedes’.57 Pious conversion Not all the interest in material objects in the will concerns secular possessions. Pious objects also receive some detailed attention. In 1527, Robert Elphigh of Yalding bequeathed £3 6s 8d towards his only material bequest, a censer of silver, ‘soo that the parisheners there will


bey a senser of silver to the value of ten marces with in oon yere next after my decesse’.58 William Foreman’s gift in 1535, showed his intention that such little luxuries of material goods be enjoyed by those not able to reach the church: he left 5s ‘to buy a pix to be used only to lay in my saviour & redeemer Christ ihu at such times that the curate of yalding go on visitacion to sick people in the parish’.59 In 1477, Geoffrey Lorkyn also left a censer to his church at Gravesend with the specific request that his wife give sufficient ‘plate and jewels’ for this cause, thereby converting some of his own household possessions into this object for religious ceremonial.60 Some individuals bequeathed religious paraphernalia from what were probably their own household religious spaces to the parish church. In 1491, Thomas Bodley, a citizen and tailor of London dwelling in Southwark, bequeathed to a priest Master John Leche, ‘my mass booke, vestement, surpallace candlestick aulter cloth and all the apparel of my aulter’.61 In 1534 commemoratively creative John Brown of Eltham left a collection of ceremonial necessaries described with the attention to detail characteristic of his will text as: my ii vestments i of chamblet and another of white saten powdered with flowers an alter cloth of white saten powdered with flowers a copper cross gilt with the banner or cross cloth belonging to the same with the crosse staffe two surples two masse bokes a chales of silver with ii corporas and the cases ii laten candlesticks and two crewets of peauwter there to remain in the same chapel to the honor of our blessed ladye forever62 One distinctive mode for the attribution of value is by the conversion of household possessions into items of religious significance. These items are very elaborately described by some individuals. The velvet gown provided by Elizabeth Goddon of Greenwich to the church of her burial in 1544, for example, was to be embroidered to make a vestment and given with other apparel and a chalice of silver gilt.63 Sometimes these items are given to the cults of specific saints within a church. In 1503, commemoratively creative Stephen Burdon left a fine tablecloth of diaper to be made into an altar cloth for the brotherhood of Our Lady in his parish church of St Margaret Southwark.64 In 1538, Richard Arden of Greenwich bequeathed a pair of sheets and towel for the cult of St Anne.65 Some individuals inscribe these possessions with very specific requests about their ritual usage, for example, the gift made by Thomasina Skeby, in 1506, of a standing cup of silver and gilt with a

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cover weighing 24 ounces, on the condition that it be borne before any people being married.66 And the descriptive background which Greenwich land-accumulator Thomas Uswaste provides for his gift of a red cow to ‘sustain the light of Our Lady’, indicates his interest in a fashionable saint’s cult: his bequest of 1496 states that the cow was bought on the previous St George’s day, at Horsham.67 These conversions do not only concern parishes in close proximity to the household, Garrard Van Sconebergh a citizen and brewer of London in Southwark left ‘to Master Petter, parson of the church of Ham in therledom of Marke to thuse of Our Ladye brotherhood one standing cup of 6li’.68 Jewellery also emerges as a type of possession that may be converted into pious usage through very personal inscriptions of value. Katherine Styles, for example, uses the important symbolism of betrothal to inscribe her wedding ring with pious significance: she requests that ‘to our lady of Walsingham, after my death’, be given ‘i hoop of gold that was my wedding ring’. This is similar to Dame Elizabeth Philpot’s request to leave ‘to our ladye of Southwyk my wedyng ryng’.69 Although Elizabeth’s bequest has an unusual additional clause, ‘Item to my son William xxs to bye the same ryng ageyn’. This addition rather intricately ties her own son into a connection with the devotional mother.

Conclusion Taking stock As a first step in resisting the empirically dominated assessment of consumption, I proposed the necessary deconstruction of the six categories that have generally been used to analyse possessions because these categories do not take into account the personalised perception and valuation of goods, particularly in the highly symbolic sphere of heirloom bequests. I proposed then that the detailed descriptions attached to heirloom possessions provide insights into the ways value is attributed to heirlooms, and therefore to contemporary perceptions of these and, by analogy, other possessions. However, having indicated the significance of detailed description and suggested some categories, I then suggested that it is also necessary to deconstruct any such categories because the meanings of descriptive terms are relative rather than absolute, and open to personal manipulation. The logical endpoint of this process of deconstructing categories is that it is necessary to look to the internal references of an individual will text in order to assess value. But before embarking on this project, I stopped to consider whether


there might not be a set of culturally appropriate types of description, or ‘modes of expression’ within which symbolic meaning tends to be construed. Questions The examples of possible ‘modes of expression’ for the attribution of symbolic value to heirloom possessions provide a significant step forward for analysing the perception of goods. It emerges that all attributions of value are creative acts, and this creativity encompasses a wide range of culturally appropriate references. The uses of detailed description strongly suggest that people of the early English renaissance had a sensitivity to matters of style and the aesthetics of consumption. But there remain a set of questions. Why do some individuals use detailed description more intensely than others? Why are some individuals particularly creative in their attributions of value to possessions? Is the sensitivity to matters of style and aesthetics, as expressed through detailed description, a product of a commercialising society that saw increased opportunities for the consumption of goods? Did a commercialising society stimulate cultural creativity? Is any such stimulation particular to the metropolitan hinterland? Some individuals make particularly detailed descriptions of their possessions, using a range of modes of expression. These facets of the individuality of a will text suggest again that even analysing ‘modes of expression’ cannot take sufficient account of those people whose cultural creativity is outstanding. A particular cultural creativity in the attribution of value to possessions is likely also not to be contained by descriptions of those goods but also to involve other aspects of the representation of identity that the will text constitutes. John Aunsell, for example, used the detail attached to some possessions to adopt a very strong system of attributing symbolic value through his use of the John theme. His John theme impinged not only on the valuation of possessions but also on other aspects of the will text, such as his tombstone design, family commemorations, and his allegiance to various fraternities. In the tangled state of the ritual of producing a will text, a specific symbolic theme or set of themes is not always easily detectable even in a very detailed will text.70 When a theme is not apparent this does not mean that there is no theme in the mind of the testator. Where there is an apparent theme, this may be sporadically expressed rather than being consistent throughout the whole text. Even in John Aunsell’s text, where the references to John are very clear, other aspects of his

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description of possessions and his other detailed requests do not use the John theme. In other individual will texts a symbolic theme may encompass only a brief set of requests. The use of themes provides an insight into the ways of attributing value, but not all attributions of symbolic value are themed. This appears to be particularly the case with the use of personalised inscriptions, especially those produced through the will text (rather than those present actually on the object). The lack of a theme may be deliberate on the part of the testator or may also be a product of the unresolved nature of cultural expression. For all issues concerned with the construction of a set of symbolic references, pragmatic considerations (what is or is not available for giving) impinge on a testator’s creative process of attributing value. Is the sensitivity to matters of style and aesthetics, as expressed through detailed description, a product of a commercialising society that saw increased opportunities for the consumption of goods? There is evidence to suggest that luxury and domestic material possessions were not the only type of possession for which detailed description was significant for the attribution of value. Agricultural stock sometimes receives detailed descriptions of a personalised kind, particularly by individuals living in more rural communities. In 1494, Richard Tonok of Cobham in Kent left a basin and laver for the font of his parish church together with a diaper tablecloth and ‘a cow with a broken horn’ to the ‘light of Mary Magdalene’.71 In 1541, yeoman John Hacche of Chevening in Kent left the following bequest to his son Robert twenty shepe two horses one blacke and another baye all my plowhes and waynes cartes harrowes and all maner of harness and ymplementes to theym belonging and also agrate brass pott over and besides fower of my best Oxen whiche I have given and delivered to hym th’one brandyd the seconde redd the third blackgoryde the fourth brown72 In 1551, Thomas Hugyn of Yalding, Kent, left his wife two steers described as one white milk cow and one red cow with a brown snout and the eldest gray ‘ambling’ mare. In 1551, John Emmon of West Peckham, Kent, bequeathed almost all the material goods mentioned in this text in one bequest to his brother. This consists of all ‘wearing raiment’, one chest bound with iron, one little cupboard, one bedstead, a best flockbed, one pewter basin, a candlestick, and, ‘… a cow called Nightingale’.73


The detailed attribution of value to agricultural and occupational stock is not always a rural phenomenon: Greenwich resident Thomas Uswaste’s bequest of a cow to his parish church is one example of an urban gentleman applying such detail to an animal. Occupational equipment is also sometimes given added value through personalised inscriptions: in 1460, Robert Bourman a citizen and tailor of London left, ‘to Robert Lyndesey my servant the sheres that I bought last’ and, ‘to Harry Lyneham myn apprentice the same sheris that he Cuttith with all hym self’. That this was a particularly favoured apprentice is suggested by Bourman’s subsequent request that the remaining years of Lyneham’s apprenticeship be forgiven and that the executors, ‘make the said harry Lyneham freeman in the Citte of London’.74 The use of detailed description for items other than domestic and luxury material goods indicates the extent to which the attribution of value through detailed description is embedded in the cultural system of forming meaning more generally. The modes of expression employed for these different kinds of possession may correspond with similar culturally embedded perceptions. In relation to luxury goods, any increased general levels of description in the sixteenth century may be indicative of increased sensitivity to the importance of quality, and this does imply increased levels of consumer choice. However, the evidence for the culturally embedded understanding of the uses of detailed description shows that such sensitive use of description was not simply invented in response to consumer choice on matters of luxury or lifestyle. Increased opportunities for consumption of goods may have stimulated a greater range of modes of expression for the attribution of value, and may have opened new possibilities for the construction of symbolic themes in the last will and testament. New opportunities for consumption may therefore have stimulated a creative attitude to the aesthetics of consumption, but it was not the only stimulus for the creative representation and perception of possessions. The question of whether the metropolitan hinterland experienced a particularly heightened sensitivity to the aesthetics of consumption in this period remains open until further analyses of cultural creativity in different places have been made.

5 Life-fashioning

Introduction Renaissance individuals fashioned their own identities during life and for after death using a combination of particular signs, symbols, objects and gestures in this creative process. The following two chapters are about the ways in which people engaged in this fashioning process in life and for death. I am concerned with the cultural creativity of the fashioning process. This involves going beyond describing the existence of the evidence in order to examine how text and object were manipulated during these processes of self-fashioning. This approach to fashioning resists an empiricist analysis.1 The aim is not to count the number of times personal choices about fashioning are made in a given place or by a particular person. Any such counting would constitute the sort of imposition of categories that is irrelevant to recovering contemporary perception and experience. The texts used here do not constitute a sample that may be quantified. The unquantifiable survival rates of these documents and objects and the qualitative nature of the personal evidence they present render any quasi-scientific recourse to statistics defunct. That said, it is important to indicate that the examples used here are taken from a range of other possible examples that occur sporadically if not frequently in the surviving evidence across the period c. 1450–1560. The extent of requests for commemoration, for example, should be seen as echoing a healthy market for the production of commemorative stones and brasses by the fifteenth century.2 But at the same time as stressing the reasonable frequency of expressions concerning the fashioning of identity in the last will and testament, it is important also to draw attention to the fact that not all testators make detailed personal requests. This indicates that there are 95


indeed particularly significant individuals who were particularly culturally creative. In using the term ‘fashioning’ it is important to acknowledge the debt to Stephen Greenblatt’s famous book about ‘self-fashioning’.3 This belongs within a long historiography that has increasingly disputed the tendency to view the historical development of the self as a linear and inevitable progression.4 Debt acknowledged, it is preferable to discuss a work that has very positively influenced my approach: Johannes Fabian’s Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (with narrative and paintings by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu).5 It is the underlying ethos and approach to evidence that is influential in this book, as exemplified by its arrangement.6 The reflexivity with which Fabian approaches his task is informed by the ‘literary turn and the new sensitivity to ethnography as writing’ for which he cites Clifford and Marcus’s Writing Culture as a seminal work that has, ‘sharpened the critique of anthropological discourse and practice’.7 Remembering is an explicit critique of formal narrative ‘ethnography’ and it celebrates the discontinuities within the primary evidence that are so often sewn together into a seamless formal ethnographic narrative.8 Similarly, the ‘discontinuities’ of chapters 5 and 6 are intended to reflect my critique of formal narratives.9 Fabian’s focus is on the significance of the processes by which knowledge is formed through representation. Similarly, my emphasis throughout this book is on the influence that producing and using texts had on personal perception and experience. I employ the concept of ‘performativity’ to stress the importance of considering how acts or performances of representation produce knowledge.10 This is different from understanding representations (such as texts or pictures) as simply reproducing an already existing knowledge.11

What is life-fashioning? The term ‘life-fashioning’ refers to the ways in which individuals fashioned their own identity during their lifetimes. This chapter employs local case studies to indicate some of the ways that the performance of constructing memories is specifically related to social or occupational group and personal choice, and may also be determined by local geographical contexts. The first part is concerned with evidence for particular tastes in apparel and how practices within a specific situation show the intersections between group identity and individual life-fashioning. The second part is concerned with evidence for the transmission of ideas

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about the performance of identity, again taking a specific situation that is geographically and culturally distinct. I use the term ‘personal identification’ which alludes to individual fashioning but is not intended to deny that collectivities such as family and group are central to the formation of individual identity. The following discussion of personal identification should therefore be seen as operating within a spectrum of systems, signs, and their uses during the performance of religious and secular ritual.12 The focus here is on textual evidence for personal identification objects. Some ‘plastic’ evidence such as seals and signets also survives albeit in fragmentary form and these deserve separate consideration at length.13 All personal identification objects formed part of the cultural repertoire of the people whose processes of ‘life-fashioning’ are being discussed here. A referential process mediated the transmission and appropriation of the symbolic values carried by these items.

Fashioning fashionable apparel and practices In general, because of evidence survival, it is not possible to make detailed analyses of family and group tastes in representation at the level of popular culture. However, the unusual evidence for life-fashioning discussed in the following paragraphs does lend itself to a consideration of ways in which the construction of individual identity is mediated by belonging to a specific kind of group that exists because of a culturally distinct situation. The collection of distinct individuals discussed here comprise the humble servants of the royal household. Testaments survive amongst the archives of Greenwich, Richmond, and Eltham for members of what they themselves describe as the ‘moveable’ royal households of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. It is only through testamentary text that the details of these individuals’ tastes and choices may be recovered. But although there is an inevitable focus on death-fashioning, the testamentary text provides detailed evidence for the textual construction of personal identity during life by individuals belonging to this distinct group. Close reading of the construction of the testaments indicates the nature of this group’s shared identity, the influence of that identity on the cosmopolitan civic communities associated with these palaces, and the ways that certain collective choices and trends impinged on the creative process of their individual life-fashioning as well as their death-fashioning. The testaments together with lay subsidy records show that these men and women came from all over England, as well as Wales, Scotland and


Ireland; and from Flanders and the Low Countries. They worked as yeomen of the guard and armoury; cooks, larder servants and cellarers; court musicians; and gentleman of the king’s chapel and vestry. The language of their bequests provides evidence for the formation and perpetuation of relationships within the moveable household, between what in contemporary terminology are called ‘fellows’. One way in which this group of people cement their identity as a distinct group is through the giving of gifts. The surviving evidence is in general but not exclusively of bequeathed gifts rather than gifts given during life. The bequest of gifts by the members of the royal household to their fellows is frequent. For example, in 1540 Roger Ellis, a yeoman of the guard, gave gifts of clothing, some possibly being livery, to three fellows.14 To Richard Trout, Ellis gave a doublet of russet satin in white and yellow; to John Cornish, a doublet of black velvet fringed with gold at the hand and breast; and to another fellow, one new shirt with a white band sewn with white thread. John Rolte, a yeoman of the guard resident in Eltham, gave several oxen to the master cook of the king’s guard.15 In 1557 John Norman, a yeoman of the queen’s chamber dwelling in Chertsey, requested in his very short will that his executor be ‘my very frende and felowe Humphrey Snodone yeoman to the queen’.16 This gifting practice and the use of the word ‘fellow’, appears at first sight to be an attempt to define and identify the moveable royal household as a distinct unit, perhaps with shared cultural references and behaviours, which are distinct from allegiances to place of residence.17 However, on closer inspection it emerges that there are a number of distinctions to be made within this ‘affinity’, by its members. For a number of the testators, their gift-giving preference is to individuals of the same occupational position as themselves. For example, in 1526, George Duckforth, a yeoman cellarer in Greenwich, has as one of his executors Brian Aussley, also a yeoman cellarer (the other executor is not a member of the household).18 Similarly in 1553, John Dale, a cook in Greenwich, bequeaths 10s to Master Corn, also a cook. He also remembers the children of the household kitchen, bequeathing them 6s 8d each; all the masters in the buttery, bequeathing them 6s each; and gives all masters in the wine cellar 12s.19 In addition to these foodrelated occupations, Dale also remembers the yeomen and grooms of the porters’ lodge. The bequests of Robert Skinner, a gentleman of the king’s chapel, also associate him strongly with his own occupational group.20 Skinner mentions four gentlemen of the king’s chapel: to Philip Churche he gives his best doublet, one pair of tawny hose, his best shirt and best cap; the other three, John Tyll, Robert Philpot, and Adam

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Grome, are mentioned because of their debts to Skinner. The beneficiaries and officers of Richard Woode’s very short will made in 1521 at Richmond were all fellows of the household, like Woode (who was a groom porter to the Prince’s Grace), they were also all connected with this same specific department of service.21 The evidence given so far suggests that both broad and narrow occupational categories were important for the self-definition of members of this affinity. But, there are also distinctions to be made within these occupational spheres. For example, Richard Carpenter bequeaths ‘to 11 of my company of the pantry, to grooms and pages 6s 8d and to the sergeant and gents each a ring of gold’.22 Carpenter also gives his second doublet to a named member of his ‘company’, called ‘Nicholas of the pantry’, perhaps a man with whom he shared a particular friendship. And, in 1520, Richard Brampton of Richmond, requested that ‘every yeoman, groome & page of the Kynges Pantry being of my company except John Astre have 6s 8d a pece’, thereby seeming to single out one of his fellows for less friendly treatment.23 This royal household affinity, then, is divided into different occupations or ‘companies’ and within that, between different status groups. The systems by which an individual might reflect on his own identity, within this affinity, involve a set of increasingly precise definitions, which may be used differently according to the situation. These definitions are distinct from other aspects of identification such as loyalty to places. Indeed ‘fellows’ may be partly a surrogate for community-based allegiances not easily acquired by these itinerants. However, particular places are important for some fellows. Richard Carpenter donates money to the church in Greenwich and the Grey Friars there.24 John Ap John, groom of the buttery, lists nine Welsh churches for high altar offerings, gives to the poor in what he terms, ‘my own country’, and has substantial investments in land and property in Wales, ‘at home’.25 Among such a particular group of people, there is always the possibility for increasingly complex sets of familial ties to develop. The networks of bequest in the testamentary evidence suggest that relationships of family, kin and occupational affinity could become entwined during the lifetime of a servant of the moveable royal household. This might involve more than one family member belonging to the affinity, as shown in Richard Carpenter’s will: he also mentions a John Carpenter, butcher of the king’s chamber.26 The gifts that this ‘fellow’ receives – a coat of satin, one ‘royal’ coin, one featherbed and one ‘flock-bed’ – are more substantial than those received by Carpenter’s other fellows, perhaps indicating the prioritisation of this blood relationship. Continuity


between generations also promotes the building of more complex sets of close relationships between fellows. Robert Colley, for example, gives to William Nevell, his son, a doublet of crimson that Colley’s fellow George Duckforth had beqeathed him.27 And, John Egleston, servant of the pantry, gave to his son, John, a gold ring that was held in the custody of William Bush his fellow in the pantry.28 This evidence for the formation of networks of affinity and identification suggests that these relationships were important for the identification of the individual during life and also commemorated in death. What is indeed fragmentary evidence for the lives of these servants also appears to indicate that they shared a distinct culture of taste and style. There is evidence to suggest, for example, that the humble servants were particularly interested in various objects of apparel and practices that might be deemed to represent élite tastes. This includes a distinctive interest in armour. In 1556, Henry Warren, a yeoman of the household who made his will at Greenwich, left his sword and gilt dagger to his ‘well-beloved friend’ Master Colverwell.29 In 1526, Robert Colley, another yeoman to the king, left a sword and buckler of his ‘own wearing’ to his son Thomas Hall together with one of his best bows.30 Griff Ap David Ap Eign, clearly a Welshman, and a yeoman porter of the king’s honorable household based at Richmond, left a set of armour to one of his fellows.31 Henry Stevenson a servant of the household with connections to both Greenwich and Eltham gave to a Master Cawsworth, ‘a swerd that was Kyng Henry the Sevynthe and myne owne wodeknyffe’.32 And in 1559, Edward Weale, yeoman of the Queen’s chamber, left to his brother-in-law a second-best sword and to his priest he left a ‘longe bowe with a borde in the myddel of yt and xii shoting arrows’.33 The interest of the royal household servants in armour may be explained by their contacts with the élite culture of the royal court and the display of prowess and its chivalric overtones. In the sixteenth century, the production of armour for the royal court was a major concern. The royal armouries at Greenwich produced armour for the household staff, its courtiers, and the monarch. In the household accounts of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the armoury staff are frequently mentioned and their nationality as ‘almaignes’ is noted from at least 1529.34 The testaments of these foreigners surviving in the Greenwich archive indicate that they had become partially integrated into the English community, some married English natives and others certainly held property in Greenwich, sometimes requesting that their heirs should stay in this country.35 There is also evidence to suggest that they maintained a

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distinct identity as part of a network of foreigners working at the royal household.36 Armourers formed a very specialised production team, which included ‘gunners’, ‘hammermen’ and ‘locksmiths’. And there was a group of exceptionally skilled craftsmen during the reign of Henry VIII who made armour for the king himself.37 Judging by surviving miscellaneous accounts this was quite a large-scale production unit with, for some occasions, thousands of pieces of armour being produced, repaired, cleaned and transported to various royal palaces.38 It can be deduced from this that aside from any bellicose intentions during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, armour was also an important part of the construction of identity through the symbolic posturing and display for which these royal courts have become renowned.39 This fragmentary evidence of the tastes of the royal household staff indicates an interest in the material culture of courtly display, gentleness, and perhaps chivalry. The evidence also indicates some possibilities for the ways in which ideas about courtly life-fashioning may have been transmitted from the cultural élite of royalty and nobility to the ‘humble’ individuals in contact with these ideas by virtue of their role as servants. Given their integration with the local communities through family and kin networks, these ideas could then be passed from the royal servants into the wider community. Alongside the testamentary evidence that the royal household servants construct their group identity, or affinity, by use of the word ‘fellow’, there is also evidence for the connections made with the people of the local community. The word ‘host’ is used in the wills of this affinity to refer to local individuals with whom these itinerant royal servants reside while the household is based at one of the royal palaces in Greenwich, Richmond, or Eltham. It is likely that under the protection of these ‘hosts’, often women but sometimes men, the rest of the community might more easily accept these aliens. ‘Hosts’ are often bequeathed small precious gifts of clothing and metal ware. Roger Ellis, for example, bequeathed to widow Elizabeth Wylshere, his host at Greenwich, £6, a gown of marble colour with white fox fur trim and the third of three chests standing in her house.40 Henry Stevenson of Eltham gave a shirt to the servant in his host’s house and left money for his board and lodgings there during the months of November and December.41 One member of the royal household might have dealings with quite a complex network of hosts, and ‘kin’ relationships sometimes developed between these people. John Dale, for


example, gave to his hostess ‘Bell’, one of the masers given to his hostess’s mother, now dwelling in Richmond, as well as one silver pot and two candlesticks of gilt.42 Dale also gave to his hostess’s son’s son (his godson) a silver pot with no case. Another interesting possibility is the inclusion of members of a host family into the royal household. In 1526, for example, George Duckforth remembers his hostess in Greenwich, Margaret Colly, to whom he gave a second-best gown that was his wife’s.43 In the same year, Robert Colly a servant of the household bequeathed to his son an item of clothing that had been given to him by George Duckforth.44 Hosts were an important point of contact between the diverse and distinct royal household affinity and the rest of the local community. Although not all members of the royal household mention hosts in their wills, it is clear that some individuals bequeath to hosts gifts of gratitude that might represent long-term associations that have resulted in the formation of family bonds and friendships. Imagine the little silver pot presented to his godson by John Dale: it might become a treasured heirloom never otherwise enjoyed by this host family.45 Similarly Elizabeth, the hostess of Roger Ellis, might not otherwise have experienced the preferences and customs of this man from Sussex who had a Southwark tailor and tastes in clothing that included crimson velvet embroidered jackets, laced cloaks, leather jerkins and so on.46 The relationships between hosts and the household affinity represent a site for cultural transmission specific to these palace communities and the distinct cultural situation that they represent. Here, members of the royal household who might have particular tastes, ideas and possessions because of their privileged position and cultural experience pass on their tastes to the local inhabitants. Take Richard Helmes, yeoman of the larder: in 1551, he bequeathed a painted chest that he says, ‘I bought out of Boleyn [Boulogne] having St George’s cross upon it and everything in it which is a tablet of gold that I was want to wear and indents and writings with other things’.47 The journeys made to collect such objects might provide such a fellow with a distinctive set of cultural experiences passed on in some form through his possession of this item and the gifting of it to those he knew in Greenwich. Another route for the transmission of these élite tastes is by a household servant giving a gift to a member of his family or a friend who is not in service of the royal household. Some gifts of armour were passed outside the affinity. In a similar way a very distinct sign of identification, royal livery, may also be passed outside of the servant affinity to family members. In 1549, for example, Robert Horden, a yeoman to the king,

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bequeathed two ‘cootes of the kynges lyvery’ to his brother with other apparel.48 And in 1535, another yeoman to the king, William Atkinson, left his ‘second cote of my livery of the kyng’ to his servant, Thomas Tyndale.49 In the same year, Thomas Marshall, who was owed a month’s wages and two months’ board wages by the king at the time of making his testament, requested that his three livery coats, one of which was in the custody of his fellow Robert Griffiths and the other two at his host’s house, be sold to pay for various costs.50 Marshall also had five yards of broad cloth stored in the king’s wardrobe for his ‘watching livery’, which he left to his brother. In isolated incidences, there is evidence that the household servants engaged in rather élite pastimes, and that they passed on aspects of these to their family and kin. Richard Skepham ‘yeoman of the crown of our sovereign and citizen and brewer of London’ who had properties in at least two royal palace communities (Richmond and ‘Hampton on Thames’) passed on the spoils of his sporting pursuits. In a relatively short will, he details two gifts of silver ware to be given to his two sons as follows: ‘Item I give & bequethe to Edmonde Skepham my sonne a goblet of silver the whiche I wane at shoting. Item I give and bequethe to Thomas Skepham my sone a pece of silver this I wane at wrestilling’.51 An interest in armour among the ordinary testators of these palace communities also tends to suggest that the tastes of the royal household staff may have influenced taste in the community more generally. For example, there are several examples of residents of a palace community giving an otherwise unusal bequest of a distinctive kind of armour described as ‘almaigne rivetts’. William Tyler in 1527, bequeathed several pairs of ‘almaigne rivetts with horses’.52 And in 1534, John Brown of Eltham bequeathed to his relative Sir Anthony Brown, Knight, ‘a pair of almayn ryvetts’ along with ‘a hed pece splints standard of mayle and gussets to the same belonging’.53 Of course, people who were neither servants of the royal household nor residents of the palace communities also sometimes bequeathed armour. Such gifts by London citizens might be attributed to their contacts with the cosmopolitan tastes of the capital, which also influenced and were influenced by the tastes of the royal household. In 1543 Hugo Payne, for example, bequeathed his best gilt sword ‘of the Spanish fashion’.54 Armour is also part of the cultural context of status signifiers in this period.55 The use of heraldic designs in seal imagery also indicates that images associated with chivalry were available to a relatively wide spectrum of the population. As such, an interest in armour itself also belongs within a complex array of popular symbols of personal identification, and the media used to convey them.


A taste for Spanish apparel also appears to be particularly favoured by people who have connections with the royal household in the sixteenth century. In 1556, Henry Warren left to his godson Henry Partuser, ‘my jerkin of Spanish leather, gauded with velvet’ and to his godson’s father, ‘my Spanish leather buskins and my furred gloves with other skins’.56 Hance Mytoner, armourer to Elizabeth I by the time of his death in 1561, bequeathed to George More, a Spanish cloak with a cape, a worsted cassock, a Spanish leather jerkin, and best red hose.57 There are other examples of this interest in Spanish goods, including Hugo Payne’s gilt sword. Spanish styles certainly seem to have been in favour at court during the reign of Henry VIII: colours such as ‘Spanish brown’ being used in the decorative murals made for pageants and festivities, and Spanish material being imported for this and other construction work.58 The source of interest in Spanish goods might have been particularly influenced by the tastes of the royal court. This interest was probably stimulated by the presence of Spanish nationals, either on diplomatic visits or as merchants and members of the royal staff. But it is also interesting to speculate on the implications for these testators of explicitly mentioning the Spanish-ness of their apparel. Presumably it was important to their own and perhaps to their recipients’ senses of style. But, given the context of continental power-broking in the sixteenth century, perhaps the enjoyment of Spanish styles also had an underlying political resonance for these testators.59

The transmission of ideas about performance The fashioning of identity in life and for death is a performative process. Direct evidence for the ways that ideas about performance were transmitted through society is difficult to come by, especially at the level of popular culture. The following paragraphs explore a rare source of evidence for tracking the transmission of ideas about performance and their relationship to the creative construction of individual and group identities. I take as my focus a set of communities that were popular sites of residence for the royal household in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Greenwich, Eltham, and Richmond. Although these places present a particularly rich source of evidence for issues concerning performance, this evidence should also be understood as belonging within a wider context of the performances of community identity.60 For Greenwich, Richmond, and Eltham there is abundant evidence for the performance of identity and its processes, both through the dramatic pageantry frequently organised at the royal court, and through the

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processes of symbolic representation and identification used in the dayto-day running of the court and household itself. There is also some evidence for the involvement of the local community in this atmosphere of performativity. Evidence for court pageantry There are plenty of well-known surviving accounts of the court ‘revels’, sumptuous events involving various staff of the royal household, their children, and the young choristers of the chapel as well as the masters of the revels such as Gilbert Banaster and William Cornish.61 These accounts provide a wealth of detail about some aspects of the pageants. The names of characters are often given, although this does not always clarify the story being portrayed. In 1520, for example, those of Cornish’s ‘children’ (the choristers) who played ‘the sun’, ‘winter’, ‘wind’ and ‘rain’ were provided with 634 oz of gold and silver damask at a cost of 4s 8d per ounce.62 In the Christmas pageants of 1516, there was a mixed chivalric and mythological setting where the story of Troilus and Pandarus was performed by actors playing Calchas, Cressida, Diomedes and the Greeks, as well as Ulysses, a queen and numerous ladies, lords, gentlemen and fighting knights.63 The styles, materials and costs of costumes are often listed, showing the attention to different national regalia as well as various special effects. In the Garden de Esperance performed for Epiphany at Greenwich in 1516, the ladies were provided with gold damask and ‘sypers’ for their dresses made ‘after the manner of Amsterdam’.64 For the mask and revels of June 1522, six ‘sleeved kyrtles’ with French tucks and stomachers were provided for the ladies of the French queen.65 And in the Troilus story, 51 3/4 yards of red & yellow sarsenet (silk) were required for three ‘grekkyche’ robes.66 Special effects were achieved by the addition of sparkle: in 1520, John Brown, the painter, was paid for beating and putting the scales of gold and silver on the garments and for creating bonnets such as one red, powdered with gold suns and clouds, one yellow powdered with moons and clouds and so on.67 The construction of the scenery is often described together with the routes of various processions or other choreography. In the Troilus medley of 1516, the various mythological and romance-based stories were centred on a specially constructed timber castle. Three strange knights (dressed in red and yellow costumes) fought six castle knights (dressed in green and white) in a battle which involved firstly, ‘certain strokes’ made with spears and then a ‘fair battle of 12 strokes’ done with ‘naked swords’.68 In the Garden de Esperance, six brightly dressed knights and


ladies walked through the garden in order to bring the pageant to the hall, accompanied by the ‘noise’ of minstrels. When the procession ended the ‘personages’ descended, and danced before the king, queen and assembled court. Despite all this detail there is, unfortunately, very little surviving evidence of the words for these ‘performances’. Words were certainly sometimes used, because they are mentioned on various occasions. In the Troilus medley of 1516, the queen appeared out of the castle with her six ladies and they made speeches after the ‘device of Mr. Cornish’.69 There followed a melodious song, played from the towers of the castle by minstrels dressed in long garments of white and green Bruges satin. They presumably provided musical accompaniment for much of the action that lacked words. These accounts of the revels conjure up images of excessive events, spectacularly colourful and sparkling outfits with strange dances, scenery, and music. These pageants often needed some initial explication. At the Epiphany revels of 1515, Cornish and two other gentlemen of the chapel began the performance by first declaring the intent of the pageant ‘by process of speech’.70 In 1516, for the Troilus extravaganza, William Cornish played ‘the herald’.71 And, for his explication at the beginning of the Garden de Esperance, Cornish was apparelled like a ‘stranger’ in a gown of red sarsenet with a coat of arms on him, his horse ‘trappered’ with blue sarsenet as he ‘showed by speech’ the effect and intent of the pageant.72 The importance of music, the need for the revel master’s explanations and the general lack of evidence for scripts tends to suggest that these events largely relied on visual spectacle, where mixtures of well-known stories or scenarios were pleasurably received and understood by the audience because of the clear symbolic clues, which employed the colour coding of popularly recognised signs.73 Performance in the palace communities By the early sixteenth century the people of Greenwich, Richmond, and Eltham could hardly avoid being involved in the production and creation of extravagant court entertainments. Richard Guildford’s revel accounts reveal that as well as the famous figures such as Hans Holbein, local craftsmen, artists, and merchants (men and women) were involved in the creation of elaborate sets and costumes in Greenwich.74 For the November revels of 1529, materials were brought from Bruges by foreign boats and locally by barge and by cart. Wages were paid to local carpenters, labourers and painters who worked alongside their Italian colleagues. Local traders such as ‘silk-woman’ Elizabeth Philip provided

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materials.75 Sometimes the king even invited the townspeople to visit the sites of pageants and revels. After the 1527 festivities in the newly built banqueting hall, chronicler Edward Halle records: These two houses with Cupbrdes, ha’ginges and all other thinges the kyng commaunded should stand still, for thre or foure daies, that al honest persones might see and beholde the houses and richese, and thether came a great number of people, to see & behold y’ richese & costely devices.76 Such experiences must have impinged on the local townsfolk. These are experiences that included observing the cosmic design painted by Hans Holbein and his team on the advice of court astronomer Nicholas Kratzer; or marvelling at the triumphal arch designed by Holbein for Anne Boleyn’s entry into London.77 Or the appreciation of neoclassical (renaissance) tastes represented by the ‘antique works’ and the huge ‘antique head’ brought at night on the Thames to surprise and delight the king.78 Accounts for the painting of streamers and flags to festoon the royal vessels and ships leave no doubt that during the reign of Henry VIII, all the towns and villages along the Thames experienced the visual impact of the court’s symbolic displays of its own might and military prowess.79 Stories about seeing these events must have circulated and entered into these families’ collections of memories and myths, although evidence of such oral history is, of course, elusive.80 And precisely how these events were represented and remembered would be subject to discontinuities of representation and meaning.81 Royal household servants and the transmission of ideas about performance The surviving evidence for the tastes of the humble servants of the royal household provides a rare insight into how ideas about taste and style may be transmitted. It indicates that these individuals may have occupied a distinctive role as agents of cultural transmission. In the generally varied cultural mixture that made up the cosmopolitan palace communities, questions should be asked about whether it is possible to identify a specific role played by this affinity in the transmission of ideas about performance. The involvement of these servants in the pageants and jousts is documented. In 1515, for example, the king and queen were entertained at Shooter’s Hill by two hundred of their yeomen clothed all in green and under the leadership of ‘Robin Hood’ who invited them


into the wood to be served breakfast by these ‘outlaws’.82 In 1551, the king (now Edward VI), sixteen footmen and ten horsemen all dressed in black silk taffeta competed in twenty contests against their rivals who were clad in yellow taffeta.83 The testamentary evidence shows the bequests of various items by members of the royal household to each other and to local people.84 It is tempting to think that some of their fine clothing was especially produced for the pageants. Roger Ellis’s cloak of ‘freeshade’, ‘gauded’ with velvet and laced about the skirt, and his yellow and white striped satin doublet, and Thomas Astley’s doublet of green velvet, for example, may have been apparel intended for such pageants.85 And if not for pageants, then they may have been aspects of the livery identifying them, symbolically, as part of the royal household.86 The intergenerational transmission of such items through bequests, both within the household affinity and to other individuals, has already been discussed. But the significance of such gifts also has implications for uncovering how ideas about performativity were transmitted. I suggest that the act of bequeathing pageant and livery items required testators to collate their information and collect their memories about these events and that this creative process affected the nature of their memories.87 Cultural fragments of information mustered by testators include very personal reminiscences such as that made by John Dale referring to the maser that he bequeathed to John Langret, because ‘his father always drunk of it’.88 Such an emotionally charged reference is an unusual survival in the testamentary record, but there were surely many others like this. The cultural importance of stories and memories that accompanied heirlooms and circulated around the palace communities, London, England, and beyond should not be forgotten, although there is no surviving oral record.89 Livery and pageants played an important role in the symbolic commemoration, identification, and ‘fashioning’ of the royal court and household. It is likely that from their experiences of both daily life and celebratory events, members of court, the royal household, and even the local people would identify the similarities between the performative symbolism of livery and of pageant costumes. Similar designs were used for symbolic identification in both types of apparel, such as the H and K symbols sewn in cloth of gold onto the pageant costumes of the king and his household. These bear a remarkable likeness to this design feature of the livery costumes depicted by Holbein on his portraits of unknown members of the royal household.90 The bequest of such items

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of livery and pageant costume therefore implies that in the construction of their own memorial heirlooms, testators negotiated their own experiences of performance – from the symbolism of their occupational apparel to their fantasy roles in pageants – deconstructing and reassembling concepts of performance as part of the process of ‘life-fashioning’.

Conclusion There was a range of methods for the construction and display of personal identification in the early English renaissance, varying from objects such as seals for legal identification to distinctive items of apparel. Each seems to operate within a culturally specific web of signs and symbols that can be manipulated and chosen according to the aspect of personal identity that is to be conveyed in a particular situation. These personal items have a multi-functionality of meaning and use. Seals and signets function through the practical and legal purposes of their imprint but also as items of display, using playful emblematic devices. Armour and other chivalric trappings might be used to convey aspirations to a higher status. The description of apparel as of a distinctly national character, such as ‘Spanish’, can both signal a testator’s connection with current cosmopolitan styles of dress, and make reference to a contemporary political situation. The objects of personal identification discussed here indicate the range of choices about ‘life-fashioning’ that was available in this period, and how some of these choices were mediated by belonging to a distinct group and the culturally distinct situation this entails. The evidence used here is textual and once again the uses of text to describe the objects of personal identification must be taken as significant in the performative process. The concept of performance used throughout this book is explored explicitly in this chapter by interrogating the influence of personal experiences on how performativity is conceptualised and represented. In an examination of Greenwich, Eltham, and Richmond as sites of particular sensitivity to such ‘life-fashioning’, especially during the reign of Henry VIII, testamentary evidence from the members of the royal household shows the effects of their experiences of the court’s symbolic and practical fashioning on their own tastes in life and in death. The bequests of clothing and goods, alongside the oral ‘histories’ that accompanied them, were sites for the expression of performative fashioning. The production of such testamentary bequests involved these


people in the theorisation of performative concepts based on a timedepth consideration of their life experiences as influenced by belonging to a distinct afffinity associated with the royal court and household. In effect this theorising involved a process of deconstruction and reconstruction, using the structures of representation available in written text.

6 Death-fashioning

Introduction: textual evidence for memorials Testamentary texts provide one of the most prevalent sources of information about the kinds of memorials requested in the period c. 1450–1560. Because testaments are a site in which individuals consider and record their wishes for spiritual and material commemoration as they contemplate their death, these requests should be viewed as highly charged, symbolic, and a very significant aspect of the culturally creative process of death-fashioning. Testaments form part of a broader set of written discourses, which intricately express perceptions of memory and commemoration.1 Because of the broad range of experiences and generic styles, and the mixtures of myth and history that may accumulate in a single text, there may be (for ‘us’) apparent discontinuities in the relationships between the modes of symbolic representation used in specific texts and the nature of the memorialisation or commemoration they convey.2 This means that the symbolic resonances of commemorative requests from this period may sometimes be puzzling. Yet the emotive and creative significance with which they are imbued are very important as they are crucial to understanding contemporary perceptions of death-fashioning. Concepts of memory, memorial and commemoration (social, collective, or individual) have recently received quite a lot of attention from a range of disciplinary perspectives, although the emphasis tends to be on theories of memory rather than on the practices of memorial and commemoration that are the concern of this chapter.3 There have been some detailed investigations of testamentary requests for commemoration by particular individuals, such as those of John Baret of Bury St Edmunds in the fifteenth century.4 These requests might involve outstandingly 111


detailed choices about dramatic memento mori tombs and theatrical funeral services. Many of the requests made in the period c. 1450–1560 seem by comparison to be rather mundane, but it is important to consider these more mundane requests as also performative, despite the less explicit references to the nature of the performance than the overt theatricality of individuals like Baret. Much of the evidence considered in the following paragraphs is concerned specifically with burial requests and the detailed testamentary descriptions of memorials. However, these commemorations should be considered alongside the other aspects of religious memorialisation for which the testament text is also significant. Some individuals, for example, make very distinctive requests about other commemorative aspects including the funeral service and obituary masses, but not about their tombstone choice. In 1545 John Bishop of Yalding in Kent, for example, did not specify the nature of his tombstone in his will (although he probably had one as he mentions a ‘sepulture’ as if it were marked by a stone), but he did use his will text to make detailed requests for a range of pious provisions in a will which qualifies as being unusually creative.5 Bishop bequeathed a total of £45 for five years’ worth of masses, specifically for an ‘honest, sadde and discrete’ priest ‘and a good quireman’ to say and sing divine service on Sundays and holy days; and at Our Lady’s altar (the site of his burial) other masses on: Sonday, Monday, Wennysday, Fryday and Saturday whereof every ffryday masse of the most blissid name of jhus with masses every workeday weekly assigned on the forsaid dayes during the said tyme that shalbe betweene the feasts of the Annunciacion of our blissid lady and saint mighell tharchangell The said priest to begynne at Eight of the clock And every ffryday that shalbe woorken day during the said terme the said masses of jhus to be songe And further my will is that the said priest every workenday in the Lent during the said terme shall helpe to synge Salve or oon Antheme in the honour of god at vi of the Clock at afternone within the said churche And shall oon day every weeke during the saide terme say Placebo and dirige with Commendacions and masse of Requiem whiche masse I wolde shulde be songe or saide weekely on the wennysday yf noo doble feast shall happen then to fall The £45 is also to cover various payments to the clerk, children, and sexten for their help with saying and singing the masses. The sexten would also receive 3s 4d to ‘rynge the great bell during the said terme

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unto the said masses of Jhus And also to toll the same bell unto the Salve or Anthempnes to be songe within the said churche as is aforesaid’. Bishop also made a bequest of £4, ‘to the beyng of i holye clothe or canapye of blak velvet unto the use of the said churche of yaldyng’, along with 53s 4d to ‘bye one Legent one Antyphoner and twoo grayles noted for the maintenance of divine service’. Bishop also requests a further five years of masses following the same pattern, with another £45 to be raised from the sale of some lands. But this time, £10 of the £45 is to be used to: make a perfyte and good Clock and a Chyme within the Steple and belfray of yalding aforesaid whiche clock and chyme so parfitly made I geve and bequeth therof to make therof unto the sexten of the said church of yaldinge for the tyme beinge to kepe and to entende the same clock and chyme every yeare during the space and terme of five yeres next and Immediately following after the same clock and chyme is to parfitly made iiis iiiid6 Bishop’s use of the will text to specify his pious provisions is therefore extensive, and also indicates some of his particular pious interests. The emphasis on time-keeping (both in the initial description of the times of weekday masses, and with regard to the provision of a clock) is one issue of personal taste that is incorporated into the creativity of this particular will text. Even in the most apparently mundane of testaments, particular saints are frequently commemorated and given gifts of money. These requests are also significant for the individual making the testament. They should be considered to exist within a spectrum of possible requests, which range from what seems standard, to what seems extraordinarily creative and individualised. Within the context of commemorations to saints, for example, detailed requests concerning particular statues are also sometimes made. John Cayser, for example, made a range of bequests to different saints in his church.7 To the painting of the image of Our Lady of Pity he left 6s 8d, to the repair of the high altar and the mending and painting of the images of SS Michael and Nicholas, he left £5, and for painting St Christopher, 10s. Cayser’s commemorative zeal also extended to the structure of the church: he left money in connection with several windows, one of these was St Blaise’s window to the repair of which he wished to contribute 40s and he also asked that three new windows be constructed, two in the steeple, one east and one north, and one in the south of the church.


Location, commemoration, and individual choice The focus of this chapter is generally on individual choices about commemoration and memorial. But these choices are necessarily mediated by the immediate geographical context of the testator as well as by issues of family tradition and local custom. Concerning the influence of geographical location, Southwark makes an interesting illustration as there was a community of stone carvers there, some of whom were Flemish immigrants.8 Their presence in this community, one must assume, influenced the circulating ideas about the styles of commemorative stones. The presence of a skilled workforce may also account for the apparently relatively high levels of tombstone requests made in this community during the period c. 1450–1560, although Southwark’s proximity to London and the associated presence of fairly wealthy citizens of London may also help to account for this. Being more exact about precisely how Flemish immigrants may have influenced choices in Southwark is difficult as there appears to be no direct evidence in the testamentary material for the precise role of Flemish workmen in the requests for particular commemorative designs. For other places, other occasional evidence survives for the ways that distinct local features may have influenced styles of commemoration: there are antiquarian references to a gravestone in Northfleet church having as a ‘crest’ the defensive beacon that was built near Gravesend in 1377.9 Such a nugget of antiquarian information about a north Kent gravestone also indicates the possibilities for the transmission of designs from different situations, into this medium. Geographical specificities must indeed play a part in the choice and transmission of commemorative designs although in practice it is difficult to separate geographically-oriented influences from other influences such as custom and family tradition, the influx of new, perhaps foreign, ideas, and personal choice.10 The choices about commemorative saints mentioned above are certainly specific to a particular parish; for example, John Cayser’s request to repair St Blaise’s window would not, to state the obvious, have been made if there were no such window in this church. But these saints are also ubiquitous and so must be considered as having a significance that extends beyond the geographical confines of one parish, although their significance for an individual testator in a given parish may indeed be very specifically related to the experience of one particular statue. At the level of pious practice, commemorations to saints are therefore at once intensely local and personal, whilst also having supra-local meanings. The organisation of the evidence for the culturally creative acts of making commemorative choices in this chapter


is therefore oriented more towards issues of personal choice than to geographical specifics and is based on the meta-structures of representation available to these people in the text of the last will and testament. Because of evidence survival, it is usually impossible to trace family traditions in commemorative practice at this level of popular culture, although there are occasional examples that indicate the influence of previous generations on choices of burial place. The question of where individuals get particular ideas about their commemorative requests is a very interesting one, and some possible answers are suggested in this chapter. Many, though not all, of the requests discussed here are made in an urban context. Most of the urban communities mentioned are also in close proximity to London, and indeed a number of the testators are citizens of London choosing to be buried in the parishes of their residence on the London hinterland such as Southwark and Greenwich. Some requests are also for burials in London, made by individuals living in outlying communities but choosing to return to the capital at the end of their lives. London tastes may well influence the choices made here, although once again what is meant by London in this instance is unclear. Some of the commemorative requests discussed here were made in a rural context. While this does not preclude the influence of London or London citizens, their presence in these communities may be less frequent. There are, however, some possibilities for the transmission of ideas about burial practice from the clergy to the laity in the context of such local rural society. A bequest made in 1523 by Simon Godfrith, parish priest of the small village of Nettlestead in Kent (a manor of the Priory and Convent of Christchurch, Canterbury), presents such an example.11 Alongside his requests for the repair of gilding to the tabernacle in another local church, and his gift of a white damask vestment to Nettlestead, Godfrith requests: Item I gyve for to be bestowyd for a ffygure of Jhu the quantity of a man Stanyd in a clothe And to be naylyd ypon a borde with my name wretyn in hyt to be sett in the lyfte side of the hyghe alter in the churche of nyttlystede xxs. I will to be bestowyd in a stone be layde over me With my name upon hyt coste of the carege deductyd xls12 Simon Godfrith’s request gives an indication of the glittering and mysterious scenes faced by parishioners on a daily basis, which might therefore become part of their imaginative repertoire. The tomb request of John Aunsell demonstrates the highly personal set of symbolic references that may be expressed in a commemorative


request, while also indicating the convoluted ways in which family tradition and issues of social status are tied into these representations. The Southwark location of Aunsell’s burial is not the choice in which he is most obviously influenced by family tradition (the site at which he specifically commemorates his family being Ashwell in Hertfordshire). But aspects of his very personal commemorative tomb are probably directly influenced by the immediate location of the stone in St Mary’s, Southwark: Aunsell’s request for the depiction of a pelican, for example, although a widely used symbol of the sacrifice of Christ, was particularly resonant in this church as it was one of the symbols employed by the Beauchamp family, patrons in the fifteenth century. A roof boss of a pelican is still preserved in what is now Southwark Cathedral, and this symbol was re-used in the rebuilding of the screen and high altar in the 1520s.13 Burial choices and individual identity The last will and testament is a site for the representation of choices about identity, and choices about burial are no exception to this. Sometimes this involves a request that the testator’s likeness be produced as part of the memorial. In 1458 Richard Marmdell of Shorne in Kent, for example, left £3 6s 8d for a chapel in memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ to be built above his grave and 6s 8d for a brass memorial tablet, to be sculpted and gilded as a figure of himself. He also asks that an inscription of some kind be written at his feet.14 Other testators appear to represent their individuality by expressing particular views through their burial choice. The ‘without pomp and pride’ clause, which is one of the common ways of expressing a view about religiosity, indicates that the individual wishes to be commemorated in a simple manner. One might take such a clause, occurring in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, as a sign of ‘proto-Protestantism’. In reality such requests are not always so simple. In 1520 John Butteye of Beddington in Surrey, for example, requested to be buried without any ‘pompe or pryde at the church dore’ where the parishioners enter into the service of God. But he also requested that three new torches be purchased at his burial day in the memory of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and that these be sent to three places, Beddington, Chesham in Buckinghamshire, and ‘Lanehithe’. Furthermore he requested that five tapers be borne by five children, at his burial, in the honour of the ‘v joyes of our blessyd lady Saynt Mary’, and that a stone be ‘layed on my grave with my sygne upon ytt in i month after my decease’.15 Not such a simple service after all.


Other individuals show an interest in particular objects within a church or specific features of a church, which may have particular intraparish significance at the time of the request. The will of Robert Exsolde of Kingston upon Thames in 1533, for example, specifically asks that he be buried in his parish church of All Hallows there, ‘in the myddle yle before the newe roode’ also bequeathing ‘to the gyldyng of the newe rood in the myddle yle 40s’.16 Such requests may indicate one individual’s particular commitment to certain kinds of piety, centred on specific religious objects. Burial place Choices about place of burial are also a prime site for the self-conscious representation of individual issues and concerns. The request of Richard Pagnell, citizen and merchant tailor of London, made in 1528, is specific to a place within his parish church, but the second half of the request also appears to voice interests in burial position and cost that express a certain moral attitude to wealth, poverty and burial place. He asks: to be buried in the Churcheyarde of the parish church of Saint Olave in Southwerk between the two butterars next unto the neith dore at the east ende of the said church and that my executors shall pay for the same asmoche as they shulde have doon and my body had been buried in the body of the said church17 Although particular saints are not unique to a given church, the commemoration of a specific saint may be achieved by requesting a burial place next to the statue or image that has particular significance for the identity of an individual in their particular church. Sometimes the chosen saint relates very obviously to the testator, as with Richard Philip’s request to be buried ‘coram ymagine sancti Ricardi’ (before the image of Saint Richard) in St Olave’s Church, Southwark, in 1461. At other times the logic is less clear, and may relate to choices made specifically by a spouse, usually the husband, and followed by the other spouse. This may be the case with the request made by Margaret Thatcher of Greenwich in 1521 to be buried, ‘before the figure of Saint Clement in the bodie of the churche where as late my husbounde was buried’.18 Burial place and family Family plays an important role in choices about burial place. This importance manifests itself in a number of different ways and these


appear to combine the emotionality of wishing to be near close kin with a compliance with family tradition. Some testators request burial beside family members from previous generations, such as the 1511 request of William Keyser of East Peckham to be buried next to his mother.19 For others, a parent’s wishes may influence their own commemorative request. This appears to be the case for Matthew Pemberton who asked, in 1517, to be buried in a London church ‘where I sit’, and he requested of his executors that within one year they would use the £50 provided by him and his brother to build a chapel of ‘wainscot’ (high-quality imported oak: OED), a stonework window with five glazed panes, and an ‘awlter of ymagery’: ‘for it was my mothers mind showing to him and me in her death bed and so much to be bestowed there upon no other use’.20 Pemberton’s mother’s wishes were probably made some years earlier, and may have been reflected in her own will text. Such an example indicates that commemorative requests could be pending over a number of years, and therefore reflected in the wishes and texts of generations of a family. Familial requests are also sometimes worked into other aspects of the pragmatic and symbolic process of ordaining a burial place, such as accommodating specific local features. In 1491 Thomas Stace of Gravesend, for example, asked to be buried, ‘in the southwest end of the churchyard by my father and mother by the little stone as nigh the highway as may be’.21 For some widows, the burial place of a husband may be given as the cause for a choice about their own place of burial, as with the example of Margaret Thatcher and also Jane Cooper of Banbury, who made this request in 1526: ‘and my body to be buried in the Trinitie Chapell within the parishe Churche of Banbury between the foote of the tombe of William Cooper Esquier my late husbonde and the first stepp going up to the awter in the same Chapell’.22 Husbands sometimes also seem to require a specific kind of pragmatic negotiation between a widow’s various emotional ties. In 1510, Joanne Radishe, the widow of Nicholas Radishe, requested to be buried ‘nigh unto’ her first husband on the south side of the churchyard in the church wall of her parish church, St Margaret’s, Southwark.23 This first husband was Stephen Burdon, an innholder who had made his will in 1503.24 Joanne’s second husband, Nicholas (who also predeceased her) asks to be buried in London.25 These mixed emotional, pragmatic, and familial ties sometimes manifest themselves as what might seem rather odd requests for the depiction of two husbands on one tombstone. In 1547, Agnes Balthrop of Greenwich made such a request which involved a marble tomb to be laid in Greenwich churchyard at the same grave as


one of her husbands, decorated with ‘our pictures upon it two for my husbands and one for myself and our names at our feet’.26 In 1505, Katherine Lewkenore of East Grinstead, the widow of Richard Lewkenore (and formerly Katherine Gray) made a similar request which is detailed below in connection with her self-consciousness about status.27 Sometimes family is commemorated explicitly in the design of the tombstone. In 1526, William Sharpone, a miller from Southwark, requested to be buried in St Olave’s ‘within saint Agnes Ile’. The details of his stone are as follows: I wyll that myn executours underwritten shall provide for a marbell stone to lye upon my corps upon the whiche stone I wyll shalbe sett and wrought in latten or copper Images for me my wife and children making mencion upon the same that I lye there buried the tyme of my decease and to require the people to pray for my soule28 In 1538 Margarete Pottyn of Saint Olave’s, Southwark, asked to be buried in the old churchyard by the north church door adding that her overseers are ‘to beye oone stone of marbell to laye upon my grave and my husbondes in the whiche stone they shall cause to be graved the imagys of vi sones and iv daughters’.29 And in 1546, Richard Caley, esquire of Greenwich and servant to the king, requested that ‘I may have a stone laid on my grave half an ell long and my picture and my wife and all my children to be graven and set in it and with a scripture of the day and year of my burial’.30 Commemoration and status Burials are a prime site for the representation and construction of status. The role of tombs in this aspect of the construction of identity is one of the most investigated, although most studies are concerned with individuals or groups at a higher social level than those discussed in this book; and most studies have, so far, focused on the material culture of commemoration rather than on the textual representations that are investigated here.31 The comparisons between material and textual evidence are discussed below. The word ‘aspiration’ is never far from any consideration of status and commemoration, and this has tended to be in the context of gentry aspirations.32 My consideration of commemorative requests made by those who were below the level of the armigerous gentry (although sometimes describing themselves as gentle) might also be viewed as a fruitful site for considering the nature of aspirant representation. However,


when considering the processes of cultural creativity in all their variety, issues of aspiration (like emulation) become intertwined with a whole range of other factors affecting the construction of identity.33 The emulative behaviour of John Codding of St Olave’s in Southwark, for example, appears to be not so much concerned with upwardly mobile aspiration as the emulation of the choices made by others buried in this churchyard. Other local influences on aspiration are discussed in the case study at the end of this chapter. Codding requests that he be buried ‘at the next butteras where as oone master Hylles lyeth in the same church yarde and to be made up with bryke as oone Maister Pannells tomb ys and that one Mearble stone be thar laid upon my said grave and Tomb’.34 The question of how a particular status is creatively represented by a particular individual remains interesting. As does the question of why it is important to that individual, and where the ideas come from. One route for the transmission of ideas about the representation of status and identity in commemorative tombs is through the various possibilities for the non-élite to be in the service of their social superiors. The tomb requests of Richard Caley and Agnes Balthrop mentioned earlier, both of whom were servants of the royal household, may have been influenced by the close contacts they had with aristocracy and royalty. This process of influence is seen explicitly in the commemorative request of Walter Shanks of Lambeth, who describes himself as ‘servant unto the elder duchess of Norfolk’. In 1538, he asked to be buried in Lambeth parish church in the following way: before saynt Christopher Altar and to be inclosed in a cheste of Bordes And that upon my grave be layed a stone whereupon I wyll have the wordes following ingraved in brasse here lyeth walter shanks foure tyme grome of the chamber with the olde duchess of Norfolke whos soule godd please35 With some apparently armigerous individuals, there is an emphasis on status that seems to betray a certain insecurity about this social rank. Such emphases do perhaps indicate that such an individual has experienced a degree of social mobility during his or her lifetime. One such example is that of Katherine Lewkenore, described as ‘late the widow of Richard Lewkenore the elder esquire’. In 1505, she made the following requests concerning her burial (if she was to die in her home parish of East Grinstead) before the statue of Our Lady in the chancel of the north


aisle. She stipulated that her executors: make a tomb over me with a stone and therin to be sett the pictures of my two husbands after their honor and my picture in a wyndyng shete betweene theym bothe with ii scotchens of their armys and myne ioyntly togedir at every ende of the same stone with Scripture therto according and a plate to be sett in the wall over my tombe and therin my armys and such Scripture as myn executors and my frendes serve best and convenyet to be made shewyng what I was36 Concerns about status are also sometimes expressed through commemorative requests not directly concerned with tombstones. Richard Hilles a citizen and cutler of London and parishioner of St Olave’s in Southwark, for example, demonstrates his interest in his trade by two specific bequests. He requested that 2s be given ‘to every household of the yeomanrye of the Cutlers of London’; and also he requested the very visual presence of this fellowship at his funeral service in the following way: ‘I bequeath to five poor men of the feliship of the Cutlers being in the Clothing & Livery whiche bere my body to the church & to the grave iiiis xiid each’.37

Textual evidence, textuality, and memorialisation Testamentary requests provide evidence for the demands made by testators of their kin and friends for commemoration. This might involve a combination of visual and verbal representation. By considering the actual act of producing these textual requests as significant, it becomes possible to make a closer examination of the implications of the memorial requests cited above. This involves thinking about the circumstances of production for a specific testamentary text, rather than viewing it simply as a repository of information. A consideration of these personal choices about memorial also emphasises that they are, to a significant degree (and while working within historical contingency), individualised choices. Whether the monument maker ultimately had the materials to show the extent of the individuality of the choice is perhaps unlikely. But I would contend that this does not diminish the individuality of the request. On seeing the constructed object, one must assume that those who were involved with the production and reception of the testament would also invest it with a sense of that individual testator’s personal choices.38 Certain features of the memorials described in the last will and testament from various localities recur, such as the specification of the


materials to be used and requests for sculpted figures and for various inscriptions. Several of these features may be required on one memorial. The articulation of these requests at the time of constructing the testament suggests that these testators have in their minds both a visual and textual concept of memorialisation; and that they imagine both these aspects in the terms required by a literacy event, in using this literate means of communication.39 In several of these examples, the visual impact of the memorial is intended to involve the particular likeness of the individual being commemorated, perhaps alongside other family members. For those who request a likeness of themselves or/and their families, the issue of whether or not the workmanship of the stonemasons was up to creating an anatomically precise reproduction raises interesting questions about what these testators meant when they asked for likenesses. Did they mean anatomical likenesses or did they view themselves and their families as representatives of a status or social type regularly produced by any stonemason? In most of the figurative memorials, a textual reminder is also required by means of an inscription, and this suggests that the testator is imagining their commemoration in literate terms, using a kind of literacy which has an unusual permanence derived from the very distinct kind of writing that is produced through carving on stone. All this implies that the construction of the memorial was a prior source of contemplation during an individual’s lifetime, and that the final acts of memorialisation were part of a self-conscious and continuous process. In some requests the importance of textuality is particularly emphatic, as in those of Sharpone, Caley, Shanks, and Lewkenore. But it might be assumed that most commemorative stones included some kind of inscription, and this is often a means of identifying the individual by name. These simple issues of identification are not often mentioned, unless they involve identification by some kind of sign, as in the case of Marmdell. When the textual aspect of a memorial stone is described more specifically, it might involve the request for a reference to some specific details of a time and date associated with the death (as for Caley’s request that his burial date be inscribed), a poetic composition (as in the case of John Aunsell), or sometimes a demand for action from its commemorative audience. The request of James Sutton of Cobham makes such a commemorative demand. In 1530, he asked to be buried in the ‘quire’ before St Andrew in his parish church, with the instruction: I wyll that my executors shall cause a stone to be layde upon my grave with my armes and with a scrypture upon yt as here after followes of


your charyte pray for the sowlis of James Sutton gentylman and Maude hys wyffe some tyme baylly of thys lordshypp40 The term ‘scripture’ here refers to a text of instruction; as also does the poetic composition of John Aunsell. Other ‘scriptures’ are informative about the symbolism of the tomb, such as those of John Aunsell, requesting various scriptures coming from the man, pelican and so on. Katherine Lewkenore’s request for a scripture is also informative about the symbolism of the tomb ‘shewyng what I was’. Others request biblical or quasi-biblical scripts, for example, Henry Oldcastle of Eltham who made the following request in 1528: ‘My wife cause to be layde a stone of marble over me of ii fote square with my pictur uppon it holding these words in it Jhu fil dei Miserere mei with the trynitie upon it also’.41 For some, the textuality of memorialisation is separate from their commemorative tomb. In 1529, Robert Rogers, a yeoman of Ewell in Surrey, made a testament with an unusual opening, which is discussed further below.42 His final request is also a very interesting example of the uses of textual culture in this period. He makes use of other available books as does the commemorative request of Stephen Burdon, cited in Chapter 1. Rogers’s request also has a slightly different emphasis as it is specifically concerned with the remembering of his last will and testament, as follows: Also I wyll that my executors and my overseers in schorte tyme after my diceas cause thys my laste wyll to be wryten in a volume of parchment and to be sett in the best masse boke of Ewell church aforesaid to thentent that my feoffees that now be or that herinafter shall be and also that myne heyres and other may resorte at all tymes to have the perfyght knolwege of the declaracion herof. And I wyll that yf there be here in wryten eny thing whiche ys not formall or perfyght or after the best maner and forme according to the law yet I wyll that it be applied taken doon and construed to the least intend according to the meaning thereof and so I wyll beseche the Readers to doo Henry Kingsley of Bromley who asked to be buried in Eltham in 1520, also provides an example of how textual culture may be employed through the last will and testament, to ensure the performance of certain bequests. He bequeathed 12d to twelve poor people in the parish ‘as long as the worlde lasteth’, and so instructs that: ‘I wyll that within a month after my decease that this my wille made in parchement by the


advyse of Magister Roper & to be hanged in Eltham church that poor people may aske the saide xiid and that every man may see it is my will’.43 Is material evidence for memorials comparable? The primary purpose of this chapter is to discuss the textual evidence for commemoration and memorial practices in popular culture, rather than being immediately concerned with issues relating to the production of the actual material object of the tomb.44 It is the cultural creativity involved with the making of the request that is most significant. The burial requests provided in testamentary text do, however, find some comparison in surviving material evidence, although unfortunately throughout England the survival of monuments from this period commemorating individuals below the level of the gentry is relatively rare. It is not at all surprising that the sculpted tombstones described in testamentary evidence, and intended for outdoor graveyards, have been affected by the ravages of time. There is, however, plenty of comparative evidence for figurative memorials placed inside churches and chapels to commemorate the upper social groups – lords, knights and bishops.45 These often depict the figure of the commemorated individual – male or female – in appropriate costume signifying their status, with appropriate trappings about the tomb, such as shields, lions, crosiers and books. This desire for representational figures seems to be similar to the testamentary descriptions discussed above. For artisans and professionals, it is monumental brasses that tend to survive.46 Similar conventions of representation through costume and occupational signs seem to apply for all statuses.47 The desire to represent status in a memorial across the spectrum of status groups is not in itself surprising, although the particularities of how status is represented by a specific individual or family are indeed interesting.48 On the question of whether the material and textual evidences are comparable, one may conclude that the material evidence does indeed provide some further insights into commemorative practices in a particular locality or parish.49 However, when there is a surviving material object, analysis of memorials tends to involve a greater emphasis on the very material issues of production alongside aspiration and intention, and this usually at a relatively élite social level.50 The purpose of this chapter, on the other hand, is to consider the more ephemeral issue of how choices about design are represented in text and how the textual representation of those ideas impinges on those choices.


Text and the conceptualisation of memorial A repeated theme in the construction of these commemorative requests across the date range is that the memorial is required to represent a complex range of time scales. Simon Godfrith’s pre-Reformation request, for example, commemorates the distant death of Jesus Christ alongside his name; some memorials such as Richard Caley’s post-Reformation request commemorate the burial day of the individual by inscription; others, such as Matthew Pemberton’s, commemorate the earlier deaths of either a spouse or a mother. This ‘time-depth’ feature of the memorials is consistent with much of the information deposited in the last will and testament. This is information that has been accrued and honed by the testator, over years of preparation that perhaps required other interim texts. In this way, the will text is like a repository for personal and family history. A distinct specification of chronology, such as Richard Caley’s, appears to request that the testator and his family be frozen in time, by being figuratively represented as they are at the day of his burial (Caley has three living sons at the time his testament is written).51 However, at the moment that he is designing this memorial, he must stand imaginatively outside of that time frame. And, Matthew Pemberton’s request, which mentions the death-bed wishes of his mother, indicates, like many other more mundane burial requests made in most testaments, the importance of intergenerational commemoration in the construction of an individual’s memorial. Requests that the memorial be constructed next to a parent’s grave also act in a similar way. The complex conceptualisations of time and memorialisation that these burial requests represent form part of the discursive context of the particular last will and testament, and therefore belong within the coherent inter-chronological references of that document. However, one can only assume that the influences for the choices about the style of memorial derive from a range of contingent sources and experiences that include the other memorials in the local graveyard, the fashions of the aristocracy, or royalty in the case of royal household staff, and the collections of pious and political images seen by the testator during their life, in churches, books and other media.52 All such influences are channelled into the description given in the testament. The particular argument here is that the production of a memorial design in the literate form of the last will and testament was part of the culturally creative process of defining and representing the self, or ‘death-fashioning’. The textual evidence for commemorative requests indicates the complexity of the decisions involved in what is sometimes called ‘emulation’. This complexity should also be borne in mind when


considering the comparative material evidence for memorials, which tends to represent the higher status groups, and the transmission of ideas about aristocratic burial practices. The transmission of styles for memorials or any other form of representation is not a simple process whereby low status groups copy what high status groups did. Text and the construction of symbolic memorials Choices about the nature and style of commemorative tombs and other forms of memorialisation involve personal manipulations of symbolism. This process has already been discussed in relation to John Aunsell’s will text. The very personal choices about the use of conventional symbolism in the last will and testament are complex in themselves, but this manipulation of symbols in testamentary texts involves ‘translation’ or ‘conversion’ between different spheres of symbolism, because testamentary symbolic language is also connected to the uses of symbolism and the ideas about style that are in more general circulation at the time and place the will is produced.53 One of the distinctive modes for the attribution of value to possessions that is discussed in Chapter 4 is the conversion of household goods into items of religious significance. Here, the material from household furnishings might be used to make religious apparel such as vestments or altar cloths.54 A similar type of conversion between secular and pious goods in which the focus is on objects of commemoration already in the church is seen in numerous wills. In 1500, for example, James Stace of West Peckham asked that sufficient of his household goods be used to repair the alabaster statue of St Anthony.55 The common occurrences of ‘translation’ between the secular and pious realms of symbolism strongly suggest that when it comes to understanding the choices made about symbolic representation, absolute distinctions between religious and secular symbols are false ones. This means that differentiating between religious and secular ideas concerning style, symbolism, or stylistics is also inappropriate. To see choices about commemorative and memorial symbolism within an appropriate context, it is also important to be aware of the wide range of possibilities for the fashioning of individual identity during life. It is also worth speculating that the symbols used for the representation of identity by the non-élite for after death (and during life) were in some ways more open to choice than was the case for those belonging to élite groups.56 This observation may, for example, be relevant to the use of ‘scotchens’ on the commemorative tomb by an individual such as John Aunsell. People at the popular end of the cultural spectrum often would not have already owned a specific, formalised, heraldic design or motto;57 although they may indeed have possessed strong local and family traditions of symbolism.


A local case study One bequest which is illustrative of the extent to which it was possible to translate symbolic forms and ideas between different media and occasions is that of Peter Hornby of Cobham in Kent, made in 1512 as follows: ‘my executors sell my best gown of tawny and harness that is to say my brigonders salett gorget splints and my crossboe and with the money I will my executors buy an image of St George to be set in the church of Cobham’.58 This bequest illustrates the lack of a necessary separation between pious and secular symbols used during life and after death. Hornby’s conversion of his armour into a commemorative image of St George uses the culturally familiar symbols of chivalric defence for a personal act of commemoration. He may also have been influenced in his choice of St George by the presence of this saint in other, earlier, Cobham memorials.59 Chivalric symbols were also frequently used in the designs of seals and were possibly also familiar to their users from popularly available Romance literatures. Bequests such as Hornby’s therefore provide a comment on the ways that the symbols of conflict or warfare associated with national or local upheavals, including civil war, contributed to the wider set of symbols concerned with commemoration and memorialisation. In Hornby’s case this also includes, for example, the representation of St George and how the symbolism of the saint may be used, manipulated, or translated for particular contexts, with specific personal and commemorative meanings. The act of bequest for Hornby, as for other people, involved a personal deployment of known symbolic language. This personal act generated its own constellation of meanings. While Hornby may indeed have ‘emulated’ some of the signs and symbols already existing in Cobham church, this request is also brimming with cultural and political significance. If Hornby considered his armour to be representative of his distinct status and identity, which the general cultural context of armour and heraldic design suggests he may have done, then by mentioning it in his will he is making a public assertion of this special identity over and above any statutory requirements such as muster and array.60 And the request to convert the armour into a church image makes explicit the public nature of his memorialisation of himself, through that image. But that the image requested is St George seems to convert this request into an extraordinary act not only of personal memorialisation, but of Hornby’s political identification of himself with the local cult of St George and perhaps even with Englishness. And, most significantly, it is through the text of the will (rather than through any visible writing inscribed on the image itself)


that the specific comparison between Hornby’s own military or quasimilitary apparel and the figure of St George is made. Hornby was not alone in his keen interest in the fashionable cult of St George for the construction of a memorial. Such interest in the saint is also demonstrated by the (otherwise unnecessary) descriptive background that Thomas Uswaste of Greenwich provided for his gift of a red cow to ‘sustain the light of Our Lady’: his bequest of 1496 states that the cow was bought on the previous St George’s day, at Horsham.61 The precise reasons for Hornby’s interest in St George, however, remain unclear. But other aspects of his will text hint at the possibility that Hornby’s rather grand ideas may have been influenced by the gentry family of Cobham. He bequeaths to ‘my ladee Helena of Cobham’ his best brass pot so that she will cause a trentall of masses to be said for his soul, in the church of Cobham. He appears not to be certain of Eleanor Cobham’s reception of this gift and the task, however, as there is an added clause, that ‘yf sche wyll not so do’ the pot should be sold by his executors to pay for the desired masses.

Was there a change in commemoration between c. 1450 and 1560? Across the period of 1450–1560 there ought perhaps to occur a rupture in choices about commemorative design and the pious ideology these represent. Somewhere around 1534 would seem appropriate. No such rupture is clearly visible in the textual evidence up to 1560 at least, and so this textual evidence poses some questions about the material culture of commemoration; and raises some interesting issues concerning the influence of religious change on styles of representation across this particular date range. The emphasis on individual likenesses in the requests of some testators, which also sometimes involves the depiction of family, seem on the surface to correspond with a more Protestant mode of memorialisation with its greater emphasis on the individual.62 However, although surrounded by obviously Catholic trappings, Richard Marmdell’s request, made in the mid-fifteenth century, also has a focus on his own likeness. Such examples help further to dismantle a traditional historiography, which saw a distinct separation between the pre- and post-Reformation iconographies of death.63 This indicates the importance of the surviving textual evidence for further understanding the relationships between religious reform and commemorative iconography. The historiography of distinct changes in styles of commemorative representation pre- and post-Reformation may, in fact, have been as much influenced by the absence of (material) evidence for


pre-Reformation monuments, as it is by the emphasis on family and individual in post-Reformation examples. This is also a historiography that may have developed from that determination, on considering matters such as individuality, to find in the hairline crack between the medieval and the early modern periods, a rupture of individualitymaking proportions.64 It certainly does not seem sensible to make any exact correlation between the date of a request and the particular iconographic politics of that date across those turbulent years of reform, roughly between c. 1520 to 1560. One reason for this is that testators may have chosen their burial site and design some years before it was required. In 1534, John Scragges, citizen and leather-seller and a parishioner of St Mary Overy in Southwark, asked to be buried in the ‘chapel of our blessed ladye in a certayne place there wiche I have prepared to and for the same entent’.65 Such planning ahead is also represented by the request in 1548 of John Hilmar, a citizen and freemason of London, dwelling in the parish of St Olave, Southwark, that ‘my bodye to be buryed within the chapel of the Trinitie before the altar beneth the steppes ther as I have layed a marbull stone all redy for my buryall with certain pictures’.66 The date of Hilmar’s request, at the beginning of a phase of more aggressive reform, does raise some questions about the reasons for his emphasis on the stone being all ready, although one might imagine that the ‘certain pictures’ would be best kept quiet if they were of a type to alert iconoclasts. Such an example, however, does pose questions about the extent to which official strictures of statute and regulation could actually impinge on the personal choices of these testators. Two examples, from the late 1550s and 1560s, shed some light on ways that commemorative requests could be manipulated to mix the language of Protestant spirituality with an engagement with more traditionally Catholic practices. In 1569, Thomas Mayne, a smith of St George the Martyr in Southwark, asked to be buried ‘in the earthe’ with an added clause, ‘that is to say in the chapel called St Georges Chapell there’. He also requests for a ‘knoyll bell to be ronge’ alongside ‘a sermon to be made’ and ‘no other Ceremonie to be used at my buryall’.67 And the request of John Eggysfield, a yeoman of St Olave’s in Southwark, made in 1559, appears to reflect some of the changes of this period. He asks to be buried in St Agnes’ Chapel, ‘wheras the altar stode’.68 Changing views and pious preambles Because of the apparent possibilities for a personal rendition of spirituality, the opening preamble of the testament might also be expected to


show changing religious ideologies. Of course, and alongside other caveats about the use of the will text as a direct route to individual sensibilities, the preamble has been subject to warnings of caution. The influence of the scribe on this all-important and highly formulaic opening causes most concern.69 The standard opening, which occurs in almost all testaments between about 1450 and 1530, is as follows: In the name of god Amen the [number] daye of [month] the yere of our Lorde god [year]. [optional regnal year] I [Name Name] [Occupation] of [Place] in the parish of [saint parish church, place, county] in my good hole mynde and memorie in my good Remembraunce being doo make ordeigne and dispose this my present testament and last wyll in maner and forme folowing ffirst I bequeth and Recomende my soule unto Almyghty god my maker and my Redemer and to our blissid Lady the Vyrgin his mother Saint Mary And to all the holy company of hevyn And my body to be buried70 From about 1540 to 1560, and with the exception of the Marian years, a standard opening is as follows: In the name of god amen The [number] day of [month] in the yere of our Lord God [year] [optional regnal year] I [Name Name] [occupation] of [Place] in the parish of [saint parish church place county] beyng hole in Body of good profyte Rememberance lauded be god do make and ordain this my present Testament in maner and forme following first I bequethe my Sowle to Almighty god my maker and redeemer and my body to be buryed where it shall please almighty God Item I gyve and bequeth unto fortie of the poorest people as shall seeme unto myn executors dwelling within the the parish of [place] xiiis iiiid to be payed unto them the day of my buryall by my said executors71 By way of comparison, this is a non-standard preamble from 1507: In the name of god amen The first day of May The yere of our lord god Ml Vc viith And the xxiiiith yere of the Reigne of King Henry the viith I John Isbury of Lettecombe in the Countie of Barkshire beyng hole and of suche mynde & reason as god hath Indewed me with make and ordeyne this my present last will written for my testament the which I reqyre all christen people to beare wittnesse unto nowe


and at the day of dome And all other testaments and willes made before this tyme or day to stond void oonly this except ffirst I freely geve and bequeth my soule to my lord almighty god three persones in the holy Trinitie my maker and former whom I beseche ever of his mercy and grace for that I have offended hym in my synfull lyving here in therethe specially in brekyng of his comandmentes and mysusyn of suche goodes as I have occupied ynder his sufferance And ever to put betwixt my sinful soule and his rightfulness at the day of my dredefull Jugement his infinite mercy And also I beseche our blessed lady saynt Mary with the special helpe of all the holy company of heven and of myn advoweres Peter and Paul seynt ffrideswide seynt Barbara seynt brigett seynt Kateryn & Kyng henry if he be soo at our lord accepted to be mediators for my soule and all my frendes here in therthe to pray for me Item secondarily I bequeth my body to be buried in the newe chapel of the Trynitie at lamborne which I founded and buelded on the south side of the church there in a tombe there made It thirdely for all suche goodes as I am and have been possessed of and have not departed with myn even casten as I am bounded by the commandment of god to doo I aske ever his mercy And for such reformacion as may come best to my mynde at this tyme I will and first bequeth to the Cathedrall church of Sarum vis viiid Item I bequeth to my godson Thomas Veer xls to pray for my soulr Item I bequeth to Elizabeth my wif the crosse of my chayne of gold to beare whan it pleaseth hir upon hir body to remember my soule and my hole stuff of household in Lettcombe72 Unusual preambles are not necessarily very long. Some examples involve the addition of a clause to an otherwise standard opening. Like this one in the will text of Edmund Conquest, gentleman, of Houghton Conquest in Bedfordshire, produced in June 1531: ‘According to the course of humane nature I must needs change this transitory lyffe and know not how nore when I therfor providing as far as in me lyes not to dye intestate orden and make and also declare this my present testament’.73 The caveats concerning the interpretation of unusual preambles such as the two examples given above are justified, especially if there is a temptation to pillage this part of the text out of context, en masse, in the search for clearly expressed religious ideologies or specific changes in ideology at a particular date. The caveat is further justified if analysis is based on texts from one particular community where one zealous scribe might be promoting his view.74 However, an advantage of taking the


more ‘integral’ approach to the internal coherence of individual will texts is that an interesting preamble may be viewed in the context of the whole will. What this approach reveals is that there is a case to be made for the significance of some specifically creative preambles, because they relate to other aspects of the will that appear also to be distinctive. One such example is found in the will text of Robert Rogers made in 1529, whose unusual request concerning the remembering of his will was cited above. Rogers’s unusual preamble is as follows: In the Name of God Amen I Robert Rogers of Ewell yeoman calling to my remembraunce the unstedfastnes of this present and transitory lyfe knowing well the day of my departing from the same fast coming and not being in a redyness nor purveyed for the same according to the good and lawful custome among every gode Christen maner used and now being in parfyght memorye and in Stedfaste mynde do make and ordain this my present testament75 Viewing both the unusual preamble and the memorial request together allows the proposition that Robert Rogers used his last will and testament in a particularly self-conscious manner to address issues concerning his death-fashioning. The unusual preamble, as with most such texts, does not provide any precise information about the religious ideology of this man, although the references to a transitory life might be considered ‘proto-Protestant’. Nor does the preamble and memorial request add up to provide a specific picture of Rogers’s ideology. But both suggest his self-conscious consideration of the role of his will text, and the creative use of text more generally, both in his death-fashioning and in his expression of his own spiritual identity at the start of the will. A further example provides a slightly more integrated example of the connections between a strange preamble and the remainder of the will text. John Van Dynen left an undated will, probably written about 1530, which begins as follows: ‘In the Name of god Amen In so moche that ther ys nothyng so free as dethe so have I John Van Dynen Kerver ordyned and made my testament and my last wyll’.76 The name of this testator gives a clue to the strangeness of his preamble; he is clearly foreign, and may indeed be one of the immigrant stonemasons known to be present in Southwark. Other bequests throughout the will confirm his foreignness. Most of his beneficiaries, for example, also have foreign names; he gives money described as ‘bothe duche and ynglysshe’; and bequeaths goods to his father, ‘beyond the sea at the town of Wtreycht’. While this example does not indicate any particular


creativity on the part of Van Dynen, it does help to confirm that testamentary evidence is sensitive to the language of the testator; and that if seen in the context of the whole will text an unusual preamble may be better understood and more clearly assessed for its significance as an expression of personal situation or individual sensibilities.

Commemoration and performance The requests for funerals and other services, whether mundane or as theatrical as John Baret’s, should all be understood as performances; and similarly, all the requests for commemorative tombs so far discussed should be considered as performative. The acts of literate production involved in the textual representation of these commemorative requests constitute a kind of performance in themselves. These requests often contain a dimension of public performance, such as the processions requested at a funeral or the demand for readers of an inscription to engage in commemoration. Within this spectrum of possible performances, some individuals make requests that demand particular attention to performativity. Occasionally, the design of a tomb appears to encourage the public performance of commemoration. The request of Richard Sutton of Cobham in Surrey provides one such example. In 1539, he asked to be buried in the church porch there, with the following instructions: And a tomb to be made there brest highe of a man and a stone upon the said Tombe graven with images my selfe my wife and also my children with men children & women And aboughte the said tombe a benche to bee made for the pepull to sytt on77 One testator of Eltham in Kent seems to exhibit a particular interest in the connections between public events and the commemoration of his life. In 1534, John Brown set up a commemoration that involved the traditional processions associated with Rogation Week, in a will text that is also unusually detailed throughout.78 The responsibility for fulfilling Brown’s request is to lie with whoever inherits his brewhouse, which is passed in the first instance (with a full description of the utensils therein) to his son Anthony. It is as follows: every yere yerely forevermore ffynde or cause to be founde upon the Tewesday in the Rogacion weke at the processon tyme at the crosse upon Shoters Hill a fyrkyn of ale and xiid in bred to be disposed and


gyven amonge pour people coming with the same procession and also shall gyve and paye unto the preest the Reding the gospel 1d and to the clerk there being 1d As is the case with the pious preambles, John Brown’s detailed requests for this commemorative procession seem to make more sense if considered in connection with his other detailed specifications. John Brown’s will is, in other words, particularly creative. The will opens with bequests to the friars observant in Greenwich concerning the provision of 10s from his lands for them ‘to bye Lenten stuff therwith’ and also that they observe an anniversary, ‘by note’, ‘always upon Thursday’ in the first week of Lent with ‘placebo’ and ‘dirige’ at night and requiem ‘by note’ on the following morning. He asks to be buried in the chapel of our lady in Eltham, with an associated request, part of which, such as the bequest of processional banner cloths, appears to fit with his interests in the Rogation Week procession.79 There are also other responsibilities to which the inheritor of the brewhouse must attend, involving an annual dole of bread and ale to the poor on Good Friday. This is a standard request indeed, although it has added to it the particular clause that this dole be made ‘to thentent my soule may be the better remembred amonges ther devoute prayers’. And there is one final requirement for this same beneficiary, that: immediately after the said landes shall happen to com unto ther possession that they from thensforth yerely forevermore shall every ffriday in the yere cause a masse of Jesu to be songen or saide for my soule and all christen soules within the parishe churche of Eltham aforesaid in the Chapell of our lady there This example of John Brown’s specific intervention into the possibilities for commemoration does not, like the other examples of commemorative choices, have an easy causal explanation. However, there are two particular factors that may help to elucidate the source of John Brown’s ideas about commemoration. The first concerns his place of residence and therefore represents one of those instances where location may be particularly significant for the transmission of specific ideas about cultural creativity: Eltham is one of the sites of residence for the moveable royal household in the sixteenth century; Shooter’s Hill is a site for the performance of royal pageants.80 The second possible cause of John Brown’s particularly performative text concerns a bequest to his armigerous relative, described as Sir Anthony Brown, Knight, to whom


he gives some specific pieces of armour.81 It is possible, therefore, that John Brown’s requests for very public ‘performative’ commemorations may be an indication of his aspirations to belong, in death if not in life, to the same armigerous group as his kinsman, or it may be that he has been influenced in his interest in performance by his experiences of royal household pageantry.

Conclusion The production of a commemorative request in a textual form was a culturally creative act. The final memorial design chosen was profoundly influenced by the very specific literate acts associated with preparing or producing a testamentary text. These literate acts are integral to the textual culture of this society and exist within a spectrum of commemorative possibilities, the ideas for which were influenced by geographical location, parish church, family tradition, local custom, and individual choice.82 The material objects associated with the commemorative requests of the relatively non-élite people discussed in this chapter very rarely survive. Texts describing requirements for commemoration are therefore very important surviving evidence for objects that are otherwise irrecoverable. However the importance of these textual requests is greater than merely the information they contain about lost objects. This is because in many ways it matters less whether requests concerning commemorative objects were granted than the fact that the request was made in the first place. It is not known, for example, whether the church at Cobham actually had space for Hornby’s image, or whether they wanted it. But this does not detract from the significance of the personal request of the testator. One must assume, however, that testators did strongly desire their wishes to be followed: the planning ahead of some people to the extent of positioning a tomb in its desired site, and the addition of threatening clauses by others that their requests be performed, attests to this. The significant role of the text for individuals making these commemorative requests is also in some ways strengthened by the uncertainty of what might actually happen. For individuals like Peter Hornby, it might have been at the public performance of the will document, rather than at the unveiling of the image, that his connection with St George was most emphatically declared. The structures of representation used to create the commemorative requests discussed in this chapter are conventional. Some testators manipulate and embellish these to a relatively greater degree and they should therefore be seen as particularly creative. Factors which influence


the particular creativity of certain individuals, such as John Brown, may include an aspirant desire to form connections with family members and associates of a higher social status, as well as the effect of living in a culturally distinct environment such as a royal palace community. Requests for commemoration and for specific pious arrangements never transparently reveal individual sentiment and specific views about religious ideology. However, the evidence in this chapter shows that by considering in detail the extent of the personal involvement of the testator in the production of these requests, and importantly that this voice of personal choice may manifest itself throughout the whole of a specific will text, it is possible to gain access to some fragments of personal expression. While such a consideration of requests for commemoration throws new light on commemorative practices and the process of making choices, it also poses some serious questions about the changes in commemorative practices across the period of reform, c. 1520–1560. The textual evidence for commemorative requests in this period indicates that there was no dramatic alteration caused by the Reformation, and that individuals chose to use the conventional language of the last will and testament to make choices which might contravene official requirements of religious ideology.

7 The Creativity of Reading1

Introduction In many ways this chapter forms both a logical ending for this book and also a new departure. The logical ending is that because a major part of this book’s consideration of cultural creativity is based on the uses of textual culture in the early English renaissance, to end with a chapter on reading practices seems like coming full circle to the discussion of textual culture and its uses by people such as Stephen Burdon, begun in Chapter 1. The new departure is that evidence for the uses of textual culture considered here is found in different kinds of texts (moral and devotional literatures) from those that dominate the remainder of the book (administrative literatures).2 The purpose here is to investigate how reading was conceptualised in the early English renaissance. This extends the consideration of the cultural creativity involved with using object and text in the construction of group and individual identity. It is absolutely essential that the uses of text and object discussed in this chapter should be seen as integrated with, and integral to, the uses of text and object discussed in the remainder of the book. How reading was conceptualised is integral to the book’s wider concern with being textual. And this ‘being textual’ is very much the stuff of the cultural creativity discussed throughout. Much of this book is concerned with practices of using text, and particularly with the ways that people of this period creatively used textual culture in the formation of identity in general. This chapter continues in that vein, but focuses in detail on a different kind of literature, which might crudely be defined as ‘literature to read’ rather than ‘literature to write’. In all spheres of life – occupation and business, family occasions, intimate moments, public and private religious devotions – the various situations of being textual, and more importantly 137


the influence of those situations on the individual’s perception of the world, would not be separated by a divide as rigorous as the disciplinary categories now given to the evidence. In other words, the texts used in this textual culture – administrative texts to write, fictive texts to enjoy, didactic texts to study, devotional texts to pray with – all interacted in the same individual’s imaginative world as he or she went about daily life. And that interaction had a significant influence on the uses of all these types of text. How textual meaning is constructed and construed by the reader is not the same as what the meaning is. To discuss how, cultural evidence for readerships in English popular culture is combined with specific book evidence for the transmission and reception of particular texts. And I begin from the premise that the choices concerned with the copying of specific manuscripts as well as the particular choices concerned with which versions to print, are contingent on the cultural contexts in which these books were read. This means that choices made by copyists and printers are not isolated from choices made by readers. The combination of cultural and codicological information provides evidence for readership in more broad cultural terms than a biographical technique which tends to rely on evidence for particular book owners or compilers and the codicology of their surviving books. So, to reiterate, this chapter on reading has not been relegated to the end as an afterthought. It would have been very enjoyable to write more chapters on the reading of different kinds of texts, but in fact it is actually proportionate to have just one chapter specifically on reading in this book. This is justifiable from various perspectives: from an evidence perspective, the surviving information concerning books owned and used is easily less than one-sixth of all the evidence for cultural creativity in textual culture provided by the last will and testament. The second justification partly arises from the first: it is probable that the reading of devotional and didactic literatures constituted only a small proportion of an individual’s engagement with text. Administrative literatures and other situations of reading probably took up a much higher percentage of textual time.3 Such other literate activities might include producing and using texts like ‘bills and books’;4 and other situations requiring reading such as understanding topographical signposts and shop signs, like the ‘shopboard’ bequeathed in 1529 by John Ledall of Southwark to his servant together with the ‘hangyng belonging to the same shoppe’.5 And it should be remembered that much literate energy was also expended on the reading or preparing of words for inscriptions on objects such as commemorative tombstones or smaller possessions like John Arnold’s maser with ‘In domino Confido’ engraved into its foot.6

The Creativity of Reading 139

This analysis of reading seeks to go beyond an exclusive focus on reception, which means that text is reinstated as a way of exploring meaning. I therefore focus on the interaction between constructed meaning (the authorial part) and readers’ meanings (the reception part).7 The purpose of the chapter is to examine how the reader negotiates between the influences exerted by specific literatures, the reader’s own contemporary experiences, and particular reading situations. The intention is to propose a way of finding evidence for a culturally contextualised balance between a text’s construction and its reception.8 Any focus on the (authorial) construction of those literatures to be read which are discussed in the second half of this chapter is not to suggest that the author controls the reader. What this type of analysis shows is evidence for a likely process of conceptualisation that is appropriate to readers in this period. The issue of what is appropriate is where the first half of the chapter comes into play. Here, I return to some evidence for the nature of textual culture in this period. The specific concern with textual culture here is to provide evidence for book ownership and educational provision, all of which legitimates the analysis of reading practices in the use of specific texts made in the second half of this chapter.

Bequest evidence for the nature of textual culture Given the absence of many forms of evidence for the daily lives of the non-élite in this period, the last will and testament is as valuable for assessing book ownership, education and reading situations as it is for other aspects of daily life and practice. The wills of the laity, particularly below the level of the élite, are not heavily endowed with book bequests. This appears to be an England-wide phenomenon, and should not be confused with an absence of books.9 Amassing evidence for the ownership of books is a valuable precursor to the analysis of reading practices, but evidence for book ownership is not of itself evidence for reading.10 Nevertheless, the will provides some significant evidence for choices about book ownership and the transmission of books, and also about reading situations. This evidence tends to follow the patterns that emerge in the investigation of the ownership of material goods in general, which is that a greater range of luxury and domestic goods are owned or bequeathed in the settlements closer to London.11 Usually, but with some notable exceptions, book bequests also tend to be made by people dwelling in urban communities; and the books singled out as heirlooms at least were probably valued similarly to silver ware and


jewellery.12 Book bequests among the clergy appear to follow a different pattern, the significance of which is discussed below. It is noticeable that there is also an England-wide phenomenon that most of the books mentioned in wills are from a category loosely defined as ‘books of religious devotion and instruction’.13 It is not possible to assess the detailed evidence for the whole of England here, but evidence from two southern counties, Surrey and Kent, provides a useful indication to measure against other comparative work. Most of the books mentioned in urban centres such as Greenwich, Gravesend, and Southwark, as well as the rural communities in these counties are called ‘Primer’ or ‘Massbook’, or some title given to the range of available service books. Books for public or/and private use There is also an uneasy distinction between bequests for private book use and bequests for public use. In this instance, by ‘private’ I refer to the passing of a book to members of the family or another associate, most often a clergyman. By ‘public’ I refer to the giving of a book for the use of a much less restricted group and to be kept in a public place, most often the parish church. Of the bequests of books for public use there are two main categories: many have a strongly public-spirited tenor in the clauses associated with the bequest; others, like that of Stephen Burdon, are specifically associated with commemorative requests. The second type points to an uneasy aspect of the boundary between public and private book use (and therefore ‘reading situation’) as it relates to the very permeable public/private boundaries between the intensely personal and yet ostentatious practices of commemoration. Bequests of books for public use are most often to a parish church, and they come in a number of forms that vary in specificity. In 1494, William London of Gravesend left 20s towards a mass book ‘to be bought and occupied’ in the chapel of St George.14 In 1500, Alice Davy of St George in Southwark bequeathed, ‘to the reparacions and fynding of the books vestments with other ornaments in the same parish of St George for the helth of my soul 6s 4d’.15 Robert Shotton, a yeoman of Southwark, left 8s ‘toward the bying of a new manuell and a new surpless’, for his church of St George in 1530.16 In 1535, Thomas Blanke of Guildford left 6s 8d, ‘to the buying of an antiphoner to be occupied in the parish church’.17 Some testators give books to churches that are a considerable geographical distance from their place of residence at the time of will-making. These bequests may sometimes be to churches of a


previous home or place of family allegiance. In 1504, Ralph Willoughby, a native of Raveningham in Norfolk who asked to be buried in Southwark gave two lots of ‘suche books’ to two parish churches in Norfolk, at Raveningham and at Horning. In both instances his wife is to choose which books she thinks most appropriate to the needs of each church.18 The kinds of instructions given for the use of primers and service books suggest some similarities with the circulation of ‘common profit’ books.19 Both Thomas and William Acton of Gravesend and several of their kin give such gifts. Thomas Acton’s instruction for the book’s use and choice is: ‘Item I bequeath to the parish church of Gravesend for a booke therewith to be bought or toward a booke therewith to be boughte sich as by the parishon there shalbe thought moste necessary & needful to the saide church 5 marc.’20 Such bequests are sites for the transmission of opportunities for literacy. In other words, by bequeathing a book for church use, relatively wealthy testators might provide an opportunity for parishioners who may not own books to have access to such literature. The parish church therefore plays a role something like a library.21 In 1509, Elizabeth Philpot (styled as Dame) who requested burial next to her husband in Southwark gave a ‘massebook with a chalice’ to the parish of Compton in Surrey.22 And, in 1493 London merchant William Tilghman, a rather special book giver whose other gifts are discussed later, gave his ‘great portuus boke’ to the chantry of the parish church of Headcorn in Kent: ‘to a byde for ever for aslonge while it will endure and to serve to the use of the said chantery and chantery prest there for the tyme being’.23 This book had belonged to a certain Master Thomas Kent whom Tilghman describes as ‘my master’ and who is also described as the founder of this chantry, so the book was to be kept at Headcorn ‘for the entent that the soule of the said master Thomas Kent may be had daily the more specially in his [John Scales, the current priest’s] memory and mind’.24 Tilghman also bequeathed a ‘litell journal boke’ to John Scales. Lives of Saints (Legenda) are also a type of text belonging within the spectrum of devotional to instructional literature and also sometimes given for public use. The same William Tilghman bequeathed various books to different churches in the southern counties. To St Nicholas in Pluckley he wished to give ‘a printed boke of myne called Legenda Sanctorum to be occupied ther by the parson of the same churche or by his parishe prestes for the tyme being for ever to the enforming and edifyeing of the sowles of the parisheners ther’.25


Bequest evidence for Lives of Saints also provides an interesting instance of the possibilities for the transmission of books from those of high status to the whole spectrum of individuals in a community. One such example is John Scott, Knight, who in 1485 bequeathed several Lives of Saints to different village churches and chapels: ‘to the [said] church of Braborn a legend complete Item in likewise I bequeth to the chirch of Smeth another legende complete Item I bequeth my old legend to the chapel of the mote in Sussex hit tobe complete[d]’.26 One of these books may not be in a good condition but John Scott also requests that as well as his duties of saying and singing masses for his soul the priest, Sir John Bonbassall, should ‘write make and [to] complete my bokis called legendis bequethen as is aforseid’. This may also be an example of one individual wishing particularly to make publicly available a text which has been very important to his religious sensibilities during his lifetime: the opening of John Scott’s testament contains an unusually long list of saints, a number of whom are female, including Mary Magdalene, Martha, Winifred, Barbara, and Suzanna. In another example, Robert Pollet of Gravesend gave a Legend of Saints for the use of the church there, in 1537.27 There are fewer books given for private use in bequests but this may be a product of the evidence rather than a direct indication of book giving habits. Some of these books are passed between women, such as Greenwich resident Margaret Babham, a widow with connections in London and Greenwich, who, in 1498, left a ‘great prymer’ to one daughter and a ‘little prymer’ to the other.28 And in 1531 (Dame) Katherine Styles left to Master Cheeseman’s daughter ‘a book which was Dr Gunthorpes with clasps of silver’.29 Dame Elizabeth Philpot also gave a ‘best’ book to her daughter Julia and another book to her daughter Anne.30 Women, particularly the more élite, have been identified as being especially significant in the transmission of devotional literature and of the ideas in such literature.31 The women testators in these three examples are from the relatively élite end of the spectrum covered here. While their likely literacy and their access to such books of private devotional literature helps to remove any gendered division in the determination of who was literate in this period, these examples should be seen in a range of evidence for book giving which includes both men and women as givers and recipients. A distinction that Elizabeth Philpot appears to make is worth mentioning, however, in the context of gendered giving. Her two sons receive silver ware and no books, but her brother receives ‘my ryng with the V joyes of Our ladye’, which is not a book in itself but belongs within the broader cultural spectrum of the textuality used for symbolic references.32


Male bequests of books for private use are also dominated by devotional literature, which may again be an evidence issue. These involve gifts to other men – close kin and other associates – and also to women. In 1478, John Rede of Gravesend gave a book ‘vocatus primer’ to his son Thomas in a composite bequest that also included an unusual silver ring.33 In 1494, William Dygon of Eltham gave his son a ‘prymer to serve god with all’.34 In 1495, Peter Alanson of Southwark gave his ‘best prymer’ to his male executor.35 Robert Chamberlayn of Southwark gave a ‘best booke’ to John Brode, a man with no explicit family connection.36 Mention of a different kind of book probably also intended for religious instruction is made by William Basse, a carpenter from Southwark. He left to his kinsman a ‘book with the commandments and other diverse things’.37 Evidence for other kinds of books is more infrequent. Roger Fitz of Lewisham gave to his brother in law ‘all my books of the lawe and my blak gown lined with chamblet’.38 As well as his public-spirited gifts, including what must have been a rather smart new printed Legenda in 1493, exceptional book giver William Tilghman also gave a number of books for private use. These include a ‘printed porteus’ and a ‘boke de regime principum’ (of the rule of princes) and ‘all my other bokes of gramer and Law being in my keping’ to John Tilghman a scholar at Oxford and the son of Richard his brother. A book called ‘historia egesippi’(?) was excepted from this list and to be delivered to the prior and convent of Durham. And, to the son of his brother Thomas, he left ‘my printed boke called Canterbury tales’ and ‘aboke of latten wordis with the English therof ensuing Secundum alphabetum’.39 Clerical book bequests Clerical book bequests figure, in bequest evidence, as a significant proportion of the books circulated. These bequests, unfortunately, tend to be of the vague variety, written simply as ‘all my books’.40 Given that descriptions of goods are so highly significant in the will, this does provoke questions about the value attributed to such unspecified books, and these questions qualify any notion that all books were precious to all book owners in this period. In 1496, the bequest of John Barkley, a parish clerk of St Margaret’s in Southwark, of a number of books to his church nicely illustrates some clerkly lending habits as well as something of the variety and specialisation of service books circulating in this community at least. He gave to the church ‘a boke of Prykked song’, a hymnal, and ‘a boke of caralls sum tyme of Thomas Bassett the whiche he gaf unto me’. To his brother Robert, also a cleric, he also gave


a ‘portuus covered with reed lether’.41 In 1476, William Clayton clerk of St Olave’s in Southwark, gave several books to men of various degrees of learning: to William Wick a chaplain he bequeathed ‘unum parvum portiforium existens in custodia Magister william Estfelde de Canterbrigensiam’.42 Clerical book ownership and sharing is possibly a very important route for the transmission of book culture in rural communities. A noticeable number of clerics in rural north Kent, for example, leave substantial collections of literary, didactic, and devotional works to colleagues, relatives, and churches.43 This includes books left specifically for the continued use of others, such as the Legenda Aurea left by William Pepper, vicar of Shorne in the 1460s, with the instructions that it remain in the church for the use of his successors, and the Pupilla Occuli left to master William Saunder for his lifetime, to be passed from ‘hand to hand’ while it lasted.44 Other bequests indicate the educational intention of such gifts: Andrew Trayl, chaplain at Rochester, left to Andrew, the son of Edmund Chirchsey, a grammatical book for teaching the ways of using Latin, and to John the son of Master William Petyr, a Composita Verborum.45 In 1504, John Walter, a priest who wished to be buried in Southwark, gave a ‘portuous’ together with a banner cloth of silk and a painted cloth to the parish church of Lee in Kent.46 Thomas Stone a cleric in the Kentish village of Cobham whose bequest included a Gesta Romanorum (see section below on ‘The creativity of reading’) also left a range of other books, including a ‘Portiphorium’ to William Saunder; a Legenda Aurea, Pars Occuli, ‘sermon book’, and ‘processional’ to Egleton church, and a service book to each of two other churches.47 Gifts to other kinds of institutions by clerics may have taken books away from their parishioners and brought them instead into the use of a distinct group of literati, although the role of monastic institutions as sites of lay education may have been one reason for such bequests. In 1501 for example, William Lathes, Doctor of Divinity and Parson of St Olave’s left to the prior of St Mary Overy ‘a boke de vita xx’. Lathes also gave a ‘psalter covered with purpill velvet and clasped with [gap]’, to a lay woman described as ‘my lady Bray’. And to his brother Robert Lathes ‘all my other books and a horse’.48 Lay people might also give books to ordained clerics, perhaps men who had served them in some private religious capacity, such as spiritual father or private chaplain. In 1505 Katherine Lewknor, for example, gave a mass book to Master Thomas Brent, together with what is described as ‘my vestment’ and a chalice; perhaps these were objects from her private chapel.49 Spelling this out a bit more clearly in 1491


was Thomas Bodley, a citizen of London probably dwelling in the parish of St Botulph, who gave to Master John Leche ‘my mass booke vestment surplace candlestick aulter cloth & all the apparel of my aulter’.50 Educational provision in England The spread of educational provision throughout England, c. 1100–1548, has been identified as providing new opportunities for aspirant social groups in a changing society.51 Nicholas Orme’s comprehensive survey of English medieval schools indicates the extent of the non-monastic provision of education from the twelfth century and its rapid growth prior to the English Reformation.52 In her detailed study of the York diocese, Jo-Ann Hoeppner Moran finds that the slow increase in educational provision from the thirteenth century became a ‘dramatic’ increase after 1500, and this was largely due to benefaction by laity ‘of all social classes’.53 Bequest evidence of the traditional devotional and instructional motivations of the laity, she proposes, nevertheless produced ‘profound changes in the relationships between clergy and laity on the eve of the Reformation’.54 Margaret Spufford also makes some very important observations about educational opportunities in English local society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for both boys and girls, proposing that even the poorest were often given enough basic guidance in reading to be able to cope with the cheap print circulating in this period.55 Gillian Draper adds significantly to the current understanding of educational provision in local society between the twelfth and the early seventeenth centuries; and Paul Lee’s thorough scrutiny of the testamentary provision of education in the Rochester diocese, c. 1400–1560, indicates the importance of benefaction from clerics, religious institutions, and wealthy laity.56 Educational provision in local society As with book bequests, it is impractical to assess the whole of England in any detail, but evidence from two southern counties provides a useful perspective for comparison. Most references to education in testaments from Kent and Surrey concern its provision, and belong to several different categories loosely defined as university, school, informal teaching, and apprenticeship.57 Occasional evidence survives for the educational establishments of testators themselves. One such is the bequest of 10 marks made by Peter Alanson of Southwark, in 1495, to the abbey of Titchfield in Southampton for essential repairs, with the explanatory clause, ‘at the whiche abbeye I was brought up of a childe and there I did moche harme and litill good’.58 Much evidence of


education provision from both counties appears to be in sixteenth-century testaments. If anything, the Surrey evidence appears to indicate more interest in education from an earlier date than does the Kentish evidence for education.59 The relatively high percentage of London citizens resident in Southwark may account for some of the interest in education. Such interest sometimes appears several times in one will. In 1497, for example, Thomas Parker, citizen and leather-seller of London and resident of St Olave’s parish, charged Elizabeth his wife with finding for his kinsman John Jacob, ‘mete and drinke bed clothes lynen and woollen & also cause him to be kepte to scole to song and gramer’, until he reach the age of 20. Parker also bequeathed to David Curson of Oxford, ‘Scoler’, £12 towards his ‘exhibicion’. Parker also left money for obits to the ‘college of Asteley in Norfolk’ on condition that they pray for his soul ‘as they be accustomed for other their benefactors in the said college’.60 In 1523, Richard Goodman, citizen and skinner of London and resident of the parish of St George, Southwark, paid for John Dove, the son of his deceased kinsman, 20s in quarterly instalments of 3s 4d ‘towards his lernyng to scole’.61 It has been proposed that the parish of St Olave in Southwark was particularly known for its sites of education, including the training of scribes.62 Not all the Surrey evidence for education is from Southwark however. In 1530, William Bond of Kingston upon Thames gave his wife £20 for the schooling of Anthony their son and left 40s per anum for him to ‘contynewe his lernyng’ at Oxford (but if he ‘go to occupacion’ he should have £10 when he completes his apprentice years).63 In 1536, William Alford of Chertsey, yeoman, asked that his wife Grace should pay an unspecified amount out of a lease of land to be sold ‘for fyndyng of Roberte Alford my sonne in Winchestre at Scole’.64 There is also some evidence of charitable support by testators for the actual establishments in these Surrey communities. In 1531, Harry Thompson of Kingston, a yeoman, gave ‘to the free scole my tenement sett and beinge by the vycaryge so that the said fre scole do contynue’.65 And, in 1558, Hugo Tulley of Guildford, a glove-maker, left 5s in a very short will, ‘toward the building of the free school in Guildford’.66 Much evidence for educational provision in Kent seems to be in sixteenth-century testaments and as with Surrey, much of this is urban. Most beneficiaries of educational provision were either indebted to a relative or to a local cleric.67 In 1527, William Darlington, Vicar of East Greenwich, left £6 13s 4d for two poor scholars in university ‘that are willing to learn’.68 In 1552, Thomas Bury of Greenwich provided the


profits of a leased tenement to pay for his son’s schooling;69 and in 1547, Symond Syms of the same town gave 10s per anum for a ‘scole’ education for his godson, Simon Bovy.70 Actual school institutions were accessible, especially for residents of communities closer to London: St Paul’s School in London had direct connections with Greenwich in the early sixteenth century.71 A bequest made by William Burston of Milton in 1549 clearly makes reference to the trend for providing education, but on this occasion the arrangement may be rather more informal: he requests that during her widowhood, Joanne his wife should bring up Richard, their son, ‘honestly and with lernyng’, using the profits bequeathed to Richard.72 A similar arrangement seems to be requested by John Grange of Greenwich for his daughter, asking that Joanne his widow should have ‘tuition and brynging up of my daughter Katherine’.73 Cobham College in North Kent provides an interesting example of the role of a religious institution in the development of interests in education and literacy in a small Kentish village.74 A number of bookbequeathing individuals, lay and clerical, have connections with Cobham College. Thomas Stone, a chaplain to Cobham College, bequeathed a book containing Gesta Romanorum stories to the institution, along with three other texts, a ‘legendary’, probably a collection of saints’ lives, a processional, and a Vitas Patrum.75 All these bequests for education by the relatively non-élite belong within the same genre as the bequests of John Risely, Knight, although they are ostensibly less impressive. Risely was lodging at Eltham at the time of making his will in 1512. He was probably with the royal entourage, as he mentions a number of humble servants of the royal household; but was also part of the community of Eltham as his beneficiaries include various Eltham residents and his executors include a John Brown, very possibly the same man as made the unusually dramatic commemorative requests discussed in Chapter 6. Risely bequeaths: ‘to the makyng of the cloysters and glasyng of the werke by me made at Jhus College in Cambridge if I perform it not in my life clx li whereof is paid to doctor Egliston of the same college for the glasyng xxli’. The residue of profits from land and property in London was to be disposed towards ‘fyndyng & exhibicion of a doctor or a bachelor of divinitie to rede divinite in the same college of Jhu freely to every Scoler that will come to here the same lectur for the increase of virtue’.76 Apprenticeship References to apprenticeship are generally linked with urban settlements in both Kent and Surrey, and more particularly with the


proximity of these communities to the trading guilds of London and the residence of London citizens there. Most references simply record a sum of money to be bequeathed to the apprentice, often to cover wages owed, plus a small reward for their service. In 1511 William Barron, a citizen of London and wax chandler dwelling in St Olave’s parish left a ‘blue gown furred with black’ and 13s 4d to each of three apprentices, releasing them from two years of their apprenticeship.77 In 1516, John Cokes, a citizen of London and leather-seller of the same parish, left his apprentice John Aunsell a black gown with fur, ‘when he comes out of his termes’ on the condition that he be good to his master’s wife.78 There is occasional reference to women along these lines, such as the early sixteenth-century request of John Cockyn of Gravesend, that his daughter Joanne should have, ‘any occupacion where she may the better get her levyng’.79 And, Thomas Carter a citizen and draper of London with Greenwich dwellings provides an unusually detailed description of the rewards of apprenticeship in his will of 1530.80 To Thomas Carter the younger ‘late my apprentice and now my convenient servant’ he leaves 40s, together with, ‘all my wares implements stuff & stock being in my shop & warehowses to occupy to his further advancement & civilitate’. Summarising the evidence for book culture Wills provide very useful evidence for book ownership and its transmission and various forms of educational provision. This is not the only evidence available for assessing textual culture but it is a very useful source, especially in consideration of the uses of text by the majority of the population. Nor is it, of itself, evidence for reading. Other forms of administrative evidence also provide access to the extent of literate activity in particular communities.81 Testamentary evidence sometimes alludes to these other aspects of the textual culture of a particular individual and the communities with which they have contact. Requests by both male and female testators that a name or names be placed in the bede roll (a list of those for whom prayers were to be made), for example, indicate some of the other textual aspects of commemoration which parishioners would encounter on a regular basis.82 Incidental occupational information given in the will occasionally also provides evidence for textuality: in 1499, Walter Nicholas, a papermaker dwelling in the parish of St Olave, Southwark, made a very short will for which he had a limner and a ‘bokebynder’ as his executors, both had foreign sounding names, the former being Jacob de Huntstra and the latter being Bart Petrison.83 A place such as Southwark perhaps did have a particularly high level of textual activity in this period;84 and this may have encouraged a


certain level of self-consciousness about reading, writing, and education among its parishioners. Richard Rutland of St Margaret’s parish, for example, made the very conventional request for a priest to say his obits but he stipulated that this priest should be ‘expert and lerned both in pryked song and playn song’.85 But special as Southwark may be, it is not alone in having a very active culture of book use and education. The testamentary evidence, which only touches the surface of all the textual acts occurring on a daily basis, appears to confirm this. This evidence, examined in detail for Kent and Surrey in this instance, also suggests some patterns of book ownership and use and therefore of ‘reading situations’, which the second half of this chapter now pursues.

The study of reading The History of Reading in the West is one example of a generally developing interest in the study of reading, including in medieval and early modern society.86 However, there has long been an interest in reading literacy, as distinct from writing literacy;87 and in a reading public.88 Devotional reading has received particular attention, and this seems appropriate given the relatively high percentage of evidence for the availability of such literature. The role of religious houses in the promotion of literate devotion among the laity, particularly in the period approaching the Reformation, emerges as an important site for the transmission of books and ideas.89 There has also been some useful recent work on laypersons’ attitudes to devotional, moral, and fictive reading.90 Theory and practice in reading There is a danger of confusing theories of reading with practices of reading. In carving out a space for the interpretation of reading practice, there is a necessary negotiation between the various contemporary theories about reading and the practices of real readers. For devotional reading in this period, there is also the issue of the various measures that dictated what was included and removed from service books, especially c. 1520–1560.91 It should be assumed that these theories and statutes had some effect on readers but also that they do not in themselves tell the whole story of reading practice. Theories of reading are taken to mean either theories prevailing in a particular historical context or theories produced subsequent to that context. Medieval theories of writing, reading and the construction of audience abound, and they make a useful comparison.92 Other evidence for scholarly models of


reading provides very useful insight into scholarly practice.93 But the popular reading and popular practice analysed in this chapter is intended to be distinct from this élite sphere of highly educated reading. Theoretically-based assessments of reading and reception constructed in the last decade have also recently been applied to medieval and renaissance reading practices.94 But, for this study of reading in particular cultural situations, overmuch recourse to theoretical views of reception tends to detract from the immediate concerns with the reading practices and experiences of reading. What therefore drives this chapter’s investigation is the detailed evidence provided by the books themselves, rather than theoretical abstraction. And, more particularly, the focus is on the practices involved with the creative process of making meaning. These, as with all aspects of cultural creativity, are practices of innovation. Here the innovation occurs through the individual reader’s negotiations between ideas and knowledge based on daily experience, interaction with a range of texts in various reading situations, and the re-interactions involved with re-reading. Evidence for reading In the analysis of detailed evidence for processes of reading, a significant word is evidence, because the study of reception has often been criticised for being too ephemeral and lacking in substantiation. Annotation, as of late an increasingly legitimate subject of investigation, provides useful and reassuringly tangible (if sporadic) evidence for reading practice. Considerations of annotation currently in print have tended to concentrate on lay ‘learned’ readerships; and these from a period just later than that covered by this book.95 Annotations may also provide some very interesting insights into aspects of the reading process and more particularly the conceptualisation of what it is to do reading in popular culture.96 Any reader annotations found on the literatures of the masses are invariably not associated with biographical information, and yet these sporadic and sometimes very brief commentaries should be understood as providing very significant access into the mental world of the reader.97 Such annotations do also probably represent access to a much wider sphere of reading than anything diligently penned into a scholarly work by a known learned scholar. Annotation is not considered in detail here, but nor is it the only form of tangible evidence for reading. For a post-reception centred analysis of reading practice such as this, any fragments of evidence for the reception of popular readers in the form of annotation should be examined alongside evidence for reading provided by the literature itself. This way


of analysing reading has two main modes. The first is the detailed consideration of the nature of the literature itself in order to reconstruct the processes of conceptualisation that such literature requires and encourages. The second is the close comparison of different versions of the same generic text, and their situations of production, in order to assess what the persistence or absence of certain forms of the text suggest about differences in reading practice at different reading moments. This might be called ‘analysis by hindsight’. Both these modes of analysis are usefully brought together when sufficient evidence survives. Despite the renewed and vigorous interest in reading, the close consideration of reading process and even, ultimately, the detailed consideration of reading practice is still wanting. Underlying the approach taken here to the evidence for reading both from the production of a text and its reception is that none of this evidence provides, of itself, evidence for reading process. None of what is plentiful evidence for reading in popular culture, such as annotation or the form and intended meanings of specific literatures provides direct evidence for the creative processes involved with making meaning. Reconstructing the innovative processes of reading requires imaginative reconstructions based on detailed analysis of the texts, integrated with detailed attention to reading situations. These innovative processes are what I mean by the ‘creativity of reading’.98 Reading situations The case study below examines in detail the contents of one type of ‘literature to read’ in the light of the evidence for reading situations discussed above. It should be remembered that the commemorative role of the will text makes any gifts therein mentioned distinctive, and this includes books.99 The bequests of books for private use indicate that there was some circulation of books in local society in this period; the bequest evidence proves that some of this literature was devotional and tends to suggest that less of this literature was from genres of fictive literature (although testamentary evidence does not disprove the availability of such literature). One recurring feature is the potential for the wide dissemination of books through lending. There is evidence to suggest that texts used by priests, such as service books and sermon exempla, were also available for borrowing by the laity in the parish church, and sometimes chained there.100 This is significant for the consideration of how such texts might enter into the popular imagination. Any distinctions between public and private reading and the giving of books are problematic. The bequest of books for ‘public’ use by


individuals of various status demands some information about the situations in which reading in popular culture most often took place. The devotional and didactic books given for the use of church and parishioner, as well as specific commemorations, such as that requested by Stephen Burdon, are the kind of books often classified as being for private devotion. This in itself is a paradox because the most ubiquitous of these books, primers or books of hours, were also designed to provide the literature for the public devotions of the church service.101 Another uneasiness with any public/private distinction is that the evidence of the book lending and sharing habits of the clergy tends to suggest that those books given ‘privately’ to clergy would ultimately be shared with other parishioners. For many lay people, the book-centred reading of private devotion may well have taken place initially in the public space of the church; the subsequent ‘use’ or ‘borrowing’ of such books possibly being through memory in the privacy of the home. To consider the ordinary reader engaged in private reading in a public space requires questions to be asked about the imaginative world of the reader and how interactions between the daily life of public and private practice engage with the reading of such literature. A consideration of the nature of the devotional literature in the widely available primer adds significantly to our understanding of this imaginative world. The emphasis on the internalisation of spoken forms in some of the prayer literature in these books, for example, provides insights into the conceptualisation of reading. One example is a prayer called a ‘A fruitfull medytacyon not to be sayde with the mouthe lightly but to be cryed with herte and minde often and exyghtely’.102 This intensely invocatory prayer could presumably be said under the breath, in both public and private spaces. This indicates one possibility for the way in which readers in popular culture were accustomed to carrying in the private space of the mind the literatures of private devotion, remembered from the service books of both private and public religious practice. Also in the light of the evidence for reading situations, analysis of the actual texts of moral instruction adds to our understanding of the imaginative world of the reader. The moral literature discussed in the following case study is the Gesta Romanorum. Justification for examining this type of literature in the first instance is found from the bequest evidence: Thomas Stone’s gift of the Gesta Romanorum book for the use of Cobham College indicates a possible reading situation, alongside which the texts of the Gesta were also widely available for public use in a different kind of literate situation, the sermon.


The creativity of reading: a case study The Gesta Romanorum describes a collection of stories, ostensibly concerned with the Romans, as represented by the Roman emperor who begins each narrative. These are short stories, generally consisting of two parts, the first being a narrative of a certain event under the rule of the particular emperor, and the second part being a moralisation and explanation of the symbolic significance of this narrative. Not all the versions have morals for every story, and in some manuscript versions the copyist chose not to include morals.103 Each Gesta story relies on a set of ‘figures’, which operate according to a symbolic order set up within that particular story. ‘Figures’ are often particular types of individual such as a virgin, knight, steward, or poor man, and various animals including greyhounds, frogs and owls, and objects including rings, brooches, and caskets. The symbolic meanings, drawn out particularly in the moral, correspond with conventional and often fundamental moral situations, generally drawn from biblical narratives such as the fight between good and evil, temptation by the devil, forgiveness and redemption, and the sacrifice of crucifixion. In different stories the same generic ‘figures’, are used to represent different aspects of the symbolic order, giving the reader a sense of the fluid symbolic meanings in what is ultimately quite a small pool of ‘figures’. There are numerous surviving versions of Gesta stories, in various languages. Most of the survivors are in Latin, with some French, German, and English texts. They all date between about 1400 and 1520, with some later editions seeking to reproduce such manuscripts for a wider audience.104 Here, it is the English versions that are studied. There are five surviving English Gesta texts, all dating from the fifteenth century, and one early printed version produced by Wynkyn de Worde in c. 1510.105 British Library Manuscript Harley 7333 is a large book from c. 1460–80, on good quality vellum with frequent decorative rubrication.106 It contains a collection of literature and poetry, including work by Lydgate and Chaucer, and 70 Gesta Romanorum tales.107 British Library Manuscript Additional 9066 is a moderately sized volume dating from c. 1450–1500, on parchment with some decorative rubrication, especially on Latin phrases. The first page was also extensively illuminated, probably in the later sixteenth century.108 It contains 46 stories from the Gesta Romanorum, with tales from Vitas Patrum.109 The Gloucester Cathedral manuscript, c. 1450 is now divided into three moderately sized books called numbers 22, 22 Add., and 42, and written on paper throughout,


with sparing rubrication.110 Gloucester Cathedral 22 and Add. 22 both contain sermons and manuscript, 42 contains 18 stories from the Gesta Romanorum. Oxford Balliol 354, otherwise known as ‘Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book’, c. 1500–30, has the distinctive thin shape of a ‘tradesman’s account book’, and contains literary extracts including prose, verse and poems alongside recipes and proverbs.111 This includes one story from the Gesta Romanorum together with some administrative details.112 Cambridge K.k.1.6, also known as ‘Eleanor Hull’s Book’ is a moderately sized quarto volume dating from c. 1475–1500.113 It contains various literary fictions and devotional texts, alongside 32 tales from the Gesta Romanorum and some devotional poems by Lydgate.114 The name ‘Alynore Hull’ is written into the text, claiming that she, ‘drowe out of Frensche all this before wreten in this lytyll booke’.115 The Gesta printed by Wynkyn de Worde in c. 1510 contains 43 stories. It survives in a unique copy, bound with two other printed books: The Way to the Holy Land, printed 1524, and The Histories of Italy by William Thomas, printed 1549.116 There are various different types of evidence to suggest that stories of the Gesta Romanorum were circulating in this period and available through borrowing, purchasing and other routes into the popular imagination. Thomas Hoccleve wrote a fictive commentary on his translation into English of two tales from the Gesta Romanorum.117 One is the tale of Jonathas, written using a copy delivered by his rhetorical ‘friend’;118 and the other is the tale of Jereslaus, translated as part of his apology for literary abuses to women.119 These fictions probably reflect common practice in modes of transmission. The Gesta text bequeathed to Cobham College by Thomas Stone was probably also available to the public as part of the parish lending library, being bound with religious and didactic material and listed in the inventory of the church goods at Cobham Collegiate Church. The entry translates as, ‘One book treating of difficult words throughout the entire lectionary and Missal, and one Pye, with the Gesta Romanorum.’120 Internal references in the Harley manuscript associate this book strongly with one of the pioneers of secular libraries, John Shirley.121 And, the production by Wynkyn de Worde of a printed version in c. 1510 indicates that his print house imagined this to be a popular collection for selling.122 Sermons were sites for the transmission of particular literatures into the popular imagination, as well as fulfilling a role vital for the rise of popular literacy.123 Internal evidence from several Gesta manuscripts, in Latin, English, and macaronic, indicates their use as sermon exempla.124 Gloucester provides


a specific example: We rede in gestis Romanorum that the olde tyme the pepyll of Rome were fallyn in to grete povett grete mysery & grete wrechedness ... so gostly to our purpose by these romanys that were in so grete dysesse may be undstode all unfeythefull pepyll to almygti god125 Analysis by hindsight The survival of a number of versions of particular Gesta stories allows detailed comparison of the contents of these stories and a consideration of the ways in which the symbolic language is used to produce meaning. On reading four different versions of a story, the narratives are clearly similar, with the same ‘figures’ in each version and with events following a similar course. These versions are therefore basically the same; however, over centuries the stories were passed down through different copying traditions and translations, for different purposes as the surviving manuscripts indicate, and this sometimes renders their texts dissimilar. A comparison of different versions uses the benefits of hindsight to assess how particular themes and modes of expression remain despite other differences in the narrative and its manuscript context. The persistence of certain narrative structures within the different versions of a story helps to elucidate the processes of understanding these texts that would have been used by a contemporary readership. The bare bones of this analysis are not given in their entirety here although a certain amount of detail is required to make the point.126 In doing this, bold type is used to indicate which words are used in both the narrative and the moral of a particular story; underlining is used to indicate the words that recur in either the story or the moral of several versions, bold and underlining is used to indicate words that recur in both stories and morals of several versions. There are two main themes that emerge from this comparative analysis as being particularly important in the formation of meanings, the first is the use of biblical references and the second is contemporary social morality. Biblical references One clear feature in Gesta stories is the presence of specific biblical themes, which require the use of particular words or phrases to recall them. For the reader, reference to biblical morality forms part of the intertextual process of reading these stories. Words that significantly call to mind this biblical theme are consistently maintained in all versions


with striking similarity, despite other textual differences. In some stories, the biblical theme is explicitly presented within the narrative of the story, as in the tale of Emperor Alexander and the son who saves his father. Here, the son begs to be condemned in the father’s place, using a strongly similar phrase in each version, ‘for love of him that died on cross grant me that I may die for my father’.127 In other tales, the biblical theme is only made explicit in the moral, rather than being actually introduced by the narrative’s ‘figures’.128 The story of Emperor Anselm provides an example that reveals more about how the technique of recalling biblical language is employed to interweave the narratives of both story and moral. This tale tells of the treacherous journey of the human soul (that of a girl) as it passes through the temptations of the world (a sea crossing) in search of the union (represented by matrimony) with Christ (the child born to the emperor). The girl is sent by her father (a formerly bellicose king, representing mankind) as a prospective bride for the long awaited son of the emperor. Her treacherous journey also includes being swallowed up by a whale (the devil). On her eventual arrival at the emperor’s court the girl is then put through a further test involving a common motif of a choice between three caskets.129 In this story, the significant words that recall the biblical theme are used in both the story narrative and the morality, in a way that helps to interweave these two sections. In each version the morality refers to the meaning of the whale episode in ways that echo the use of words in the story, as well as adding further biblical references. There are various examples of the interweaving technique in this story. In the description of the episode involving the storm and the whale, the story tells how the girl is placed on a ship to begin her journey to the emperor, where each version of the story refers to this event in relation to the reader’s Christian life, as follows: but then or thou come to the paleys of heven thou most go by a gret see of this world and in the ship of good lyfe130 The story goes on to recount the tempest in which all the ship’s crew except the girl drown. A whale follows but the girl makes a fire with a stone, which keeps the whale at a distance. Wynkyn embellishes this by adding that at 3 o’clock the tempest ceased. The girl becomes tired, with results told very similarly in all the versions: but abowte cockis crowe the mayde for gret vexation that she hadde with the tempest fell on slepe and in hire slepe the fire went out131


The girl is then swallowed by the whale, which she wounds by making a fire and using her knife. The whale comes to land whereupon a group of people attack it as they have heard the voice of the girl issuing from its belly. All the versions use some variation of the word smite to describe both the girl’s strikes with her knife and the people’s attack on the beached whale. Concerning how to combat the whale (devil), the instructional tone of the moral is similar in each version, also echoing some of the descriptive words used in the story narrative: and therefore let us smite fire of charity and of love for the stone of Christ which seyth Ego sum lapis angularis I am a corner stone and certenly while it is this the devil may not noye thee132 The repeated phrases and significant words occurring in all four versions of this story relate to biblical quotations and themes. Sometimes this is made explicit with the use of a biblical citation: in both the Harley and Wynkyn versions the quotation from which the stone theme is taken, for example, is given directly in Latin as ‘Ego sum lapis angularis’ and also translated. The corner-stone theme is a repeated motif in biblical narratives, referring to Christ’s position within the church. This occurs in Old Testament prophecies and in the New Testament’s narratives of Christ’s life told both during his time on earth and in the subsequent stories and letters of the apostles.133 In the Gesta this phrase is reported as being said by Christ, a device also used in the first letter of Peter.134 The use of the word ‘precious’ to describe the cornerstone in 1 Peter and Isaiah is perhaps alluded to in the Gesta story’s description of ‘merytory werks’ as precious stones. The importance of biblical referentiality in this moralising literature of exempla is hardly surprising. The example of the Anselm story shows how the story and moral of the Gesta tales work together, interweaving key words from a biblical passage into both narratives and embellishing this by increments, finally revealing the source in the moral. Hints as to the biblical roots of the Anselm story provided in the narrative with the use of words such as ‘stone’ are embellished and clarified in the moral, sometimes by directly quoting the biblical passage in Latin or by referring to a translation of this text, or alluding to this as a saying of Christ. Other biblical themes, however, appear to be left for the reader to puzzle over in all versions.135 The biblical knowledge assumed or encouraged for the reading of these stories strongly indicates the active process of intertextuality demanded of the reader as they make meanings. But this making of meaning discussed so far has been very


much sealed within the formal moral universe of Christian preaching and ideology. How might the reader’s own experiences creatively intersect with this process of making meaning? Contemporary social morality In some Gesta stories, it is a theme of contemporary social morality that seems to be responsible for the distinct textual similarities between versions. In these stories there also tends to be an underlying biblical theme. An example is found in the story of emperor Donatus.136 This story tells of a tyrant who took particular pieces off three statues, these were a ring, a beard and a mantel (representing poor people’s goods, purchased goods, and honour). The reason he is condemned revolves around these three stolen items. Each statue represents a certain social group, generally poor men, rich men and mighty men. The underlying theme is about the abuse of power, and the use of inappropriate power by the tyrant. Textual similarities in the different versions of this story indicate that priority appears to have been given to maintaining the integrity of the descriptions of the social order. In each version the tyrant is defined very similarly using words like ‘iusticis sherrevis and bailifs’137 or ‘justyces, sheryfes baylyes catchepolles and all other officers whiche take away fro poore men’.138 In each of the Donatus texts, similar words are used to describe the tyrant’s justification for these actions. He claims that the ring was offered to him as a gift, that he removed the beard because (in his heart) he believed this returned the statue to a more appropriate appearance, like his father, and that the gold mantel was removed because (in his heart) he believed it was either too cold or too hot. Each of these reasons connects with the social tone of the moral: that the bailiff-type claims that poor people have offered them their goods; that as soon as a poor man has an opportunity to increase his family’s wealth beyond previous generations this is taken away by bailiff-types; and that a man given office by virtue of his wisdom will be stripped of that office by bailiff-types who, out of jealousy, will claim the wise man’s ignorance. This is a political message, which comments on contemporary social order. And perhaps from the time of the Wynkyn print in the sixteenth century, this commentary also begins to be self-consciously concerned with a morality of a medieval past. But this message is also, to a large degree, a controlled and formal view of contemporary morality perhaps cultivated by the authorities of the church. Where is the space for the reader’s daily life, views, and experiences to interact with this closed sphere of moral meanings? This is a question that renewed interest in


reception studies has made it fashionable to mention, although possible answers are not usually addressed with any detailed consideration of real readers.139 Analysis of contemporary intertextuality This examination of the theme of contemporary social morality may be extended to make a more detailed consideration of reading experience which examines the issues of integration between the daily life of renaissance readers, their engagement with other kinds of texts, their own moral views, and the views promulgated by the Gesta stories. And this kind of analysis moves away from the comparison of versions which hindsight allows, in order to consider the ways in which symbolic meaning is formed and understood in different kinds of literatures; and the inherent contradictions that this intertextuality entails. Interestingly, many Gesta stories use issues of textuality as a means for making their symbolism; this includes uses of administrative literatures as well as the appropriately didactic issue of learning to read and write. One example that is intensely concerned with text and particularly language is the story of the ‘moral lesson drawn from grammar’, which uses the Latin cases, as taught in the popular Latin grammar text known as the Donatus.140 Administrative literature is also used in Gesta stories to convey ideas from Christian theology concerning provisions for death: for example, books for recording good and bad deeds are used in the story of a knight on his deathbed who was made to read of his actions that had been entered into two books. The good deeds book was ‘litill’ and the bad deeds book was ‘so grete, that hym thought it was inpossible any man for to bere it’.141 One main purpose of that story is to teach that confession even on a deathbed can resolve such imbalances; and there are other deathbed stories along similar lines. The last will and testament also receives some direct consideration in the Gesta as in ‘the testament of the hare’, which connects the Gesta stories with a wider genre of texts that satirise the last will and testament in this period, and which deserve some detailed consideration.142 All of these examples, and there are many more, help to confirm the integration of these moral stories with uses of administrative literature in this period; and the integration therefore of all these issues of textuality in the popular imagination. The symbolism of worldly goods One specific example provides a further insight into the workings of textuality in the popular imagination. Here I am taking as an illustrative example the symbolism of worldly goods as expressed through one


Gesta story and also through the last will and testament. There are many other possible examples to take using other themes raised in the Gesta morality, and perhaps other types of administrative literatures. The symbolism of goods as presented in the Anselm story is interesting if compared with the symbolism of goods as represented by the last will and testament texts of real individuals.143 In this most significant text produced in consideration of death, one might expect to find mention of the formal Christian theology of worldly goods and more particularly the requirement to be rid of them in order to proceed. The symbolism of the three caskets that forms the final test of the girl in the Anselm story appears to employ the Christian symbolism concerning the morality of goods.144 Here, in order to confirm finally that the girl is a suitable bride for his son, the emperor required her to choose between three vessels. The first which is filled with dead bones is made of gold and has the inscription, ‘they that choose me shull fynde in me that thei deservyd’; the second which is full of earth, is made of silver and precious stones with the inscription, ‘thei that choosith me shull fynde in me that nature and kynde desireth’; the third which is full of precious stones is made of lead, with the inscription, ‘they that choose me shull fynde in me that god hath disposed’. Having invoked God’s help, the girl does of course choose the third vessel and marries the emperor’s son. In the moral to this story, the dead bones contained in the first vessel are likened to ‘myghty men and riche men of this worlde that hath golde and goodis shynyngly and havith hire werkis darke and deede by dedly synnys’. The moral adds the warning that if the reader were to choose such a vessel he would go to hell. And there is also an additional warning relating to commemorative practices: And suche may be likened to faire sepulcris the whiche ben made faire withoute and rially ornyd with precious clothing of silke and palle, And with inne ben nothing but deede bonys The second vessel is likened to mighty judges whose words shine on earth but who ‘shall not in day of doome ben more worth than worrmys or ells worse’. Finally, the third vessel is likened to: [the] simple life which the chosyn childryn of god chosith that they mowe be weddid to ihesu crist in a simple Abyt and such fyndeth and havith precious stonys scil. merytory works


Very occasionally, there is explicit mention of this Christian theology of the detrimental effect of worldly goods on spirituality in a testament, as in the case of the special preamble of John Isbury.145 However, as the analyses of inheritance, property, and material goods in previous chapters have shown, the last will and testament is not only a vehicle for making spiritual statements about identity (mainly in the testament) but also the instrument for the post mortem inheritance of what are sometimes substantial amounts of property, money and goods. My discussion of the description of worldly goods in Chapter 4 indicated that people of the period c. 1450–1560 strongly valued material goods of all different economic values, and that one way of expressing this value was through detailed descriptions of style and use. The two symbolic spheres examined here (the Anselm story and the last will and testament) both use worldly goods to make meaning but in a contradictory manner. This contradiction points to some interesting inherent tensions for the reader in his or her process of making meaning from moral literature. This is a process that necessarily requires the reader to examine the morality of this literature against other aspects of daily life; one aspect of daily life being the use and attribution of value to worldly goods, a special situation of which is seen in the last will and testament. In many ways the tension itself (that between the Christian theology of worldly goods and the practical business of real life and inheritance) is not a surprise. The reader holds in his/her understanding numerous differing sets of moral and symbolic spheres of meaning, some of which as in this case may be directly contradictory. And s/he must negotiate between these according to the situation. The moral constructions of the Anselm story are also entirely conventional and, indeed, what might be termed archetypal. But stopping to ask questions about the ways of making meaning from these conflicting moral spheres by a reader helps to elucidate aspects of reading practice. And this elucidation indicates that the modes through which certain kinds of symbolism are conveyed are integrated, even if their meanings differ or appear contradictory. One example of such integrated modes of expressing symbolic meaning is found in the uses of inscription. The role of inscription in the addition of value to what are already symbolically charged goods is discussed in Chapter 4. It is noticeable that in the Anselm story, inscription (the ‘superscription’ on the three caskets) also plays an important part in emphasising and signalling moral symbolism. What this means, in effect, is that the same modes of expression are used to convey differing sets of symbolic meanings (concerning worldly goods in this instance)


in the imagination of the reader living in the early English renaissance. These modes of expression do not in themselves hold symbolic meaning, and indeed any meaning such inscriptions do have is entirely dependent on the particular generic and textual context in which they are used. I have suggested that there exists in the reader’s imagination numerous spheres of differing symbolic meaning; and that the modes of expression for such symbolism, such as inscription, can be the same for entirely different sets of symbolism. The modes of expression (empty of meaning in themselves) might therefore be understood to move fluidly between differing spheres in the reader’s imagination. It is precisely because they are the same that the reader is enabled to use these modes to compare and assess the different spheres of symbolic meaning.

Conclusion There is plentiful evidence to indicate that books and texts were available for entry into the creative imaginations of ordinary people in the early English renaissance. Books of religious and moral instruction may have been among the most widely available for reading in this period, and one important site of availability was the public space of the parish church. Access to this reading matter could take a number of forms of ownership and borrowing, including having possession of the physical object itself, reading from a book kept in a public place, and the personal memorisation of a publicly available text for private use. The various possibilities for borrowing, owning and using text in popular culture therefore make problematic any distinctions between public and private spheres of textuality. Although useful for assessing reading situations, evidence for book ownership or access to books is not in itself evidence for reading. However, the very ephemeral process of reading may be investigated using various methods for the detailed analysis of manuscript and printed books from this period. And, the post-reception centred approach taken in this chapter reinvigorates the possibilities for investigating reading practice through the analysis of versions of the texts themselves, alongside the apparently more tangible evidence for reading provided by annotation. To pursue investigating the creative process of reading, it is necessary to consider a broad spectrum of textual encounters available to the ordinary reader of this period. This is because the meanings of different kinds of texts are produced through a reciprocal process where one kind


of writing, such as the moral literature of the Gesta may mediate the meaning of another, such as the administrative literature of the last will and testament. But in considering that broader spectrum, there naturally emerge contradictions between the numerous spheres of differing symbolic meaning that exist at any moment in a reader’s imagination. The differences and contradictions between these spheres, however, actually elucidate aspects of the process by which meaning is construed. In the example of attitudes to worldly goods for example, the process of comparison necessarily involves a negotiation between two separate and sometimes contradictory spheres of symbolism; one represented by the administration of worldly goods in the last will and testament, and the other represented by the conventional Christian morality constructed through the Gesta story. In terms of reading practice, what this comparison reveals is how the apparently closed structure of the Christian theology of Gesta stories necessarily becomes opened during the reader’s process of conceptualisation, as other aspects of a reader’s imaginative world are encompassed in the creative process of making meaning. In the example of the morality of possessions, the obstacle to spiritual advancement presented by worldly goods (as expressed through the Anselm story) is measured, through the vehicle of inscription, against the morality of worldly goods as being essential for family advancement (as expressed through the last will and testament). In this process of imaginative comparison, meanings become modified. An innovation of meaning occurs during this process of conceptualisation. This is part of the process of making meaning from literature. Cultural creativity requires such innovations. Inscription, in this instance, is therefore a mode of expression used for the enactment of cultural creativity.

8 Conclusions

This is an ethnography of cultural creativity in the period c. 1450–1560 and also an intervention into the practice of cultural history. It is all about the cultural process of creativity, and asks questions such as: How did people go about perceiving the world? What structures were available for formulating and reassessing perception and experience? How were these structures used? I address these questions by exploring the ways in which people creatively used and appropriated the ‘structures of representation’ in written text in order to express, reassess, and alter their ideas about identity and society. There was a broad spectrum of possibilities for expressing cultural creativity using text, ranging from the relatively mundane to the extraordinary. In general, culturally creative acts are those that involve innovation in the formation of ideas and practices. Some people were more distinctive or unusual in their expressive practices than others, which indicates that there were in this society some significantly creative individuals who were active agents of cultural change. There were many sites available for the practice of cultural creativity through the use of text for people living in the period c. 1450–1560. In this book I have chosen to examine five sites of creativity: inheritance strategies, personal possessions and their meanings, the daily fashioning of identity, attitudes to commemoration after death, and the imaginative activity of reading. This selection has been guided by the plentiful survival of particular types of textual evidence. Other literatures that survive in abundance such as deposition and conduct literatures may provide other sites of creative practice. And material objects such as seals and signets would provide another range of possibilities. Future examinations of these would only benefit the development of this field. 164

Conclusions 165

The examination of textual evidence throughout this book itself signals the nature of my response to the current crisis of interpretation in cultural history. I have sought to excavate contemporary perception and experience using a method of interpreting textual evidence which denies that there are any certainties provided by hard material or empirical facts about what such evidence contains. I begin from an understanding that there does exist a crisis of interpretation.1 But I nevertheless wish to refute the tendency to address this crisis, which is also considered to be a crisis of ‘truth’, by denying the possibility of reconstructing (however partially) the past.2 My denial of any ‘certainties’ contained in textual evidence is not a theoretically highly-strung denial of the existence of reality, but rather an appeal for a more subtle approach to textuality in the reconstruction of cultural process. This approach seeks to understand the empirical detail provided by textual evidence in the context of the modes of expression and representation in which such detail occurs. And furthermore, my intention has been to give voice to the individuals who themselves produced or used these written texts, by seeking to understand how they manipulated the modes of expression and representation available to them, how such manipulation affected or influenced their conceptions of the world, what those conceptions might be, and how approaching the textual evidence in this way may be used to analyse experiences and perceptions. I use detailed evidence to examine experience and contemporary perception. This forms part of the new direction that the history of popular culture is taking, which is also defined by my attention to practice rather than theory.3 My concern is with the practices of people in their uses of text (such as the construction of the last will and testament and the imaginative activity of reading), rather than with the theories about the uses of text provided by various canonical literatures. There are, however, some important issues about levels of theorisation emerging from this book. For example, my way of approaching the last will and testament as a ritualised text is to see it as at the interchange between theoretical and practical levels of symbolism: I have shown how people ‘theorised’ their understanding of property, how they theorised the consumption of goods through the attribution of value as they made choices about the symbolism of heirlooms, and how they deconstructed and then reconstructed the idea of performance. So while this book is about the practices of non-élite individuals in the early English renaissance, it is also about the methods of theorisation used in popular culture, and the ways that such theorisation affected practice, and affected the experiences of practice.


I propose that individual expression is significant for understanding cultural process.4 Any reconstruction of the past is necessarily made up of a collection of juxtaposed details from fragmentary evidence; there is no seamless narrative of the past and any grand narrative is constructed from the interpretation and experience of many small events and evidences. Throughout this book I have endeavoured to show how the many single voices of these fragments – voices socially embedded within very distinct cultural practices – are expressive of popular experience. This attention to the single voice is implicitly critical of approaches that tend to look to the larger-scale dynamics of exploitation between social groups and sub-groups (or classes) in order to understand cultural change.5 Rather than the ‘prime movers’ of Marxist analysis, I tend to borrow from the vocabulary of the Annales School, which looks to conjunctures of factors. But I use the idea of conjoncture within a small-scale setting not the large-scale series of evidence over long chronological periods for which some Annales analyses are known.6 The construction of overarching narratives of perception and experience is problematic. In order to understand further aspects of large-scale cultural change it is necessary to examine the small-scale events and practices by which change is experienced. The creative appropriation and manipulation of the structures of representation in text enabled people of the early English renaissance to represent and express smallscale changes. This creative activity involved the negotiation of different types of linguistic detail – qualitative description, personal choice, preferences within legal discourse – as well as the imaginative activity of making meaning from literary text. It is by close examination of the detail of this evidence that the nature of cultural change is revealed. An underlying theme throughout this book is the issue of ‘change’. This reflects a long tradition in which the period covered by this book has been seen as a transitional phase that signals the waning of the ‘Medieval’ and the beginning of the ‘Early Modern’.7 The idea of wholesale waning is an inappropriately overarching theory of progress and change that has in part also been stimulated by the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism.8 But it has also been encouraged by now outdated but remarkably persistent understandings and misunderstandings of nineteenth-century views about the emergence of individualism during ‘Renaissance’.9 Part of my critique of traditional attitudes to the idea of changing society is connected with the progressive view, which saw periods such as ‘Renaissance’ (or ‘Enlightenment’) as particularly significant for a new development in the sophistication of the individual.10 The extent of the possibilities for individual fashioning of identity in

Conclusions 167

death and life in the period c. 1450–1560, for example, indicates the many possibilities for the use of formulaic and conventional structures of representation in the highly individualised and self-conscious construction and display of personhood. The focus, throughout this book, on issues of personal choice and individual identity therefore extends the critique of attitudes to this period in which the individuality of the non-élite is still consistently ignored. The tendency to see the chronological period of c. 1450–1560 as solely devoted to being transitional has of course been questioned.11 However, there is nothing in this book denying that this was a period experiencing particularly significant transitions and changes.12 Indeed my reassessment of change is in many ways predicated on the existence of the distinct experiences and responses of people living in a society and economy experiencing rapid changes resulting from a conjuncture of long, medium and short-term effects. One particularly relevant area in which this period is distinct as a transitional phase is in its rising levels of literacy at the level of popular culture, which in many ways signalled the early development of the mass reading public of the eighteenth century.13 Evidence for educational provision across the period c. 1100–1700 attests to this, as does the survival of more low quality manuscript books and cheap printed books, and the increased availability of vernacular translations, as well as the development of the widespread usage of the vernacular in administrative and religious text.14 In the early English renaissance, the imaginative activity of reading and using text therefore forms a very particular aspect of the possibilities for cultural creativity. The uses of a whole spectrum of texts – administrative, fictive, devotional – may be seen as of distinct importance in this period when perceptions and understandings of the role of text and textual culture were in transition. Different levels of change have been considered before.15 But, this book fundamentally questions how and at what level change should be understood and recovered. If even medium-term change is to be understood, especially from the perspective of those experiencing the changes, then it is necessary to look to the small-scale of cultural process. This approach therefore radically reassesses the issue of change, because the textual evidence for appropriative acts during the use and manipulation of text indicates the perpetual and continuous activity of redefinition in which individual identity and experience was constituted. The case made in Chapter 3, for example, is that rather than seeking to find evidence for instances of social advancement in particular


locations or distinct changes in the concepts of status through social mobility, it is more appropriate to examine the continuous social adaptations through which structures such as kinship and inheritance are defined. The use of testamentary representations of ‘property’ actually helped people of this period to theorise their own understandings of built space in a way that allowed their negotiation between the issues of permanence and transience to which they would be sensitised when arranging the inter-generational transmission of property. This chapter and the whole book therefore propose a radically different way of interpreting change by suggesting that the culturally creative acts of individuals are crucial to producing, effecting, and perceiving social, economic, and cultural change. Throughout the book, the perception and the production of change has been assessed by examining detailed evidence of textual discourses. The descriptive details of this textual evidence are not add-on extras to make a dull narrative more colourful. The detailed evidence for choices about the descriptions used for the attribution of value to heirloom goods in Chapter 4, for example, are crucial to an analysis of contemporary experiences of luxury and lifestyle. The perceptions of possessions recovered from the last will and testament provide a distinct situation for evaluating goods. So the issue of value in that chapter is not the same as the material realities of valuation associated with wealth and standard of living. However, any choices about heirloom goods in this period should be seen in the broader context of perceptions of goods more generally. The perception of heirloom goods across the period c. 1450–1560 as expressed through detailed description, therefore, has direct relevance to perceptions of goods more generally in the climate of new opportunities for the ownership and consumption of goods in this period.16 As such, the relatively plentiful evidence for perceptions of heirloom goods should not be ignored in analyses of consumption patterns in this period. The structures of representation in textual evidences should be understood as ‘structures of process’. This phrase is a way of describing the small-scale changes that are analysed throughout the book. Textual evidence shows that small-scale change is produced at the level of individual, family, and social networks. And while I would not wish to deny the existence of large-scale changes over centuries or decades, one important conclusion of this book is that in order to better understand the bigger social, economic and cultural changes, it is necessary to examine how small-scale changes occur. This is especially the case if the experience and perception of such change is to be understood. The textual structures

Conclusions 169

of representation employed by individuals in the early English renaissance in order to effect change were crucial building blocks for large-scale cultural change. These structures are therefore essentially fluid. They are also particular to the structures of understanding available in the period c. 1450–1560. In the unresolved tension between an ethnographic approach and the requirement for geographical coverage, there emerges an important issue concerning the structures of process for cultural creativity. Partly by virtue of its formulaic quality, the textual evidence used here shows the existence of meta-structures for the representation of ideas and experiences. These transcend geographical boundaries. At the same time, however, the structures of representation employed through the last will and testament or in the imaginative activity of reading are manipulated at the level of personal choice during the formation of a symbolic sphere of meaning. The ways of representing property and social adaptation, for example, are dependent on the legal discourses and rhetoric associated with the last will and testament in combination with parlances of individual preference based on personal choice and pragmatic situation. Despite the strong importance of geographical location in the perception of property, these descriptions are not entirely dependent on this factor. Similarly, the ‘modes of expression’ used for the attribution of value to possessions are not dependent on precise geographical location. In the last will and testament, they are certainly dependent on the distinct situation presented by the production of heirlooms, but at all times the attribution of value (or in other words the formation of symbolic meanings) is inherently dependent on the symbolic sphere construed through personal choice and the pragmatics of what is available. The formation of the meanings of goods, property, morality and so on is personal and is also formed from within a set of possible categories based on the historical specificity of perception and experience. There remains the question, however, of how distinct the cultural dynamics are in the ‘metropolitan hinterland’. Do other places exhibit a similar range of possible sites for cultural creativity? There are many different spheres of symbolic meaning relating to different aspects of daily life. One example of this is found in the differences between attributing meaning to the worldly goods used for the transmission of wealth, and the morality of worldly goods as expressed through the Christian theology of moral literature. But significantly these spheres of symbolism may use similar modes of expression. The status of meaning in modes of expression should therefore be questioned. Numerous spheres of differing symbolic meaning existed


at any one time in a person’s imagination. The same modes of expression were used for these different situations of making meaning, which indicates that the modes of expression do not in themselves hold absolute meaning. The meaning of a precise instance of inscription, for example, is entirely dependent on the particular generic and textual context in which it is employed while also being open to personal interpretation. Modes of expression (empty of meaning in themselves) might therefore be understood to move fluidly between differing spheres of meaning in the individual’s imagination. It is precisely because they are the same that they may be used in the creative activity of comparing and assessing meaning. This book argues that while the construction of overarching narratives of perception and experience is problematic, the reconstruction of contemporary perception and experience is fundamentally important to understanding the process of cultural change in the period c. 1450–1560. I propose a method for understanding further the nature and experience of change in the early English renaissance, which adds colour to the historiography of this period. This colour is not superfluous material added by a cultural or textual approach to the real stuff of history. Instead, the colour of detailed description and the analysis of it are fundamentally important for further understanding popular experience. This crucially important ‘colour’ is available in the detailed evidence for creative imagination and personal perception in the practices and ideas explored throughout this book. A focus on the lives of the non-élite is not new. Indeed the whole of the twentieth century saw a shift towards such subjects.17 But what is different here is the focus on textual culture and cultural process. One significant contribution of this book, therefore, is to make more possible the reconstruction of contemporary perception and experience. This reconstruction may then take its place alongside more traditional approaches to the study of the past, and make for a richer description of cultural change.

Notes 1

Reconstructing Perception and Experience I: Evidence

1. Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (London: Arnold, 2000), p. 203, ‘Cultural History and the history of intellectual traditions ... provide insights into the way the world is experienced.’ 2. See Chapter 2. 3. Jordanova, History, pp. 91 and 108. 4. Jordanova, History, p. 109. 5. Keith Jenkins, Refiguring History: New Thoughts on an Old Discipline (London, New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 7; also, Keith Jenkins, Re-thinking History, 2nd edn, with a new preface and conversation with the author by Alun Munslow, first published in 1991 (London, New York: Routledge, 2003). 6. Jenkins, Refiguring History, p. 2. 7. Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. L.G. Cochrane (Cambridge, Oxford: Polity Press with Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 1–3, for a consideration of the fermentation between the Annales School, social science, and l’historie des mentalités. 8. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 4. 9. Michel Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, trans. E. O’Flaherty, first published in French in 1982 (Cambridge: Polity Press with Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 2, for a discussion of the difficulty of defining mentality; also Jordanova, History, p. 214. 10. Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, p. 6; see also Chartier, Cultural History, pp. 27–8. 11. Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (London: Faber, 1990), p. 213. See also, Keith Thomas, ‘History and Anthropology’, P&P, 24 (1963), 3–24. 12. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 5. 13. Darnton, Kiss of Lamourette, pp. 195 and 213. 14. For a consideration of such approaches, see John L. Watts, ‘Conclusion’, in The End of the Middle Ages? England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, The Fifteenth Century Series, 6, ed. J.L. Watts (Stroud: Sutton, 1988), pp. 266–7. 15. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge: CUP, 1977). 16. See, for example, Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. S. Randall (Berkeley, London: UCalP, 1984). 17. Ferdinand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism 15th–18th Century, Vol. 1, trans. S. Reynolds (London: Phoenix Press, 1981). 18. Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 7 and 16, for the proposition that: ‘Because today we doubt these empiricist notions of certainty, veracity, and a socially and morally independent standpoint, there is no more history in the traditional realist sense ...’ 171

172 Notes 19. Munslow, Deconstructing History, pp. 15 and 20, for Geoffrey Elton’s idea that historians should engage in ‘rational, independent, and impartial investigation’. 20. G.R. Elton, The Practice of History (London: Collins, 1967), pp. 72–3. 21. Munslow, Deconstructing History, p. 22. 22. Munslow, Deconstructing History, p. 20. 23. Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating our Pasts: the Social Construction of Oral History, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 22 (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), Chapter 5, esp. p. 85 for a critique of Marc Bloch’s ‘objective’ approach to interpretation which Tonkin likens to thoughts being ‘preserved through time like flies in amber’. 24. Munslow, Deconstructing History, p. 21. 25. See, for example, the three categories proposed in Munslow, Deconstructing History, pp. 18 and 19–26. On ‘History’ and ‘Textual Criticism’ in relation to new historicism see, Lisa Jardine, Reading Shakespeare Historically (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 15. 26. For example, Jenkins, Refiguring History, p. 69; also, Jenkins, Re-thinking History, pp. 34–9 and 69. 27. Jenkins, Refiguring History, pp. 5 and 45. See also Munslow, Deconstructing History, pp. 32–4 on White and Foucault as deconstructionist historians. 28. Jenkins, Re-thinking History, pp. 46–7. 29. Thomas, ‘History and Anthropology’, 5. Seminal works by Keith Thomas are also influential on the approach taken in this book, for example, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 30. Thomas, ‘History and Anthropology’, 6. 31. See, for example, Jordanova, History, p. 203. 32. David Aers, ‘A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists’, in Culture and History 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, ed. D. Aers (New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), pp. 178 ff., for a related discussion of ‘systematic amnesia’ in ‘new criticism’, ‘cultural materialism’ and ‘new historicism’. 33. James Clifford, ‘Introduction’, in Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. J. Clifford and G. Marcus (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 1986), p. 6. 34. Jardine, Reading Shakespeare Historically, p. 17. 35. Clifford, Writing Culture, pp. 11 and 14. 36. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, first published in 1973 (London: Fontana Press), p. 7. 37. Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 19 and 20. 38. Clifford, Writing Culture, p. 12. One example is the ‘dialogic encounter’, see Johannes Fabian (with narrative and paintings by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu), Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: UCalP, 1996). 39. Clifford, Writing Culture, p. 15. 40. Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley, Re-constructing Archaeology. Theory and Practice (London, New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 254–6; Ian Hodder, The Archaeological Process: an Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 80–104, for ‘reflexivity’ and material culture.

Notes 173 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54.

55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

Clifford, Writing Culture, pp. 15 and 22. Clifford, Writing Culture, p. 1. ‘Feeding London’, Metropolitan History Centre, IHR, Project Report 1998. See Chapter 2 on relationships between places and cultural creativity. Thomas, ‘History and Anthropology’, 7. Ibid., 9. Munslow, Deconstructing History, pp. 10–13. Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, pp. 232–45; p. 239 on case studies and the ‘rediscovery of individual experiences’. Clifford, Writing Culture, p. 25. Darnton, Kiss of Lamourette, p. 260, on the problems of Richard Cobb’s insistence on the uniqueness of his cases. Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practising New Historicism (Chicago and London: UChP, 2000), p. 49, for this misunderstanding. On microhistory, see Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory: Two or Three Things I Know About It’, Critical Inquiry, 20(1) (1993), 10–35. For Annales approaches to private life, see for example, Revelations of the Medieval World, ed. G. Duby, and Passions of the Renaissance, ed. Roger Chartier, Vols 2 and 3 in the series, A History of Private Life, 5 Vols, gen. eds P. Ariès and G. Duby (Cambridge, Mass., London: HUP, 1988). Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth-century Miller, trans. J. and A. Tredeschi (London, Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981). See, for example, Eileen Power, Medieval People, first published in 1924 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1951) for an early example. For Marxist approaches see Rodney H. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975); also Rodney H. Hilton, ‘Lords, Burgesses and Hucksters’, P&P, 97 (1982), 3–15; Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520, 2nd edn (Cambridge: CUP, 1989); Zvi Razi, ‘Family, Land and the Village Community in Later Medieval England’, P&P, 93 (1981), 3–36; for a controversial approach, see Allan Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978). For new historicism and the individual, see Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practising, pp. 9–10, 16, 20, 49–50, 60. Paul Braunstein, ‘Toward Intimacy: the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in Revelations of the Medieval World, p. 536, for the temptation of abolishing a ‘distance that stands between us and a lost world’. Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practising, p. 16. Jardine, Reading Shakespeare Historically, p. 6. I would like to thank Felicity Riddy for a recent discussion regarding the issue of fragmentary evidences. For the idea that, ‘the ways in which an individual or a group appropriates an intellectual theme or a cultural form are more important than the statistical distribution of that theme or form’, see Chartier, Cultural History, pp. 5 and 35; see also Ginzburg, Cheese and Worms, p. xxii; Darnton, Kiss of Lamourette, pp. 195 and 213. Darnton, Kiss of Lamourette, p. 277. Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practising, p. 50.

174 Notes 62. Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practising, p. 81; and David Aers, ‘New Historicism and the Eucharist’, JMEMS, 33(3) (2003), 241–59, especially 255–6, for a critique of Gallagher and Greenblatt’s use of inappropriate ‘binaries’ for analysis. 63. Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practising, p. 81. 64. Peter Burke, ‘Res et Verba: Conspicuous Consumption in the Early Modern World’, in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. J. Brewer and R. Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 150–1; The Age of Transition: the Archaeology of English Culture, 1400–1600, ed. D. Gaimster and P. Stamper (Oxford: Oxbow, 1997), p. x; Hodder, Archaeological Process, p. 131. 65. Sarah Pearson, Medieval Houses of Kent: an Historical Analysis (London: HMSO, 1994), p. 1; Matthew Johnson, Behind the Castle Gate: From Medieval to Renaissance (London, New York: Routledge, 2002); and for criticism of Dyer’s attitude, see Matthew Johnson, ‘Review of Everyday Life in Medieval England, C. Dyer’, Medieval Archaeology, 40 (1996), 354–6, 355. 66. Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1377, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). Other studies include, Jo-Ann HoeppnerMoran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1340–1548: Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton: PUP, 1985); Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1530, ed. Peter Biller and Anne Hudson (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1994); also, J.W. Adamson, ‘The Extent of Literacy in England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, The Library, 4th Series, 10 (1930), 162–93. 67. For a discussion of these concepts, see Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 110–25. 68. See Chapter 7. 69. LMA ACS 2/84. 70. On the need to examine the ‘mental world’ of the non-élite to understand their choices of literature, see Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-century England (Cambridge: CUP, 1981); on the interactions between the more élite literary textual culture and the oral culture of popular literature, see Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, c. 1500–1700 (Oxford: OUP, 2000); and Ian Green, Print and Protestantism (Oxford: OUP, 2000), esp. 554. 71. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/258. 72. NA PROB 11/18/33/252. 73. NA PROB 11/32/10/ 78v–9r. 74. On the quantitative analysis of inventories, see Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660–1760 (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 2–5; Anton Schuurman and Gabriel Pastoor, ‘From Probate Inventories to a Data Set for the History of Consumer Society’, History and Computing, 7(3) (1995), 126–34. On lay subsidies, see for example, W.G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: the England of Henry VIII 1500–1547 (London, New York: Longman, 1976), pp. 22–4 and 46; Marjorie K. McIntosh, A Community Transformed: the Manor and Liberty of Havering, 1500–1620 (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), pp. 165–75; John Sheail, The Regional Distribution of Wealth in England as Indicated in the 1524–5 Lay Subsidy Returns, List and Index Society Special Series, 28 and 29, R.W. Hoyle ed. as Vols 1 and 2 (1998).

Notes 175 75. On the importance of ‘social variability’ over quantity, see Ginzburg, Cheese and Worms, p. xxii. Also, Judith Ford, ‘A Study of Wills and Will-making in the Period 1500–1533 with Special Reference to the Copy Wills in the Probate Registers of the Archdeacon of Bedford 1483–1533’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Open University, 1992), p. 224 for her conclusion that ‘the frequently simplistic view of the Canonical will taken by many historians and the reduction of information derived from wills into a statistical form has sometimes led to the distortion and misuse of the evidence which this abundant documentary source may contain’. 76. Robert G.A. Lutton, ‘Heterodox and Orthodox Piety in Tenterden, 1420–1540’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1997); Mark Merry, ‘The Construction and Representation of Urban Identities: Public and Private Lives in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1998); Paul Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular Religion and Devotional Reading in Late Medieval Dartford and West Kent’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1998). 77. Lutton, ‘Heterodox and Orthodox Piety’, p. 9; also, Robert G.A. Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England: Reconstructing Piety, Royal Historical Society Studies in History (London: forthcoming 2006). 78. See Chapter 2 for further discussion of issues associated with ‘appropriation’. 79. Natalie Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France (Oxford: OUP, 1987), p. 4. 80. Ibid., p. 4. 81. Ibid., p. 5. 82. See Chapter 2. 83. Andrew F. Butcher, ‘The Functions of Script in the Speech Community of a Late Medieval Town, c. 1300–1550’, in The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, ed. A. Walsham and J. Crick (Cambridge: CUP, 2004). 84. NA PROB 11/21/15/119 (codicil) 11/21/27/ 208 (will). 85. Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1974), pp. 55–6; Lutton, ‘Heterodox and Orthodox Piety’, p. 9; and for a negative view of using wills to assess religiosity, Christopher Marsh, ‘In the Name of God? Will-making and Faith in Early Modern England’, in The Records of the Nation, ed. G.H. Martin, and P. Spufford (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990), esp. 216–8, pace 248–9. 86. Clive Burgess, ‘ “For the Increase of Divine Service”: Chantries in the Parish in Late Medieval Bristol’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), 46–7. 87. Janet Hoskins, Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives (New York, London: Longman, 1998), pp. 7–9. 88. NA PROB 11/27/5/ 222. 89. LMA ACS 4/172. 90. LMA ACS 5/224. 91. LMA ACS 5/76. 92. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/363. The shrine is presumably ‘Wilsnack’. 93. See Chapter 2 for further discussion of the construction of identity and ethnicity as a self-conscious manipulation of multifaceted elements. 94. On the practical application of Derridean theory, see David Aers, ‘Introduction’, Culture and History, p. 3.

176 Notes 95. David Parkin, ‘Ritual as Spatial Direction and Bodily Division’, in Understanding Rituals, ed. D. de Coppet (New York, London: Routledge, 1992), p. 23. 96. See Chapter 2 for further discussion on issues of contextualising cultural representation and the performance of identity. 97. Michelle Rosaldo, ‘I Have Nothing to Hide: the Language of Ilongot Oratory’, Language in Society, 3 (1973), esp. 194; also, Don Kulick, Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), pp. 19–25; and Watts, End of the Middle Ages?, pp. 266–7, on the subject of Jean-Phillippe Genet’s (quantitative) analysis of changing political language.

2 Reconstructing Perception and Experience II: Vocabularies 1. On the uses of anthropological approaches in general, see Keith Thomas, ‘History and Anthropology’, P&P, 24 (1963), 3–24, esp. 10. 2. Kurath & Kuhn, E/F, ffechewes is probably ‘ficheux’, or the fur of the pole cat. 3. Kurath & Kuhn, C/D, cauntelles is probably ‘cantels’, defined as chunks, pieces, or a share of the whole. 4. Kurath & Kuhn, E/F, ffoyne is probably ‘foin’, or the fur of the beech marten. 5. See Chapter 1 on interpreting the last will and testament. 6. Frederik Barth, Process and Form in Social Life, Selected Essays of Frederik Barth, Vol. 1 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 198–227. 7. On formulaic construction see Chapter 1. 8. The spelling of this name varies throughout the text. Internal evidence strongly suggests the two names refer to one daughter. 9. On the self-conscious construction of identity see, Anthony P. Cohen, Self Consciousness: an Alternative Anthropology of Identity (London, New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 1–17, especially p. 11 and pp. 14–15; Anthony P. Cohen, The Symbolic Construction of Community (Chichester: Ellis Horwood, 1985). Using this approach see, for example, Mark L. Merry, ‘The Construction and Representation of Urban Identities: Public and Private Lives in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1998), pp. 32–4. 10. Marilyn Strathern, The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia (Berkeley: UCalP, 1988), p. 8. 11. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans R. Nice (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1977), p. 78. 12. On Bourdieu’s regression from the ‘implications of his otherwise excellent stress on praxis to the old individual/social dichotomy’, see Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating our Pasts: the Social Construction of Oral History, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 22 (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), p. 107. 13. Cohen, Self Consciousness, p. 10. 14. See Han Vermeulen and Cora Govers, ‘Introduction’, and Anthony P. Cohen, ‘Boundaries of Consciousness, Consciousness of Boundaries. Critical Questions for Anthropology’ in The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and Boundaries’, ed. H. Vermeulen and C. Govers (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1994).

Notes 177 15. Vermeulen and Govers, Anthropology of Ethnicity, p. 5. 16. Vermeulen and Govers, Anthropology of Ethnicity, p. 1. 17. Frederik Barth, ‘Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity’, in Anthropology of Ethnicity, p. 15. 18. Vermeulen and Govers, Anthropology of Ethnicity, p. 5. 19. Anthony P. Cohen, Self Consciousness, pp. 8–11. 20. Such processes are the subject of a recent issue of JMEMS: The Cultural Processes of ‘Appropriation’, JMEMS, Special Issue, 32(1) (2002), ed. K. Ashley and V. Plesch; see particularly Claire Sponsler, ‘In Transit: Theorizing Cultural Appropriation in Medieval Europe’, 17–39; 19, on examining ‘acts’, rather than salvaging the origins of appropriative acts. 21. Sponsler, ‘In Transit’, p. 21; pace, Ashley and Plesch, ‘Appropriation’, 6, with the revealing statement that ‘cases in which individuals deliberately constructed their own identities’ are, ‘anachronistic for the medieval period’. 22. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass., London: HUP, 1988), pp. 1–17, especially pp. 8 and 11. For a review of approaches to appropriation, see Ashley and Plesch, ‘Appropriation’, esp. 3–4. 23. Judith P. Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 13, and n. 9 for a summary. 24. On the uses of speech-act theory, see Michelle Rosaldo, ‘Things We Do With Words: Ilongot Speech Act Theory in Philosophy’, Language in Society, 11 (1982), 203–37, 212–22. 25. On citation, see Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature, Evénement, Contexte’, in Limited Inc., trans. E. Weber (Paris: Galilée, 1990), especially pp. 45–7; and Butler, Bodies that Matter, pp. 1–23, especially p. 11. See also David Aers, ‘A Whisper in the Ear of the Early Modernists; or Reflections on Literary Critics Writing the “History of the Subject” ’, in Culture and History 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, ed. D. Aers (New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), p. 180. 26. See, Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1991); Roger Ellis, ‘Introduction’, in The Medieval Translator 4, ed. R. Ellis and R. Evans (Exeter: EUP, 1994), pp. 2–10; The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory 1280–1520, ed. J. Wogan-Brown, N. Watson, A. Taylor and R. Evans (Exeter: EUP, 1999), pp. 10–12; Ian Hodder, The Archaeological Process: an Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 63. 27. See, Ruth Evans, ‘Translating Past Cultures?’, in Medieval Translator 4, pp. 22–3 and 36; Idea of the Verncaular, ed. J. Wogan-Browne et al., p. 4. 28. Hodder, Archaeological Process, p. 63. 29. See, The World of Consumption, ed. B. Fine and E. Leopold (London, New York: Routledge, 1993); Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. J. Brewer and R. Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 2–3, on capitalist ideology and the study of consumerism; pp. 4–5 on the contested meanings of consumer goods. On the need to explore the historical contingency of consumption systems and practices, see Sally M. Horrocks, Review Article, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Series, 47 (1994), 844–5. 30. I think that ‘leeste’ here is used in comparison to ‘best’. From Kurath & Kuhn (Vol. M–N): ‘A maser is a drinking bowl of maser wood (maple or other

178 Notes

31. 32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

37.

38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

highly grained hard wood).’ There are various types, such as a maser with a ‘bond’ which is a metal mount around the edge, or ‘standing’ maser which has a deep foot. Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans L.G. Cochrane (Cambridge, Oxford: Polity Press with Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 41. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice (London: Routledge, 1984), pp. 6 and 249–50; and on the ‘social condition’ of ‘modes of appropriation’ within the context of everyday practice, see p. 1. Bourdieu, Distinction, pp. 2 and 249–50. See also, Peter Burke, ‘Res et Verba: Conspicuous Consumption in the Early Modern World’, in Consumption and the World of Goods, pp. 149–50. On the ‘social genesis of value’, see Arjun Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), p. 56. On the relationships between value and an object’s biography, see Igor Kopytoff, ‘The Cultural Biography of Things’, in Social Life, p. 68. On these ‘tournaments of value’, see Appadurai, Social Life, pp. 56–7. On emulation and contemporary perception see, Matthew Johnson, Behind the Castle Gate: From Medieval to Renaissance (London, New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 165–7; also, Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour & Material Culture in Britain 1660–1760 (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 6 and 196; Brewer and Porter, ed., Consumption and the World of Goods, p. 5; Henrietta L. Moore, Space, Text, Gender: an Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of Kenya, 2nd edn (London, New York: Guildford Press, 1996), p. 202. This runs contrary to the idea that only after c. 1550 did conspicuous consumption enable a ‘movement towards the assertion of the individual’. See, Laurence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, London: OUP, 1965), pp. 249–67, especially p. 266. See Aers, ‘A Whisper’, passim. Michel de Certeau, ‘Reading as Poaching’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. S. Randall (Berkeley, London: UcalP, 1984), pp. 165–76; also, A History of Reading in the West, ed. G. Cavallo and R. Chartier, trans. L. Cochrane (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), p. 1, on de Certeau’s approach to reading. In disagreement with the similar radical pragmatist position of Stanley Fish, see also James Simpson, ‘Faith and Hermeneutics: Pragmatism versus Pragmatism’, in Hermeneutics and Ideology: Reading Medieval and Early Modern Texts, JMEMS, Special Issue, 33 (2) (2003), ed. D. Aers and S. Beckwith, 215–39. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 11, notes that the ‘hermeneutic perspective proves inadequate’ for this practical endeavour. On Michel Foucault’s ‘lesson’ that discourse should be understood as ‘discontinuous and specific’, see Chartier, Cultural History, pp. 10–11. See, for example, Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan-Smith (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 25–30. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 13. This is a critique of Foucault’s idea that the appropriation of discourse confers power on one group to the detriment of another. James Clifford, ‘Introduction’, in Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. J. Clifford and G. Marcus (Berkeley, London: UCalP, 1986), p. 13.

Notes 179 45. John Liep, ‘Introduction’, in Locating Cultural Creativity, ed. J. Liep (London, Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000), p. 2. For a historically-oriented study, see Wellsprings of Achievement: Cultural and Economic Dynamics in Early Modern England and Japan, ed. P. Gouk (Aldershot, Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate, 1995). 46. Liep, Locating, p. 2, on the use of this ‘cultural process’ approach by some sociologists and historians of science. 47. Renato Rosaldo, Culture & Truth: the Remaking of Social Analysis (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 5. 48. The move away from ‘improvisation’ signals another departure from Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus, see n. 12 above. 49. Liep, Locating, p. 1. 50. Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, The Native Leisure Class: Consumption and Cultural Creativity in the Andes (Chicago, London: UChP, 1999), pp. 5–12. 51. Liep, Locating, p. 2. 52. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (London, Fontana Press, 1993), p. 5. 53. See Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (London: Faber, 1990), p. 216 on Geertz’s definition as ‘too coherent’. 54. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 39. 55. Rosaldo, Culture & Truth, p. 20. 56. Clifford, Writing Culture, p. 15. 57. Jean-Loup Amselle, Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere, trans. C. Royal (Stanford: USP, 1998), p. 2. 58. On the negotiation of symbolic meanings in a period of reformation, see for example, J.W. Fernandez, ‘Symbolic Consensus in a Fang Reformative Cult’, American Anthropologist, 67 (1965), 21–35. 59. Clifford, Predicament of Culture, p. 10, on the idea that ‘[c]ulture is a deeply compromised idea I cannot yet do without’. 60. Amselle, Mestizo, p. xviii, 161; ‘mestizo’, translated from métisses, means a mixture or the result of mixture. 61. See, Amselle, Mestizo, p. 2; for a completely opposite understanding of ‘contingency’, which focuses on connections imposed retrospectively, see Caroline Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (Durham, USA, London: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 38–9. 62. See Don Kulick, Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), p. 9. For a medievalist’s view of contingency that is slightly over-ordered, see Paul Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: the Social Imagination of Fourteenth Century Texts (Princeton: PUP, 1992), esp. p. 6. 63. See Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark (London, New York: Hambledon Press, 1996); Heather Knight, Aspects of Medieval and Later Southwark, Archaeological Investigations (1991–1998) for the London Underground Limited Jubilee Line Extensions Project, MoLAS Monograph 13 (Museum of London Archaeological Service, 2002), pp. 19–20; Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 12 Vols, first published 1797 (Wakefield: W.P. Publishing, 1972), esp. Vol. 1; Olive Hamilton and Neil Hamilton, Royal Greenwich: a Guide and History to London’s Most Historic Borough (London: Greenwich Bookshop, 1969); Beryl Platts, A History of Greenwich (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973). Also Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Some Differences in

180 Notes

64.

65. 66. 67.

3

the Cultural Production of Household Consumption’, in The Christian Household in Medieval Europe, c. 850–1550, ed. S. Rees-Jones, C. Beattie, and A. Maslakovic (London: Brepols, 2003). David Parkin, ‘Ritual as Spatial Direction and Bodily Division’, in Understanding Rituals, European Association of Social Anthropologists, ed. D. de Coppet (London, New York: Routledge), p. 23. Parkin, ‘Ritual’, pp. 23–4. Chartier, Cultural History, p. 36. Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: a Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

Inheritance and Property

1. For seminal general models explaining famine, pestilence, and population decline in terms of a neo-Malthusian model of checks see, M.M. Postan, ‘The Economic Foundations of the Medieval Economy’, in Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy, ed. Postan (Cambridge: CUP, 1973); and M.M. Postan, ‘The Fifteenth Century’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 9 (1939), 160–7; M.M. Postan, Medieval Economy and Society: an Economic History of Britain in the Middle Ages (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972). On regional investigations see, Ian Kershaw, ‘The Great Famine and Agrarian Crisis in England 1315–1322’, P&P, 59 (1973), 3–50; J.C. Russell, ‘The Pre-plague Population of England’, Journal of British Studies, 5 (1966), 1–21; Rodney H. Hilton, Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism, 2nd edn (London: Verso, 1990); Barbara Harvey, ‘The Population Trend in England Between 1300 and 1348’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, 16 (1966), 23–42; Barbara Harvey, ‘Introduction’, in Before the Black Death: Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the Early Fourteenth Century, ed. B.M.S. Campbell (Manchester, New York: MUP, 1991); John Hatcher, ‘The Great Slump of the Mid-fifteenth Century’, in Progress and Problems in Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Edward Miller, ed. R.H. Britnell and J. Hatcher (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), pp. 238–9 and 241–9; Mavis Mate, ‘Kent and Sussex’, in AHEW, gen. ed. J. Thirsk, 8 Vols, 3, 1348–1500, ed. E. Miller (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), p. 120. On towns, see Hatcher, ‘Great Slump’, pp. 266–70; David M. Palliser, ‘Urban Decay Revisited’, in Towns and Townspeople in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J.A.F. Thomson (Gloucester: Sutton, 1988), p. 18; Alan Dyer, Decline and Growth in English Towns, 1400–1640 (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 12–19, 33, 34, 60. 2. W.G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: the England of Henry VIII 1500–1547 (London, New York: Longman, 1976), p. 64. For a review of approaches to urban land markets, see B. Brodt, ‘People, Places and Profit in the Towns of Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Urban History, 23(3) (2000), 350–6, p. 351. On the scattered and fragmented character of Colchester townsmen’s land acquisitions, see Richard H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), pp. 260 and 264. For a comparison of two towns, see Andrew F. Butcher, ‘Rent and the Urban Economy: Oxford and Canterbury in the Later Middle Ages’, Southern History, 1 (1979), 11–43, 16.

Notes 181

3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

On urban merchants’ social ambition and the acquisition of rural land, see Rosemary Horrox, ‘The Urban Gentry in the Fifteenth Century’, in Towns and Townspeople, pp. 25 and 33. Bruce M.S. Campbell, ‘Population Pressure, Inheritance and the Land Market in a Fourteenth-century Peasant Community’; and Richard M. Smith, ‘Families and their Land in Redgrave, Suffolk 1260–1320’, in Land Kinship and Lifecycle, ed. R.M. Smith (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 107–20, 130, and 154–7; Marjorie K. McIntosh, Autonomy & Community: the Royal Manor of Havering, 1200–1500, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), p. 125. And, for an application of the Smith and Campbell approach to a later period, see Jane Whittle, The Development of Agrarian Capitalism: Land and Labour in Norfolk, 1400–1580 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). On the ‘social problem of engrossment’ and its basis in the agricultural economy see, Hoskins, Age of Plunder, pp. 63–4, 67, 230. On the economics of land use and legal practices of land transaction, see F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Age of Ambition: English Society in the Late Middle Ages (London: Nelson, 1970), pp. 50–60, On ‘social mobility’, see Simon J. Payling, ‘Social Mobility, Demographic Change, and Landed Society in Late Medieval England’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Series, 45(1) (1992), 51–73, 51, 70; Mate, ‘Kent and Sussex’, pp. 121–7. On the decreased likelihood of accumulating wealth by those tenant farmers identified, by optimistic historians, as possible candidates for upward social mobility, see Hatcher, ‘Great Slump’, pp. 255–66 and 271–2; also McIntosh, Autonomy; Marjorie K. McIntosh, A Community Transformed: the Manor and Liberty of Havering, 1500–1620, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 16 (Cambridge: CUP, 1991); Edward B. Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Later Medieval England (Stroud: Sutton, 1996), pp. 2–4, and 260 ff.; Whittle, Agrarian Capitalism, pp. 82–4. Palliser, ‘Urban Decay’, p. 2. Andrew F. Butcher, ‘Person, Morality and Civic Economy’, unpublished research paper, presented to CCMTS (2002). Richard H. Britnell, The Closing of the Middle Ages? England, 1471–1529 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 189; Hoskins, Age of Plunder, p. xiii, for his intention to study, ‘the mass of people who constituted the commonwealth ...’. Interest and Emotion: Essays on the Study of Family and Kinship, ed. H. Medick and D.W. Sabean (Cambridge, Paris, New York: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and CUP, 1988), pp. 1–8. For a discussion of family and community, see Britnell, Closing, pp. 195–201. On the dynamics of households, see Larry R. Poos, ‘Population Turnover in Medieval Essex: the Evidence of Some Early Fourteenth Century Tithing Lists’, in The World We Have Gained: Histories of Population and Social Structure, ed. L. Bonfield, R.M. Smith, and K. Wrightson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Medick and Sabean, Interest and Emotion, p. 2. Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1280–1800, ed. J. Goody, J. Thirsk and E.P. Thompson (Cambridge, London, New York and Melbourne: CUP, 1976). David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Lifecycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: OUP, 1997), pp. 5–6; also Ralph A. Houlbrooke, The English Family 1450–1700, Themes in British Social History

182 Notes

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

(London, New York: Longman, 1984), especially the historiographical introduction on pp. 1–16; and on the problematic evidence for sentiment and the analysis of ‘the emotional life of societies or social groups’, pp. 13 and 254. For a careful analysis of social process, see Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England (Manchester, New York: MUP, 2000), pp. 2, 3, 7. A. Barnard and A. Good, Research Practices in the Study of Kinship (London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), especially the preface on Needham’s stimulating claim that there is, ‘no such thing as kinship’, and pp. 187 ff. For a survey of approaches during the crisis and revisionism in kinship studies, see P.P. Schweitzer, Dividends of Kinship: Meanings and Uses of Social Relatedness (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 6–7; on the deconstruction of kinship, see Richard Parkin, Kinship: an Introduction to the Basic Concepts (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. ix. See also Richard M. Smith, ‘Some Issues Concerning Families and their Property in Rural England, 1250–1800’, in Land, Kinship, and Lifecycle, pp. 85–6. See also, Alan Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism: the Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), pp. 2–4, and passim; and for Smith’s consideration of Macfarlane’s approach, see, Land, Kinship, Lifecycle, p. 11. Schweitzer, Dividends, p. 4, citing Needham’s 1973 terms; for the related wider concerns about theory and practice, see Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Social Uses of Kinship’, in The Logic of Practice, trans. R. Nice (Oxford, Cambridge: Polity Press with Blackwell, 1995), pp. 162–99, especially pp. 168–9. Strategies of Inheritance, ed. A.F. Butcher (Oxford: Peter Lang, forthcoming); also, Lynne Bowdon, ‘ “People of Property”: Social Relations in Wingham, c. 1450–1600’ (unpublished MA thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 1998). Marilyn Strathern, Property, Substance and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things (London, New Brunswick, NJ: The Athlone Press, 1999), pp. 65–9; Janet Carsten, The Heat of the Hearth: the Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing Community (Oxford: OUP, 1997), p. 27. Schweitzer, Dividends, p. 10. Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship, ed. J. Carsten (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), for a review of approaches, see pp. 1–36, especially pp. 14–18; Schweitzer, Dividends, p. 10, on the ethnocentricity of the concept ‘person’. NA SC 12/9/27. Select Cases in Manorial Courts, 1250–1550: Property and Family Law, ed. L. Poos and L. Bonfield, The Selden Society 114 (1997), pp. xxxiii–iv. Campbell, ‘Population Pressure’, p. 130; and, for example, NA SC 2/181/10 (1484) for an example of court roll evidence for sustained acquisition of land by the Morris and Acton families of Gravesend. For example, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/388. Michael Zell, Early Modern Kent 1540–1640, Kent History Project (Woodbridge: Boydell and Kent County Council, 2000), p. 45, on will evidence for the ‘mixed character’ of Kentish landholdings, from c. 1540. Mate, ‘Kent and Sussex’, p. 132, on marshland in east Kent; McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 205 and 207, refers to marshland as valuable for the local economy, up to c. 1500. For example, NA PROB 11/11/7/57 (1495).

Notes 183 27. For example, Thomas Hogeson who held marshland in Greenwich and Stepney, CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/349 (1511); and William Cooke who bequeathed substantial property in east and west Greenwich and Richmond, and Stebenhithe marsh in Middlesex NA PROB 11/14/30/234 (1505). 28. NA SC 2/181/81 (1518/9). This example is from Gravesend. 29. John Sheail, The Regional Distribution of Wealth in England as Indicated in the 1524–5 Lay Subsidy Returns, List and Index Society, Special Series, 28 and 29, ed. R.W. Hoyle as Vols 1 and 2 (1998), 1, pp. 105–6. 30. Sheail, Regional Distribution, 1, pp. 105–6; Zell, Kent, pp. 39–40, 41, 49, 53; Mate, ‘Kent and Sussex’, p. 135; Fryde, Peasants and Landlords, pp. 260–1. 31. F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Lordship of Canterbury (London: Nelson, 1966), pp. 145–6 and 149; also, McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 4, 176 ff., for a comparative example, that residents of Havering enjoyed an unusual level of personal and collective freedom, because of the rules of tenancy and the economic structures in this royal manor. 32. Compare Butcher, ‘Rent’, 16. 33. For example, the Girdelers of Shorne and the Actons of Gravesend. For the Girdelers, see CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/217; CKS U 601/T 61, also, Cobham College Rental CKS U 47/11/E 37, fo. 2r; for the Actons, see CKS DRb. Pwr. 2/256, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/393, CKS Pwr. 2/536, CKS DRb. Pwr. 4/181, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/278, and NA SC 2/181/10. 34. For example, NA SC 2/18/10. 35. Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd edn, 12 Vols, 3, first published 1797–1801 (Wakefield: EP Publishing, 1972), p. 328. 36. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/209. 37. LMA ACS 4/208. See NA PROB 11/16/40/318. Pole was taxed on £40 of goods in 1523/4; the only higher sum in this Milton subsidy was on £100. 38. See NA E 179/124/187. In Community Transformed, p. 167, McIntosh classes £20 plus as the top wealth bracket, defined as, ‘prosperous craftsmen, tradesmen and yeomen, gentlemen’. 39. Poos and Bonfield, Select Cases, pp. lxxii–lxxvi, for a comprehensive discussion of property and family law in manorial courts c. 1250–1550, which includes inheritance practices. 40. Ibid., pp. xcix–c, on the debated issue of alienation and the family–land bond. 41. For example, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/293. 42. For example, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/256. 43. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/344. ‘Tides’ probably relate to fishing rights. 44. Du Boulay, Lordship of Canterbury, p. 157; Butcher, ‘Rent’, 14. 45. For example, the Uswastes and the Cheesemans of Greenwich, NA PROB 11/11/7/57, CKS DRb. Pwr. 2/43 and NA SC 12/9/27; the Jermens and the Girdelers of Shorne and Cobham, CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/209, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/388, CKS DRb. 9/217, Alice Jermen requests Robert Girdeler as overseer. 46. See CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/240, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/290. 47. For example, the very detailed case study of two families, the Hawkes and the Staces of Shorne and Cobham in Kent, conducted in Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation and Transmission in Town and Country in Late Medieval England’ (unpublished PhD thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 2003), pp. 68–74.

184 Notes 48. See Smith ‘Families’, p. 193 on the debate about the divisive nature of partibility on the family–land bond. 49. Stephen H. Rigby, Medieval Grimsby: Growth and Decline (Hull: University of Hull Press, 1993), pp. 64–73, p. 72 on the under-representation of artisan occupations, c. 1300–1500; Horrox, ‘Urban Gentry’, pp. 22–44, p. 37, suggests that in the fifteenth century, ‘the number of townsmen designated “gentleman” or “esquire” increased dramatically’. 50. Du Boulay, Lordship of Canterbury, pp. 148–9, on north-west Kent as a popular place for Londoners to make land investments. 51. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/331, Andrew Coward, and CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/193, Thomas Cope, for watermen; NA E 179/126/340, Andrew Coward was taxed in the top 15 per cent in the subsidy of 1551/2, on £20; only three individuals were taxed on higher sums of £25 and £50. 52. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/315. 53. McIntosh, Autonomy, p. 262; McIntosh, Community Transformed, pp. 139–44. 54. For an example of ‘civic responsibility’ see NA SC 2/181/88, and SC 2/181/11, which show yeomen Robert Stokmede, William Walworth, and William Morris serving together as jurats (CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/173, Robert Stokmede; CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/36, William Walworth, NA PROB 11/16/40/318, William Morris). 55. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/292, Horseley; CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/308, Basse. Both are named in the subsidy of 1545/6, NA E 179/125/307: Horseley pays a moderate subsidy, based on 36s, where the highest payment is based on £10; there are five Basses mentioned, all of whom are taxed on moderate to low amounts, to the value of between 4s and 14s 5d. 56. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/7; NA E 179/125/187, Potter was taxed on the value of £20 in goods in 1523/4, the highest payment was on £200. 57. For a similar trend in the Protestant or Puritan wills of c. 1540–1620, see McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 141 and 188–97. 58. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/75. 59. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/96, John Montayn; NA PROB 11/34/27/208, Hugh Proves. 60. NA E 179/126/334 and 126/340. Montayn was taxed on £40 in 1551/2, where the highest subsidy was on £60; NA E 179/124/247, Proves is taxed on £165 worth of goods and land; the only higher amount in this subsidy is paid by Dame Jane Garnish on £305 worth of goods and property. 61. McIntosh, Autonomy, p. 262; McIntosh, Community Transformed, pp. 139–44. 62. NA E 179/124/221, John Reynolds’ subsidy was 10s, based on goods, in 1535/6; the highest payment being £2 10s (CKS DRb. Pwr. 10/110 for his will); compare CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/261 for Montayn’s widow, Elizabeth, who asks to be buried next to John Reynolds, yeoman. 63. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/75. 64. Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, first published 1948 (Chicago: University of Michigan Press, 1962), on the movement of Londoners to the ‘home counties’. 65. McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 124 ff. 66. CKS U 601/T140, a charter (1504) (CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/345, for John Jordan, gentleman). 67. Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 259–61 68. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/319.

Notes 185 69. NA E 179/125/307, there is an Edmund Porrege named in the taxation evidence for Milton, in 1545/6, taxed on goods at £5 3s 4d, where the only other higher subsidy is paid on £10. 70. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/254. 71. For Jervase Frank’s dispute over land claimed by the chantry of Milton, c. 1509–47, see NA STAC 2/19/198. 72. NA PROB 10/11. 73. NA PROB 11/20/22/179. 74. NA PROB 11/12/13/123. 75. NA PROB 11/18/23/176. See Chapter 2. 76. See, Salter ‘Cultural Appropriation’, pp. 68–74. 77. On local process, see Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Some Differences in the Cultural Production of Household Consumption in Three North Kent Communities’, in Managing Power, Wealth and the Body: the Christian Household in Medieval Europe c. 850–1550, ed. Sarah Rees Jones et al. (London: Brepols, 2003), pp. 397–401. 78. McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 139–40, on inns in relation to the upward social mobility of the ‘urban yeoman’. 79. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/32. 80. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/378. Basse also leaves a tilt boat and all ‘furniture’ belonging to it. 81. LMA ACS 4/218; see also, LMA ACS 4/124, LMA ACS 5/184. 82. Grenville, Medieval Housing (London: University of Leicester Press, 1997), pp. 1 and 171, on typologies see p. 48; Christopher Dyer, ‘English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200–1500)’, in Everyday Life in Medieval England, ed. C. Dyer (London, Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 1994), p. 165; Matthew Johnson, Housing Culture: Traditional Architecture in an English Landscape (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993), p. 1, and on experience see pp. 7–9; Sarah Pearson, Medieval Houses of Kent (London: HMSO, 1994), p. 1; The English Medieval Town: a Reader in English Urban History 1200–1540, ed. Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser (London: Longman, 1990), Chapter 3, n. 6. 83. Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages. Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520, 2nd edn (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1989), p. 166; Dyer, ‘Peasant Buildings’, pp. 138, 139, 142, 148, 163. For a distinguished regional study on the county of Kent, see Pearson, Medieval Houses; also A Gazetteer of Medieval Houses in Kent, ed. S. Pearson, P. Barnwell, and A.T. Adams (London: HMSO, 1994). Paul Contamine, ‘Peasant Hearth to Papal Palace: the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in Revelations of the Medieval World, ed. G. Duby (Cambridge, Mass., London: HUP, 1988), pp. 425–35; Grenville, Medieval Housing, p. 193. 84. Johnson, Housing Culture, pp. 168, 107, 176. 85. On ‘spaces’, see Michael Camille, ‘Signs of the City: Place, Power and Public Fantasy in Medieval Paris’, in Medieval Practice of Space, ed. B. Hanawalt and M. Kobialka, Medieval Cultures 23 (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 24, 30. For a textual approach, see Henrietta L. Moore, Space, Text, Gender: an Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of Kenya, 2nd edn (London, New York: Guildford Press, 1996), pp. 89–90. On the ‘poetics’ of architecture, see Grenville, Medieval Housing, pp. 14–22; on ‘grammar’,

186 Notes

86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94.

95. 96.

97. 98. 99.

100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

106.

see Johnson, Housing Culture, Chapter 6. For the more structural seminal hypothesis that ‘(social) space is a (social) product’, see F. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith, first published in French in 1974 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 16. Janet Carsten and S. Hugh-Jones, ‘Introduction’, in About the House: LeviStrauss and Beyond, ed. J. Carsten and S. Hugh-Jones (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1995), pp. 1–46, 41–6. Nathalie Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France (Oxford: OUP, 1987). Carsten and Hugh-Jones, About the House, p. 40. Select Cases, ed. Poos and Bonfield, p. 114. John Brewer and Susan Staves, ‘Introduction’, in Early Modern Conceptions of Property, ed. J. Brewer and S. Staves (London, New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 18. Ibid., pp. 6–8. For example, NA SC 2/181/81 (1518/19), fo. 1r.; NA STAC 2/19/198 (1509–47). Justin P. Croft, ‘The Custumals of the Cinque Ports, c. 1290– c. 1500: Studies in the Cultural Production of the Urban Record’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1997), pp. 32 ff. Paula Simpson, ‘Custom and Conflict: Disputes over Tithe in the Diocese of Canterbury, 1501–1600’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1997), especially chapters 2 and 3. NA PROB 10/11, reproduced here with some modern punctuation for clarity. Similar terms and discursive techniques are used for rural properties, for example, CCAL U63 70471 (bundle) a 1511 rental of Canterbury’s Christchurch Priory’s manorial records. Daniel L. Smail, ‘The Linguistic Cartography of Property and Power in Late Medieval Marseille’, in Practices of Space, pp. 37–63. LMA ACS 3/140. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/337; CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/61, reproduced here with modern punctuation and spelling. See also Salter, ‘Cultural Production’. Widow’s space is discussed in Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities. English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, London: CUP, 1974), pp. 112–16. She also shows the possibilities for variations according to a community’s customs, and refutes Laslett’s suggestion that multigenerational households were rare in this period and the next century; also Dyer, ‘Peasant Buildings’, p. 152. Catherine Richardson, ‘The Meanings of Space in Society and Drama: Perceptions of Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy c. 1550–1600’ (unpublished PhD thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 1999), pp. 99–102. LMA ACS 6/203. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/405. NA PROB 11/16/40/318; CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/7. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/318. Alan M. Everitt, ‘The English Urban Inn, 1560–1760’, in Perspectives in English Urban History, ed. A.M. Everitt (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 124; Peter Clark, The English Alehouse: a Social History, 1200–1800 (London, New York: Longman, 1983), p. 8. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/120.

Notes 187 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143.

4

NA PROB 11/18/33/252. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/120. Johnson, Housing Culture, p. 169. LMA ACS 6/261. LMA ACS 4/233. NA PROB 11/21/27/208. Richardson, ‘Meanings of Space’, Chapter 3. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/191. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/91. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/7. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/254. Richardson, ‘Meanings of Space’, Chapter 3. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/91, my italics for emphasis. LMA ACS 5/18. Richardson, ‘Meanings of Space’, Chapter 3, for the idea that this conveys dis-ease. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/240. NA PROB 11/7/20/151. NA PROB 11/21/27/208. CKS DRb. Pwr. 4/88. For example, Henry Little who left 5s for this cause in 1519, CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/166. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/209. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/9. NA PROB 11/18/33/252. LMA ACS 2/152. These are presumably ‘alms houses’. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/61. NA PROB 11/16/38/296. McIntosh, Autonomy, pp. 225–9; Clark, English Alehouse, pp. 75–6. Everitt, ‘English Urban Inn’, pp. 129–34, for a discussion of ‘inn-keeping dynasties’. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/61; NA E 125/307, Burston is taxed on £5 in 1546, the highest and next increment being £10. This Thomas is possibly the gentleman testator, CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/68. See Chapter 7 on education. Everitt, ‘English Urban Inn’, pp. 110–13. LMA ACS 3/203. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/240. Everitt, ‘English Urban Inn’, pp. 92 and 110–13. NA PROB 11/16/27/210. Clark, English Alehouse, pp. 6 and 68.

Possessions 1. William Harrison’s ‘The Description of England’, ed. G. Edelen (New York: Cornell University Press, 1968), p. 200. 2. This period has traditionally been viewed as a time of changing opportunities for the consumption of goods in general, particularly for the non-élite

188 Notes

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

and usually in the period beginning c. 1550. See, Joan Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects: the Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 160–9; Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. J. Brewer and R. Porter (London: Routledge, 1993). See Chapter 2; Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice (London: Routledge, 1984); Arjun Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai (Cambridge: CUP, 1986). For an economic approach, see Richard H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society 1000–1500 (Cambridge: CUP, 1993), esp. pp. 1 and 164; Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century, ed. E. Power and M.M. Postan (London: G. Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1933). For statistical approaches, see Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour & Material Culture in Britain 1660–1760 (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 43–7; for queries concerning perceptions of regional identity, see Catherine Richardson, ‘The Meanings of Space in Society and Drama: Perceptions of Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy, c. 1550–1600’ (unpublished PhD thesis, CCMTS, Kent, 1999), and also Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England (Manchester: MUP, forthcoming 2006). On the issue of ‘experience’, see Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 184. Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour, pp. 58ff.; Richardson, ‘Meanings of Space’, pp. iii, 1, 3–5; also Catherine Richardson, ‘Household Objects and Domestic Ties’, in Managing Power, Wealth and the Body: the Christian Household in Medieval Europe c. 850–1550, ed. S. Rees Jones et al. (London: Brepols, 2003), p. 435. And see Chapter 1 on will evidence and statistical analysis. For a Marxist approach see, Rodney H. Hilton, ‘Introduction’, in The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. R.H. Hilton et al. (London: Verso, 1982), pp. 28–9. On markets, see Christopher Dyer, ‘The Consumer and the Market in the Later Middle Ages’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Series, 42(3) (1989), 305–27, 314. On prices, coinage, and wages, see David L. Farmer, ‘Prices and Wages, 1350–1500’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 8 Vols, Vol. 3, ed. E. Miller (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), pp. 434–94. For comparisons of peasant possessions, see Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520, 2nd edn (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1989), pp. 151–60, 160–9, 170–5 and also Making a Living in the Middle Ages: the People of Britain (London: Penguin, 2002). On different forms of élite consumption see, Revolution and Consumption in Late Medieval England, ed. M. Hicks (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001) and essays therein by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory’s Consumption of Imported Goods: Wines and Spices, 1464–1520’, pp. 141–58, and Christopher Woolgar, ‘Fast and Feast: Conspicuous Consumption and the Diet of the Nobility in the Fifteenth Century’, pp. 7–25, which both focus on élite levels of consumption; and Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: a New History of the Renaissance (New York, London: Norton, 1996), esp. pp. 33–4. On London tastes see Caroline Barron, ‘Centres of Conspicuous Consumption: the Aristocratic Town House in London, 1200–1550’, London Journal, 20(1) (1995), 1–16; Vanessa A. Harding, ‘Cross Channel Trade and Cultural Contacts: London and the Low Countries in the Later Fourteenth Century’, in England and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C.M. Barron and N. Saul (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995). On rising standards of living see, Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 168–70; F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Age of Ambition: English Society in the Late Middle Ages

Notes 189

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

(London: Nelson, 1970), pp. 163–4; for a history of sumptuary legislation, see F.E. Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1926); for one interpretation of its significance see, Sara Warneke, ‘A Taste for New Fangledness: the Destructive Potential of Novelty in Early Modern England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 26(4) (1995), 881–96, 891; on differences between practice, and the theory represented by sumptuary legislation, see Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Reworked Material: Discourses of Clothing Bequests in Sixteenth Century Greenwich’, in Clothing Culture, 1350–1650, ed. C.T. Richardson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 179–80. See Janet Hoskins, Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives (London, New York: Longman, 1998), esp. pp. 7–8; Annette Weiner, Inalienable Possessions: the Paradox of Keeping-while-giving (Oxford, Berkeley: UCalP, 1992). Hoskins, Biographical Objects, p. 13; and see Nicholas Thomas, Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999); for influential work on ‘partible personhood’, see Marilyn Strathern, The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia (Berkeley: UCalP, 1998), pp. 192–207. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, p. 6, Inalienable possessions include, ‘land rights, material objects, or mythic knowledge’. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, pp. 6–8. Richardson, ‘Meanings of Space’, pp. 77–8. In east Kent c. 1550–1600, various items of apparel were the most commonly bequeathed goods; chests, which often contained silver spoons and pewter vessels, were the second most often bequeathed. Dyer, Standards, pp. 169–75, on these metals as signifiers of wealth. Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation and Transmission in Town and Country in Late Medieval England’ (PhD thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 2003); and, ‘Some Differences in the Cultural Production of Household Consumption in Three North Kent Communities’, in The Christian Household in Medieval Europe, pp. 391–407. Salter, ‘Cultural Production’, p. 395. Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation’, pp. 155–67. John Hatcher, A History of British Pewter (London: Longman, 1974), pp. 43 and 74 on the emergence of pewter in London wills from c. 1450, and its production in provincial towns from c. 1475. NA PROB 11/5/29/202. NA PROB 11/8/11/90. NA PROB 11/10/32/251. NA PROB 11/10/27/213. NA PROB 11/24/9/66. LMA ACS 3/203. LMA ACS 5/10. LMA ACS 5/34. LMA ACS 5/59. LMA ACS 2/53. NA PROB 11/18/23/176. LMA ACS 5/184; CKS DRb. Pwr. 10/117; LMA ACS 4/206. NA PROB 11/25/24/173.

190 Notes 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

LMA ACS 5/76. LMA ACS 4/235. NA PROB 11/16/40/318. Kurath and Kuhn (Vol. O–P), suggests ‘pounce’ as an embossed design, from the word for the tool used to ‘punch’ holes in metalware. LMA ACS 2/80. Hatcher, British Pewter, pp. 106–7, on ‘fashioning’ and the remodelling of old objects into new. For near contemporary reference to this, see William Harrison’s The Description of England, ed. G. Edelin (New York: Cornell University Press, 1968), p. 367. LMA ACS 3/203. NA PROB 11/16/40/318. Beverley Nenk, ‘English Households in Transition c. 1450–1550: the Ceramic Evidence’, in The Age of Transition: the Archaeology of English Culture, 1400–1600, ed. D. Gaimster and P. Stamper, The Society for Medieval Archaeology, Monograph 15, Oxbow Monograph 98 (Oxford: Oxbow, 1997), pp. 171–95, esp. p. 174; Franz Verhaeghe, ‘An Aquamanile and Some Thoughts about Ceramic Competition with Quality Metal Goods in the Middle Ages’, in Custom and Ceramics, Essays Presented to Kenneth Barton, ed. D. Allen (Wickham: APE, 1991), pp. 25–61, esp. p. 53. NA PROB 1/16/27/206. NA PROB 11/14/22/171. Willoughby’s book bequests are discussed in Chapter 7. NA PROB 11/25/12/72; NA PROB 11/14/3/21. NA PROB 11/8/34/86. NA PROB 11/10/2/9. LMA ACS 4/55. See, John Cherry ‘Jewellery’, in The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), pp. 176–8 on interpreting the meanings of surviving material objects, and issues associated with the transmission of fashions and textual inscriptions. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/285. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/285; CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/49. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/292. NA PROB 11/24/4/32. NA PROB 11/25/16/103. From Kurath & Kuhn (Vol. D): ‘ “Dornix” is a kind of damask cloth.’ NA PROB 11/16/38/296. LMA ACS 2 /152. NA PROB 11/16/33/254. LMA ACS 3/171. PRO PROB 11/22/18/223. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/179. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/289. NA PROB 11/9/27/150; my emphasis. NA PROB 11/ 25/11/179; my emphasis; and see Chapter 5. PRO PROB 11/30/8/59; see also, CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/283. LMA ACS 2/84.

Notes 191 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/272. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/91. PRO PROB 11/11/7/57. NA PROB 11/16/33/254. NA PROB 11/16/13/102. See chapters 1 and 2 on rituals of will-making and their tangled states. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/254. NA PROB 11/29/4/31. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/180. NA PROB 11/4/22/168.

5 Life-fashioning 1. See Chapter 1 for issues concerning empiricism in relation to the approach taken in this book. 2. Nigel Saul, ‘Bold as Brass: Secular Display in English Medieval Brasses’, in Heraldry Pageantry, and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. Coss and M. Keen (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), pp. 174–5. 3. Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago, London: UChP, 1980), p. 2 on the ‘increased self-consciousness about the fashioning of human identity as a manipulable artful process’. For critiques of Greenblatt’s use of historical context, his absolutism, and his lack of reflexivity, see Ann Barton, ‘Perils of Historicism’, New York Review of Books, March 28 (1991), 53–5; Alisdair Fowler, ‘Power to the Self’, Times Literary Supplement, September 4 (1981), 10–12, p. 1011; J.E. Howard, ‘The Cultural Construction of the Self in the Renaissance’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 34 (1983), 378–81, 380; also, Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1992), p. 463, for a similar critique to Fowler, and a suggestion that differences between writing history in medieval and renaissance times are generic and linguistic; P. Edwards, ‘Review Article’, Renaissance Quarterly (1982), 317–321, 321; Richard Strier, ‘Identity and Power in Tudor England: Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning from More to Shakespeare’, Boundary 2: A Journal of Post Modern Literature (1982), 383–94, 384. Marguerite Waller, ‘Academic Tootsie: the Denial of Difference and the Difference it Makes’, Diacritics, 17(1) (1987), 2–20, 4. 4. See, Roy Porter, ‘Introduction’, in Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present, ed. R. Porter (New York, London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 9 and 12. 5. Johannes Fabian (with narrative and paintings by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu), Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: UCP, 1996). 6. Fabian, Remembering, p. ix. 7. Fabian, Remembering, p. 187; see Chapter 1 on Writing Culture. 8. Fabian, Remembering, p. 3. 9. Fabian, Remembering, p. 262. 10. But see Fabian, Remembering, p. 248 for his concerns about the current tendency to overuse concepts of performativity. See also Susan Crane,

192 Notes

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing and Identity during the Hundred Years War (Philadelphia: UPP, 2002). Fabian, Remembering, p. 249. Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), Chapter 4, on the wide ranging cultural ramifications of eucharistic symbolism, and on its performance by the laity. P.D.A. Harvey and Andrew McGuinness, A Guide to British Medieval Seals (London: The British Library and Public Record Office, 1996), pp. 1–26, especially p. 26, and pp. 77–93, 88 ff; one such fragmentary collection of personal seals is found at: CKS U 470/T3-4, 7-8; CKS U 47/3/T46; CKS U 47/11/ T547-8; CKS U 282/T20-25; CCAL DCC CA P 2-18. NA PROB 11/28/7/55. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/177. LMA ACS 6/147. Roger Ellis bequeaths no residential property, but refers to furniture in his host’s house. NA PROB 11/22/8/64. NA PROB 11/32/13/98. CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/38. NA PROB 11/20/13/93. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/43. LMA ACS 2/149. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/43. PRO PROB 11/21/22/173. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/43. PRO PROB 11/22/8/59. CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/18. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/95. NA PROB 11/22/8/59. NA PROB 11/13/14/56. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/102 LMA ACS 6/30. The Trevelyan Papers to 1551, The Camden Society, Old Series, Vol. 67, p. 137; The Trevelyan Papers Part II to 1643, The Camden Society, Old Series, Vol. 84, p. 27. See, for example, CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/397; also, references supplied by Karen Watts of the Leeds Armouries Museum include, C. Blair, ‘The Will of Martin Van Royne and Some Lists of Almain Armourers at Greenwich’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 11 (1985), 199–215, 201; also the 1552 list of armourers E 101 424/9; Blair also cites Matthew Dethykes as one of the five special men working on the king’s personal armour in the 1530s, other members of this family have Greenwich testaments, for example, CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/25 and 10/10. See, for example, Gertrude Kempe (1548), CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/31 (wife of Jasper Kempe, CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/31) which distinctly shows her network of foreign individuals. C. Blair, ‘The Armourers’ Bill of 1581: the Making of Arms and Armour in Sixteenth-century London’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, 12 (1986), 20–53, 22–3; for Jasper Kempe, see CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/31. See, for example, BL MS Stowe 146, fo. 64r.

Notes 193 39. Sidney Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (London: Seaby, 1992), especially pp. 6–15. 40. PRO PROB 11/28/7/50; also see, CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/274. 41. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/102. 42. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/274. 43. NA PROB 11/22/8/64. 44. NA PROB 11/22/8/59. 45. PRO PROB 11/32/13/98. 46. NA PROB 11/28/7/50. 47. NA PROB 11/35/2/12. 48. NA PROB 11/31/ 51/403. 49. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/176. 50. NA PROB 11/25/24/173. 51. NA PROB 11/13/10/91. 52. NA PROB 11/22/25/195. 53. NA PROB 11/25/25/179. 54. NA PROB 11/29/22/173, this gift is given to the son of a named London merchant; another example of armour bequeathed by a London citizen is John Palmer (1520), NA PROB 11/20/2/5. 55. W.G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: the England of Henry VIII 1500–1547 (London, New York, 1976), pp. 14–18 on the requirements for muster and array, noted above. 56. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/95. 57. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/474. 58. S. Foister, ‘Holbein’s Paintings on Canvas: the Greenwich Festivities of 1527’, in Hans Holbein: Paintings, Prints, and Reception, ed. M. Roskill and J.O. Hand (New Haven, London: National Gallery of Art, Washington, distributed by YUP, 2001), pp. 119 and 122; in NA E 36/227, Christopher Smith of Greenwich is recorded as bringing ‘Spanish Iron’ for the building of the banqueting house in 1527. 59. Stephen J. Gunn, Early Tudor Government, 1485–1558, British History in Perspective (London: Macmillan Press, 1995), chapters 4 and 5, particularly p. 208. 60. Sarah Beckwith, Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings (London, New York: Routledge, 1993), Chapter 2, on such social order and ritual process. 61. Sidney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). The lives of these masters of the revels are considered in Elisabeth Salter, Six Renaissance Men and Women: Innovation, Biography, and Cultural Creativity in Tudor England (Ashgate: forthcoming 2007). 62. L.P. III, Part II, pp. 1550–1; Alison Weir, Henry VIII King and Court (London: Jonathan Cape, 2001), p. 91. 63. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1505; Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, pp. 532–3. 64. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1509; Kurath and Kuhn (Vol. S) suggest that ‘sypers’ refers to either satin from Cyprus or some kind of neck tie, probably of that material. 65. L.P. III, Part II, p. 977. 66. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1505. 67. L.P. III, Part II, p. 1551. 68. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1505.

194 Notes 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

90.

6

L.P. II, Part II, p. 1505. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1501. L.P. II, Part II, pp. 1505–6; OED: sarsenet is a silk. L.P. II, Part II, p. 1509. Crane, Performance of Self, p. 3. NA E 36/227 passim, and see, fo. 16r, showing the involvement of Christopher Smith of Greenwich in the provision of goods; Hans Holbein is mentioned on fo. 11r; for a discussion of Holbein’s role in the 1527 pageants see, Foister, ‘Holbein’s Paintings on Canvas’ passim. BL MS Eg. 2605 ff. 16v, 34v ff. Edward Halle’s The Union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and York [...] 1550, printed by Richard Grafton in 1550. Reproduced from Bodleian Library CC 39 Art (London: Scolar Press Ltd., 1970), fo. clviii. Roy Strong, Holbein and Henry VIII, The Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 12. NA E 36/227, fo. 15r. BL MS Stowe 146, ff. 112r–113v, 124r–v. See, Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1989), p. 42. Fabian, Remembering, p. 255. Barry Dobson and John Taylor, Rhymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw, 2nd edn (Stroud: Sutton, 1997), p. 42. Jennifer Loach, Edward VI, ed. G. Bernard and P. Williams (New Haven, London: YUP, 1996), p. 156. See also, Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Reworked Material: Discourses of Clothing Bequests in Sixteenth Century Greenwich’, in Clothing Culture, 1350–1650, ed. C.T. Richardson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), on clothing bequests. NA PROB 11/28/7/54; CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/285. See, Maria Hayward, ‘Fashion, Finance, Foreign Politics and the Wardrobe of Henry VIII’, in Clothing Culture, pp. 165–78. See, How Societies Remember, pp. 39–40, for the importance of considering ‘acts of transfer’. NA PROB 11/32/13/98. See, Geary, ‘Oblivion between Orality and Textuality’, pp. 121–2; Althoff et al., eds, Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography (Cambridge: German Historical Institute and CUP, 2002), p. 12. Edward Halle’s The Union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and York, fo. clvii.

Death-fashioning

1. Andrew F. Butcher, ‘The Functions of Script in the Speech Community of a Late Medieval Town, c. 1300–1550’, in The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, ed. A. Walsham and J. Crick (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), pp. 162–5. G. Althoff, et al., ‘Introduction’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed. G. Althoff et al. (Cambridge: German Historical Institute and CUP, 2002), p. 9. For an examination of the role of the public courtroom performance texts in the construction of memory, see Patrick J. Geary,

Notes 195

2.

3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

‘Oblivion between Orality and Textuality in the Tenth Century’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past, pp. 121–2 on the ‘complexities of orality and textuality within the most practical, mundane aspects of life’. Johannes Fabian (with narrative and paintings by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu), Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: UCP, 1996), pp. 255 and 262. See, for example, Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: a Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1990), but see pp. 246–56 on theoreticians’ beliefs that a mnemonic diagram was an invitation to elaborate and recompose rather than being a prescriptive scheme. See also, Memory and the Medieval Tomb, ed. E. Valdez del Alamo and C. Stamatis Pendergast (Vermont, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 1–11; p. 2 shows their primary concern with ‘theory’. Also, Susan Crane, ‘Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory’, American Historical Review, 102 (1997), 1372–85, 1374–5, on the practice of interpretation (though not the interpretation of practice), see 1382 ff. For a more practiceoriented approach see, Mary Carruthers, ‘ “Ars Inveniendi”: Visualization and Composition in Late Medieval Rhetoric’, Annual Medieval Academy Lecture, Leeds International Medieval Congress, 2002. Nathalie Z. Davis and Robert Starn, ‘Introduction’, in Memory and CounterMemory, Representations, Special Issue, 26 (1987), 1–6, 5, on the pioneering approaches of Maurice Halbwachs and Henri Bergson. See also, Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1992), p. 541. On the social construction of memory, see Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1989), pp. 70–1. For an Annales School approach to ‘Les Lieux de Memoire’, see Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History’, Representations, 26 (1989), 7–24, 23. Mark L. Merry, ‘The Construction and Representation of Urban Identities: Public and Private Lives in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1998), 239–47. See also Nigel Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: the Cobham Family and their Monuments (Oxford: OUP, 2001), pp. 241–3. NA PROB 11/30/33/257. NA PROB 11/30/33/259. NA PROB 11/8/354. Martha Carlin, Medieval Southwark (London, New York: Hambledon Press, 1996), p. 88. Robert Pocock, THE HISTORY OF THE Incorporated Town and Parishes of GRAVESEND & MILTON IN THE COUNTY OF KENT Selected with Accuracy from Topographical Writers AND ENRICHED FROM MSS HITHERTO UN-NOTICED Recording Every Event that has Occurred in the Aforesaid Town and Parishes from the Norman Conquest to the Present Time (Gravesend: The Author, 1797), p. 112. See Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation and Transmission in Town and Country in Late Medieval England’ (unpublished PhD thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 2003), pp. 67–74 for a case study based on choice in the neighbouring Kentish settlements of Milton and Gravesend. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/270. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/270; ‘staynd’ is taken to mean ‘painted’.

196 Notes 13. M. Concanen and A. Morgan, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of St Saviour’s Southwark (London, 1795), unpaginated. 14. CKS DRb. Pwr. 2/122. 15. LMA ACS 3/146. 16. LMA ACS 4/77. 17. NA PROB 11 22/37/293. 18. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/211. 19. NA PROB 11/11/29. This is probably the same William named by John Cayser as his son in his testament discussed above. 20. NA PROB 11/19/43. 21. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/175. 22. NA PROB 11/22/7/49. 23. NA PROB 11/16/17/132. 24. LMA ACS 2/84. This is the same Stephen Burdon who made the interesting and highly textual commemorative request mentioned in Chapter 1. 25. NA PROB 11/16/18/140. 26. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/19. 27. NA PROB 11 14/34/267. 28. NA PROB 11 22/7/51. 29. LMA ACS 5/60. 30. CKS DRb. Pwr. 10/198. 31. See the historiographical introduction to the study of commemorative monuments in Saul, Death, Art, Memory, pp. 1–9; p. 6, for the statement that ‘brasses were crucial to the strategies of legitimation by which families drew attention to their status and affirmed their position in the élite’; p. 9, for the statement that, ‘a key aim of this book will be to consider what the brasses can teach us about the process of fashioning and manipulating the family’s self-image’. 32. See, for example, Saul, Death, Art, Memory, dustcover. 33. See Chapter 2 for a discussion of approaches to emulation. 34. LMA ACS 4/153. 35. LMA ACS 5/227. 36. NA PROB 11 14/34/267; my emphasis. 37. NA PROB 11/25/30/223. 38. For a suggestion that notions of individualism should be treated with caution because selfhood is invariably constructed in group rather than individual terms, see Nigel Saul, ‘Bold as Brass: Secular Display in English Medieval Brasses’, in Heraldry, Pageantry, and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. Coss and M. Keen (Wordbridge: Boydell, 2002). 39. On the significance of literacy events, and the distinction between literacy events and practices, see Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 94–125. 40. LMA ACS 3/155. 41. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/273. 42. LMA ACS 4/42. 43. CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/200. 44. For the kinds of questions which must be asked of a more material, production centred analysis, see Saul, Death, Art, Memory, esp. pp. 227–9; on the same

Notes 197

45.

46. 47.

48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62.

sort of question asked in relation to testamentary requests, see Saul, ‘Bold as Brass’, pp. 179–85. The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). For a useful summary of the historiography of monument description, particularly brasses, see, Saul, ‘Bold as Brass’, p. 170. Age of Chivalry, p. 296. J.G. Waller, ‘The Lords of Cobham, their Monuments, and the Church’, AC, 11 (1877), 49–112, plates 3, 4 and 2; Age of Chivalry, pp. 250–1. For a recent and comprehensive description and discussion of these objects see, Saul, Death, Art, Memory. See Saul, ‘Bold as Brass’, p. 185 on the importance of status as reflected in testamentary evidence. For some particularly useful case studies based primarily on surviving material monuments see, Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. Peter Coss and Maurice Keen (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), esp. Brian and Moira Gittos, ‘Motivation and Choice: the Selection of Medieval Secular Effigies’; and Saul ‘Bold as Brass’. Saul, Death, Art, Memory; Gittos and Gittos, ‘Motivation and Choice’, p. 150: ‘The general arrangement might be the choice of either the subject or executors but, to a greater or lesser extent, both were in the hands of the mason as far as the execution was concerned.’ For this tendency in memorialisation in general, see Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History’, Representations, 26 (1989), 7–24, 19. See, Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London: British Museum Press, 1996), for a general discussion of medieval memorial representations based on material evidence, see Binski’s Chapter 2, and pp. 92–115 on ‘the tomb as a sign of selfhood’. On this subject in relation to providing context for commemorative brasses, see Saul, Death, Art, Memory, pp. 5–6; Saul, ‘Bold as Brass’, esp. pp. 170–1. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/374. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/387. I am grateful to Peter Fleming who raised this point in discussion at the Fifteenth Century Conference, Keele University, September 2003. On the related subject of a rise in popularity of ‘bastard feudal insignia’ on monuments, see Saul, ‘Bold as Brass’, pp. 186–7. CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/344; ‘briganders’ are body armour for foot soldiers, sometimes a pair if made in two pieces, generally iron sewn onto canvas or leather; ‘sallett’ is a light head-piece with no crest, with a lower part curving outwards behind; ‘splints’ protect arms and elbows, and are made from overlapping plates; ‘gorget’ is a piece of armour protecting the throat. Saul, Death, Art, Memory, p. 228. St George was depicted on the memorial of Sir Nicholas Habwerk at Cobham. On ‘Muster and Array’, see W.G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: the England of Henry VIII 1500–1547 (London, New York: Longman, 1976), pp. 14–18. NA PROB 11/11/57. For a discussion of changes in funerary practices promoted by the Reformation, including the use of tombs, see Claire Gittings, Death, Burial, and the Individual in Early Modern England (London, Sydney: Routledge, 1984),

198 Notes

78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

esp. pp. 12–14, 39–40; for difficulties of interpreting individualism, see Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Ritual, Bereavement (London, New York: Routledge, 1989). On changing fashions of tomb representation including the depiction of weepers, occurring from the fifteenth century, see Binski, Medieval Death; also Christopher Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066–1550 (London: Routledge, 1997); Andrew Martindale, ‘Patrons and Minders: the Intrusion of the Secular into Sacred Spaces in the Later Middle Ages’, Studies in Church History, 28 (1992), 133–56. On the comparable issue of styles of representation in brasses, see Malcolm Norris, ‘Later Medieval Monumental Brasses: an Urban Funerary Industry and its Representation of Death’, in Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100–1600, ed. S. Bassett (London: Routledge, 1992). On this subject see, David Aers, ‘A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists; or, Reflections on Literary Critics Writing the “History of the Subject” ’, in Culture and History 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, ed. D. Aers (New York, London: Routledge 1992), passim. PROB 11 25/12/72. PROB 11 32/10/78. See also the request of William Kellome, CKS DRb. Pwr. 10/7. LMA ACS 6/203. LMA ACS 6/ 227. See, Judith Ford ‘A Study of Wills and Will-making in the Period 1500–1533 with Special Reference to the Copy Wills in the Probate Registers of the Archdeacon of Bedford, 1483–1533’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Open University, 1992), p. 45. This template is taken from the will of John Aunsell, as discussed in Chapter 2. This template is taken from the will of John Knotte, a weaver of Yalding in Kent. NA PROB 11/16/9/76. Beds CRO ABP/R3, p. 57. This is cited in Ford, ‘Study of Wills’, p. 32. See, for example, Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, London: CUP, 1974), pp. 55–6. LMA ACS 4/42. LMA ACS 4/124. LMA ACS 5/127, my emphasis. See Elisabeth E. Salter, Six Renaissance Men and Women: Innovation, Biography and Cultural Creativity in Tudor England (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2007), for detailed discussion of a different instance of this kind of request. NA PROB 11/25/11/179. See Chapter 5. See Chapter 5. See Chapter 5. See Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation’, pp. 77–85.

7

The Creativity of Reading

63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77.

1. This chapter has been particularly helped by participants in our Reception Studies Discussion Group: Andrew Butcher, Rob Lutton, Cath Nall, Claire

Notes 199

2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

Norton, Emily Richards, Daniel Wakelin, and Helen Wicker; and also in May 2005 by the discussion of a paper I gave to the Household Research Group, University of York. The related subject of the origins and rise of an English reading public forms the focus of a forthcoming monograph. For example, Andrew F. Butcher, ‘The Functions of Script in the Speech Community of a Late Medieval Town, c, 1300–1550’, in The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, ed. A. Walsham and J. Crick (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 157–70, and n.1 on the forthcoming monograph. NA PROB 11/22/37/290. LMA ACS 3/118; also, Michael Camille, ‘Signs of the City: Place, Power and Public Fantasy in Medieval Paris’, in Medieval Practices of Space, ed. B. Hanawalt and M. Kobialka (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 1–36. NA PROB 11/16/27/206. See Chapter 6 for commemorative tombstone inscriptions; Chapter 4 for domestic and luxury goods and their inscriptions. The concept of the author is used loosely, see The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520, Exeter Middle English Texts and Studies, ed. J. Wogan-Browne et al. (Exeter: EUP, 1999), pp. 4–8. See also, James Simpson, ‘Faith and Hermeneutics: Pragmatism versus Pragmatism,’ JMEMS, 33(2) (2003), 215–39. Margaret Deanesly, ‘Vernacular Books in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, Modern Language Review, 15 (1920), 349–58; Joel Rosenthal, ‘Aristocratic Cultural Patronage and Book Bequests, 1350–1500’, Bulletin of John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 64 (1982), 522–48, 535–48. For comparisons with the York diocese, see Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1340–1548: Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in PreReformation York Diocese (Princeton: PUP, 1985), pp. 150–6; and P.J.P. Goldberg, ‘Lay Book Ownership in Late Medieval York: the Evidence of Wills’, The Library, 16(3) (1994), 181–9; for comparisons with Norwich, see Norman Tanner, Church in Late Medieval Norwich, 1370–1532 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984); also, Carol Meale, ‘ “ ... alle the bokes that I have of latyn, englisch, and frensch”: Laywomen and their Books in Late Medieval England’, in Women & Literature in Britain, 1150–1500, ed. C. Meale (Cambridge: CUP, 1993), pp. 130–3 on will evidence for book ownership. A History of Reading in the West, ed. G. Cavallo and R. Chartier (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), p. 4. See Chapter 4; and on Kent in particular, Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Some Differences in the Cultural Production of Household Consumption in Three North Kent Communities’, in Managing Power, Wealth and the Body: the Christian Household in Medieval Europe, c. 850–1550, ed. S. Rees-Jones et al. (London: Brepols, 2003), pp. 391–407. See Mary C. Erler, ‘Devotional Literature’, in The Cambridge History of the Book, Vol. 3, 1400–1557, ed. L. Helinga and J.B. Trapp (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), p. 497; and Chapter 4 of this volume. Goldberg, ‘Lay Book Ownership’, 183, and n. 10 also citing similar evidence for Hull; Moran, Growth of English Schooling, pp. 196–7; Tanner, Church in Late Medieval Norwich, p. 111; Erler, ‘Devotional Literature’, p. 505. NA PROB 11/10/13/98.

200 Notes 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42.

43.

NA PROB 11/13/20/169. LMA ACS 3/162. LMA ACS 4/139. NA PROB 11/14/22/171. See, Wendy Scase, ‘Reginald Pecock, John Carpenter and John Colop’s “Common Profit” Books: Aspects of Book Ownership and Circulation in Fifteenth Century London’, Medium Aevum, 61 (1992), 261–74, 262–3; H.S. Bennett, ‘The Production and Dissemination of Vernacular Manuscripts in the Fifteenth Century’, The Library, 5th Series, 1 (1946/7), 167–78, 171. CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/256; book bequests of Acton kin include William Acton, CKS DRb. Pwr. 5/278; Edward Nevill, CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/29; and Henry Little, CKS DRb. Pwr. 7/166. See also Scase, ‘ “Common Profit” Books’, 267–9. NA PROB 11/16/13/102. NA PROB 11/10/2/9. See note 42 for ‘portuus’. Ibid. Ibid. NA PROB 11/3/21/131. CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/256. NA PROB 11/11/24/137. NA PROB 11/9/24/66. For a further consideration of Dame Katherine Styles, see Elisabeth E. Salter, Six Renaissance Men and Women: Innovation, Biography and Cultural Creativity in Tudor England (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2007). NA PROB 11/16/13/102. Susan Groag Bell, ‘Medieval Women Book Owners. Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture’, in Women & Power in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (Athens, GA, London: University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 149–87. NA PROB 11/16/13/102. CKS DRb. Pwr. 3/294. NA PROB 11/10/12/80. NA PROB 11/10/26/206. NA PROB 11/12/8/55. NA PROB 11/8/38/306. NA PROB 11/14/7/52. NA PROB 11/10/2/9. And see n. 42 below. See, for example, Marcell Clarke, clerk, of Gravesend (1537), CKS DRb. Pwr. 9/235; Simon Templeman, Rector of Lee, next Greenwich (1527), CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/16. LMA ACS 2/50. Kurath and Kuhn (Vol. O–P) has (for ‘Prykked Song’) ‘to write down music by means of notation involving points or neumes’. (Pricked song is notated as opposed to extemporised.) Common forms are ‘prike song’ or ‘prike-song’. And see n. 42 below. NA PROB 11/6/24/205 (... a small portiforium in the custody of Master William Estfelde of Cambridge). Kurath and Kuhn (Vol. O–P) define ‘portiforium/ port-hors’, porteus or portuus as a portable breviary. See Paul Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular Religion and Devotional Reading in Late Medieval Dartford and West Kent’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 1998), Chapter 7.

Notes 201 44. CKS DRb. Pwr. 4/50. Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea [The Golden Legend], c. 1260, a huge collection of saints’ lives. It was first published in English by William Caxton in 1483, but was widely read in Latin and in translation through the medieval period. Pupilla Occuli is a treatise designed for the examination of devotional practice, intended as an instructional manual for priests but also read by the laity. 45. CKS DRb. Pwr. 2/284; this text may be one of those grammar treatises discussed in Moran, Growth of English Schooling, pp. 37ff, and identified by her, on pp. 201–2, as a popular gift from clergy to young boys. 46. NA PROB 11/14/22/171. 47. Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, p. 291 identifies Pars Occuli as a book of ‘pastoral theology’. 48. NA PROB 11/13/6/63. 49. NA PROB 11/14/34/267; my italics. 50. NA PROB 11/9/27/215; my italics. 51. Moran, Growth of English Schooling, p. 175 for the suggestion that, ‘it does not appear to be that simple’. 52. Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 194. 53. Moran, Growth of English Schooling, pp. 221 ff. 54. Ibid., p. 224. 55. Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-century England (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), especially ch. 2, and pp. 28–9 on the use of primers. 56. See, Gillian Draper, ‘Educational Provision and Piety in Kent’, in Pieties in Transition: Religious Practices and Experiences, 1400–1640, ed. R.G.A. Lutton and E.E. Salter (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2006); Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, ch. 7, especially p. 227; Moran, Growth of English Schooling, pp. 164–70, for comparable evidence from York diocese. 57. J.W. Adamson, ‘The Extent of Literacy in England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries’, The Library, 4th Series, 10 (1930), 162–93, 174ff.; also Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, p. 220 for caution about terminology, where ‘schoole’ may refer to either a grammar school or university education. 58. NA PROB 11/10/26/ 206. 59. On Kent, see Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, p. 220. 60. NA PROB 11/11/15/127. 61. NA PROB 11/21/27/208. 62. Adamson, ‘Extent of Literacy’, p. 184. 63. LMA ACS 3/157. 64. LMA ACS 4/198. 65. LMA ACS 3/192. 66. LMA ACS 6/1. 67. Adamson, ‘Extent of Literacy’, pp. 178–9, for a discussion of the role of clergy in ‘informal’ education. 68. CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/85; compare Moran, Growth of English Schooling, p. 175 and n. 108, for the comparative rareness of such bequests. 69. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/253. 70. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/21. 71. BL MS Eg 2605, fo. 40v. 72. CKS DRb. Pwr. 11/61.

202 Notes 73. CKS DRb. Pwr. 12/116. 74. See Draper, ‘Educational Provision and Piety’; also Lee ‘Monastic and Secular’, pp. 206–7, on the educational benefits to local families such as the Sprevers of Cobham in Kent. 75. CKS DRb. Pwr. 2/285; Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, pp. 203–4. Vitas Patrum (Lives of the fathers) was a collection of moral tales; it is not clear which version is intended here. 76. NA PROB 11/17/8/8. 77. NA PROB 11/17/5/35. 78. NA PROB 11/18/25/223. 79. CKS DRb. Pwr. 10/74. 80. PRO PROB 11/23/16/210. 81. See also Chapter 1; for the seminal work see Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: 1066–1377, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). 82. For example, in Southwark see, NA PROB 11/10/26/206 (Peter Alanson, 1495); NA PROB 11/13/28/235 (John Hill, 1503); in Eltham, see, CKS DRb. Pwr. 6/252 (John Passey); CKS DRb. Pwr 8/233 (Agnes Passey, 1512); CKS DRb. Pwr. 8/223 (Roger Ewgham, 1529). 83. LMA ACS 2/57. 84. See, for example, the extent of the textual production occurring in the parish of St Olave Southwark in the period 1546–1610. Southwark Local History Library, Churchwardens’ Accounts, YT 852. 85. LMA ACS 3/203. 86. See, Cavallo and Chartier, History of Reading; also Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England, ed. K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker (Cambridge: CUP, 2003). 87. Adamson, ‘Extent of Literacy’, pp. 163–5, 166, 170. 88. H.S. Bennett, ‘Printers, Authors, and Readers, 1475–1557’, The Library, 5th Series, 4 (1949), 155–65, 161–3; Idea of the Vernacular, ed. J. Wogan-Brown et al., especially part 3. See also Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge: CUP, 1996); Moran, Growth of English Schooling, pp. 44–6; also, Orme, English Schools, pp. 62–3; Lee, ‘Monastic and Secular’, p. 221; Spufford, Small Books, pp. 28–9. On what people read, see Moran, Growth of English Schooling, p. 186; Carol Meale, ‘ “gode men/ Wiues maydnes and alle men”: Romance and its Audiences’, in Readings in Medieval English Romance, ed. C. Meale (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), p. 217. 89. Michael Sergeant, ‘The Transmission by the English Carthusians of Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings’, JES, 27 (1976), 225–40; Vincent Gillespie, ‘Vernacular Books of Religion’, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375–1475, ed. J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge: CUP, 1989); Vincent Gillespie, ‘Cura Pastoralis in Deserts’, and Anne Hutchinson, ‘Devotional Reading in the Monastery and in the Household’, in De Cella in Seculum: Religious Secular Life and Devotion in Late Medieval England, ed. M. Sergeant (Cambridge: CUP, 1989); Paul Lee, Nunneries, Learning, and Spirituality in Late Medieval English Society: the Dominican Priory of Dartford (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, Boydell & Brewer, 2001). On interactions between lay and religious women see, Carol Meale, ‘ “... alle the bokes”...’; Felicity Riddy, ‘ “Women Talking about the Things of God”: a Late Medieval Sub-culture’, pp. 106–111, and Julia Boffey, ‘Women Authors and Women’s Literacy in

Notes 203

90.

91.

92.

93.

94.

95.

96. 97.

Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-century England’, all in Women & Literature in Britain, pp. 165–6, 169–75. On the nature of a medieval lay reader’s ecstatic mystical experiences in the use of devotional poetry see, Vincent Gillespie, ‘Mystic’s Foot: Rolle and Affectivity’, in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, ed. M. Glascoe (Exeter: EUP, 1982), pp. 212–20. On the significance of the private ownership of devotional books in the development of silent reading, as well as the broader political implications associated with lay independence from the clergy, see Paul Saenger, ‘Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Later Middle Ages’, in The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, ed. R. Chartier (Cambridge: CUP, 1989), pp. 143–4 and 145. On significant evidence for the popularity of romance literature in the fifteenth century including ‘mercantile concern’ with English translations of such fiction from the early fifteenth century, see Meale, ‘ “gode men” ’, pp. 210–15, 219–20; also John Thompson, Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript: British Library MS. Additional 31042, Manuscript Studies II, gen. ed. J. Griffiths (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987), p. 1. On conduct literatures particularly those for gentlemen see, George R. Keiser, ‘Practical Books for the Gentleman’, Cambridge History of the Book, Vol. 3, pp. 470–94. On statutes, see Margaret Aston, England’s Iconoclasts: Laws against Images (Oxford: OUP, 1988). For a recent summary of reading theories see Michael Clanchy, ‘Images of Ladies with Prayer Books: What do they Signify?’, in The Church and the Book, Studies in Church History published for the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. R. Swanson (London: Brepols, 2004). Idea of the Vernacular, pp. xiv and 220. Other approaches claim to be about reading practice but tend to be based in theory. See, for example, Andrew Taylor, ‘Into his Secret Chamber’, in The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, ed. J. Raven et al. (Cambridge: CUP, 1996). See, for example, Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton, From Humanism to Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Europe (London: Duckworth, 1986), especially Chapter 1 on ‘Ideals and Practice’, where on pp. 9–13 the authors address ‘what actually went on’ in the classroom of Guarino Guarini of Verona; and also, p. 161 for the intention of the authors to get to grips with ‘humanist practice’ rather than its theoretical and idealistic promises. See Cavallo and Chartier, History of Reading, p. 1, which begins by citing Michel de Certeau’s generalised claims concerning the role of readers as ‘travellers’. J.B. Trapp, ‘Literacy, Books and Readers’, Cambridge History of the Book, Vol. 3, pp. 31–43, especially pp. 40–3 on ‘individual readers’. He cites particularly the following studies: Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities; William Sherman, John Dee: the Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995); and other studies by Grafton, Jardine, and Sherman. Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘ “The Dayes Moralised”: Reconstructing Devotional Reading, c. 1450–1550’, in Pieties in Transition. For pioneering work using a codicology approach to reading see, for example, Thompson, Robert Thornton, p. 69 for the relationships between processes of book production and compilation, as the ‘mixture of obvious

204 Notes

98.

99. 100.

101.

102. 103. 104.

105.

106. 107.

108. 109.

110.

111.

and sometimes happy accident, and occasional careful design’ in this process; Boffey, ‘Women Authors’, pp. 165–6, 169–75; Meale ‘ “ ... alle the bokes” ’, pp. 137–43; Riddy’, ‘ “Women Talking” ’, pp. 106–11. See also the recent consideration of the ‘poetics of annotation’ in Books and Readers in Early Modern England (Material Studies), ed. J. Anderson and E. Sauer (Pennsylvania: UPP, 2001). See Chapter 4. Adamson, ‘Extent of Literacy’, 170, identifies churches as centres of lay reading, especially of vernacular texts, in the sixteenth century. See C. Cotton, ‘Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parish of St Andrew, Canterbury’, part 1, from AD 1485 to AD 1625, AC, 37 (1917), 181–246; J.M. Cowper, ‘Accounts of the Churchwardens of St Dunstan’s, Canterbury’, AC, 16 (1885), 289–321, 314–5. For some implications of silent reading in public, see Paul Saenger, Space between Words: the Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, CA: USP, 1997), pp. 273–6. BL C. 106.a.24 (A Spirituall Counsayle), fo. E viii, v. See, for example, CUL, Kk.1.6. The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum, Formerly Edited by Sir Frederic Madden for the Roxburgh Club, and Now Re-edited from the Mss. in the British Museum (Harl. 7333 & Addit. 9066) and University Library, Cambridge (Kk.1.6), EETS, Extra Series, 33, first published in 1879, ed. S.J.H. Herrtage (London, New York: OUP, 1962), pp. xxi–xxviii. ‘Note’, in Wynkyn de Worde’s Gesta Romanorum (c. 1510) facsimile, Exeter Medieval English Texts, gen. ed. M.J. Swanton, with a note of introduction by R. Tamplin (Exeter: EUP, 1972), p. i. The manuscripts are: British Library Manuscripts Harley 7333, and Additional 9066; Gloucester Cathedral 22, 22 Add., and 42; Oxford Balliol College 354; and, Cambridge University Library Kk.1.6. See, Susan Powell, The Advent and Nativity Sermons from a Fifteenth Century Revision of John Mirk’s Fesial edited from BL MSS Harley 2247, Royal 18B XXV and Gloucester Cathedral Library 22, Middle English Texts, 13, gen. ed. M. Gorlach (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, 1981), p. 12 on the prior existence of these three manuscripts as one book; also see A Middle English Version of the Gesta Romanorum Edited From Gloucester Cathedral Manuscript 22, Studia Anglistica Upsalensia 8, ed. K.I. Sandred (Upsala: Upsala University). BL MS Harl. 7333 measures 44 cm by 32 cm by 3 cm. Michael C. Seymour, A Catalogue of Chaucer Manuscripts, 2 vols (1995–97), Vol. 1 (Brookfield, USA, Aldershot, UK: Scolar Press, 1995), p. 21; Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. xix. BL MS Add. 9066 measures 27 cm by 28 cm by 2 cm. Thomas D. Cooke, ‘Tales’, in A Manual of Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500, 10 vols (1967–1998), gen. ed. J.B. Severs and A.E. Hartung, Vol. 9 (New Haven, Connecticut: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1993), pp. 3288–91 for a list of the stories. Suzanne M. Eward, A Catalogue of Gloucester Cathedral Library, with additions by Neil Ker, H.M. Nixon and R.A. May (The Dean and Chapter of Gloucester Cathedral, 1972), p. 3; GCL 42 measures 21 cm by 15 cm by 1 cm. Songs, Carols and Other Miscellaneous Poems from Balliol 354, Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book, EETS, Extra Series, 101, ed. R. Dyboski (London: Kegan

Notes 205

112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

118. 119. 120.

121. 122.

123.

124. 125. 126.

127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133.

Paul, Trench and Trubner & Co., 1907); D.C. Browning, ‘The Commonplace Book of Richard Hill’ (unpublished B. Litt thesis, University of Oxford, 1934); R.A.B. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 352. Dyboski, Songs, Carols, pp. xiii–xvi. CUL MS K.k.1.6 measures 27 cm by 19 cm by 5 cm. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 5 vols (1979–80), Vol. 3 (1980) (Munich: Kraus Reprint), pp. 563–5. CUL MS K.k.1.6, ff. 148r, 179v. St John’s College Cambridge A.II.18. Hoccleve’s Works: The Minor Poems, EETS, Extra Series, 61, 72 and 73, rev. edn, now in 1 vol., originally ed. F.J. Furnivall and I. Gollancz, as Extra Series 61 (1892 repr. 1937) and 73 (1925), ed. J.E. Mitchell and A.I Dowe (London, New York: OUP, 1970), pp. 215–40. Hoccleve’s Works, p. 218. Hoccleve’s Works, pp. 137–9, 140–78. Aymer Valence, ‘Cobham Collegiate Church’, AC, 43 (1931), 133–60, 148; Moran, Growth of English Schooling, p. 199, described the Pye as an instructional manual for clergy also popular amongst laity. Meale, ‘ “gode men” ’, p. 218 and n. 33. Valence, ‘Cobham Collegiate Church’, p. 154, for the suggestion that, ‘[T]he Gesta Romanorum was the most popular story book of the middle ages’; Moran, Growth of English Schooling, p. 205 notes the Gesta as one of the most popular ‘Romances’ in York; Adamson, ‘Extent of Literacy’, p. 168 notes de Worde’s shrewd decisions about printing popular texts. Gerald R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England: an Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the Period, c. 1350–1450 (London: Russell & Russell, 1961), pp. 45, 56–7, 91, 186, 196. See Hereford Cathedral 0.III.5, for a macaronic example; and Oxford Bodleian MS Greaves 54 which uses a mixture of Latin Gesta and English sermons. GCL MS 22, p. 473. A fuller rendition of the bare bones is found in Elisabeth E. Salter, ‘Cultural Appropriation and Transmission in Town and Country in Late Medieval England’ (unpublished PhD thesis, CCMTS, University of Kent, 2003). This is from Harl. 7333; see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, pp. 153–4; Sandred, Gloucester, p. 71; Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 171. See the story of Emperor Fredericus, Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. 26; Sandred, Gloucester, p. 51; Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 30. Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. 294, refers to the tale as ‘the story of the three caskets in The Merchant of Venice’. This is from Harl 7333, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, pp. 302–3; Sandred, Gloucester, p. 70; Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 107. This is from Harl 7333, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. 298; Sandred, Gloucester, p. 68; Tamplin, Wynkyn, pp. 103–4. This is from Harl 7333, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. 303; Sandred, Gloucester, p. 70; Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 108. Cruden’s Complete Concordance to the Bible, with Notes and Biblical Proper Names Under One Alphabetical Arrangement, rev. edn, first published 1839, ed. C.H. Irwin et al. (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1996), p. 111; see Isaiah 28: 6, Ephesians 2: 20.

206 Notes 134. Cruden, p. 111; cf. 1 Peter 2: 6; Vulgate, p. 255, has, ‘Propter continet Scriptura: Ecce pono in Sion lapidem summum angularem, electum, pretiosum ...’. 135. For example, in this story, there are allusions to other major themes in biblical narrative, such as the reference to the cock crowing, which refers to the denial of Peter, compare Cruden, p. 97; for example, John 13: 38. 136. See the Emperor Pompeius story for another example where different versions all emphasise specifically a contemporary (or medieval) concern with the interdependence of clerical and secular social groups, rather than the biblical parable suggested by the theme of the feast. 137. Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, p. 310. 138. Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 125. 139. For one example of asking the question, see J. Allan Mitchell, Ethics & Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer and Gower, Chaucer Studies XXXIII (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2004), p. 3. 140. This is from Add. 9066, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, pp. 416–19. 141. This is from Add. 9066, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, pp. 409–11. 142. Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, Collected and Edited with Introductions and Notes, ed. W. Carew Hazlitt, 4 vols (1864–6), Vol. 4 (London: John Russell Smith, 1846), pp. 91–109. 143. I am grateful to Steve Ellis for drawing attention to the issue of worldly goods across this textual (and disciplinary) divide. And I would like to thank the participants and organisers of the Recovering Reading Conference at Queen’s University Belfast, in April 2004, for the very vigorous discussion of this subject. 144. All quotations are taken from Harl 7333, see Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, pp. 302–3; also, Sandred, Gloucester, p. 70; Tamplin, Wynkyn, p. 108. 145. See Chapter 4.

8

Conclusions 1. Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (London: Arnold, 2000). 2. Keith Jenkins, Re-thinking History, 2nd edn, with a new preface and conversation with the author by Alun Munslow, first published in 1991 (London, New York: Routledge, 2003); Keith Jenkins, Refiguring History: New Thoughts on an Old Discipline (London, New York: Routledge, 2003). 3. Lisa Jardine, Reading Shakespeare Historically (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 17, and ch. 1. 4. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice (London: Routledge, 1984); The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai (Cambridge: CUP, 1986). 5. This is specifically relevant to Marxist approaches, see for example Rodney H. Hilton, ‘Introduction’, in The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. R.H. Hilton et al. (London: Verso, 1982), pp. 28–9. 6. Roger Chartier, Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations, trans. L.G. Cochrane (Cambridge, Oxford: Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 30, 34–6, and p. 14 on the recovery of mentalités. 7. Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages: a Study of the Forms of Life, Thought, and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth

Notes 207

8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

Centuries, trans. F. Hopman, first published in 1924 (London: Penguin Books, 1985); also David Aers, ‘A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists; or, Reflections on Literary Critics Writing the “History of the Subject” ’, in Culture and History 1350–1600: Essays on English Communities, Identities and Writing, ed. D. Aers (New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), for a modern view criticising early modernist tendencies to propose that many cultural forms and attitudes began in a post-medieval period. See John L. Watts, ‘Introduction’, in The End of the Middle Ages? England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, ed. J.L. Watts (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), pp. 5–6, on ‘Huizinga’s predicament’, and its continued influence on the historiography of this period. Hilton Feudalism to Capitalism, passim; Christopher Dyer, Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: the Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540 (Cambridge, London: CUP, 1980). Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S.G.C. Middlemore, with a new introduction by Peter Burke, and notes by Peter Murray, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990). For a critique of the Burckhardtian position, see Aers, ‘A Whisper’, p. 186; Watts, End of the Middle Ages? pp. 8–10 ff. Richard H. Britnell, The Closing of the Middle Ages? England, 1471–1529 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). Watts, End of the Middle Ages? p. 265. Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700, Oxford Studies in Social History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 18–19; Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (London: Faber, 1990), pp. 156–79. The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520, Exeter Middle English Texts and Studies, ed. J. Wogan-Brown et al. (Exeter: UEP, 1999), p. xvi, on the much broader context of ‘development’ surrounding Chaucer’s vernacularity; Watts, End of the Middle Ages? pp. 267–8; Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1377, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), on the significance of administrative writing in the development of literacy before c. 1400; Andrew F. Butcher, ‘The Functions of Script in the Speech Community of a Late Medieval Town, c.1300–1550’, in The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, ed. A. Walsham and J. Crick (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), on the cultural importance and implications of the administrative archive. See, for example, Barbara Harvey, ‘Introduction’, in Before the Black Death: Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the Early Fourteenth Century, ed. B.M.S. Campbell (Manchester, New York: MUP, 1991). See, for example, Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: a New History of the Renaissance (London: Norton, 1996); Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520, 2nd edn (Cambridge, New York: CUP, 1989). See, for one example, Eileen Power, Medieval People, first published in 1924 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1951), p. 7.

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222 Bibliography Sharpe, K. and S. Zwicker, eds, Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP, 2003). Sheail, J., The Regional Distribution of Wealth in England as Indicated in the 1524–5 Lay Subsidy Returns, List and Index Society Special Series, 28 and 29, ed. R.W. Hoyle as vols 1 and 2 (1998). Sherman, W., John Dee: the Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995). Simpson, J., ‘Faith and Hermeneutics: Pragmatism versus Pragmatism’, in Hermeneutics and Ideology: Reading Medieval and Early Modern Texts, JMEMS, Special Issue, 33(2) (2003), 215–39. Smail, D.L., ‘The Linguistic Cartography of Property and Power in Late Medieval Marseille’, in Medieval Practices of Space, ed. B. Hanawalt and M. Kobialka, Medieval Cultures 23 (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 37–63. Smith, R.M., ‘Families and their Land in Redgrave, Suffolk 1260–1320’, in Land, Kinship and Lifecycle, ed. R.M. Smith (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 135–95. Smith, R.M., ‘Some Issues Concerning Families and their Property in Rural England, 1250–1800’, in Land, Kinship and Lifecycle, ed. R.M. Smith (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp. 1–86. Sponsler, C., ‘In Transit: Theorizing Cultural Appropriation in Medieval Europe’, JMEMS, Special Issue, 32(1) (2002), 17–39. Spufford, M., Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, London: CUP, 1974). Spufford, M., Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-century England (Cambridge: CUP, 1981). Stone, L., The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, London: OUP, 1965). Strathern, M., Property, Substance and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things (London, New Brunswick, NJ: The Athlone Press, 1999). Strathern, M., The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia (Berkeley: UCalP, 1988). Street, B.V., Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge: CUP, 1984). Strier, R., ‘Identity and Power in Tudor England: Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning from More to Shakespeare’, Boundary 2: A Journal of Post Modern Literature (1982), 383–94. Strohm, P., Hochon’s Arrow: the Social Imagination of Fourteenth Century Texts (Princeton: PUP, 1992). Strong, R., Holbein and Henry VIII (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967). Swanson, R., ed., The Church and the Book, Studies in Church History Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society (London: Brepols, 2004). Tanner, N., Church in Late Medieval Norwich, 1370–1532 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984). Taylor, A., ‘Into His Secret Chamber’, in The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, ed. J. Raven, H. Small and N. Tadmor (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), pp. 41–61. Thirsk, J., Economic Policy and Projects: the Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). Thomas, K., ‘History and Anthropology’, P&P, 24 (1963), 3–24.

Bibliography 223 Thomas, N., Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999). Thompson, J., Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript: British Library MS. Additional 31042, Manuscript Studies II, gen. ed. Jeremy Griffiths (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987). Thomson, J.A.F., ed., Towns and Townspeople in the Fifteenth Century (Gloucester: Sutton, 1988). Thrupp, S.L., The Merchant Class of Medieval London, first published 1948 (Chicago: University of Michigan Press, 1962). Tonkin, E., Narrating our Pasts: the Social Construction of Oral History (Cambridge: CUP, 1992). Trapp, J.B., ‘Literacy, Books and Readers’, Cambridge History of the Book, Vol. 3, 1400–1557, ed. L. Hellinga, and J.B. Trapp (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), pp. 31–43. Valdez del Alamo, E. and C. Stamatis Pendergast, Memory and the Medieval Tomb (Aldershot, Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2000). Valence, A., ‘Cobham Collegiate Church’, AC, 43 (1931), 133–60. Verhaeghe, F., ‘An Aquamanile and Some Thoughts about Ceramic Competition with Quality Metal Goods in the Middle Ages’, in Custom and Ceramics, Essays Presented to Kenneth Barton, ed. D. Allen (Wickham: APE, 1991), pp. 25–61. Vermeulen, H. and C. Govers, ‘Introduction’, in The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and Boundaries’, ed. H. Vermeulen and C. Govers (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1994). Vermeulen, H. and C. Govers, eds, The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and Boundaries’ (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1994). Vovelle, M., Ideologies and Mentalities, trans E. O’Flaherty, first published in French in 1982 (Cambridge: Polity Press with Basil Blackwell, 1990). Waller, J.G., ‘The Lords of Cobham, their Monuments, and the Church’, AC, 11 (1877), 49–112. Waller, M., ‘Academic Tootsie: the Denial of Difference and the Difference it Makes’, Diacritics, 17(1) (1987), 2–20. Walsham, A. and J. Crick, eds, The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700 (Cambridge: CUP, 2004). Warneke, S., ‘A Taste for New Fangledness: the Destructive Potential of Novelty in Early Modern England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 26(4) (1995), 881–96. Watts, J.L., ed., The End of the Middle Ages? England in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Stroud: Sutton, 1988). Weatherill, L., Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain 1660–1760 (London: Routledge, 1988). Weiner, A., Inalienable Possessions: the Paradox of Keeping-while-giving (Oxford, Berkeley: UCalP, 1992). Weir, A., Henry VIII King and Court (London: Jonathan Cape, 2001). Whittle, J., The Development of Agrarian Capitalism: Land and Labour in Norfolk, 1400–1580 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). Wogan-Brown, J., N. Watson, A. Taylor and R. Evans, The Idea of the Vernacular: an Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory 1280–1520 (Exeter: EUP, 1999). Zell, M., Early Modern Kent 1540–1640, Kent History Project (Woodbridge: Boydell and Kent County Council, 2000).

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Index adaptation: creative process 69; small scale 49; social 50, 52, 55, 59, 60, 63, 65, 73 agrarian crisis 51 anecdotes 11 Annales School 9 anthropology: and culture 45; and history 4; of kinship 52; linguistic 18 appropriation 20: acts of 43; reader’s 43 appropriative acts 15, 37: performative 18 aspiration 119–20, 124 attribution of value 75, 77, 79, 126, 168: and creativity 92; creative process of 93; and inscription 88 boats (and barges) 60: fishing 60 books: ‘all my’ 143; bequests of 139–45; bequests by men 143; bequests by women 142; borrowing of 152; culture of 144; evidence of ownership 138; Gesta Romanorum 144; as heirlooms 139; Legenda Aurea 144; lending of 151; Lives of Saints 141, 142; mass book 140; and memory 152; Pars Occuli 144; ‘Portiphorium’ 144; ‘portuus’ 144; ‘prykked Song’ 143; primer 140, 141; primers and books of hours 152; private or public 140; Pupilla Occuli 144; religious and instructional 140; sermon book 144; use of 152 boundaries, cultural 37 burial place, and family tradition 117–18 case studies 8, 9 categories: analytical viii, 46; of contemporary perception 11; deconstructing 79, 91;

deconstructing descriptive 83; of description 82; for descriptive terminology 86; disrupted 46; of heirloom 77; and historical specificity 169; imposition of 2, 95; linguistic constructions of 62; of possession 78; problems with 83; and usages of language 46 change 1: c. 1450–1560 170; agents of 47, 164; broader social and economic 61; and choices 75; chronology of 75; and continuity 63, 76; cultural vii; demographic 50; and discontinuity in living space 68; evidence for 166, 168; and family 168; and fluidity 68; and identity 168; individual 42; issue of 166–9; large-scale 166; levels of 167; of meaning 37; models for 51; performance of 74; personal 43, 48, 68; small-scale 2, 166; social 9; and social adaptation 63; and social networks 168; and styles of commemoration 128 choice/choices: about burial 116; about burial place 117; consumer 94; by copyists 138; ephemeral issue of 124; individual 75, 114; individualised 121; about lifefashioning 109; about memorial style 125; about memorial symbolism 126; personal 14, 15, 76, 80, 95, 114, 115, 121, 166, 169; by printers 138; by readers 138; representation of 116; symbolic 16 chronology: late medieval and early modern 1; and terminology 1 citizens of London 48, 56, 115: and education 146 class vii, 10 225

226

Index

codicology 138 commemoration: attitudes to 1; causal explanations 134; choices about 114; concepts of 111; family traditions 114, 116; and geography 114; ideas about 134; inscriptions 122; and memory 111; and performance 133–5; and reform 136; and Reformation 128, 136; and religious ideology 136; requests for 2, 95, 135; and saints 114, 117; scriptures 123; in Southwark 114; spiritual and material 111; and status 119; stones 122; supra-local meanings 114; and symbolism 111 commercialising society 76, 92 construction of identity 20: see also identity consumption 20: aesthetics of 92; chronology of changing 79; and commercialisation 76; conspicuous and inconspicuous 39; evidence of 39; experiences of 42, 76; and goods 38–9 consumption and emulation 37–42 continuity, and change 74 conventions: of representation 123; textual and contextual 43 court pageantry 105–7 cultural creativity vii, viii, 37, 44–9, 150: acts of 135; anthropological and ethnological approaches to 45; and aspiration 120; and the attribution of value 92, 93; and being textual 137; and commemoration 114; of deathfashioning 111; ethnography of 164; factors influencing 135–6; and improvisation 45; and innovation 45, 150, 163; and linguistic detail 166; mundane 47; of reading 151, 153–63; of requests 124; structures for 169; and text 13, 137; and translation 37; transmission of ideas about 134; using text 164 cultural history 1, 3: new direction 2

cultural transmission 102: agents of 107; and religious houses 149 culture: anthropological definitions of 45–6; book 12; creative innovations 46; disrupted meanings of 46; diversity and homogeneity 36; as dynamic 46; flux of 36; of London 47; of manuscript 12; poetics of 6; pragmatic context 46; of print 12; semiotic definitions of 45; textual 11, 12 death-fashioning 111, 132: creative process of 111 description: detailed 13, 50, 61, 75, 79, 168, 170; emotive 65; going beyond 95; of goods 67, 68; of goods, property and burial practices 13; of heirlooms 80; of memorials 112; of pewter 83; of possessions 75; of property 63, 64; of property and ‘stuff’ 62; qualitative 166; rich viii; richer 170; of silver ware 82; tables 82; textual 59; thick 6 discourse: historical 11; and interpretative crisis 44; legal 44, 62, 166; social 6; textual 13, 44 education 12: and citizens of London 146; and Southwark 146 emulation 125, 127: old-fashioned concept 40; and symbolism 41; and tomb design 41 engrossment 54, 64: language of 63 ethnicity 36: and ascription 36; ethnic boundaries 36 ethnography: historical 5; partial 6; reflexive 6 evidence: administrative 148; anecdotal 11; of apprenticeship 148; architectural 61; bequest 145; from books 150; of book availability 162; of book bequests 142; for consumption 76;

Index evidence – continued documentary 2; empirical 2, 5, 59; for everyday life 4; factual 11; formulaic 169; fragmentary 9, 100, 166; fragments of 11, 150; and language 58; for lifefashioning 97; for lost objects 135; material 2, 11; objective analysis of 5; of performance 107; personal 95, 109; personal and biographical 15; for reading 138, 139; for reading situations 152; repositories of 80; of scholarly reading 149; statistical 76; survival 7; tangible 162; textual 1, 11, 53, 164 experience vii, 1: construction of 167; contemporary 2, 165; everyday 2; popular 76, 170; of practice 165; of reading 159; see also perception Fabian, Johannes, Remembering the Present 96: and narrative 96; and reflexivity 96 family 51: and burial place 117–18; and change 168 fashioning: individual 97; symbolic and practical 109 fiction: good 6; ‘place’ as 7 flow vii, 7: of ideas 8, 48; of social discourse 6; see also fluidity fluidity: of meanings 62; and structure 7; and symbolic meaning 170; see also flow fragments (of evidence) 9, 10 geography vii, 8, 47: geographically specific 8 Gesta Romanorum 152, 153–62: administrative literatures in 159; biblical references in 155–67; circulation of 154; ‘figures’ in 153, 155; and Thomas Hoccleve 154; moral lessons in 159; narrative structures in 155; and popular imagination 159; and possessions 159–61; and sermons 154; social morality in 158;

227

surviving versions of 153–4; symbolic language in 155; symbolic meanings in 159 gift 80: gift-giving 80, 98–9; symbolic 80 goods: see possessions habitus 34 Halle, Edward 107 Harrison, William 75 heirlooms 75, 76–7, 168: biographical objects 76; books 139; categories of 77; construction of 79; and continuity 76; cultural rules 80; descriptions of 80; inalienable possessions 76; keeping-while-giving 76; memorial 109; stories and memories 108; symbolic sphere of 91 hermeneutic crisis 2 history: ‘from below’ 4; and myth 111; of popular culture 165; of reading 149; social and economic 50 household 51: and religious spaces 90; rooms in 66; rooms and ‘stuff’ in 67; ‘stuff’ 66 ideas: formation of 19; about lifestyle 76; textual representation of 124; transmission of 104, 107 identity 30–6, 50: categories of 30; and change 168; collective and individual 36; community 104; construction of 9, 20, 97, 104; creative definition of 74; definition of 1; encapsulation of 43; and ethnicity 35; fashioning of 1, 36, 95, 104; formation of 13; fragmentary 36; group 98–9; and group allegiances 35; group and individual 20; indigenous concepts of 34; individual 97, 137, 167; individual and family 52; manipulation of 34; multifaceted 34; multi-form 30, 36; and name 31–2; and occupation 31–2; of ordinary individuals 2; performance of 3, 37;

228

Index

identity – continued personal 109; personhood 62; and place 33–4; practical and symbolic 16; pragmatic construction of 34; reflections on 99; renegotiation of 62; selfhood 12; shared 97; and space 70; statement of 17, 30; textual construction of 97 imagination 63: and commemoration 122; creative 1; individual 138; popular 151; and meaning 170 inheritance 68: provision of 64; strategies of 1, 55 inns 60: descriptions of 71; dynasties 71, inscription 87–9, 125, 170; and attribution of value 88; and commemoration 122; as mode of expression 163; named rooms in 66; personalised 93; and reading 138; and symbolic meaning 161; and written description 88 institutions, social (fraternities) 35 interpretation 3: crisis of vii, 1, 2, 3, 44, 51, 165; response to crisis of 19 kinship 51: contingent definitions of 56; terminology of 52 knowledge 150: biblical 157; culturally embedded 77; of legal terminology 63; and representation 96 land and property 2, 50: accumulated and transmitted 54; alienation of 55; distinctions between 52; and legal language 63; ownership of 53 life-fashioning 96–7, 109: evidence for 97; with seals and signets 97, 109 lifestyle, ideas about 76 literacy: activities 138, 148; English 11; events 12; occasions 11; popular 13; and popular culture 167; practices 12; situations 138; writing or reading 149

literature: to read 137; to write 137 local history 8 location, geographical 8: see also place London, influence of viii, 79, 115 memorials: descriptions of 112; personal 12; requests for 111; time-depth 125; time-scales 125 memorialisation: and textuality 123; and time 125 memory: concepts of 111; practices of 111; theories of 111 method and approach 3, 11, 49: abstract concepts 21; Annales 166; appropriation as abstract 43; aspiration 119–20; codicological 138; to commemoration 111–12, 127–8; discourse 44; early English renaissance vii, 1; eclectic 21; emphasis on process 37; empirical detail 165; empirical tradition 7; empiricism 4, 5; ephemeral issues 124; ethnographic 3, 50, 51,169; fluid 62; imaginative reconstruction 7, 151; indigenous concepts of identity 34; to individuality 128; interdisciplinarity 9; Marxist 10, 166; mentalités 4; to memorial 125; objectivity 5; and performance 133–5; qualitative 14; quantitative 14; to reading 139; to reading practice 149–51; reflexive 6, 7; to Renaissance vii; to representation of cultures 7; resisting empirical approaches 91, 95; restructuring 51; rigorous partiality 9; statistical 76; temptation to empiricism 79; thick description 6; traditional 50; truth 5,6, 165; unquantifiable evidence 95; vocabularies 20 metropolitan hinterland viii, 7, 47, 48, 53, 79, 92, 94: and marshland 57; see also place microhistory 9

Index modes of expression 86–91, 92, 162, 165, 169: inscription 87–9; naming 86–7; pious conversion 89–91 name, and identity 31–2 naming 86–7 narrative 8: more colourful 168; and discontinuities 96; dull 168; and ethnography 96; grand 9; overarching 166; personal 18; seamless 9 networks: formation of 55; occupational definition of 56; social 52, 168 new historicism 10 objects, in spaces 67 oral: histories 109; record

108

perception (and experience) 1, 43, 50, 51, 61: contemporary 2, 95, 165; culturally embedded 94; deconstruction of 165; individual 138; of luxury goods 75, 76; of possessions 76; production, representation and alteration 13; of style and aesthetics 93 performance: of commemoration 112; ideas about 107; process of 104, 109; public 63; theorisation of 110 performativity 96 personal identification 97, 109: objects of 97 personal parlance 44, 61, 62 place: of burial 117; community 7; cultural influences on 8; and family 33–4; locality and community 7; meta-settlement 48; metropolitan hinterland viii, 7, 47,48, 53, 57, 79, 92, 94; and possessions 81; problem of 47; problematic concept 7; region and locality vii, 7; of residence 59; rural vii; town and country vii places: Kent 54; north Kent 79; London, Greenwich and Southwark 47

229

poetics, cultural 6 popular culture viii, 10, 51, 79, 97, 115, 124, 138, 150, 151: theorisation used in 165 possessions: agricultural stock 93; apparel 2; attribution of value 92; cloth and clothing 81; early English renaissance 79; and élite/non-élite dichotomy vii; jewellery 79, 88; luxury and domestic 2; luxury goods 94; perception of 76; personal 1; personal descriptions of 82; pewter 78; silver ware 79; in spaces 61; Spanish apparel 104; terminology for 82; and wealth 78; and worldly goods 159–61 practice: of consumption 42; cultural 2; daily 3; formation of 19; pious 114; sites of 47; and symbols 43; and theory 4 process: of creative reading 151; cultural 170; of fashioning 95; personal 3; and ritual 49; social 2; and transformation 49 property (and space) 62: perceptions of 62, 63; rhetorical descriptions of 63; widow’s 65 prosopography 48 public and private 70–2; and buildings 69; and inns 71 reader: choices by 138; contradictions for 161; imaginative world of 152; and intertextuality 157; making meanings 138; mental world of 150; ordinary 152 readerships, English 138 reading practice, interpretation of 149 reading public 149 reading: and annotation 150; and audience 149; conceptualisation of 137; and constructions of meaning 139; devotional 149; as ephemeral 150; experiences

230

Index

reading – continued of 150, 159; history of 149; how 137; imaginative activity of 165; and innovation 150; medieval theories of 149; moments of 151; popular 13, 150; in popular culture 138; practices 137, 163; public or private 152; situations 152, 162; and textual time 138; theories of 149 reception 20, 42–4: anticipated acts of 43; public 42; and reader 43; study of 150; of text 138; theoretical 43 reconstruction: detailed 2, 8; imaginative 7, 151; see also method and approach reflexivity 6: reflexive ‘I’ 7; see also method and approach region see place Renaissance vii: see also method and approach representation 20, 43 ritual, process 49 schools 145–7: see also education scribe: influence of 130; of London 59; see also will self, historiography of 96 self-fashioning 96 servants of the royal household 48, 56, 97; armour 100; and commemoration 120, 125; élite tastes 102–3; family ties 99; fellows 98; gifts 98–9; hosts 101, 102; livery 108; wills of 97, 108 situation: cultural 37; culturally distinct 97; of reading 138; textual 138 social mobility 120: upward 50, 51 space (and property) 62: architectural 61; communal 69; objects in 67; perceptions of 62; and possessions in 61; of a room 67 St George 127: fashionable cult of 128

status: construction of 119; signification of 123 structures vii, 47: appropriation of 166; and creativity 60; linguistic 68; manipulation of 59, 166; meta60; old and new 63; of process 168, 169; of representation 11, 49, 110, 166, 168; for social adaptation 73; uses of 164 structures of representation 11, 49, 110, 166: meta- 115; textual 169 sumptuary legislation 76 symbolic meaning 163, 169: spheres of 162; of worldly goods 169 symbolism: construction of 93; contradictions 163; language of 155; manipulation of 109; and practices 43; sphere of 80, 161; theoretical and practical levels of 165; and traditions 126; and translation 126, 127; of worldly goods 159–61 taste: dynamics of 75; élite 102; ideas about 107; London 115; Renaissance 107 terminology 20: kinship 52; knowledge of legal 63; for possessions 82; theoretical 20; see also vocabularies text: and creativity 13; materiality of 12; and memorialisation 122; and perception 2; and personal perception 96; in popular culture 12; public performance of 42; transmission and reception of 138 textual culture 42, 123, 148, 170: popular 12 tomb, symbolism of 41, 123 transition vii, 1: between old and new 63 translation 37: and creativity 37; and symbolism 126 transmission vii, 20, 48: of books 149; of book culture 144; cultural 102; of culturally creative ideas 134; of ideas 58, 104, 149; intergenerational 108; of land and property 54; of styles 126; of taste

Index transmission – continued 102; of text 138; of tomb designs 114 truth: crisis of 165; partial 6; pursuit of 5 vocabularies 20, 61: of property description 64; of property ownership 62; see also terminology will: appropriation of 14; appropriative acts 15; of John Aunsell 20, 21–30, 80 115; of John Baret 111–12; of John Bishop 112–13; and book bequests 139–45; of John Brown 133–5; circumstances of production 121; commemorative role 151; comparing bequests in 84; and creativity 14; deconstruction of 109, 110; discursive contexts of 125; and educational provision 145–8; and emotion 108; as evidence 13–18; evidence for book ownership in 148; as formulaic text 16; generic constraints 16; and geographical location 169; of Simon Godfrith 115; and heirlooms 76; and identity 95; individual coherence of 80; individuality of 92; internal reference in 91; language of 73, 98; legal rhetoric in 61; literate acts in 135; as literature 16; and lost objects 135; and memorial

231

requests 111; and memorialisation 121; and memories 108; and memory 123; mundane requests 112, 113, 125; narrative conventions 14; occupational information in 148; and performance 165; performance of 37; pious preambles in 129–33; pious provision in 113; of William Pole 84–6; and possessions 75; and property descriptions 63–72; proto-Protestant 116, 132; public performance of 42, 135; and public property 72; as repository of information 125; ritual of producing 92; ritualised text 165; scribes 16, 130; and servants of the royal household 97, 108; and social adaptation 169; strategies 13; symbolic themes in 94; and symbolism 126; testamentary strategies 13; of William Tilghman 141; and time 125; and tombs 121; ‘without pomp and pride’ 116 writing practice 11, 19: and cultural production 44; and discourse 44; and ethnography 96; and patchwork 10, 11; and personal choice 44; and personal parlance 44; and rhetoric 44; and vocabulary 44 writing, and commemoration 122 yeomen 56–7: networks of 57; and Protestantism 56; strategies of 56

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