tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214322592024-03-13T15:39:40.792+00:00Early Modern WhaleDrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.comBlogger432125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-34704719170116980182017-06-21T08:31:00.001+01:002017-06-21T08:31:01.179+01:00At the Eroica Britannia again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This has to have been be one of the most enjoyable days I've experienced in all my years of cycling. There can't be many days in Derbyshire where it's warm for a start at 7.15am. The weather was unbelievable, with the Peak District doing a brilliant impression of Tuscany. </div>
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I was back at the Festival ground by (any bike rider will snort) 2.15pm. </div>
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55 miles ... in seven hours? What can I say? I was making a day of it. The route is (cue singing nuns) Climb every Mountain, and a largish proportion of the ride is on trackways. The dozens of people fixing punctures just makes you think that you must ride slowly, picking an optimum line, for if you charge along, you are bound to puncture. </div>
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Nor can you fly down the hills if your life depends on Weinmann centre-pull brakes. No problems with my famous Harry Hall, and its tubular tyres just might be a good idea when 'snakebite' punctures are so easily had. </div>
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So, instead of wondering what kept me, I give myself maximum marks for correct pacing. My plan for the ride was to spin along on a small gear while possible, saving my beans for the climbs, and then ride every damn one of them without getting into real difficulties. Concentrate on enjoying the day, drink the free beer at the lunch stop, and, these things put together, not ending up wilted in a patch of shade under a tree, or foaming with sweat at the stops, being treated for cramp, or being cajoled along by quite anxious riding partners. There was quite a bit of that. In quite testing conditions, I cruised round. Slowly! </div>
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I suppose all those years of club riding gives you a realistic perspective - gradually - on what is the best option. Ignore the clock, and I bossed this ride.</div>
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I was also stopping to take photographs. After the mid-point of the ride, the camera was so warm that some internal fogging blurred the lower right of the photographs. A selection follows, but first a professional shot of me crossing the Monsal Dale viaduct. Behind me, in the cool deep cutting just at the mouth of the tunnel, a glee club were singing 'Daisy, Daisy'. The brilliantly organised lunch stop was a couple of level miles ahead.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-27lXtaLnRFo/WUmK7AGgsAI/AAAAAAAACV8/9RH9KL0SA5o8RAO2FCCCl9Y7wbq5A-MQACEwYBhgL/s1600/Fleming2017prophoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="1600" height="229" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-27lXtaLnRFo/WUmK7AGgsAI/AAAAAAAACV8/9RH9KL0SA5o8RAO2FCCCl9Y7wbq5A-MQACEwYBhgL/s320/Fleming2017prophoto.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dubP3xPEZ40/WUmJRQM4FVI/AAAAAAAACVY/dNcs-sPjNHQVQ2K3HqF7vHHeJ_OcuTReQCLcBGAs/s1600/P1020889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dubP3xPEZ40/WUmJRQM4FVI/AAAAAAAACVY/dNcs-sPjNHQVQ2K3HqF7vHHeJ_OcuTReQCLcBGAs/s320/P1020889.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riders on the High Peak Trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">High Peak trail still</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Through a cutting</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top of Beeley Moor, before the big descent</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Common spotted orchids on the Monsal Dale trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the descent into Hartington</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same road without the hallucinatory vehicle</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top of the track up from Hartington</td></tr>
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The Eroica is the only mass participation ride I do. I treat it in a solipsistic fashion: the majority are far more involved in the whole event and its festival, ride in costumes (tweeds and wool socks remained popular), and with friends.<br />
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From Audax riding days, I'd tended to assume that the middle distance would be the most popular option, but in this year's tweak to the route, the middle length and short rides joined for the last couple of miles. Suddenly there was a barely-cycling army of stropping pre-teens, boys with limited bike-handling skills, and their hot and bothered parents. One concludes that, really, the short ride is the difficult one.<br />
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At the finish, I heard after a bit the name of Professor Steve Pudney announced. He's a man I've met, and whose Lands End to John O'Groats ride for charity on a bicycle precisely as old as himself I followed via his blog. He'd had his first experience as a rider of proper cycling-induced cramp, of the yelping in pain lying on the roadside kind. I suggested to him that a free gin and tonic, or at least the tonic part, might help. The young woman helping work the Hendricks Gin promotion must have been a resting actress perfecting her saucy barmaid persona, and launched into a repertoire of risque cucumber quips. I quite enjoyed watching the role reversal. Hot, bothered but very correct male trying to cope with a barrage of not totally welcome banter from a young woman. But he avoided triggering intellectual cramps and came through this unexpected ordeal as he had the physical one.<br />
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-2857919338501972412017-06-16T17:17:00.001+01:002017-06-16T17:18:46.061+01:00Casualties of a Voyage, 1601-3<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A casualty list:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“A note of the men’s names deceased out
of the Dragon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1 William Thomson. 2 Job Harket. 3
William Allin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">4 Raphe Arden. 5 Christopher Scot. 6
Edward Major.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">7 Thomas May. 8 John Pegoune. 9 John Johnson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">10 Philip Salisbury. 11 Edmund Davies.
12 Richard Joanes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">13 Daniell Richardson. 14 John
Clackson.15 Robert Poppe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">16 John Webbe. 17 John Humber. 18
William Burrowes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">19 Mathew Perchet. 20 Edward Keall. 21
Nicholas Williams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">22 Peter Bennet. 23 Leonard Nichols. 24
Robert Dame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">25 John Judson. 26 William Barker. 27
William Barret.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">28 William Ridge. 29 Ralphe Salter. 30
Jeremy Gaufe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">31 Henry Thickpenny. 32 Henry Brigges. 33
Rice Williams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">34 Martine Topsaile. 35 M. William
Bradbanke 36 Richard Androwes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">37 M. Thomas Pullin preacher. 38 Jeames
Fullar. 39 William Winter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">40 William Hall. 41 John Hankin. 42
Richard Exame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">43 Robert Hill. 44 John Woodall. 45 John
Jeane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">46 Robert Keachinman. 47 Jeames Caverly.
48 John Hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">49 John Trincall. 50 John Duke.51
Martaine Cornelison.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">52 Launslet Taylor. 53 John Settell. 54
William Burrowes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">55 Percevall Stradling. 56 John
Harrice. 57 Frauncis Pormoth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">58 Edward Baddiford. 59 Thomas Price. 60
Phillip Goulding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">61 Roger Morrice. 62 Stephen Burdall. 63
Nicholas Ragwood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">64 George Wattes. 65 Myles Berry. 66
William Mounke.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The list appears with three others in the last pages of this
pamphlet:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A
TRUE AND LARGE DISCOURSE OF THE VOYAGE OF THE WHOLE FLEETE OF SHIPS SET forth
the 20. of Aprill 1601. by the Governours and Assistants of the East Indian
Marchants in London, to the East Indies.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">WHEREIN
IS SET downe the order and manner of their trafficke, the discription of the
Countries, the nature of the people and their language, with the names of all
the men dead in the Voyage.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">AT LONDON Imprinted for Thomas Thorpe,
and are to be solde by William Aspley. 1603.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s hard to tell why. The other
account of the voyage, <i>A LETTER WRITTEN TO
THE RIGHT worshipfull the Governours and Assistants of the East Indian
Marchants in London; containing the estate of the East Indian Fleete, with the
names of the chiefe men of note dead in the Voyage </i>confined itself, as the
title makes clear, to just the chief casualties, as they were seen, the ranking
ships officers and merchants on board. The full list in this pamphlet includes
two men given the honorific ‘Master’, among the ordinary seamen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They were all embarked on the boat
called ‘The Red Dragon’, previously called ‘The Scourge of Malice’ (by its first owner and commissioner, the Earl
of Cumberland, who must have been reading too much 1590’s satire). This is an
excellent Wikipedia page:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(1595)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(1595)</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bought off the Earl, the ship was
re-named for this, the first fleet voyage of the East India Company (1601-3).
The Red Dragon was a big ship, 600-900 tons, with 38 guns, much larger than the
other main ships making up the fleet sent out, Hector (300 tons, whose crew
suffered 37 casualties), Ascension (260 tons, 38 casualties), Susan (240 tons,
39 casualties). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The attrition rate on the flagship was
lower, because the Commander of the flagship and the whole fleet, Sir James
Lancaster, made his men drink lemon juice daily, so that they did not die of
scurvy or suffer fatal debilitation by it leading to death. Lancaster’s report
on this success was sent to the Admiralty, and promptly shelved and forgotten.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lancaster, Sir James (1554/5–1618), <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/view/article/15961?docPos=1">http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/view/article/15961?docPos=1</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7MEdjYMK7Y0/WUQBdr0B6pI/AAAAAAAACVE/FIGZE3-_PooJ0IGkEIflFkIwVdhdkcJcQCLcBGAs/s1600/Jameslancaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7MEdjYMK7Y0/WUQBdr0B6pI/AAAAAAAACVE/FIGZE3-_PooJ0IGkEIflFkIwVdhdkcJcQCLcBGAs/s320/Jameslancaster.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What did they die of, the casualties in
this fleet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Scurvy, dysentery, the calenture, they were
lost overboard, or fell fatally, unspecified causes, tropical diseases after
reaching their destination (“the countrie is very unwholsome, that almost it
may be said of it, as it is said of Malacca, fewe come thether, but eyther
loose hide or hayre: heere we lost ten or twelve men out of our ship.”) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Or they were the victims of the grossest
negligence:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“The 27. day being Saterday, the
lamentablest accident happened, that happened since wee departed England, and
thus it was, Maister Winter the Maisters Mate of the Admiral dying, the rest of
the Captaines and Maisters went to his burial and according to the order of the
sea, there was 2. or 3. great ordinances discharged at his going a shoare, but
the maister Gunner of the Admirall being not so carefull as he should have
beene, unfortunately killed Maister Brand Captaine of the Ascention and the
Boatswaines mate of the same ship, to the great danger of the Maister, his mate
and another Marchant who were hurt and besprinckled with the bloud of these
massacred men, so these men going to the buriall of another were themselves
carryed to their owne graves.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Red Dragon (just) and the Hector
survived to take part in the second (with Ascension and Susan) and third voyage.
For the third voyage, the Red Dragon was commanded by William Keeling:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Keeling">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Keeling</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, it was on this big ship that the
purported performances of <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Richard II</i> took place off Sierra Leone
and Sumatra in 1607 and 1608.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This yarn about maritime Shakespeare
productions has been comprehensively exploded by Jonathan Bate, who shows that ‘Ambrose
Guntio’ was beyond all reasonable doubt a mask for the dread name of J P
Collier. Collier removed the relevant pages (for the dates) of Keeling’s
surviving diary for the voyage, and left in print under the unlikely alias this
tasty and poisoned tit-bit for literary scholarship to rejoice over, all the
way up to the third edition Arden <i>Hamlet</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bate, bless him, simply googled the pseudonym
to locate other items published as by ‘Ambrose Guntio’, and found comprehensive
and convincing overlap with work the forger published under his own name:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6wTq8_Wkk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6wTq8_Wkk</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But the other way to have thought about
it was likelihoods. You might have put on a <i>Hamlet</i>
on a Cunard liner, or White Star line ship heading for India. But when every
day was a battle with storm-damaged ships for crews debilitated by illness,
malnutrition, and dangerous labour, who was going
to have the leisure to cast, distribute parts to, costume, commit to memory and
play (or even spectate at) a <i>Hamlet</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No doubt the East India Company did get
a little better with more experience. But it’s just laughable to think that
participants on a most prosperous and lucky voyage would have spare energy for
this kind of nonsense. They had preachers on board too, and this first voyage
gives us an instance of the more pious sort of performance <i>they</i> would have
considered edifying, and we can imagine that events of this general nature were
far more likely to have been conducted on the third voyage than a Shakespeare
play:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Before our departure from hence we had
a Sermon and a Communion one a Sunday in the forenoone, and afternoone one of
our men which was a Jew, was christened and called John, our Generall being his
godfather.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I still do not understand the full
casualty list. The other pamphlet, which has less stress on the deaths and
dangers, seems a more official sort of publication. I think women whose
husbands had gone to sea were allowed to re-marry after three years with no
news, so a list of men who hadn’t come back at all, rather than come back and
absconded, would have been useful and humane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is delivered without reproaches: the
East India Company is not condemned, they are new to this risky game too (they
still had to work out that arriving in London with a galleon full of pepper
would drive down the price of pepper).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The pamphlet reminds me of Donne’s ‘The
Storm’ and ‘The Calm’ (though just how literary those poems look in the
comparison), and of <i>The Tempest </i>(“wee
continued here two monethes and eight dayes, having for the most part every
daye fearefull thunder, raine and lightenning, as the like is not heard in our
countrey, for they haue many slaine with the thunder which maketh them make
hast to gette home before night. The people are very industrious and take great
paines, both in setting of Rice which groweth there in great quantytie, so that
there is whole stackes thereof, as also in beating and winnowing the same. They
weave such thinges as they weare about their bodyes beeing made of the barke of
trees. Their houses are but meane, standing halfe a yarde from the ground and
covered with leaues, with a hoale at one ende of the same house to creepe in at
on their knees. They love Wine exceedingly, with which they will bee very
drunke”). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The things those lost men saw - or if
they were unlucky on the way out, almost got to see! Elephants with their boy
mahouts, the Sultan of Aceh’s damsels dancing in their bracelets and jewels, even
mermaids (“The 13. day we saw two Marmaides, and as we judged them, they were
Male and Female, because the Mosse of one of their heads was longer then the
other, their heades are very round, and their hinder parts are devided like two
legges, they say they are signes of stormy weather; and so we found it”). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If
Henry Thickpenny was one of the few to bear the Thickpenny name, as this site below seems
to indicate he may have been, maybe he’d had good value for being a Thickpenny:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Thickpenny">http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Thickpenny</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And if Methusalem Mountjoy (dead on the
Ascention) had only a short life, it was certainly intense. Everybody on this crazily dangerous voyage deserved a monument somewhere, and the printing press of Thomas Thorpe provided it - it would later produce a more famous memorialisation (of sorts), without a name at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-7711446658589186912017-06-05T08:25:00.000+01:002017-06-05T08:25:32.361+01:00Lady Jane Gerard ‘the most Ingenious and true vertuosa'<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s9Goygi0-tM/WTQiiQ1T0MI/AAAAAAAACUk/XskphjCRED8JV2uXsHWr11yMW4L5Gb79QCLcB/s1600/millington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="708" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s9Goygi0-tM/WTQiiQ1T0MI/AAAAAAAACUk/XskphjCRED8JV2uXsHWr11yMW4L5Gb79QCLcB/s320/millington.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The Bodleian library has just announced the purchase of this letter sent by the enterprising Edward Millington to Lady Jane Gerard in 1673:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2017/06/01/edward-millington/">http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2017/06/01/edward-millington/</a><br />
<br />
I really haven't very much to add to what the curators announce at the URL above. But here's my go at a full transcript of the letter:<br />
<br />
"Madam,<br />
In Pursuance of my promise of giving an exact account of all the English authors of Witchcraft both for and against I gave you when I was last with you & Sold you a parcel of books <<strike>I gave</strike>> an imperfect one) to which may be added these that follow.<br />
Vid[elicet] Dr Dees relation of his actions with spirits - - - in a folio<br />
[margin] price 12 shillings<br />
Ady’s Candle in the Darknes 4mo<br />
[margin] 2 shillings and 6 pence<br />
Lavater of Walking Ghosts & spirits 4mo fo[lio]<br />
[margin] 2 shillings and 6 pence<br />
with 2 other movd of the Same Subject w[hi]ch, if your Ladyship be desirous to see I shall send or bring<br />
<br />
From your humble Servant Edward Millington at the bible in Little Brittain<br />
Lond Novemb[er] 29 1673"<br />
<br />
<br />
It is of course fascinating to see a woman collecting "English authors of Witchcraft both for and against". In the Restoration period debate was intense: for the sceptical side, works by Thomas Ady, the 1665 reprint of Scot, John Wagstaffe's <i>The question of witchcraft debated</i> with its expanded second edition both published by Millington (1669 and 1671), while the veracity of witchcraft was asserted by Casaubon, Glanvill, Drage, and in R. T.'s answer to Wagstaffe, <i>The opinion of witchcraft vindicated. </i>Jane Gerard clearly wanted to apprise herself of both sides of the question. If only we knew what conclusions she came to, and why.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
My title comes from her chaplain Samuel Gilbert's <i>Fons sanitatis </i>(1676). This is the full context:<br />
<br />
"This Spring was first taken notice of, and several experiments tryed with it, by the most Ingenious and true vertuosa, that Right Honourable Lady Jane Gerard, Baroness of Bromley, of Sandon in Staffordshire, whose Charitable care and charge, in damming it out from the common Water, into which it delivered it self, (a large Pool through which the River Terne runs, taking its beginning about half a mile above it,) causing it to be divided into two large Baths; the one for Men, the other for Horses."<br />
<br />
Gilbert lists alphabetically the cures effected by the spring, and stresses that "there is no price taken for any quantities at the Well" and that, while it was better to drink the water direct at the source, Lady Gerard had authentic water from her spring bottled and sealed with the coat of arms of her son, to prevent cheats selling adulterated, mixed, or common water to the sick.<br />
<br />
So, Lady Jane Gerard sounds open-minded, intellectually active, and keen to promote the therapeutic waters she had discovered without seeking to profit from them. In a way, to be a woman who thinks she has discovered a remarkable cure for the sick - both men and horses - goes with having a wary interest in what was being said about witchcraft. New forms of cure, be they by stroking, 'warming stones', or sympathetic magic, were always liable to denunciation as diabolic in origin and as products of a lack of acceptance of God's will or distrust in the power of prayer (etc.). Looking out healing springs to rival the waters of Bath, as John Aubrey busied himself doing, was more innocuous. Even so, Lady Gerard's public-spirit and refusal to profit is strongly emphasised, she is a 'vertuosa' who has tried experiments on the efficacy of the spring.<br />
<br />
Her chaplain's word for her, 'vertuosa' is in the OED as (sense 1) "A morally virtuous or highly esteemed woman" from 1652. Samuel Gilbert wants this association, but has developed the meaning towards OED sense 2, "A female virtuoso (in various senses); esp. a woman who is highly accomplished in music or other arts" from 1754. His precise intermediate sense, to suggest a female member or associate of the virtuosi, is not recognised in the dictionary, but was in use. Talking about static electricity in women's hair, Robert Boyle wrote of a very fair lady who helped his observations with her own that she was "no ordinary Virtuosa" (1675); the absurd Lady Vaine in Shadwell's <i>The Sullen Lovers </i>offers various potential cures to the atrabilious Emilia<i>, </i>while<i> </i>complacently<i> </i>calling herself "a Virtuosa".<br />
<br />
So, at a time when as the virtuosi of the Royal Society were discussing witchcraft, so the virtuosa Lady Jane Gerard wanted to make herself informed of both sets of arguments. It was not always easy to source books: "I pray you lay hold on Dr Dee for mee", John Beale implored Samuel Hartlib in 1658.<br />
<br />
Millington himself was a smart operator. In this letter, he is indeed sourcing second hand books, but soon he would be leading an operation that bought "the libraries of ... eminent persons deceased". The practice he finally settled on was then to distribute a free catalogue to selected coffee houses, and then conduct the announced auction himself. The EEBO copy of his catalogue for the sale of the books of Gijsbert Voet in 1678 is the most meticulously annotated text I have seen, a collector or perhaps collector's agent noting prices from other auctions in his (or indeed her) copy (figures in a box or circled denote other auction prices):<br />
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-80064054601886526522017-06-01T14:16:00.000+01:002017-06-01T14:16:36.279+01:00“What it is for one who was the Member of Christ, to make himself the Member of a Harlot?” Robert Foulkes, cleric and murderer, 1679.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aMIJ0YrLX7s/WTARDcUFWJI/AAAAAAAACUU/EFV6AgFTQ_AesUmB_YFudeIEEfWoofi3ACEw/s1600/foulkes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="819" data-original-width="591" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aMIJ0YrLX7s/WTARDcUFWJI/AAAAAAAACUU/EFV6AgFTQ_AesUmB_YFudeIEEfWoofi3ACEw/s320/foulkes.JPG" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=sat:3105#page/1/mode/1up">http://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=sat:3105#page/1/mode/1up</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A deep measure of Repentance, a greater proportion
of Sorrow is certainly required of Consecrated persons…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Following on from my
interest in Nathanial Butler, I here pursue another ‘dying penitent’ whose
story came to be bracketed with his in publications like William Turner’s <i>A compleat history of the most remarkable
providences both of judgment and mercy</i> (1697) and George Meriton’s <i>Immorality, debauchery, and profaneness,
exposed to the reproof of Scripture</i> (1698). This was the appalling case of
Robert Foulkes, minister of Stanton Lacy in Shropshire. Foulkes’ story has been
told repeatedly, both in contemporary pamphlets and slightly later 18<sup>th</sup>
century publications, by David Turner (who also wrote the brief ODNB life) in <i>English Masculinities, 1660-1800, </i>in
Peter Klein’s <i>The Temptation &
Downfall of the Vicar of Stanton Lacy,</i> and by Elizabeth Round, <i>aka</i> the blogger ‘History Geek’ <a href="https://historygeek.co.uk/2016/05/19/the-penitential-sermon-of-robert-foulkes/">https://historygeek.co.uk/2016/05/19/the-penitential-sermon-of-robert-foulkes/</a> .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes was a Restoration
era clergyman, arriving in Stanton Lacy in 1660. There, he seems to have
litigated aggressively for prompt and full tithe payments, been excessively
given to drink (he would later claim that his sessions at taverns at least
began with necessary meetings with parties to his litigation), and he fornicated
round his parish as opportunity offered, while (it was said) beating his wife
on suspicion that she had acted on a personal conclusion that what was sauce
for the gander was also sauce for the goose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fatally, his Anglican predecessor
in the parish, Thomas Atkinson, had in 1657 left his unmarried daughter Anne in
some kind of guardianship to his successor as minister. So in 1660 she came
under Foulkes’ control. Foulkes said with some disingenuousness that “Her
Father was a Gentleman whom I never saw, or had the least Intercourse with”.
This was probably in a narrow sense true, but it omits the fact that the victim
of his seduction was herself a daughter of the parish’s previous minister. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes later wrote
this about the daughter of the Reverend Atkinson: “The Devil had prepared for
me a sad companion and partner in my debaucheries; she was easily tempted by
me, and proved afterward a constant temptation to me, and has been the great
occasion of this dismal conclusion of our wretched course of life.” It seems
then that part of Foulkes’ successful efforts towards a posthumous
rehabilitation involved putting the blame on the young woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">From a different point
of view, the author of <i>A true and perfect
relation of the tryal and condemnation, execution and last speech of that
unfortunate gentleman Mr. Robert Foulks late minister of a parish near Ludlow
in Shropshire</i> (anonymous, but by style and type of reference probably by
the Patrick Kilborne who wrote <i>The
execution of Mr. Rob. Foulks, late minister of Stanton-Lacy in Shropshire with
some account of his most penitent behaviour, confession, last speech &c.</i>)<i> </i>had this to say about the seduction of
Anne:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“it was prov’d that Mr
Foulks was left Guardian to the Gentlewoman Arraign’d with him, and making use
of some Authority might be challenged from that trust, he with that, and urgent
intreaties, gaind so far on her, as at last to debauch her to his bed, and had
used that familiarity so often that at last she prov’d with Child.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes vehemently
denied that he had attempted to ‘vitiate’ Anne when she was just nine. But he
does not indicate what age she was when their relationship began. Maybe Anne
was nine when her father died, twelve when Foulkes became her guardian in 1660.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The extra-marital
affair was notorious by 1673, and continued even though the Bishop of Hereford
intervened in 1676 to try to forbid Foulkes from spending any time alone with
Anne Atkinson. But, as Foulkes said of himself, he was “a very slave to my
lust, and in absolute vassalage to my flesh.” Attempts to prove that she had already
given birth to a child by Foulkes, the baby farmed out to somewhere in Wales,
could not be proven, with the embattled cleric denying the charges. Foulkes
rather believably asserts that with his reputation under such strain, he
actually became a far better clergyman – he had previously been negligent in
the official part of his duties, now he tried to face down his critics by a
display of proper clerical behaviour (yes, as he admits, apart from the
continued adultery):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“to palliate and hide
my sin the more, I studied to be more elaborate and zealous in my Preaching, to
the great satisfaction of my Hearers; only I seldom medled with, or but very
tenderly touched my own beloved sin; I went about all the parts of my
Ministerial duty so carefully, and discharged them with such approbation, that
the judgments of many charitable and well-meaning persons not only acquitted me
of the vices I stood charged with, but I deluded their good opinion into some
thoughts of my innocency and virtue.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1678 Anne was
pregnant (possibly for the second time). As she approached term, Foulkes took
her to London. He would admit that he was seeking a late abortion. Anne came to
term, however. Foulkes refused to let her have any midwife’s help. She
delivered a baby daughter. Foulkes cut the baby’s throat, and disposed of the
body in the ‘house of office’, shoving it down the privy apparently in the belief
that the drain would carry the corpse away into the nearby river. Foulkes then
returned to Shropshire. According to Kilborne (if he is the author of <i>A true and perfect relation</i>),<i> </i>Anne had to confess to an attendant of
her that she had given birth to a child, and one is left to presume that
questions as to the baby’s whereabouts led to her confessing what Foulkes had
done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We cannot know to what
extent he acted on his own initiative, or what level of consent she gave. Foulkes
had vehemently denied the relationship, which he had always tried to keep as “an
Arcanum between my partner and myself”. The baby was evidence that he could not
allow to exist. In a perverse way, preserving the reputation of the cloth
perhaps helped steel him to his brutality. Later, he would award himself
repentance points for grieving that he had killed an unbaptised child, noting
that nobody else had pointed this out. I would not like to try to imagine more
despicable conduct. Foulkes and Atkinson had clearly engaged in a long-lasting
affair, and nothing could keep them apart. But he took her new-born baby and
murdered it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes himself can account for what happened by facile
and predictable recourse to a discourse of Satan and the sinner hardening in
sin: “Having by many former repeated acts, arrived at last to a habit in
sinning, my Conscience became so seared and past feeling … [the murder of the
baby] required a conscience of full proof in Satans service to attempt it.”<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kilborne’s account (if
it is him) of their exposure, trial and judgement is succinct:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“the indisposition of
the green woman, gave her attendant sufficient evidence she had been Delivered
of a Child, which at last she confest; and it being thus positively prov’d
against him, he was Condemned, and she not in the least consenting to the
murder, was both pittied and acquitted.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Green woman’ is not in
the OED in this sense, but it was a 17<sup>th</sup> century idiom for a woman
who had recently given birth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes, though strenuously
repentant, and accepted as penitent, was in fact rancorous to the end. He would
assert that Anne was party to the ‘Fact’, the murder, and exploited the
courtroom’s propriety to get herself freed:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“There is some offence
taken, as I hear, at my Charging her with what she denied at our Trial, she did
indeed say, That she knew Nothing of the Fact, for which we were Questioned,
which she demonstrated by Arguments that could not modestly be spoken in that
place, without such unsavoury and noisom demonstrations: I affirm, Upon the
word of a dying Man, That both her Eyes did see, and her Hands did Act in all
that was done: I am dead in Law, and I know my sayings are no Evidence against
her; but the next time we meet at the Bar, which we shall infallibly do, and
two thousand Witnesses shall be produced against us, that is, Her Conscience
and Mine, these things will be found to be true; and as such I assert them, as
I shall suddenly answer it before the All-seeing and Heart-searching God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, the man who cut the
throat of the baby and shoved the body down a privy objects that she maintained
her innocence (convincing the court) by “unsavoury and noisom demonstrations”
and “Arguments that could not modestly be spoken in that place”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anne went back to
Stanton Lacy after this shattering experience. The ODNB life explains that the
Church of England finally found a way to punish her: “She was eventually
excommunicated in 1682 after William Lloyd, now bishop of St Asaph, wrote to
Archbishop William Sancroft to complain that her evasion of punishment stood as
a disgrace to the church.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I should hope or
imagine that Anne did not distress herself too much about excommunication from
an institution that had brought such disaster to her life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But William Lloyd was
the interesting figure in Foulkes’ last days. Gilbert Burnet was also involved
in this intense process - Burnet was going to be busier with John Wilmot, Lord
Rochester’s death bed conversion (or madness, or mockery) in 1679-80.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For Lloyd, Foulkes was
a public relations disaster for the Church of England. How could the Church
reprehend what Foulkes terms “the too too fashionable sin of Uncleanness” in
court libertines, scoffers and atheists, when a clergyman has committed
depravities beyond the worst rake in a Wycherley play? Fornication,
infanticide, rumours that the cleric had argued Anne into bed with him using
instances of Old Testament polygamy, hard drinking – and all this in a minister
who had litigated ferociously for payment of tithes. Foulkes had to be (as we
would say), ‘spun’, and who better to do the spinning than Foulkes himself? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After his sentence,
Foulkes had just a few days before stepping onto the gallows, so influence was
exerted to get him a nine day stay of execution, and during this time Foulkes
had to repent, floridly. I am sure that repentance was in Foulkes too, but this
was a self-interested man, bullying, devious and self-pitying. He does not seem
to have realised until told by Dr Lloyd that his mission was to exonerate the
church. The church, in return, would forgive his sins, and send him off to face
judgement with a reasonable hope of joining King David (the chosen biblical
model) in heaven:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Thus ended this
unfortunate Gentleman, who by the temptations of Satan was brought like Holy
David into the horrid sin of Adultery, but as his sin resembled his so did his
Repentance, and we hope they are both now singing Hallelujahs in the glorious
Region of Eternal joy” - even Kilborne (if it is him writing a pamphlet that is
relatively sympathetic to Anne Atkinson) ends with this thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By any normal view, Foulkes
should have kept quiet till death, annihilated by his own hypocrisy, exposure
and ignominy. There was nothing he could say for himself. But Lloyd pushed him
in a direction he was all too willing to go, towards an attempt to exonerate
the church and, at a personal level, manifest the required exemplary penitence.
Foulkes obliged by fasting, and trying to forgo sleeping – so as to make the
fullest use of his repentance time. What was predictable, and something his
clerical advisers seem to have given encouragement to, was that Foulkes would
palliate his own crimes by blaming Anne.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes had acquired a
team of minders, who would keep him ‘on message’, managing both his oral and
written confessions (different versions of what he said on the gallows appear
in different pamphlets, it is very obvious that material was scripted as
appropriate to him). They kept on the job too, eminent clergymen riding in a
coach with him to the gallows, and presiding over the burial his body - nocturnally
- after it was over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes’ repellent pamphlet
is the main production. <i>An alarme for
sinners containing the confession, prayers, letters, and last words of Robert
Foulkes, late minister of Stanton-Lacy in the County of Salop, who was tryed,
convicted and sentenced at the sessions in the Old Bayly, London, January 16th,
1678/9, and executed the 31st following: with an account of his life /
published from the original written with his own hand, during his reprieve, and
sent by him at his death to Doctor Lloyd</i>. He is minded to, or has been
prompted to apologise to everyone except the person on whom he’d inflicted most
damage, Anne Atkinson. The Bishop of London, his successor in the parish, his
wife, his children, his parishioners (he forgives them!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Foulkes makes a bold
appeal to God: he hopes the Almighty will be happy to have so penitent a true
believer in heaven. He also seems to insinuate that God will want to assure
Foulkes of his salvation by way of helping the Church of England clear itself
of disgrace:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“I humbly submit to thy
Justice in my Death; but I most Earnestly pray that I may be delivered from
Eternal Death and Everlasting Burnings; and when my Soul is departed from this
vile Body, Let it be brought into thy Presence, that I may Bless and Glorifie
thy Name Eternally; for the Riches of thy Grace and Mercy which has so Abounded
towards me. And for thy Names sake role away the Reproach from thine Heritage,
and thine own Tribe, which I have brought upon it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anne is right in his
firing line. He pretends to some reluctance, but says that he has been
encouraged to believe that it is right to give his response to things that were
said in court, so giving “Satisfaction to those who were at my Tryal, and may
have their belief warpt to uncharitableness, by the Confidence of my fellow
Criminal’s Accusations, and the Moderation of My Answers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He impugns Anne without
shame or check; and when he turns to his readership to generalise, his facile
warnings about whores and whoredom are just too obvious instances of
blame-shuffling:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Open your eyes
therefore, and not only look, but contemplate upon these dreadful and tragick
instances, oh Adulterers and Adulteresses, and be not ensnared with a Whores
charms”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Men must all “avoid the
Snares of a whorish woman”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He feels entitled by
his repentance to address his eldest daughter:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Betty, remember
Modesty and Chastity are great Ornaments of a Woman, I charge thee on my
blessing to preserve them; Thou art old enough to observe what ruine and
destruction Whoredom makes in the world”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As I mentioned, he
addresses his former parishioners, arguing quite openly that if they had paid
their tithes when due, there would not have been so much bad blood in the
parish, and he might not have come to such disgrace. He asks their forgiveness,
and magnanimously gives them his own:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“I hope to obtain my
pardon of God, and I believe you will not deny me yours, as I do freely and
heartily grant you mine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The abhorrent cynicism,
the manipulation, the victim-blaming in this stage-managed repentance seem not
to have been noticed. The Church acquired a notable penitent, and
excommunicated his primary victim. Nobody argued that Foulkes might be in a
state of attrition rather than contrition. Foulkes exploited fully a rhetoric
that was left unexamined and unchallenged: “Let the Circumstances of my
Condition add weight to my Words; Dying men have no Temptation to warp them
from Sincerity”. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He’d had every inducement and encouragement:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I was indeed at a
great Contest with my Self, whether I should by my Silence submit, and so
Consent to some untrue Reflections that were cast upon me in a Place so
Publick, in a Concern so Great, and to my Prejudice so Fatal; about this I had
great tossings in my thoughts for three or four days since my Sentence. Loth I
was to lye under a greater Load of Ignominy than belonged to me; my Burden was
big Enough of it Self without any such Additions. Whilst I was thus Irresolute
I received the Credit as well as the Comfort of a Visit from a Reverend Person:
to him I Communicated my doubts, and from him receiv'd this Resolution, that I
may Lawfully Acquit myself of any unjust Aspersions.”</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All this was predicated
on Foulkes’ willingness to die, having said the right things. Two versions of
his scaffold speech exist: he is made to say what his clerical minders wanted
him to say. Those who accompanied him in the coach were keeping up the
pressure; I suppose they did not trust him, if left alone in a cart, not to
backslide into tears, denials, mutenessor resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the account of
Foulkes’ speech on the scaffold in <i>A true
and perfect relation of the tryal and condemnation, execution and last speech
of that unfortunate gentleman Mr. Robert Foulks late minister of a parish near
Ludlow in Shropshire, who received sentence of death in London, for murder and
adultery.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The EEBO copy of this
pamphlet is a faint grey one, and this page in particular almost impossible to
read accurately. I did my best with it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“My Friends and
Brethren<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I am deservedly brought
hither this day to suffer Death for a crime which deserves that Punishment by
the Law, and I thank my great God I am too conscious of my own guilt in the
least to deny but that both by the Laws of God and man, I have thereby forfeited
that Life which I am now going to lay down the horrid sin that I was sentenced
for was its true very great in itself, but yet is much aggravated being done by
one of my Function or Calling, and it is one of the greatest fears I have now
left me in the world, least my Example should contract any contemplation the
Renowned Clergy-men of England. Ah, Sirs, it was not the Church, but one of her
unworthy members that committed this heinous offence; and therefore whatsoever
you think me, for God’s sake let her remain pure and unblemisht, as indeed she
is, in your hearts and minds: Had I followed the wholesome Principles she
enjoyns, both me and all men too, I had not been in this place upon this
occasion; but here are several Learned
and pious Ministers that can in part manifest my cordial and unfeigned sorrow, for having thus
shamefully offended both God and her; and I hope the great God, whose face I
trust I shall in a few minutes behold, doth both see my contrition, and will
through the benefits of the blood of Jesus accept me for it. O therefore I
beseech you, if my ill Example has disrepresented her, let my late Penitence
and dying hatred and abhorrency of so black a sin recommend her again to your
practice and obedience, without which you must never expect to be happy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His speech was much
longer, but the greatness of the crowd hindered us from hearing all, but the
substance we have here related. After he had done he pray’d very earnestly, and
then freely submitted to the execution of the Sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His corps was privately
brought back in a Coach that Evening and decently buried at St Giles in the
Fields.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">During his trial,
Foulkes had lapsed into his old ways. He mentions a particular rebuke, and in
the shock of its acuity, goes some way to admitting its justice. But he then
tries to cover his behaviour with a flimsy excuse: “The day after my Sentence
there came to visit the Prisoners one Mr. Smith the Ordinary of Newgate. He was
pleased to tell me (but in Private) that he observed me at my Tryal Gazing
about the Court and the Galleries, where Sate several Gentlewomen. I confess I
was formerly too apt to delight in such sights, and let in abundance of Sin at
those windows of my Soul; but at that time I had other thoughts and
Apprehensions: the cause of that diversion was to spy out some Witnesses I
thought Material.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A party of strong-minded women should
have been allowed to tumble Foulkes’ body into a shallow grave at a remote
crossroads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-81153704837445230012017-05-17T14:42:00.000+01:002017-05-17T14:44:37.834+01:00Swarms of flies, and a holy exterminator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pVQF6W3rpUk/WRw_kIR_qWI/AAAAAAAACT0/Gi5IkXnWLSwQZ9yb4lw4D782l3J7Kb0XwCLcB/s1600/P1020709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pVQF6W3rpUk/WRw_kIR_qWI/AAAAAAAACT0/Gi5IkXnWLSwQZ9yb4lw4D782l3J7Kb0XwCLcB/s320/P1020709.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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My images are of stained glass now in the church of St Mary the Virgin, Shrewsbury. The panels, purchased by the Reverend William Gorsuch Rowland in the second quarter of the 19th century, were originally in the Altenberger Dom (North Rhine, Westphalia). When the Abbey was suppressed in the secularisation of Germany in 1803, the windows were removed, and available for purchase by the Reverend.<br />
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The panels depict the life and some of the miracles of St Bernard of Clairvaux. St Bernard, especially during the headlong rush to catastrophe that the Second Crusade he so fervently promoted proved to be, had many miracles associated with him. We do not have here the lactation of St Bernard, when breast milk from a statue of the virgin flew into his eye and cured him of an eye infection, but what is presumably one of the lesser of the reputed 840 miracles, the miracle of the flies.<br />
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On July 11th 1121, St Bernard had gone to dedicate a new Abbey for his Cistercian Order at Foigny. It proved to be infested with flies, so the saint excommunicated the flies. and they were dead by the next morning.<br />
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Here, the saint pronounces his malediction. I love the stupefied Medieval faces. Equally good is the face of the chap tasked with sweeping out the bodies of the flies. An angel with a holy feather duster seems to have helped, but is letting the peasant chap get on with the dirty work:<br />
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Swarms of flies were of course taken as portents, like unusual atmospheric effects, landslides, lightning strikes, etc. Nobody would be so rude as to say to the Saint that these ephemeroptera usually died within hours.</div>
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EEBO provides this Royalist ballad of 1647. A swarm of flies in Bodmin is seen as a preludes to the plagues of Egypt that will be visited by the Lord upon the nation<br /><i>Strange and true Newes of an Ocean of Flies dropping out of a Cloud, upon the Towne of Bodnam in Cornwall.</i></h4>
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<i>To the Tune of Cheevy Chase.</i></div>
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When Kings have lost their Reignes and Power, </div>
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Then Clouds upon us judgements showre. </div>
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Some talke of battailes in the aire, </div>
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And Comets in the skies, </div>
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But now wee·ll tell a tale more rare, </div>
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Of great and monstrous flies. </div>
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In Cornwall this strange sight was seen, </div>
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At Bodman Towne by name, </div>
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Which will be justified still </div>
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By a Lawyer of great fame. </div>
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At mid-day· when the skie was cleare, </div>
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A thick cloud did arise, </div>
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Which failing downe upon the earth, </div>
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Dissolved into flies. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The hell-bred Cloud did look so big, </div>
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So black and did so loure, </div>
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It could not rest untill her Panch </div>
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Those flies all out did poure. </div>
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They in such mighty numbers fell </div>
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Upon the green grasse ground, </div>
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And did so cover all the earth, </div>
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That nought else could be found. </div>
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Their numbers did increase so fast, </div>
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Almost a whole houres space, </div>
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That they a foot and more were seen, </div>
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To cover all that place. </div>
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No grasse, nor flowers for the time, </div>
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Were seen for to appeare, </div>
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The like was not in England knowne, </div>
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God knowes this many a yeare. </div>
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Their bodys green, their wings were white </div>
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As it appeares most true, </div>
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By Letters sent from Bodnam Towne, </div>
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By those we never knew. </div>
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These flies as soon as they were borne </div>
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Fell dead upon the ground; </div>
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And to say truth· they lay so thick, </div>
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The like was never found. </div>
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Which made the people all to muse, </div>
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To see that gastly sight, </div>
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Which did continue on the ground </div>
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All that whole day and night. </div>
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<i>The second Part,</i></div>
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<i>To the same Tune. </i></div>
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So when the Lord was pleas'd to frowne, </div>
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And shew his powerfull hand </div>
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He rained Frogs and Lice upon </div>
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All the Aegyptian land. </div>
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All which was for their sinnes so great, </div>
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So wicked, fowle and dire, </div>
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They did deserve the judgement just </div>
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Of Brimstone and of fire. </div>
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And yet they never did rebell </div>
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Against their King and Crowne· </div>
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Nor had such vices in their streets </div>
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As hath our London Towne, </div>
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Who hath maintain'd this bloudy warre </div>
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Against a Cause so just; </div>
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And have destroyed their gracious Prince </div>
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For to maintaine their lust. </div>
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Wherefore repent you Citizens, </div>
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And take you warning all· </div>
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Lest that the Heavens in discontent </div>
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In Thunder on you fall. </div>
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In Lice and Locusts Wormes and Frogs, </div>
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In Raine in Haile and Stormes· </div>
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In Lightning Plague and Pestilence, </div>
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In Poxes and in Hornes. </div>
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Now if these Plagues you will prevent, </div>
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Which will your corne destroy, </div>
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See that you presently repent, </div>
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And sing Vive le Roy. </div>
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God grant us Peace, which will not be </div>
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Unlesse our gracious King </div>
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Enjoy his rights and dignities, </div>
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His Queen and every thing. </div>
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God send Sir Thomas Fairfax right, </div>
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And send us our Areares, </div>
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And bring the King to Towne againe </div>
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Sans jealousies and feares. </div>
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In Henry Jessey's 1660 pamphlet, <i>The Lords loud call to England: being a true relation of some late, various, and wonderful judgments, or handy-works of God, by earthquake, lightening, whirlewind, great multitudes of toads and flyes, </i>both hatchling toads and flies act of direct rebukes from heaven on a lord of the manor who allowed die-hard Puritans to be abused:</h4>
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A Company of Christians going to a meeting, and at their private meeting at Fairford in Glocestershire, which is about four miles on this side Cirencester, (called Ciceter) on the 24. of Iune 1660. Being the first day of the week, they were much abused by some of that Town, in a rude manner.</div>
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The Lord of the Manor there stood looking on, and did not in the least suppress the rude multitude, but appeared rather to countenance them.</div>
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In the Evening of that same 24 day, there was seen coming up from the Mill-lane great multitudes of small Toads, they that saw them said, that there might have been taken up many Cowls full of them. And as they were going they divided themselves into two bodies. First, one Body, or Division of them, went to the Lord of the Mannors house, (which was about one Acers Length, from the place where they were first seen) They come up through his Orchard, and went under Illegible word Gate into the inward court, and some did indeavour to pre|vent their coming into his house, but could not, though they killed many of them. They Illegible word into his Kithin, and Cellar: and the next morning there went an honest man to the house, about business, and did see the servants looking on them, and took notice of them, that they lay thick on the ground, and being smal, judged they were many thousands of them.</div>
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And Secondly, The other Body or Division of the Toads, went to a Iustice of the peace his house, a little way off; and went into his Barn, to his amazement, there being by providence also an honest man the next morning, who saw the Toads in great abundance, and heard the Iustice say, that it was a judgment upon them for suffering the boyes to abuse those honest men in the Town, and no man can tell whence these Toads came.</div>
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About a Fortnight after in the same Town, these Christians were again sorely abused, and the next Friday fortnight after, there appeared in the Lord of the Manors Orchard, a great swarme of Flyes, about the bigness of Caddus Flies, with long wings; they that saw them said they might have taken up baskets of them, and the same day also, an honest Christian man saw the Lord of the Mannors Garden covered with these Flies, in heaps like unto swarms of Bees</div>
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This single sheet newsletter of 1675 is content to treat a swarm as a prodigy</h4>
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Here, the gentle-spirited microscopist Jan Swammerdam describes his experience of the nymph of the mayfly, and below that, its unique double moult, from subimago to imago:<br />
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"Concerning the Nature of this Creature, I pretend to little experience thereof, only I can assure you that among all the diverse sorts of Insects I have been acquainted with, I never met with one better natured and more harmless than this; for how often or how much soever it is touched or handled, it seemeth always to be well pleased; and left at rest, it immediately betaketh to its work of making its Cell. Only I have ob|served in the smallest sort, that when they are handled somewhat too hard, they bend their head toward their breast, and thereby make themselves as it were stiffer: Among all its actions, none is more strange than the motion of its Gills, of which it hath on each side of its body<br />
Six, which are moved so orderly and continually trembling, that it is admirable.<br />
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Being in the year 1670. in the Village Slouton by Amsterdam in the month of June, where as I walked towards the Evening through the Fields, I met with such an infinite number of small Insects somewhat bigger than Gnats, which rested on my body, that I was even covered therewith. Every one of these while resting on my body shed a thin Film, which done they immediately repaired again to the waters, where they, like the greater Ephemeron sport above the Surface of the water. The Original of these Insects is not much unlike that of our Ephemeron, for that they also live in Ditches and Trenches of water, which also at their set times Change by shedding two Skins; the one in the water, the other on Land.<br />
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<i>Ephemeri vita, or, The natural history and anatomy of the Ephemeron, a fly that lives but five hours written originally in Low-Dutch by Jo. Swammerdam ..</i>. 1681<br />
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We still report a good swarming:<br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-39902688/huge-swarm-of-non-biting-midges-around-loch-leven">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-39902688/huge-swarm-of-non-biting-midges-around-loch-leven</a><br />
<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-13760698465904760402017-04-29T18:36:00.003+01:002017-04-29T18:36:36.531+01:00Pasque flowers, April 19th<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MntgKw2esR4/WQTLAgZ2QLI/AAAAAAAACS8/Ave7FuZD69YpUTmDr3qF5tF8dSKZjt-UgCLcB/s1600/P1040096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MntgKw2esR4/WQTLAgZ2QLI/AAAAAAAACS8/Ave7FuZD69YpUTmDr3qF5tF8dSKZjt-UgCLcB/s320/P1040096.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I never really thought I'd ever see such a rarity. Last year I heard reports of a couple of flowers at the Hartslock Nature Reserve. My wife and I went along on the 17th, and though we saw an unhybridised Lady Orchid, no Pasque flowers were to be seen.<br />
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Better information came via a friend who had found a FB group. The directions took me off the nature reserve, and round into the neighbouring sheep pasture. There were 25 or 26 flowers on maybe 15 different plants. I love that moment of disbelief: you see a flower of the right colour, approach half expecting it to be a violet (in this case), but there they were.<br />
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Gerard's <i>Herbal</i>:<br />
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<i>The herball or Generall historie of plantes. Gathered by Iohn Gerarde of London Master in Chirurgerie very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Iohnson citizen and apothecarye of London </i>(1597).<br />
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(THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE HISTORIE OF PLANTS)<br />
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CHAP. 79. <i>Of Bastard Anemones, or Pasque floures. </i><br />
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¶ <b>The Description.</b><br />
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1 The first of these Pasque floures hath many small leaves finely cut or jagged, like those of Carrots: among which rise up naked stalkes, rough and hairie; whereupon doe grow beautifull floures bell fashion, of a bright delaied purple colour: in the bottome whereof groweth a tuft of yellow thrums, and in the middle of the thrums it thrusteth forth a small purple pointell: when the whole floure is past there succeedeth an head or knop compact of many gray hairy lockes, and in the solide parts of the knops lieth the seed flat and hoarie, every seed having his owne small haire hanging at it. The root is thicke and knobby, of a finger long, running right downe, and therefore not like unto those of the Anemone, which it doth in all other parts very notably resemble, and whereof no doubt this is a kinde.<br />
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2 There is no difference at all in the leaves, roots, or seedes, betweene this red Pasque floure and the precedent, nor in any other point, but in the colour of the floures: for whereas the other are of a purple colour, these are of a bright red, which setteth forth the difference.<br />
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3 The white Passe floures hath many fine jagged leaves, closely couched or thrust together, which resemble an Holi-water sprinckle, agreeing with the others in rootes, seedes, and shape of floures, saving that these are of a white colour, wherein chiefely consisteth the difference.<br />
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†† 4 This also in shape of roots and leaves little differs from the precedent, but the floures are lesser, of a darker purple colour, and seldome open or shew themselues so much abroad as the other of the first described, to which in all other respects it is very like.<br />
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5 There is also another kinde with leaves lesse divided, but in other parts like those already described, saving that the floure is of a yellow colour something inclining to a red. ††<br />
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¶ <b>The Place</b>. Ruellius writeth, that the Passe floure groweth in France in untoiled places: in Germanie they grow in rough and stonie places, and oftentimes on rockes.<br />
Those with purple floures doe grow verie plentifully in the pasture or close belonging to the parsonage house of a small village six miles from Cambridge, called Hildersham: the Parsons name that lived at the impression hereof was Mr. Fuller, a very kind and loving man, and willing to shew unto any man the said close, who desired the same.<br />
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¶ <b>The Time.</b> They floure for the most part about Easter, which hath mooved mee to name it Pasque Floure, or Easter floure: and often they doe floure againe in September. †† The yellow kinde floures in May. ††<br />
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¶ <b>The Names</b>. † Passe floure is called commonly in Latine <i>Pulsatilla</i>: and of some, <i>Apium risus</i>, & <i>herba venti</i>. Daleschampius would haue it to be Anemone <i>Limonia & Samolus</i> of Pliny: in French, Coquelourdes: in Dutch, kneckenschell: in English, Pasque floure, or Passe floure, and after the Latine name <i>Pulsatill,</i> or Flaw floure: in Cambridge-shire where they grow, they are named Couentrie bels.<br />
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¶ <b>The Temperature.</b> Passe floure doth extremely bite, and exulcerateth and eateth into the skinne if it be stamped and applied to any part of the body; whereupon it hath been taken of some to be a kinde of Crowfoot, and not without reason, for that it is not inferiour to the Crowfoots: and therefore it is hot and drie.<br />
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¶ <b>The Vertues</b>. There is nothing extant in writing among Authours of any peculiar vertue, but they serve onely for the adorning of gardens and garlands, being floures of great beautie.<br />
<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-3921817838580713842017-04-18T13:47:00.000+01:002017-04-18T15:02:09.189+01:00The orphanage full of witches: Lille, 1652-1662<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I return to George Garden’s <i>An
apology for M. Antonia Bourignon in four parts, </i>published in London in
1699.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_Bourignon">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_Bourignon</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The portrait of Antoinette Bourignon above comes from
the National Portrait Gallery:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw140599/Antoinette-Bourignon">http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw140599/Antoinette-Bourignon</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The NPG simply lists this as anonymous,
18<sup>th</sup> century. It is one of the English copies of this portrait: <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-51.082">https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-51.082</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The NPG do not note that the quotation that has been added above the portrait
is rather interesting in itself, being from <i>Paradise
Lost </i>Book VI, 29ff:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The better fight, who single hast maintaind <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Against revolted multitudes the Cause<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of Truth, in word mightier then they in Armes;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And for the testimonie of Truth hast born<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Universal reproach, far worse to beare<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then violence: for this was all thy care <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To stand approv'd in sight of God, though Worlds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Judg'd thee perverse…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Abdiel has deserted and rebuked Satan:
at his arrival back in heaven, he is welcomed by God saying this from a golden
cloud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">But my interest is in the episode when
Bourignon discovered that every girl in the orphanage in Lille she had founded
in 1653 was a pacted witch. In Garden's hagiographic life, this is a defensively written episode. Settled belief in Bourignon (which adversely affected Garden's career), means that this has to be a very late expression of belief in pacted witches, attending sabbats, seduced by Satan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The rest of the post will be the full account as given in
Garden’s book. I have done some re-lineation of the text, lightly modernised
spellings (‘-ed’ for -’d endings), and added some speech markings. My own
comments will use a different font and colour. I have inserted these as sectional headings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Belotte, the first young witch to
reveal herself in the orphanage</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">About three years after she was
thus shut up, one of the Girls of Fifteen Years having done some Fault, was
shut close up for a Penance in the Prison of the House. Within an Hour after
she came into the Work-House<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="page-150"></a> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">where
all the rest were, though the Provisor had locked her up within Three Gates,
and was gone to the Market, and had the Keys at her Girdle. <i>A[ntonia].
B[ourignon].</i> upon enquiry, finding all this to be true, asked
her ‘<i>How she got out?’ <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘A Man had taken her out.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">And after dinner
having called her to her, and she giving the same answer. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked <i>If she knew him.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘Very
well, it was the Devil.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">At this <i>A. B.</i> trembled,
saying, <i>The Devil is a Spirit, not a Man.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Girl said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘He
comes to me in the form of a Man, and I calling him to help me when shut up,
<span style="background: white;">he opened the Door and took me out.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A. B.</span></i><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> asked <i>if
she had known this Man of a long time.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘Yes,
all her Life, that her Mother from her Childhood had carried her to the Sabbath
of the Witches, which is kept in the Night, and that she being a little Child,
this Devil Man was then also a Young Boy, and grew up as she did, being always
her Lover, and caressed her Day and Night.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A. B.</span></i><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> could
not conceive this, for she had never heard of such things.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She immediately wrote for the Three
Pastors, the Overseers of the House, to whom the Maid declared that she had
given her Soul to the Devil, and denied God, and to confirm the Gift had
received a Mark in her Foot, which she did freely when Twelve Years of Age,
though long before this Lover had still entertained her and carried her to the
Sabbaths of Sorcerers in great Castles, where they met to eat, drink, dance,
sing, and do a thousand other Insolencies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She put her out of the House the same
Day, fearing least the other Girls should be corrupted. It grieved her to see
the Devil had such Power, and yet she could not believe that this <i>Bellotte</i> (for
the Girl was so called) was a Witch, for she still thought they were filthy and
deformed Creatures, as she had heard they transformed themselves into Cats or other
Animals. She prayed to God to discover her unknown Sins, and continued in her
pious Exercises, believing she had purged the House of such Persons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">T</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">he second and third witches are discovered</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">About Three Months after, another Girl
of Fifteen Years was going to be imprisoned for Stealing, she said the Devil
made her do it; and she was immediately put out of the House that it might be
purged of such. But Three Months after, another of Eleven Years was going to be
whipped for the same Fault, and she said ‘Do it not, and I <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">will tell who made me do this Evil.’ And <i>A. B.</i> taking
her to her Chamber, she said it was the Devil; that being Young and playing
with the Girls of the Town, they asked her if she would go with them to the
Dedication, that she should have good Cheer and a Lover, how soon she was
Content, the Lover came on a little Horse, and took her by the Hand, asking if
she would be his Mistress; she consenting, was carried through the Air with
him, and the other Girls, into a great Castle, where they had all sort of
Feasting and Mirth, that she has been there ever since, Three or Four times a
Week: That at the Age of Ten Years she gave her Soul to the Devil, renounced
God and her Baptism, and received a Mark in her Head, which was afterwards
found to be insensible; for they put a Pin the length of ones Finger into her
Head without her feeling any Pain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">E</span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>very </i>young woman
in the orphanage is a witch</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The Pastors having examined this Girl,
thought not fit to put her out of the House, till it were discovered from
whence his Evil might arise. She was kept in a Chamber apart, and <i>Peter
Salmon,</i> Pastor of St. <i>Sauvear,</i> undertook to examine
her daily, and to endeavour her Conversion; and asking her one Day, if there
were any other in the House like to her, she said there were Two who went with
her daily to the Sabbath. They being called, and spoke with separately in
private, confessed ingenuously that they were in Covenant with the Devil. These
Two said, there were yet other Two in the House, and being desired to name
them, each of them named Two different Persons, who being called, confessed,
each of these naming yet Two different Persons who were of the same Crew: So
that from Two to Four, from Four to Eight, it was discovered that all the Two
and Thirty Girls which were then in the House, were all in general, and each
one in particular bound to the Devil, of their own Free-will, having contracted
it diversely; some from their Fathers, others from their Mothers, some had
learned it by little Girls in playing together, as they declared both to <i>A.
B.</i> and to the said Pastor, who put in Writing all they said to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">T</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">he pastors think that the young
women can be saved, as they were so young when they made their promises to the
devil. Eight months of failed efforts follow; their repenta</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">nces are not
sincere, so alluring are the pleasures offered by the devil</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A. B.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> was in no
little Perplexity to be shut up in a House, from whence she could not get out,
with Thirty Two Persons who declared they had given their Souls to the Devil,
and that she must eat and drink with them, or<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="page-151"></a> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">what they made ready. She proposed to dismiss them by
degrees, but then feared to be guilty of the Mischiefs they would do to others,
for they confessed they had made both Men and Beasts die. The Pastors thought
it fittest to keep them; said there were Hopes they might be converted to God,
having been engaged to the Devil before the Use of their Reason, and promised
to come every Day to admonish and exercise them, and pray for their Conversion.
This was done for the space of Eight Months, in which the Girls made great
shews of Conversion, by Tears, repeated Confessions, Prayers, and attending to
the Admonitions given them, but without Sincerity. Their Hearts were wedded to
the sensual Pleasures which the Devil gave them. So that they had not the
Desire to change or leave those wretched Pleasures; as one of them, of Twenty
Two Years, said one Day to <i>A. B.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘No’ says she,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘I would not be otherwise, I find too much Contentment in it to leave
it, I am always caressed: I have been so from Eight Years to Two and Twenty.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the devil’s sabbat, where there
are crowds of people, male and female</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Pastor <i>Salmon</i> wrote
down their Confessions, they declared plainly they had daily carnal
Conversation with the Devil, that they went to the Sabbath, where they eat,
drank, danced, and committed other Sensualities. Each had their Devil in form
of a Man, and the Men theirs in form of a Woman; that they never saw more
numerous Meetings in the City than at their Sabbaths, of People of all Ranks,
Young and Old, Rich and Poor, Noble and Ignoble, but above all, of all sorts of
Monks and Nuns, Priests and Prelates, and that everyone kept their Rank there,
as they are in the World. Many of them shed plenty of Tears when <i>A. B.</i> spoke
to them of the Judgments of God, of the Joys of Paradise, and the Pains of
Hell; and when she asked some of the most sensible of them, <i>If those
Tears were sincere;</i> they said,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">‘They proceeded from a Grief of having denied God, and given up
themselves to the Devils; but this lasted no longer than they were spoke to, or
thought upon their miserable State, and then presently the Devil came and asked
them if they would leave him, and the Pleasures they had together, and so
caressed them, that they renewed their Covenant with him, forgetting all their
former good Purposes.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">M</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ore on why the efforts to reclaim them for heaven fail, and how
their participation in divine service merely helps disguise their wickedness</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked, <i>If the Admonitions, Exorcisms,
and Prayers of the Pastors did not deprive the Devil of Power to keep them
subject to him.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘The Devil mocked at
these things, and did ape the Pastors: When they kneeled to pray, he did so
behind them, and with a Book mumbled the same Words. When they preached, he used
the same Gestures, and also threw Holy Water, and Incensed as they did, aping
them always in Mockery.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked, <i>How they could pray
or sing so many good Prayers all Day, being in Covenant with the Devil.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said, ‘He prayed and sang with
them, because their Prayers were without Attention; and instead of singing
Praises to God, their Intentions were to sing Praises to the Devil, in which he
gloried and valued himself’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">asked, <i>How
they could approach the Table of the Lord, and receive the Sacrament.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘The Devil incited them to do it as often as they could, and the
greatest Penance she could ordain them was to make them abstain from the
Sacrament, which covered their Wickedness, and made them pass for good Persons
before Men: Besides, the Devil did his most mischievous Deeds with the
Consecrated Bread.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> She said, <i>All this would assuredly</i>
<i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">lead them to Hell.</span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘They knew it very well; but the Devil promised them the same carnal
and sensual Pleasures there, that they had with him in this World.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked, <i>If they knew indeed
that it was the Devil that entertained them so, and if they knew there was a
Hell, and a Paradise before they came into her House.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said, ‘Yes; for the Devil taught
them that, and had often catechised them, and taught them there was a God, a
Paradise, a Hell, and a Devil; that they who did his Will, could never see God,
but should be his Companions in Hell to all Eternity.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">How they became witches so early in
life</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked, <i>How they could belong to the
Devil from their Infancy.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> ‘This
came from their Parents. When Fathers or Mothers give themselves to the Devil,
they give all that is theirs, and it is rare to see, when they have been
offered by their Parents to the Devil, even before they are born, that they
withdraw after they are come to Age, for the Habit in Evil becomes natural to
them; and the Devil entertaining them from their Infancy with Caresses and
sensual Pleasures, he so gains upon them, that they<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">would not quit him for anything, after
they have been so allured by his Sensualities, such as all Men could not give
them: For he contrives to make them eat all sort of Meats savoury to their
Taste, all sort of Liquors pleasant to their Throat, all sort of Music to their
Ears, of Odour to their Smell, of Ticklings to their Flesh, so that being
brought up thus, it is almost impossible to desire to leave them; and
therefore, say they, we would not change our Condition, for we find more
Pleasure in it than Men can give us.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> revealing glimpse of the conditions of life in
the orphanage: Bourignon tells the girls in effect that ‘If you were <i>really</i> feasting on non-illusory food with Satan at
night, you would not eat your dry bread so hungrily in the morning’</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She bewailed their Misery, and shewed
them <i>all was but Deceit and Illusion: For Instance, that they had not
eaten nor drunken at their Sabbaths, they would have been very hungry in the
Morning, and eaten with good Appetite great Lumps of Butter, yea, dry Bread
when given them. And if they had been eating such dainty Meat, they would have
disrelished such gross Food.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said, ‘They had nevertheless the
taste and pleasure of all these, and therefore would not leave them.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unless you compromise with the
devil, he will stop you marrying and having children – this seems to be the
outcome in these young women’s minds of Bourignon’s strong advocacy of celibacy
and virginity</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She asked, <i>How it was possible
that Parents should thus offer their Children to the Devil, and not to God who
created them.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They said ‘Those who are thus bound to
the Devil, will have no other God but him, and therefore offer him all they
have that is most dear, and even are constrained to offer their Children, else
he would beat them, and hinder them from being married or having Children; both
which he can hinder by his Adheren<i>[illegible]</i>. That
when a Child thus offered comes to the Use of Reason, he then asks their Soul,
makes them deny God, renounce their Baptism and Faith, and promise Faith and
Fidelity to the Devil, after the manner of an Espousal. And instead of a Ring,
gives them some Mark, as with an Awl of Iron, in some part of the Body, which
Marks he renews as oft as they have a desire to leave him, and binds them more
strongly by new Promises, giving them those new Marks for a Pledge that they
shall continue faithful to him: And how soon they come to Age capable of having
Children, he makes them offer the Will they have of marrying to his Honour, and
therewith all the Fruit that can proceed from their Marriage, which they
promise willingly, that they may attain their Designs; otherwise the Devil
threatens to hinder them, by all sort of means from marrying or bringing forth
Children.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Garden concedes that there were
sceptics. Bourignon herself began as a witchcraft sceptics, till she got
undoubted proofs. Confessions re-affirmed, and recanted among the young women.
The devil will marry them to good men, so as to have access to corrupt their
offspring. There are indeed incredible numbers of witches, as is clear from
reports from Scotland, New England [Salem] and Sweden [Blokula]</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Some can hardly believe that all these
Girls could have been in Compact with the Devil, far less that Declaration
of <i>A. B.</i> as from God, that so vast a multitude of People on
the Earth are in Compact with him. <i>A. B.</i> could as little
believe it as any, for she thought none but the vilest Miscreants were such,
till there were undoubted Proofs given her of it. The voluntary Confession of
all the Girls, the preternatural Acts done by them in her Presence, their
Agreement in their Confessions as to their Sabbaths, the manner of Devoting
themselves to the Devil, <i>&c.</i> Their Declaration of all this
to the Three Pastors, some of them still owning their Confession, (though
others were easily persuaded to deny it again, finding they were caressed by
the Magistrates for so doing) and the Attestation of the Truth of all this by
the Three Pastors (Copies of which are in the <i>La vie Continuée,</i> and
the Originals in the Hands of the Writer of it) are such Evidences as will
satisfy all, but they who will not be satisfied. And as for the other, we need
not think it so extravagant, if we consider that it is Satan’s earnest Desire
and Ambition to have Men devoted to him by express Covenant; that the more he
have of such, he is the more capable of doing Mischief to the rest of Mankind
than he can do by himself without them; that he obliges all who are so, to
devote to him all their Posterity; that he still labours to ally and marry them
with the Good, that so he may corrupt their Offspring, that they who are thus
devoted to him, being once habituated to all manner of sensual Delights, can
hardly ever will to be reclaimed again; that in outward Appearance they differ
nothing from others, but put on for the most part the greatest pretences to
Devotion; that whenever any of them are discovered and tried, if strict Enquiry
be made about them, their number appears incredible; witness the late Trials in
the West of <i>Scotland,</i> those of <i>Sweden, New England,</i> and
what the Learned <i>Bodinus</i> tells from his own Knowledge, That
when Pardon was granted to a Sorcerer upon Condition to discover his Complices,
he discovered so many of all Ranks, that at length he plainly told there would
be One Hundred Thousand in that Country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">M</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">agistrates and – surprisingly for
an orphanage - parents are alerted and intervene. Bourignon’s character is
unimpeachable</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="page-153"></a><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">About the end of that
time, an old Woman of <i>Lisle</i> importuned <i>A. B.</i> to
take into the House a Girl of Nine Years, who being discovered to be one of
the </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Coven, was immediately
thrust out again, telling the old Woman that all their Secrets were discovered
to the Regent of the Hospital. She run about immediately to the Magistrates,
and the Parents of the Children, telling how their Reputation was quite broken
by <i>A. B.</i> by saying they were Witches. She obtained of the
Magistrates that Enquiry should be made into the Life of <i>A. B. </i>without
her knowledge. And the Criminal Clerk took Informations upon Oath in the Town,
and neighbouring Towns and Villages, all which served only to make her
Innocence and Purity the more evident; for the Witnesses they had pitched upon
as most animated against her, could depone nothing but what was good and praiseworthy,
and could lay nothing to her Charge. Which he who received the Depositions admired;
saying, he knew no Body, who if their Life had been examined from their
Childhood, by Enemies, and with the same Rigour, could have undergone the Trial
so unblameably, without being guilty of something. She was afterwards allowed
Witnesses for her Exculpation, and when some of them were heard, he said, there
needs no more, for there is almost enough already for to Canonize her, and
declare her a Saint. All these Depositions are still in the Register of the
Town of <i>Lisle </i>[<i>Lille</i>]<i>.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">nvestigations into a death. Nothing
taints Bourignon, not even the girls will speak against her</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">On the 9th. of <i>February,</i> 1662,
they sent the Lieutenant and Sergeants armed, and broke open her House, and
carried her violently to the Town-house, with a great Noise and crowd of
People, who imagined she was seized for a Witch, because of the Report spread
about the Children, where they examined her most strictly Six Hours, and made
her give an Account of all the Affairs that concerned the Hospital, which she
did with such a presence of Mind, as made her remember all, and answer most
pertinently; so they behoved to acknowledge they could not find any Fault in
her. Yet they brought her before them after the same manner at several times,
without granting her Request of calling her in the Evening to avoid Scandal.
They caused bring the Children also to see what they could draw from them
against her, but they could say nothing against her; only some of them said, a
Servant-Maid of hers had chastised one of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">the
Girls with a Wand, and not long after that she died. So they caused seize the
poor Servant as if she had killed the Girl, and resolved to do so to the
Mistress, under pretext that the Correction was by her Order; but four Persons
declared upon Oath that this was most false and that the Girl died by eating to
excess of green Fruits out of the Lodging. One of the Magistrates said to the
Children,</span> ‘She accuses you of Witchcraft, and going to the Sabbaths; Why
do you not accuse her too?’ But the Girls, how wicked soever, trembling at such
a black Malice, said immediately, ‘No, No, our Mother, (so they called her) is
no Witch, she goes not to the Sabbath; Our Mother is a Saint, she is all full
of God.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A large number of the same girls
that will say no ill of Bourignon had in fact conspired with the devil to
poison her. Bourignon leaves, the Jesuits take over, exonerating the girls and
indicting Bourignon</span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">They conspired in the House to take
away her Life by Malefices; the Devil had Meetings with Twenty Five of them,
how to effectuate it, and with their Consent made an Unguent of divers matters,
of which there were Balls given to put in her Broth. <i>S. Saulieu</i> was
at the Meeting, for he also kept the Sabbaths, and stirred them up to make her
away </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 150%;">[Saulieu had demonised himself by a sexual pursuit of Bourignon, as noted in John Cockburn's attack on her in <i>Bourignianism detected</i> (1698), "famous Monsieur Saulieu, whom at first she took for a great Saint, pursued her so much, that she was forced to ask the assistance of others, to be delivered from him."] </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">One of the eldest of them discovered it to her, and went with her to one
of the Girl’s Bed and found the Ball. She advertised the Pastors, and they the
Magistrates, and she was told if she was afraid, she might remove, and they
would place another in her room. She stayed till she discovered Fourteen
Children who had of these Balls to destroy her. She then chose a Regent and
retired, entering a Protestation before the Magistrates, that she did not
abandon the Regency, having left one in her Place. When the Magistrates examined
the Girls, the eldest declared all the Truth, and the Magistrates laboured to
make her unsay it, which she would nor. The others who denied all, they sent
away cheerful, saying <i>[?- illegible</i>] one
to another, the Magistrates are for us. Two Days after she retired, the
Magistrates thrust the Widow out of the Regency. The Jesuits got the Oversight
of it, there they placed one of their Maids, they admitted the Girls presently
to Confession and Communion, making them pass for little Saints, and <i>A.
B.</i> for Guilty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">She retired to <i>Gaunt,</i> and
from thence to <i>Mechlin,</i> [<i>Mechelen?</i>]
and formed a Process before the King’s Council at <i>Brussels, </i>against
the Magistrates at <i>Lisle,</i> [<i>Lille</i>]
for the Recovery of the Hospital, and though it did appear most evidently that
she was Innocent, and that they had acted against <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">her
with inexcusable Violence, yet they would not venture to give Sentence for her
against a Party so Powerful, and far, more Considerable before Men, than was
the Innocence of a simple private Maid: So the Process remains undecided to
this Day, and she could no longer abide in Safety in <i>Lisle,</i> unless
in secret.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br /></span></span></div>
DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-17415196402284807232017-04-12T11:45:00.000+01:002017-04-18T11:57:01.671+01:00OED 'coven', noun<br />
"An assembly, meeting, or company. Obs.<br />
<br />
?a1513 W. Dunbar <i>Poems</i> (1998) 196 Lat anis the cop ga round about, And wyn the covanis banesoun.<br />
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spec. A gathering of witches; a ‘convent’ or company of thirteen witches; cf. convent n. 1, 2.</div>
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1662 in R. Pitcairn <i>Criminal Trials Scotl.</i> III. 606 Ther vold meit bot sometymes a Coven..Ther is threttein persones in ilk Coeven.</div>
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1830 Scott <i>Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft </i>ix. 286 The witches of Auldearne..were told off into squads, or Covines.</div>
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1886 C. Rogers <i>Social Life Scotl.</i> III. xx. 278 To their covens or gatherings the foul sisterhood were borne through the air."</div>
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'Coven', meaning a gathering of witches, is a Scottish word, then, entering English at a late date. This is an original and not as yet updated OED entry, from 1893.</div>
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The OED is not at its best on this word form, for the very well attested sense 'coven' = fraud is not covered in its range of forms for 'cozen': "Forms: 15–18 cozen; also 15 cooson, coosin, ( cousinge, cossen, cussen), 15–16 coosen, cosen, coson,cousin, 16 cosin, cozon, coozen, cousen, couson, couzin, 16–17 couzen."</div>
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'Coven' with this meaning appears in early word lists: in Robert Cawdry's <i>A table alphabeticall contayning and teaching the true writing and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English wordes</i> gives "couen, fraud deceit" (1609).</div>
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An example or two of this usage: Thomas Phillips, writing about false Messiahs, in 1639: "what should the Church doe in such cases? how should shee discover the Coven and prestigious impostures of such, but by the Written Word?"</div>
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Sir Richard Hutton's <i>The first part of the young clerks guide, or, An exact collection of choice English presidents according to the best forms now used for all sorts of indentures, letters of atturney, releases, conditions &c. </i>(1649) illustrates multiple examples of a correct formula for trainee clerks to use :"without fraud or coven".</div>
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The other homophone of 'coven' was of course a common variant on 'convent', as in the form "Coven garden":</div>
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"Then have we Bedford Berry, commonly called the Coven garden, because there was a large Convent, or Monastery there in times pass'd, where there are many good structures, cloystered underneath some of them, with a large Piazza or Market place, and a Church that bears the name of Saint Paul, which, though within the Precincts of Saint Martins Parish, yet by Act of Parliament, it is now exempted", in James Howell, <i>Londinopolis an historicall discourse or perlustration of the city of London </i>(1657).</div>
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So, the senses 'coven=fraud' and 'coven=convent' are in wide usage. There are early references to a "convent" of witches. The OED cites John Gaule, in 1652 (this is the whole anecdote,for the sake of its witchcraft content):</div>
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"A certain Praetor or Judge, having sentenced divers malefactors to death, at the accusation of an Ariolist or Pythian vaticinator: at length he took upon him to tell him of one more, if he would not take it ill: the Judge earnest to know who it was, he insimulated his own wife, and prefixt an houre wherein he would shew him herin the convent of other Witches. But he (knowing his own wives integrity, and mistrusting the others calumny) at the time appointed had invited (unknown to the Ariolist) a many of his kindred and friends to suppe with his wife and him. And as they sate at supper, he took an occasion to rise, and goe with the Ariolist to the place, where he shewed him (in a spectrous apparition) his own wife in the company of other Lamian hagges. Enough to have deluded him, had he not returned, and found his wife at the table where he left her, with the testimony of all those at the table, that she had never stirred thence. Whereupon he caused the Ariolist himselfe to be executed."</div>
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So, when does 'coven' meaning 'a gathering of witches' appear first in English?</div>
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My candidate is in George Garden's <i>An apology for M. Antonia Bourignon in four parts, </i>published in London in 1699:</div>
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"About the end of that time, an old Woman of Lisle importun'd A[ntonia] B[ourignon] to take into the House a Girl of Nine Years, who being discovered to be one of the Coven, was immediately thrust out again, telling the old Woman that all their Secrets were discovered to the Regent of the Hospital. She run about immediately to the Magistrates, and the Parents of the Children, telling how their Reputation was quite broken by A. B. by saying they were Witches."<br />
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George Garden was Scottish. He is in the ODNB: see Stuart Handley, ‘Garden, George (1649–1733)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2007. </div>
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The source is Garden's hagiographic life of the visionary and ascetic Antoinette Bourignon (1616-80)</div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_Bourignon">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_Bourignon</a></div>
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Though she features in Phyllis Mack's <i>Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England </i>in a more positive light, Antoinette Bourignon's record is blotted by her behaviour as regent in a girl's orphanage she had established in Lille in 1653. This lasted to 1662. Bourignon, in this case acting pretty much like a dangerous religious maniac left in charge of young people, had discovered that all the girls under her charge had made pacts with the devil. Her regime was harsh, and the girls enduring it were not driven by the same level of asceticism and morbid fear of sex as their regent. One had died after being whipped. The rest probably spoke as they had been taught about the temptations of the devil, but found themselves taken very literally. The case is an interesting one, and I will return to it in a later post. Despite the late date, George Garden has absolutely no problems with Bourignon's discovery that her orphans were all members of a coven. A margin note on the relevant pages (292-3) reads "No grounds to disbelieve this Story, or that the World swarms with such".</div>
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After the old woman alerted other the magistrates, and they started to investigate with a bit more common sense than the various pastors Bourignon had called in, Bourignon decamped, and took off to Ghent. Among her later successes was persuading the pioneer microscopist Jan Swammerdam to renounce scientific study.</div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-58183075643849398422017-04-03T10:20:00.000+01:002017-04-04T10:18:56.174+01:00What is the Shakespearean notepad shown on Antiques Roadshow?<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-39477017">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-39477017</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I drew a Shakespearean colleague's attention to this intriguing item. The notebook is held open in the valuer's hand during the clip, so we got our early modern telephoto lenses out, and have tried reading what's visible.</span></div>
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In various screengrabs of this page one can read:</div>
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[above the binding gutter]</div>
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For such a warped slip of wilderness </div>
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Ne'er issued from his blood.</div>
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~ from III i of <i>Measure for Measure</i></div>
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[Then on main page visible in this view, continued quotations from <i>Measure for Measure</i>] </div>
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I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty: </div>
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~ III ii</div>
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There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accurst:</div>
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~ III ii</div>
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To draw with idle spiders' strings </div>
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Most ponderous and substantial things! </div>
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Shame to him whose cruel striking </div>
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Kills for faults of his own liking! </div>
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~ from the Duke's end soliloquy in Act III, quoted with a little look back to the earlier couplet after getting the spiders' strings couplet down first.</div>
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thousand escapes of wit </div>
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Make thee the father of their idle dreams, </div>
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And rack thee in their fancies</div>
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~ start of IV (that stray moment of soliloquy, as the Duke continues to ruminate)</div>
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Sith that the justice of your title to him </div>
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Doth flourish the deceit.</div>
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~ IV i</div>
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As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour </div>
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When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones: </div>
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~ IV ii</div>
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he spurs on his power </div>
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To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that </div>
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Which he corrects ...</div>
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~ IV ii</div>
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At the top of this page view are qq's from <i>Comedy of Errors,</i> from Aegeon's speech in Act V. I can see bits of 'In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow ... and all conduits of my blood froze up / yet hath my night of life'</div>
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Now, the 1623 Folio order runs:</div>
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<i>Tempest, 2 Gent, Merry Wives, Mfor M, </i><b><i>Errors, Much Ado</i></b><i>, LLL</i></div>
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So after the compiler had done with <i>Errors</i>, the quotations naturally switch to <i>Much Ado</i>:</div>
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"Never came trouble to me in your likeness" adapts 'Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace'.</div>
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Then we have :</div>
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"Pick out mine eyes with a ballad maker's pen and hang me up for a blind Cupid", missing out the '[hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of] bit.</div>
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'and hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me, and he that hits me let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam'</div>
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rendered as:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">"and </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">hang me FOR a bottle like a cat, shoot at me, a</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">nd he that </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>FIRST </b></span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">hits </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif , "apple color emoji" , "segoe ui emoji" , "notocoloremoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "android emoji" , "emojisymbols"; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">clap on the back and call him Adam"</span></span></div>
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Claudio's "Drive liking to the name of love"</div>
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and part of Don Pedro's response:</div>
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<'Thou wilt be a lover presently / And'> "tire thy hearer with a book of words"</div>
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and finally from Don Pedro's scene-ending speech </div>
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'and in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart' which <i>may</i> be rendered as:</div>
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"And unclasps my head in thy bosom", but it looks more like 'He unclasps'</div>
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We then jump to Act 1 scene iii, and Don John:</div>
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"apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief"</div>
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"and claw no man in his humour" (but looks a bit like 'he claw[s])</div>
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My screengrabs then start to go blurry, but I can see portions of:</div>
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'had rather be a canker in his hedge than a rose in his grace'</div>
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'I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog'</div>
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The last bits I can make out go forwards to Act 2 and Beatrice:</div>
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'I never can see him but I am heartburned an hour after'</div>
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and </div>
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'to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl.'</div>
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That's what I could make of these two pages; my colleague could see a similar set of seriatim quotations from <i>Two Gentlemen of Verona </i>in an earlier page held open.</div>
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So, what it seems to be, on the evidence that can be accessed, is someone who has got hold of a 1623 Folio, and is working through creating their own aid to discourse. Bits of Shakespeare to drop into his talk, or maybe re-word a little to sound like a witty or sententious talker himself. I assume a male, because it seems to me a very male thing to be anxious about your discourse in such a manner, making a conscious effort to load up the memory with aphorisms and clever-sounding stuff. He - if it is a he - seems quite drawn to Duke Vincentio in <i>Measure for Measure . </i>A sententious speaker attracting a sententious reader. </div>
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It very definitely represents reader reaction to the Folio. One cannot tell without a full transcript how far the reader got, or any sense of favourite plays. It's certainly material for the Reading Experience Database, and Shakespeareans should get a lot of fun from it. The BBC seems inclined to regard the note-taking as 'analytic'. I don't think what can be seen so far sustains that, but there are scores more pages.</div>
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<a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/RED/">http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/RED/</a><br />
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-67326257642283972472017-03-29T09:28:00.001+01:002017-03-29T09:28:11.448+01:00Stone the crows, says Henry VIII<br />
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As our non-elected national leader presses on towards a future in which she forces legislation through using Henry VIII’s 500 year old form of government by proclamation - somehow not repealed in the half-millennium since - Early Modern Whale presents a sample of such legislation. It’s Henry VIII identifying in 1532 a set of enemies to the economy, certain black corvids, and without putting any state resources into the problem, forcing the nation to act, but doing all this without upsetting the interests of the landed.<br />
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Is there anything to admire here? Certainly not, if judged on the level of its lumbering and repetitious prose (or legalese). A possible source of state revenue has been glimpsed, and to encourage a gentle and pleasing cascade of pence to the treasury, a division of spoils is legislated in painstaking clumsy detail: half for the king, so much for the landowner, so much for the bird-catcher, and this much for those who inform on those who fail to heed the proclamation and endorse it with action.<br />
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The basic premise is probably flawed. The approximately 26,000 dovecotes on the estates of gentry landowners probably contained birds that were more of a threat to the corn and grain harvests [“No kingdom in the world has so many dove houses”), while rooks and crows are generally accepted by farmers as a positive in terms of the invertebrate pests they take from the fields. <i>Birds Britannica</i> notes the bucolic rhyme “One for the pigeon, one for the crow/ Two to rot, and one to grow” as embodying a certain resignation. Interesting about their depredations on thatched structures in the nesting season, though, and <i>Birds Britannica</i> does not note this emphasis (that great book does mention the legislation).<br />
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"For so much as innumerable number of rooks, crows & choughs do daily breed through this realm which yearly destroy a marvellous great quantity of corn and grain and that a marvellous destruction of the covertures of thatched houses / barns / ricks/ stakes and such like for remedy whereof it is enacted that every person occupying and manuring any lands or tenements shall do as much as in him reasonable is to destroy and kill all manner choughs / crows / or rooks haunting within their said lands upon pain of a grievous amercement to be assessed in form following, and if any offence be done contrary to this act by any person inhabited within the limits of the leets [a court meeting once a year], lawdays [a court meeting six-monthly], rapes [an administrative district of Sussex] or court barons [“The assembly of the freehold tenants of a manor under the presidency of the lord or his steward”], of any lords having such courts, that then upon a presentment made before the steward he with two of presenters to be named shall assess for every default presented such amercement as to them that shall seem reasonable and that to be to the use of the lord aforesaid to be levied by distress as other amercements for common annoyances presented in leets hath been accustomed to be levied. And if the offence be done by any which have the occupation of any such lands or tenements whereunto such leets, lawdays, rapes or courts belong, that then upon a presentment thereof had before the Sherriff in the towns the stewards in turn with two of the presenters to be chosen as it is aforesaid or the justice of peace or two of them at the least if the presentment be before them in their sessions shall assess the said amercement by their discretion to be levied to the use of the king by distress like as other amercements of common annoyances.<br />
<br />
"And further it is enacted that every parish township hamlet borough or village wherein is the least [ten] households the inhabitants thereof shall before Michaelmas next coming and yearly [ten] years ensuing at their costs provide and make a net commonly called a net to take choughs, crows and rooks with all things belonging to the same and the same shall keep and renew as oft as shall need and with a shrape [a bait] made with chaff or other thing meet for that purpose shall lay at such time in the year and in such places as is convenient upon pain of forfeiture of [ten] shillings the one moitie to the king and the other moitie to the lords of the same courts, leets, lawdays or rapes to be levied of the foresaid inhabitants. And that every such net with all things requisite thereunto shall once a year at the least be presented in the court, before the steward to be viewed whether it be sufficiently repaired or not so that by the said steward and inhabitants a sure way and ordinance may be devised for the reparation, continuance and putting in execution of the said net at times and places convenient. And that such ordinance made by the said steward and inhabitants or by the most part of them for the said rooks, crows, and choughs shall stand good and effectual, and be put in due execution. And further be it enacted that as well all such persons [illegible] … shall … and have in his occupation any lands or tenements whereunto any such courts aforesaid appertain … the tenants and farmers inhabiting in them shall yearly during the said [ten] years at such times and places as by the steward shall be appointed assemble them self together to view and survey all the said lands and tenements where any of them shall inhabit and thereupon shall agree and conclude by what means it shall be possible to destroy all the young breed of choughs, rooks, and crows for that year and shall put the same in execution so that the said young breed may be utterly destroyed upon pain of forfeiture for every year omitting such assembly, endeavour and view making 20 shillings after presentment thereof had before the Justice of Peace the one half to the king and the other half to the presenters of the same offence to be levied by distress like as amercements for common annoyances have been accustomed to be levied. And be it further enacted that as well justices of peace in their sessions and Sheriffs in their turns [?] as stewards, mayors and bailiffs elected in their leets, lawdays, rapes and court barons shall give in charge to the inhabitants and all other appearing before them that they shall duly inquire and put into execution the effect of these premises so that this act may fully and truly be executed and the choughs, crows and rooks thereby destroyed in all places in this realm<br />
And it is further enacted that it shall be lawful to every person minding to destroy the said crows / rooks / or choughs after request thereof made unto the owner or occupier of the same ground to enter take and carry away all such rooks, choughs and crows as he shall take in the same day in which such request shall be made without let or impediment of the said owner or occupier.<br />
And it is further enacted that every farmer or owner having in his occupation any lands or tenements to the yearly value of £5 shall pay to every such person as take and offer him any old crows, rooks or choughs taken within the same ground 8 pence for every 12 old crows, rooks or choughs and every 6 [indecipherable] and for every 3 [an obulus]. And if he refuse to pay the said money to be levied by distress of the goods and cattles of every such farmer or occupier provided that no person by colour of this act take or kill any doves or pigeons upon pains limited by the laws and customs of this realm heretofore made for such offences an 24 Henrici 8 cap 10."<br />
<br />
<br />
Such legislation against corvids was repeated by the Elizabethan parliament, and the Jacobean. “I never knew the execution of it”, said John Aubrey. But choughs were swept south westwards and finally out of the country. The habits of birds perhaps were altered: <i>Birds Britannica</i> notes without comment that Scottish and Irish rookeries tend to contain much larger aggregations of birds than English ones, but that could perhaps be related to local predilections for rook pie.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wildfowl were a different matter for Henry VII and his compliant government. This was a matter of preserving birds for the landowner, who was required to practice his longbow skills in fowling for birds on his own land. Look at cranes, bustards and bitterns being protected:<br />
<br />
"No person between the last day of May and the last day of August take any wildfowl with nets or other engine upon pain of a year’s prisonment and to forfeit for every fowl 4d the one half to the king the other to him that will sue for it by action of debt where no essoign protection nor wager of law to lie, and Justices of Peace to enquire thereof as they do in trespass.<br />
<br />
"Provided that any gentleman or other that may dispend 40/- a year of freehold may take such wildfowl with their spaniels using none other engine but their long bow. And from the first day of march that shall be in the year of our Lord 1533 unto the last day of June then ensuing no person to destroy any eggs of wildfowl upon pain of imprisonment for one year and to lose for every cranes egg or bustard 20d, and for every bitterns egg, herons or shoveller, 1d the one half to the king the other to him that will sue therefore in form aforesaid and justices of peace have power to inquire and determine the same in form aforesaid.<br />
<br />
Provided that this act extend not to any that destroy choughs, ravens, or bustards or any fowl not used to be eaten or their eggs. An 25 H8 cap 11."<br />
<br />
<br />
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/26/theresa-may-announce-details-ofbritish-legal-shake-up-next-week/<br />
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-41105284509588455622017-03-27T09:48:00.000+01:002017-03-27T09:48:36.236+01:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jY9pi7yB6iI/WNjQAJlHusI/AAAAAAAACRw/MJ85O32neX0JkD05YBjYqWa3Np7iikU_wCLcB/s1600/dove1696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jY9pi7yB6iI/WNjQAJlHusI/AAAAAAAACRw/MJ85O32neX0JkD05YBjYqWa3Np7iikU_wCLcB/s320/dove1696.JPG" width="216" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">THE
EMBASSADOUR OF PEACE, Being a Strange and Wonderful Relation of a WHITE DOVE Seated on a Rain-Bow.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">That Appears to several Persons, in the Parish
of Peter's Carlile; particularly
to Mrs. Isabel Fletcher, (Wife
to Mr.Fletcher, Apothecary.)
To whom it Relates Strange and Wonderful Things, concerning the state of
Affairs in this Nation; very positively asserting Universal Peace and Plenty to all Christendom, the ensuing Year 1697. Proving
the Subversion of
the French King, from
several Texts of Scripture; especially from the last Verse of the 31st Psalm.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s hard to make out what was happening up in Carlisle in 1696. The
pamphlet, at once credulous and anxious, appeared both in London and Edinburgh
editions. The clergymen who attest to the wonder are simultaneously worried
that the dove delivering prophecies to Isabel Fletcher may be a devil: “<i>False
Christs, and false Prophets</i></span><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> (saith the Holy
Evangelist) <i>shall arise, and shall shew Wonders to seduce, if it were
possible, even the Elect.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is the beginning of the narrative of what was alleged to have
taken place:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"On <i>Friday</i> the
23d. of <i>October</i> last, a little after Sun setting the Wife
of <i>John Fletcher</i> and Apothecary in St. <i>Peter's
Carlile,</i> a Woman of good and pious disposition; being set in her
Chamber in a Melancholy thinking posture, with her Child in her Arms; felt on a
sudden and unusual Warmness about her Head, and, immediately after discern'd
the likeness of a <i>White-Dove,</i> as it were upon a <i>Rain-bow:</i> whereupon
she presently fell down into a Trance: But, at last, recovering herself, she
heard these Words uttered by it, in a shrill and powerful Sound, Isabel! <i>be
not afraid, for I am a Messenger sent from GOD, to proclaim Glad-tidings to all</i> England: <i>yea,
even to all those that sincerely Love our Lord Jesus Christ;</i> And so,
bidding her attend in the same place next Evening, it for that time
disappeared."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">This would be easy
enough: a vision or trance for a woman who is agitated by what she has heard about
the Nine Years’ War and Louis XIV. The preamble to the pamphlet mentions "our
Modern Speaking <i>Raven</i> (a Miracle yet fresh in our
Memories)". I can find no further references to an oracular raven, it was
perhaps another local wonder. But any raven speaking prophecies would certainly
have run true to type as a bird of ill omen. The pious Mistress Fletcher is
inspired to bring in a dove, offering greater comfort (and obviously inspired
by Genesis 8). But the parish minister cited in the main part of the pamphlet
makes it quite clear that the apparition was seen by others:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"The Astonished Woman
acquainted her Husband with what had happened: whereupon he with several others
attended with her the Hour appointed; to whom the <i>Dove</i> or <i>Spirit</i> appear'd,
as aforesaid; Exhorting them to <i>Prayer, Piety,</i> and <i>Repentance;</i> as
that GOD was angry; that his Vials of Wrath were ready prepared to be poured
out on all the Children of Disobedience; that <i>Rome</i> had drunk
deep of the Blood of the Martyrs: and therefore must drink deep of the Cup of
GOD'S Wrath; That <i>Peace</i> and <i>Plenty</i> should
environ all <i>Christendom;</i> and that the present disturber of
the <i>Welfare</i> thereof, shall in the year <i>Ninety</i> and <i>Seven,</i> be
Cut off from among the Children of Men: Moreover it added, that the <i>Kingdom
of Christ</i> should shortly be Established throughout the whole World:
and that of Satan's totally Subverted and broken into Confusion."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">How was it done? If its appearances were confined to one place, one
could imagine a simple mechanism, a painted rainbow (inspired by Genesis 9) being used to secure the bird and bring it into view. But is also appeared at other places. I suppose it was seen by those
who could see it, and Mistress Fletcher, casting her voice, made sure everyone
heard it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> "It is so
commonly seen, that it is known to every Body in the Neighbourhood; and
appears frequently in the day time: and when Three, Four, or more are present
it never fails to speak with a clear and audible Voice."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The parish minister,
Edward Knowls, challenged the ‘dove or spirit’ to prove its non-diabolic nature:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"It shows itself also
in the Neighbours Houses, exhorting to Repentance. At a certain time, being present,
with some others, I conjured it, by the Holy Trinity, to tell me what it was,
and wherefore it came. It presently replied, in the same manner as afore, ‘A
Messenger, from God, sent for the Conversion of Sinners’. And so, for that time
vanished."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">He earnestly tries to
dissuade Mistress Fletcher: "I desired her to consider, That it was not a Good
& True Spirit; that she should refuse to Pray at his Command: For that,
under such Holy Representations, it might seduce her and others from the <i>Word</i> of <i>God</i> and
his <i>Grace."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Despite such clerical
misgivings, crowds gathered in Carlisle:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Here is such a
numerous Concourse of People that the Town cannot contain them, and if we
should countenance them, I am apt to think, they would set it up as an Idol or
Oracle; for as much as several repair hither to ask Council in doubtful
Matters."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Henry Patrickson was
the other clerical witness, though he seems to report the dove as having been Mistress
Fletcher’s visual experience alone:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Sir,</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I cannot omit this
Opportunity of Acquainting you with a wonderful </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Apparition, </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">that</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> is here amongst us, to the
exceeding Amazement of Thousands of People, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">viz.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> A </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">White
Dove,</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> seated on a </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rain-Bow,</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> that daily appears to
Mrs </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Fletcher,</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> an Eminent </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Apothecary</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">'s Wife. It
talks with her very much out of the Scriptures; applying especially these Places, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The
Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpents Head. The Blood of</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Jesus, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">&c."</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">“It foretells the
total Subversion of the <i>Ottoman</i> Empire in a very small space
of time; and a signal Victory over the <i>French</i> in 97. And that <i>Peace</i>
and <i>Tranquillity</i> will thereupon ensue. It also speaks of the Affairs
between <i>France</i> and the Duke of <i>Savoy.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It delivers its
Answers after a mysterious and ambiguous manner, as did the Oracles of old. The
common People take it to be an <i>Angel</i> sent from <i>God,</i> but
a Bishop and other of the Clergy hold it for a Devil. As for me I shall forbear
to pass my Judgement, till it appear what manner of a <i>Spirit</i> it
is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Yours,
HEN. PATRICKSON." </span><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The dove was surprisingly
like a foreign correspondent, if a bit behind the times on the Turks, who had
passed the apogee of their threat to Europe at Vienna in 1683. Even so, while Mistress
Fletcher could do scripture talk easily enough, she had a wider concern for the
state of Europe than one might expect from a late 17<sup>th</sup> century
apothecary’s wife in Carlisle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The postscript to the pamphlet promises more to follow: “</span><i><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">You</span></i><span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> shall
not fail of having exact notice of all ensuing Material, Passages relating to
this wonderful <i>Prodigy,</i> for it is so far from any likelihood
of Ceasing, that it daily appears, every day more visible than other freely
answering all Questions whatsoever."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Several Atheists
flock thither, and are fully convinced of the Power of an <i>Almighty
Being:</i> And several eminent Persons have employed their utmost Skill
and Learning to find out whether it might proceed from some Natural Cause, or
not? but all in vain. So that all in general conclude, that it is no less than
the <i>Finger of God."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Corbel, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The story seems to
end there, with that 'flock' of 'several atheists'. Maybe there was an awkwardness, an exposure of pious fraud, or maybe
she was finally persuaded of the ambiguity of her prophet bird. On the other
hand, it did seem to have got The Treaty of Ryswick correct for 1697, when
Louis XIV allowed Europe three years without war before triggering the War of
Spanish Succession.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-2595654196565982902017-01-07T17:35:00.001+00:002017-01-07T17:35:26.623+00:00The Accomplished Cook makes Umble Pie, 1660<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bpZGIwFhPZ0/WHEiLmSRCfI/AAAAAAAACPo/MacBpzjraKc-wS9IwskrisALx1TnhxYOACLcB/s1600/RobertMay.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bpZGIwFhPZ0/WHEiLmSRCfI/AAAAAAAACPo/MacBpzjraKc-wS9IwskrisALx1TnhxYOACLcB/s320/RobertMay.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The image of
the 17<sup>th</sup> century English aristocrat is fixed forever by Van Dyke. In
this post, which is inspired by Adam Smyth’s review of Wendy Wall’s <i>Recipes for Thought: Knowledge and Taste in
the Early Modern English Kitchen</i> in the latest <i>LRB</i>, I look at another artist who worked under aristocrat
patronage, and what kind of image of the aristocracy he provides. He’s the cook,
Robert May</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, author
of </span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The accomplisht cook,
or The art and mystery of cookery</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> (1660).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One of the patrons May shared with Van Dyke was Sir Kenelm Digby, and so
we can think first of Venetia Stanley in her silk dresses, we see her on her pathetic
and decorous deathbed, with that rose shedding its petals on the pillow beside
her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">May’s version of aristocratic life is different: barbaric, carnal,
fat-basted, one of tables surrounded by people enjoying banquets which were, on
special occasions, kinetic events, He opens his book with a joyous account of
what he considered a feast done properly should be like. What he describes for
his adventurous diners is recreated for his readers: making an amazing entrée
for both the feast and his book. The table set with a pasteboard galleon and a
castle, exchanging fire - gunpowder is involved, then the women present throw
eggshells full of rosewater at one another to allay the fumes, one of those
women next being set up as victim of a guffawing hoax – asked to pull a spear
from the side of a model stag, from which red wine will gush instead of
blood, then her or another female victim being invited to cut into pies that
were, in certain of their compartments, full of frogs, live birds, even snakes: “lifting first the lid off one pie, out skips some Frogs, which makes the
Ladies to skip and shreek”. The birds, May remarks complacently, would fly in
terror into the candles: “after the other pie, whence comes out the Birds; who
by a natural instinct flying at the light, will put out the candles: so that
what with the flying Birds and skipping Frogs, the one above, the other
beneath, will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole company”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So we can
imagine the bangs, hubbub, shrieking, laughter, cries of vexation at ruined expensive
dresses. As May himself puts it, after this grand opening salvo for the feast,
everyone could then settle down to talk about what happened to them during the
action, before settling down to the meal itself: </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“at length the candles are lighted, and a Banquet brought in, the musick
sounds, and every one with much delight and content rehearses their actions in
the former passages.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Robert May must have been deuced expensive to employ: it’s a principle with
him to hold his patron to a level of profligate expense. Publishing his fifty
years of experience as a master cook in 1660, he was advocating a return, in
England, to the old English ways of eating, before the puritan interregnum, a
return to meals that are a lavish medley of dead animals and animal parts (all
of them: sweetbreads, lips, and noses, “first tender boiled and blanched”),
displays of largesse and profusion, conspicuous consumption at a quite literal
level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bKS01VpP7U0/WHEmlCf3KKI/AAAAAAAACP0/1sAjaIohV38FTHCZ_0JKekWqN8OFAXkQwCLcB/s1600/David_Teniers_the_Younger-Kitchen_Scene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bKS01VpP7U0/WHEmlCf3KKI/AAAAAAAACP0/1sAjaIohV38FTHCZ_0JKekWqN8OFAXkQwCLcB/s320/David_Teniers_the_Younger-Kitchen_Scene.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitchen scene by David Teniers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The waste must have been terrific. One of his measures for an added
element is the ‘gubbin’: “Mutton, Venison, Pork, Bacon, all the foresaid in
gubbins, as big as a Ducks Egg”. No doubt every woman present was feeding her
lap dogs; it’s easy to imagine larger ‘gubbins’ from the feast being thrown by
the men to their larger dogs waiting round the edge of the room. Adam Smyth
aptly writes that there must have been a culture of the leftover, but for May
the profusion of meat at the table is always connected to charity in the proper
old English way, the poor folk at the gate eventually receiving the orts and
fragments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a master cook, May was a kind of culinary combine harvester,
processing whole animals into pies, pies of many compartments, animals stuffed
inside animals and coffined in pastry, pies that feature sections that are
bird-filled alongside the portions full of animal meats, with easily available animals
like rabbits, “pigeon-peepers and chicken peepers”, always thrown in to bulk
out the fare. There’s no buying of a cut of meat. If it’s pork, May starts with
a pig, venison is prepared from the whole animal. An amazing amount of boiling
goes on, and the animals are hashed, stewed in gobbets, fricasseed into hearty
fare for Lord or his hound, Lady and lapdog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">By 1660, May knows his culinary rivals very well, rivals to his proper
English way of doing food. Royalty never appeared among his patrons, he was
probably too olde tyme, too extravagant, and unsophisticated for Charles II –
who hah had so many years eating abroad. It’s French cooking <i>a la mode</i> that May fears, and
denigrates, rather superbly, as “epigram dishes”. We’d say <i>nouvelle cuisine</i>, a taste of something served on a plate, an
epigram in food, rather than a chorographical epic of food:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“Epigram
Dishes, smoak't rather then drest, so strangely to captivate the Gusto, their Mushroom'd Experience <span style="background: white;">for Sauce
rather then Diet, for the generality howsoever called A la mode, not being worthy of taken
notice on. As I lived in France
and had the Language, and have been an eye-witness of their Cookeries, as well as a peruser of
their Manuscripts and printed Authours,
whatsoever I found good in them I have inserted in this Volume.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt;">May makes no suggestions about what wine might go
with a particular dish. Everyone was clearly getting on splendidly drinking
just whatever was being poured, and as the dishes contain everything – avian,
animal, oysters, lemons – you could hardly drink wine according to whatever had
turned up in the last unctuous and dribbling mouthful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt;">May presided over this animal holocaust for fifty
years. Fish that can now barely be found (lampreys, sturgeons), birds protected
24/7 in these days by the RSPB</span> (bustard, or look at “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt;">To boil all other smaller Fowls, as Ruffes, Brewes,
Godwits, Knots, Dotterels, Strents, Pewits, Ollines, Gravelens, Oxeyes,
Redshanks, &c.”). By the sheer number of his employers, people must from
time to time have looked at their kitchen bills and decided that that swan must
be the last.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt;">The cook book in his hands is a celebration of fifty
years of cooking it my way. It starts with a brief life of the artist. That’s
what he has become, though the narrative is also a tale of the long
apprenticeship necessary for the mastery of such an art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>A short Narrative of some passages of the Authors Life.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">For the better knowledge of the worth of this Book, though it be not
usual, the Author being living, it will not be amiss to acquaint the Reader
with a brief account of some passages of his Life, as also what eminent Persons
(renowned for their good House-keeping) whom he hath served throughout the
whole series of his Life ; for as the growth of the children argueth the
strength of the Parents, so doth the judgement and abilities of the Artist
conduce to the making and goodness of the Work: now that such great knowledge
in this so commendable Art was not gained but by long experience, practice, and
converse with the most ablest men in their times, the Reader in this brief
Narrative may be informed by what steps and degrees he ascended to the same. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">He was born in the year of our Lord 1588, his Father being one of the
ablest Cooks in his time, and his first Tutor in the knowledge or practice of
Cookery; under whom having attained to some perfection in that Art, the old
Lady Dormer sent him
over into France, where
he continued five years, being in the Family of a noble Peer, and first
President of Paris; where
he gained not only the French Tongue, but also bettered his knowledge in
Cookery: and returning again into England was
bound apprentice in London to
Mr. Arthur Hollinsworth in Newgate Market, one of the
ablest workmen in London, Cook
to the Grocers Hall and Star Chamber. His Prenticeship being out, the
Lady Dormer sent for
him to be her Cook under his Father, (who then served that Honourable Lady)
where were four Cooks more, such noble Houses were then kept, the glory of
that, and shame of this present age; then were those golden dayes wherein were
practised the Triumphs and
Trophies of Cookery, then was Hospitality esteemed, Neighbourhood
preserved, the Poor cherished, and God honoured; then was Religion less talk't
on and more practised, then was Atheism and Schisme less in fashion; and then
did men strive to be good rather then to seem so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The nation has slipped and declined from its golden days, but May’s Art
has remained. His message is ‘eat like this, and make England great again‘.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The latter parts of his book, once he gets past the heroic and
Rabelaisian meat-eating, offer more to appeal to the etiolated modern palate.
His tarts and cheesecakes sound delicious. There are even some signs of
economy, especially with venison that has been hung just too long:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“To make meer sauce, or a pickle to keep venison in that is tainted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Take strong ale and as much vinegar as will make it sharp, boil it with
some bay salt, and make a strong brine, scum it and let it stand till it be
cold, then put in your venison twelve hours, press it, parboil it, and season it,
then bake it as before is shown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">… Other wayes to preserve tainted Venison.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bury it in the ground in a clean cloath a whole night, and it will take
away the corruption, savour, or stink.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is May on passing off inferior meats as venison:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Other meer sauce to
counterfeit Beef or Mutton to give it a Venison colour.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Take small beer and vinegar, and parboil your beef in it, let it steep
all night, then put some turnsole to it, and being baked, a good judgement
shall not decerne it from red or fallow deer.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Otherwayes to
counterfeit Ram, Wether, or any Mutton for Venison.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bloody it in sheeps, lambs, or pigs blood, or any good and new blood,
season it as before, and bake it either for hot or cold. In this fashion you
may bake mutton, lamb, or kid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />
I will leave him with his recipe to make umble pie. This is again a matter of
eking out your venison. I gather that the edible inner organs of a deer were
the perquisite of the huntsman who had given his professional assistance at the
hunt. Samuel Pepys was eating Umble pie in 1663: “Mrs. Turner… did bring us an
Umble-pie hot out of her oven”. It became a joke in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To make Umble Pyes.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Lay minced beef-suet in the bottom of the pye, or slices of interlarded
bacon, and the umbles cut as big as small dice, with some bacon cut in the same
form, and seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, and salt, fill your pyes with it and
slices of bacon and butter, close it up and bake it, and liquor it with claret,
butter, and stripped time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-5172362415394352492016-12-24T15:16:00.000+00:002016-12-24T15:16:09.997+00:00Presenting on the Stage of verity the late wofull Tragedy of the destruction of the Earle of Rutland's Children, 1618<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 4;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">I attended a <i>viva voce</i>
examination last week, in which the candidate stuck out his neck and suggested
that the anonymous author of <i>The
Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip
Flower Daughters of Joan
Flower, by Beaver Castle, and </i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">executed at Lincolne the 11 of March 1618 </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">had not
actually<i> </i>believed his own pamphlet’s
tale of deaths by witchcraft. His external examiner noted that the best guess
was that the writer was Samuel Fleming, D.D., a local J.P. and often named in
the text. Fleming would then have to have been a sceptic who concurred with the
fatal verdicts because, in the end, to quote the examiner herself, “a witch is
a person in front of a court accused of witchcraft”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I had
missed any such subtleties in a pamphlet I’d read (after a fashion), so I decided
to take another look. The basic narrative is graspable enough: Joan Flower, and
her daughters Margaret and Philip (“The Charwoman, and her daughters Pocketing
and Filch”, as Richard Bernard quipped in 1626) were in service at Belvoir Castle,
Margaret actually living at the castle, until they were dismissed for
pilfering. In their revenge, a glove of young Henry Manners was stolen, rubbed
on the back of their cat familiar Rutterkin, then buried, causing the young
nobleman to waste away and die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Fleming,
if it is him, starts off quite well. A reason for the veracity of witchcraft
lies in “those infinite Treatises of many of them convinced [‘convicted] by
Law, and condemned to death”. He has also had access to sceptical positions on
witchcraft: “there be certain men and women grown in years, and over-grown with
Melancholy and Atheism, who out of a malicious disposition against their
betters, or others thriving by them; but most times from a heart-burning desire
of revenge, having entertained some impression of displeasure, and unkindness,
study nothing but mischief and exotic practises of loathsome Arts and Sciences:
yet I must needs say, that sometimes the fained reputation of wisdom, cunning,
and to be reputed a dangerous and skilful person, hath so prevailed with
divers, that they have taken upon them indeed to know more then God ever afforded
any creature, & to perform no less then the Creator both of Heaven &
earth.” Age, craziness, malice, the desire in the self-fashioned witch to be
feared or respected; the impossibility of God allowing such powers to such
people - such points touch on good, solid objections to the veracity of
witchcraft and the eligibility of confession from such people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Fleming
could supplement his treatise with other papers, examinations of further local
suspects: “These Examinations and some others were taken and charily preserved
for the contriving of sufficient evidences against them, and when the Judges of
Assise came down to Lincoln about the first week of March, being Sr. Henry
Hobert, Lord chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sr. Ed: Bromley one of the
Barons of the Exchequer.” The phrasing is unfortunate here, but the sense of ‘contriving’
was neutral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So, ‘some’
of these ‘charily preserved’ papers he adds to his account in the most baffling
way: we have been reading about Joan Flower and her daughters, Margaret and
Philip. Suddenly, we have Anne Baker, Joane Willimot, and Ellen Greene brought
in as further suspects, with some of the evidence taken from them post-dating
the executions of Joan Flower’s daughters. Then Fleming lurches back in time to
provide examinations of Margaret and Philip Flower, taken in January and
February.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
pamphlet says more than once that the accused women killed both of the children
of Francis Manners and his second wife Cecily. But the younger son did not die
until March 5<sup>th</sup> 1619-20:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.thepeerage.com/p1590.htm"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">http://www.thepeerage.com/p1590.htm</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If
March 1620 was the new style date of the younger boy’s death, we have a
pamphlet describing the convictions of the murderers on March 11<sup>th</sup>
1618 (if that’s an old style date, then we still have a year to close).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In 1688
‘R.B’ (Richard Bouvet) attempted to summarise the Belvoir Castle case in his
compilation of paraphrases, <i>The kingdom
of darkness. </i>R.B. cannot make sense of the chronology, so he falls back on
vagueness: “About the same time Joan Willimot of Goadby a Witch was examined by
Sir Henry Hastings and Dr. Fleming Justices in Leicestershire about the murder
of Henry Lord Ross…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">He
cannot work out why we are not told about the outcomes of the examinations of Anne
Baker, Joane Willimot, and Ellen Greene: “and the rest questionless suffered
according to their deserts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">R.B.
does quote this passage from the 1618 pamphlet, a passage in which the young
Lord Francis Manners is still alive, though afflicted:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“At
last as malice increased in them so the Earls Family felt the smart of their
revenge, for Henry Lord Ross his eldest Son fell sick of a very unusual disease
and soon after died; His second Son the Lord Francis was likewise miserably
tortured by their wicked contrivances; And his Daughter the Lady Katherine was
oft in great danger of her life by their barbarous dealings, with strange Fits,
&c. the Honourable Parents bore all these afflictions with Christian
magnanimity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">R.B. sensibly
leaves out all the inconsistent references in the 1618 pamphlet to the Earl
having lost more than one child to the diabolic conspirators:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“I have
presumed to present on the Stage of verity for the good of my Country & the
love of truth, the late woeful Tragedy of the destruction of the Right
Honourable the Earle of Rutlands Children …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“the
Right Honorable Earl had sufficient grief for the loss of his Children; yet no
doubt it was the greater to consider the manner, and how it pleased God to
inflict on him such a fashion of visitation …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“Notwithstanding
all this did the noble Earle attend his Majesty, both at New-market before
Christmas, and at Christmas at Whitehall; bearing the loss of his Children most
nobly, and little suspecting that they had miscarried by Witch-craft, or such
like inventions of the Divell …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">What
had been happening in Leicestershire? Tracy Borman was encouraged by the
opacities of the case to produce a conspiracy theory (the man who sought to
profit by the deaths of the boys was the Duke of Buckingham, set to marry
Katherine Manners as sole heir to her father’s fortune).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/30/witches-tracy-borman-review">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/30/witches-tracy-borman-review</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I haven’t
read Borman’s book, having been put off by that review. But there is undeniably a curious and unusual strand to the
witchcraft in the pamphlet, with the witches boasting that their practices will
prevent to the Earl and Countess having any more children: “She further saith,
that her Mother and she, and her Sister agreed together to bewitch the Earle and
his Lady, that they might have no more children.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There
are certainly some things left unsaid in the text. Fleming ascribes to Francis
Manners, Lord Rutland, an exemplary
acceptance of God’s inscrutable will in allowing the innocent to be tormented.
Fleming is adopting the official (and rather comfortless) church line on
witchcraft: that you must accept your trials. The problem was that Manners and
his family were Catholics, so this exemplary Christian behaviour just has to be
treated as part of Manners’ general nobility of character.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">But the
main unmentioned, un-located, and unidentified person has to be a Leicestershire
witchfinder. Who had pushed the 1616 case in Leicester, leading to the hanging
of nine women on the testimony of a demoniac boy? King James had disconcerted his
circuit judges by declaring that the case had been fraudulent. But a variant
upon the sentiment in <i>The Late Lancashire
Witches </i>‘once and ever a witch, though knowest’ could be offered: ‘once and
ever a witchfinder, thou knowest’. The pleasure, at once sadistic and
righteous, of sending to the gallows those you have proved to be wicked seems
to have been irresistible to some. I think it might have been this same person
who is proving his point in the 1618 case. Someone had broadened the
investigations, drawing in Anne Baker, Joane Willimot, and Ellen Greene. They
seem to have been local wise women, whose general expertise was in pronouncing
whether a sick child had been ‘forespoken” or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Everybody
accused in this case is strikingly free with their confessions: “for here you
see the learned and religious Judges cried out with our Saviour<i>, Ex ore tuo</i>.” The triumphant allusion is to Luke 19, 22, ‘And
he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked
servant.’ This aligns the court with one of Christ’s most harshly judgemental
moments, in the parable of the talents. They were also willing to name names: both
Willemot and Greene have been induced to say where they got their familiar
spirits from. “This Examinate [Willemot] saith, That she hath a Spirit which she
calleth Pretty, which was given unto her by William Berry of Langholme in
Rutlandshire, whom she served three years”… “She saith further, that Gamaliel Greete of
Waltham in the said County Shepheard, had a Spirit like a white Mouse put into
him in his swearing; and that if he did look upon any thing with an intent to
hurt, it should be hurt, and that he had a mark on his left arm, which was cut
away; and that her own spirit did tell her all this before it went from her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Ellen
Greene “saith, that one Joan Willimot of Goadby came about six years since to
her in the Wolds, and persuaded this Examinate to forsake God, and betake her
to the divel, and she would give her two spirits, to which she gave her
consent, and thereupon the said Joan Willimot called two spirits, one in the
likeness of a Kitlin, and the other of a Moldiwarp”. The author uses such
anecdotes and accusations to suggest a hinterland of cunning folk who have actually
bartered their souls to the devil: “They admit of those execrable conditions of
commutation of souls for the entertaining of the spirits, and so fall to their
abominable practises, continuing in the same till God laugh them to scorn.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
1618 pamphlet makes a passing reference to torture: “because the mind of man
may be carried away with many idle conjectures, either that women confessed
these things by extremity of torture”. Again, an off-note: torture of women,
minors in the view of the law, was not legally allowed. There’s something
collusive about ‘extremity of torture’, as though a little bit of torture was
only to be expected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This pamphlet
was re-printed in 1621, perhaps as part of the backwash from the Elizabeth
Sawyer case, or maybe because the younger son had by then died. Whoever put
this reprint together added in an account of how to set about verifying
witchcraft by ‘swimming’ suspects. This notion came from other sources, but its
inclusion just might have been prompted by a rumour of such rough handling having
been used in Leicestershire, and used successfully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Was
this Leicestershire witchfinder in fact Samuel Fleming himself? As a Doctor of
Divinity and a J.P., he had the right sort of credentials and position. He was
an eager reader of witchcraft tracts (his pamphlet begins with a commentary on
the books he approves, King James, John Cotta, Alexander Roberts and the rest;
he has examined sceptical positions).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">His
fractured account of the Belvoir witches would then not be the product of a man
who didn’t believe what he was saying, but rather someone who believed it all
too well, masking his role, playing down the strength of his opinions. He evidently
regards young Francis Manners as doomed, dead already. He pushes Baker,
Willemot and Greene into the reader’s attention because they were products of his
newest investigations. If you look closely at the pamphlet, you see that Fleming
was working on Anne Baker on March 1<sup>st</sup>, 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup>.
On the first day, in front of Francis Manners, his brother George, and Fleming,
Baker resisted quite successfully. She then had a day being interrogated by Fleming
alone, and he established a connection to the main inquiry when she repeated (or
was lead to repeat) the story of the buried glove. By the third day, back in
front of George Manners and Fleming, she confessed to having a familiar spirit in
the form of a white dog: far better for a conviction than her previous baffling
talk of their being four colours of planets that can strike people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In demonological
theory, the deaths of Joan, Margaret and Philip Flower should have seen young
Francis Manners recover quickly. Francis Manners, Lord Rutland, had showed
little appetite for the investigation of witchcraft, but he obviously believed
in it: his own memorial records the death of <i>both</i> of his sons as a result of witchcraft. There might have been
some pressure to find other suspects when young Manners did not recover after
March 11<sup>th</sup>, the date of the executions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">To
conclude, there is a sense of the stories <i>not</i>
being told in this pamphlet. Leicestershire was not at this time an area liable to foster disbelief. Samuel Fleming, D.D. and J.P. might have been a covert sceptic. But
he might instead have been a covert witchfinder. '<i>U</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>tinam tam facile vera invenire possem, quam falsa convincere</i>', ends the pamphlet, Cicero's 'Would that I could find the true as easily as I can detect the false'.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 18.6667px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">An enigma!</span></span></div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-41517142364532439932016-12-20T12:14:00.000+00:002016-12-20T12:14:03.335+00:00The uselessness of Proquest's LION database<br />
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I do not know how much institutions round the world pay for access to this resource. It is time ProQuest cut their fees, for the database has not worked properly for years now. Here's an e-mail dating from 2014 in reply to a complaint I had made:<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VV8-DynXuy8/WFkI9ZX4oRI/AAAAAAAACOI/DhLkwwRGhxE4JL-Dpld_5HjsNZ122WjEACLcB/s1600/Chadwyck5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VV8-DynXuy8/WFkI9ZX4oRI/AAAAAAAACOI/DhLkwwRGhxE4JL-Dpld_5HjsNZ122WjEACLcB/s400/Chadwyck5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"Our developers are working on a fix". Yes, I bet they are. It's now two years later. Are they still working on it? This problem arose when the LION database was re-designed. As the re-design caused the problem, they should simply have reverted to the fully functional earlier version.<br />
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This is the problem: if you do a search using the 'NEAR' Boolean operator, the database simply delivers a selection of texts in which the two search terms separately occur. For example, this is a search in Victorian era prose (why the first return should be a work by Turgenev escapes me, it's just one of those LION database things) for 'gentleman NEAR horse'. The database does not find the terms in association. Nor do I necessarily believe that just 72 prose fictions of the Victorian period have somewhere in them the words 'gentleman' and 'horse'. The returns, such as they are, are not given in any kind of order that I can discern.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tGe6XuTQZXY/WFkI9cN2w1I/AAAAAAAACOQ/4XWdUaXbDjASrRcXNjDUDmWH7BtQx-I4gCEw/s1600/chadwyck1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tGe6XuTQZXY/WFkI9cN2w1I/AAAAAAAACOQ/4XWdUaXbDjASrRcXNjDUDmWH7BtQx-I4gCEw/s400/chadwyck1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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In some cases, usually for the two bottom items on a display of returns, the prose fiction is just a title, with no indication of the number of 'hits'. Just what is the database doing in those cases?</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_bZvWR711Ws/WFkI9CYJ41I/AAAAAAAACOQ/pk_dNovkdPgLMgy-WGA2V8qU6WOVhii8gCEw/s1600/Chadwyck.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_bZvWR711Ws/WFkI9CYJ41I/AAAAAAAACOQ/pk_dNovkdPgLMgy-WGA2V8qU6WOVhii8gCEw/s400/Chadwyck.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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For the search 'lady NEAR jewellery', the database, unable to perform the Boolean function, offers seven returns (that is, ostensibly can only find seven Victorian novels in which 'lady' and 'jewellery' both occur). Trollope's <i>Can you forgive her? </i>provides a spectacular 1027 hits: the characters include 'Lady Macleod' and 'Lady Glencora', of course. 'Jewellery' does indeed occur once, but this is far from any notion of proximity searching.</div>
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I've been marking essays on Milton, and occasionally logged on to LION to locate relevant passages omitted by the students. Searching for Milton on the database mysteriously offers both John Milton and John Cage. When the database is being really recalcitrant, it will offer you a text by John Cage when you want Milton returns</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8vSjwRF_90w/WFkI9O9ZVlI/AAAAAAAACOQ/73NFgQqOHf8sYw2CVcOXnS025LeMFTe8QCEw/s1600/Chadwyck3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8vSjwRF_90w/WFkI9O9ZVlI/AAAAAAAACOQ/73NFgQqOHf8sYw2CVcOXnS025LeMFTe8QCEw/s320/Chadwyck3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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If you set out to follow a particular word through <i>Paradise Lost,</i> say 'first', you can't: clicking to see the hits in Book IV shows you Book II, clicking for the hits in Book V shows you only Book III.</div>
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Why can't they put these things right? I suspect that their techies know too little of literature: they see some returns, and conclude that the database is working. As far as ProQuest are concerned, they are getting their money (librarians at my college do not seem to know of any organisation of university libraries that could confront ProQuest and demand improvements or lower fees).</div>
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-44390220085329726492016-09-15T21:23:00.001+01:002016-09-15T21:23:53.762+01:00Some notes on familiar spirits<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I read James Serpell’s piece on familiar spirits,
‘Guardian Spirits or demonic Pets: The Concept of the Witch’s Familiar in Early
Modern England, 1530-1712, which appeared in Angela Creager and William
Jordan’s <i>The Animal/Human Boundary:
Historical Perspectives</i> (2002). It’s a thorough job, with some very good
quotations and a jolly chart of the various animal forms the devil was said to
have adopted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The sources of bemusement remain: where such a
strange idea came from, and in particular why it was English witchcraft that so
featured the diabolic familiar in animal form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s useful first to remind oneself of a widespread
psychological phenomenon:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_friend"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_friend</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Wikipedia writers paraphrase from Klausen and Passman, ‘Pretend companions
(imaginary playmates): the emergence of a field’ in the <i>Journal of Genetic Psychology </i>(2006): “Adults in early historic
times had entities such as household gods and guardian angels, and muses that
functioned as imaginary companions to provide comfort, guidance and inspiration
for creative work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a non-Christian origin, a conceptual and etymological
inevitability operated to produce the familiar spirit in animal form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Roman times, Ronald Hutton explains, you had a <i>lares familiares, </i>a guardian angel
called your <i>genius</i> (a woman might
have referred to hers as her <i>natalis Juno</i>)<i>. </i>On your birthday, you made special
vows and little sacrifices to your <i>genius</i>
or <i>juno</i> on the household shrine, the <i>lararium</i>. Emperors, meanwhile, had a <i>numen, </i>and their re-union with their <i>numen </i>at death was what made a dead
emperor into a god. Evil spirits, says Lemprière, were the <i>Larvae </i>or <i>Lemures</i>. They
were considered to be the spirits of the dead, and ceremonies, <i>Lemualia, </i>were performed to keep them in
their graves or make them depart. These evil spirits are just a general
supernatural nuisance; they are not assigned to living individuals as opposites
to the <i>genius.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <i>genius </i>is
considered by some lexicographers to link to the word <i>jinn. </i>In Moslem tradition, Jorge Luis Borges explains, Allah
created three forms of intelligent beings: angels, from light, the <i>jinn</i>, from fire, and humankind, from
earth. The <i>jinn</i> can be evil. They
manifest, Borges reports his sources as saying, first of all as clouds or
undefined pillars, then can stabilise or condense into a human or animal form,
as jackal, wolf, lion, scorpion, or snake – definitely not as domestic animals.
<i>Jinn</i> can overhear angelic
conversations, and so pass on second hand vatic information to wizards. But the
harms attempted by an evil <i>jinnee</i> are
easily defeated by invoking the name of Allah, the all Merciful, the
Compassionate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the European tradition, the OED’s etymologies
take the story forwards. In post-classical Latin of the 12<sup>th</sup>
century, the guardian angel is the <i>angelus
familiaris. </i>Because the culture was Christian, and that culture was intensely
given, after Prudentius’ hugely popular 5<sup>th</sup> century Christian poem,
to analysing the <i>psychomachia</i>, the
battle happening in and around an individual soul, familiar devils followed,
c.1464. You now have both a Good and a Bad Angel, like Faustus, and they form a
morally effective pairing, as in this illustration:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DffJ5ZHtq-E/V9sA6jmCzSI/AAAAAAAACNE/bG4OVpcl9u0eNkiYiqYZKX2GfdL-0i0iwCLcB/s1600/good%2Band%2Bbad%2Bangels%2BPicture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DffJ5ZHtq-E/V9sA6jmCzSI/AAAAAAAACNE/bG4OVpcl9u0eNkiYiqYZKX2GfdL-0i0iwCLcB/s320/good%2Band%2Bbad%2Bangels%2BPicture1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A court scene, with the person testifying between
his evil and good angels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From Ulrich Tengler, <i>Der neü Leyenspiegel</i> (Strassburg, 1514)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yalelawlibrary/11734629074/in/album-72157639358477444/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/yalelawlibrary/11734629074/in/album-72157639358477444/</a> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">(See folio CXXXV).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The OED assigns <i>spiritus
familiaris</i> to the 15th century, and has the term in its English form from
1545. EEBO can be used to add further quotations. The “familier spirit of a
mannes awne minde” is mentioned quite neutrally in the translation of Erasmus’
commentary of Cato’s precepts in 1553, while 1554 provides the more opprobrious
“one that had a familier spyrit, and used enchauntry” in a work by Richard
Smith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, the neutral use is in commentary on a
Roman writer. In the context of magic, the familiar spirit may have set off
like the daemon of Socrates, being the source of your knowledge. But when that
knowledge was forbidden, no neutral ‘daemon’ is possible: it is a demon
informing you (or, more likely, misinforming you).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lurking in <i>familiar
</i>was a connection to the house: Latin, <i>familiaris,</i>
‘of a house, of a household, belonging to a family, household, domestic,
private’. <i>Canis familiaris </i>is the
domestic dog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Roman <i>lares
familiaris</i> or <i>penates</i> were
represented in the form of dancing human-shaped figures, who carry a libation
cup and dish. But when the familiar spirit is no longer a <i>daemon</i> but a demon, no longer a <i>genius</i>
but an <i>evil</i> genius, a witch-hunter
can infer that, as it would be instantly incriminating to have a largely
human-shaped devil visible in the household, the devil is going to be present either
invisibly, or disguised in animal form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Genesis, as it had been interpreted from the second
century, gave ample warrant for Satan assuming animal form. Nobody could
imagine Jesus appearing to them in the form of a dog, but part of satanic
debasement was non-angelic form. Milton has his Satan suavely passing from
cormorant, to tiger, to toad, to serpent, as best serves his advantage.
Intelligent writers of Genesis-based poems, like Du Bartas and Milton, were
fascinated in just how Satan could get a snake to speak. Du Bartas even seems
to imagine that one way round this difficulty is that Satan, invisible, is
‘playing’ the serpent, like a brilliant musician coaxing a good sound from a
poor musical instrument (Sylvester, translating Du Bartas, interjects an
allusion to John Dowland’s ability to coax harmonious music out of a
broken-down old instrument).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CNU5DdGOWVo/V9sCpRGCu2I/AAAAAAAACNI/tE9JV3sBN1sOIw522HG5c8_ipeFNjXKWQCEw/s1600/P1020411.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CNU5DdGOWVo/V9sCpRGCu2I/AAAAAAAACNI/tE9JV3sBN1sOIw522HG5c8_ipeFNjXKWQCEw/s320/P1020411.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imputed 'devil's door', Warfield Church, Berkshire</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think that the medieval church in general
down-played the <i>genius </i>or ‘good
angel’. They are mentioned, but really they occupied a role the church wanted
for itself: leaving aside special miraculous interventions by the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the church is the best protector. Having promoted itself to
guardian-angeldom, the church would naturally incline to emphasise what you
were being so well protected from. As an instance, on the Heritage Open Day
this last weekend, I cycled to Warfield Church in Berkshire, which has one of
the reputed ‘devil’s doors’. It is asserted that such small doors, in the North
wall of a church, were opened during the medieval Catholic baptismal rite –
involving exorcism – of a baby in the font placed near to the devil’s door.
Subsequently, ‘devil doors’ tended to be walled up: in the Reformation, it is
said. Maybe very early Christian buildings had a North-side door for the
not-yet baptised, and the feature was reproduced in later buildings. An exorcised
devil flying out of an aperture is such a common motif that such doors probably
did at some later time have that different function in a drama of exorcism
(absurd though it is for a spirit to require a doorway). This is a separate
issue; my point is about the church’s tendency to make the devil familiar. The
devil was inside you prior to your baptism, and he is always trying to resume
control, he will always be close at hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Once the devil had become multiplied into vast
numbers of evil spirits, every sinner can have one, and the church can busy
itself beating them away. Some irremissible sinners, demonology began to say,
struck personal covenants with devils. Invisible devils inevitably had a
neither-here-nor-there quality. It became the duty of the person accused of
witchcraft, or the person who said they were bewitched, to <i>see</i> devils. Particularly in England, and perhaps because the
English always seem to have accommodated an odd range of animals living with
them, animals already in the house were co-opted as devils; or in the absence
of animals, the assumed attendant devils were assigned animal forms by those
who claimed to be witnesses, or by witches who were trying to confess compliantly
enough to worm their way back into judicial favour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The sinister, vice, element from <i>psychomachia</i> had in effect combined with
the household suggestions of ‘<i>familiaris’</i>
(“some domestical or familiar devil” in Daneau<i>, A Dialogue of Witches</i>, 1575) to suggest that the spirit prompting
to evil adopted disguise as a domestic animal, as when Elizabeth Stile
confessed that when she went to gaol, “her Bunne or Familier came to her in the
likenesse of a black Catte” (1579). The OED does not include this sense for the
noun ‘bun’, but it was in regular early modern use, alongside ‘imp’, as in <i>Great News from the West of England: </i>“In
the Town of <i>Beckenton</i> … liveth one <i>William Spicer</i>, a young Man about
eighteen Years of Age; as he was wont to pass by the <i>Alms-house</i> (where liveth an Old Woman, about Fourscore) he would
call her <i>Witch</i>, and tell her of her <i>Buns</i>; which did so enrage the Old Woman,
that she threatened him with a warrant…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If the church had appropriated the role of good
genius, we can then see Milton’s <i>Comus </i>as
powerfully re-instating the guardian angel, the daemon, sent direct from heaven
to intervene - because Milton was well on the way to his repudiation of
organised worship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think the most revealing familiar spirits are
those whose forms and actions are recounted in Edward Fairfax’s <i>Daemonologia. </i>I say this because Helen
Fairfax, the writer’s eldest daughter, was simply making them up, deliberately
and in a calculated fashion, to get her father’s attention. Yes, reported
familiars were always made up, but in this case there’s no ambiguity about
delusions, or hysteria, or deception by a third party. Helen Fairfax simply let
rip, unleashed her imagination and expanding on themes she’d heard in other
reports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She witnessed a Protean devil: human formed, then a
beast with many horns, then a calf, then “presently he was like a very little
dog, and desired her to open her mouth and let him come into her body, and then
he would rule the world”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her father is completely credulous. On the 16<sup>th</sup>
November, 1621, a black dog, she said, had leapt onto her bed “and I tried if I
could feel the dog, but I felt nothing; and the wench said ‘The dog has leaped
down and gone’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then there is Margaret’s Wait’s alleged familiar “At
last the woman pulled out of a bag a living thing, the bigness of a cat, rough,
black, and with many feet”. This alarmingly non-tetrapodic beast keeps trying
to sit on the Bible Helen is conspicuously attempting to read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">More imaginative is the black cat: “when the cat
opened her mouth to blow on her, she showed her teeth like the teeth of a man
or woman”. This imaginary being mixes together the devil in animal form and the
witch who, in her animal form, is incompletely transformed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The women that Helen Fairfax so heedlessly accused
were taken for examination. No supernumerary teats were found on them, and they
were acquitted when tried. The relentless Helen, who is making all this up,
subsequently sees a witch <i>breast-</i>feeding
her familiar, and is indignant at this crafty way of escaping exposure. She has
come up with a way the women at the York assizes escaped proper detection.
Finding her lies officially disbelieved only caused Helen to rally with more
lies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What moved Helen Fairfax was said to be paternal
neglect. She maybe also took some pleasure in deceiving a father who had no
regard at all for her intelligence. A desire to be married and away from home
is also apparent. Satan appears to her as a gallant gentleman. The God himself
appears to her in the hall. This is too much for the family, who can believe in
the devil being present, but not God himself, and Helen swiftly adjusts her
story, as the God who appeared to her produces evasive answers, and finally
shows his horns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-70358567242758523752016-09-11T21:31:00.000+01:002016-09-11T20:30:41.727+01:00Something delightful in the State of Denmark<br />
A pleasant pre-term trip to Lund University occupied me last week. One flies to Copenhagen to get to southern Sweden: this gave me the idea that I could spin out my trip home with a trip to Elsinore.<br />
<br />
I'd already seen signs of the Danish part-ownership of Prince Hamlet (often underpinned by allusions to the Amleth in Saxo Grammaticus). In a north side suburb of Copenhagen, I saw 'Hamlet's pizza'; this is Hamlet's bike shop:<br />
<br />
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<br />
I duly penned some of the dialogue one might expect in there:<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: content-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6px; margin-bottom: 14px;">
<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">Scene: the interior of a bike shop. Hamlet stands, clad in oily black. He is trying a wheel in a bike frame, ignoring Customer 1.</em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">Long silence.</em></div>
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Hamlet (<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">to himself</em>) "O, how the wheel becomes it ... It goes most heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame has not sold yet."</div>
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Customer 1 (<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">finally) </em>"Ahem, good morning, Hamlet, I popped in to see if you had fitted that replacement derailleur hanger yet?"</div>
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Hamlet: "I do not know why yet I live to say, 'This thing's to do'. Within a month ... a little month."</div>
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Customer 1: So you haven't done it, then? I was the more deceived!</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">Hamlet reaches under counter, produces a skull</em></div>
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Hamlet: "How long will a customer stand in my shop ere he rot?"</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em;">Customer 2 enters shop suddenly, and above the ringing of the door bell, shouts</em></div>
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Customer 2: "Tis twice two months!"</div>
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Hamlet: "Now might I do it, Pat, had I but time..."</div>
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But of course it is Elsinore that is Hamlet-central. It's about a 40 minute train journey to the town of Elsinore. The English traveller rides along, in a state of vague disbelief or unease at the processes of such an efficient railway system.<br />Elsinore was wonderful: my visit saw it bathed in light. You emerge from the 19th century Renaissance-styled Station, to find Ophelia with her garlands and a wardrobe malfunction, and a Hamlet, large of lower limb and suffering from a dodgy hair style. I think he's drawing his sword at Claudius, but as he's looking at her, it all looks too too symbolic.</div>
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The royal castle, Kronborg, can be seen ahead: </div>
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But, before you get there, walk the town's other sights. St Olaf's church is a stunning mix of brilliant white limewash, gilding, and brass: </div>
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An extraordinarily nice inhabitant of this fascinating place explained to me that Elsinore never had a major fire: everything has survived, and everything shines with care:</div>
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When you get through the later outworks and into the earlier part of Kronborg, a slightly Scandinavian William Shakespeare greets the visitor (the inscription explains about the original Amleth story):</div>
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Frederik II administered his realm from here.</div>
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I was delighted by an exhibition of photographs of productions of <i>Hamlet </i>at the castle. The tradition apparently goes back as far as to the bi-centenary of Shakespeare's death, 1816.</div>
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Richard Burton in 1954</div>
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Burton again, with Claire Bloom as his Ophelia.</div>
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Sir Larry, looking like a god (1937)</div>
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Vivienne Leigh wringing her hands, quite understandably.</div>
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And John Gielgud, looking like he's got up to play Widow Twanky in panto.</div>
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But here he is again with a blanched Fay Compton as Ophelia (1939)</div>
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A pair of Danish performers, Gustaf Grundgens and Marianne Hoppe, making Hamlet and Ophelia look rather too closely related (1938).</div>
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Nicolai Neilendam as Hamlet, Bodil Ipsen as Ophelia, in 1916</div>
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Bodil Ipsen again</div>
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I liked this intense and very Danish Hamlet, from 2004.</div>
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Back outside and on the quayside, I visited a 'Amlet alias Hamlet' in the cultural centre: responses by various artists to the text. The library has a delightful Shakespeare corner.</div>
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Here I looked at a book of photographs of more recent productions of the play or partly-staged reactions to the play, <i>Shakespeare at Hamlet's Castle: 12 interpretations of Hamlet at Kronborg Castle,</i> images taken by the photographer Arne Magnussen.</div>
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I'm posting these not-at-all copyright conscious photographs of photographs for my colleague Christie, who isn't very well at the moment, but I think she will enjoy seeing them. I will remove the images with apologies if needs be:</div>
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The ghost, in a kind of installation-performance</div>
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A more conventionally-unconventional Hamlet.</div>
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Claudius, as a kind of drinker and weather god. </div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">A distraught,glammed-up, ruined Ophelia.</span></div>
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And an operatic looking Ophelia</div>
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Altogether, 'something delightful in the State of Denmark'. A memorable day, perfect really.</div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-68792641250814233602016-07-11T21:31:00.001+01:002016-07-12T10:40:40.081+01:00Sight seeing in Alsace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A holiday in Alsace, in the celebrated village of Riquewihr. All new to me, and stemming from a recommendation from a cycling friend years ago.</div>
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Alsace reminded me in some ways of Belgium: a place that has had the tides of history sweep through it, yet remained itself. The gabled, ornamented architecture of a prosperous merchant class, a religious rubbing-along when money is to be made, the superlative artists brought to that area by that disposable wealth and taste for ostentation. The <i>vigneron</i> who lived in one fine house in Riquewihr had himself depicted being pulled away from his agreeable existence by Death (rather than the end of his week in a gite):</div>
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There's a fine tradition of shop signs:</div>
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This statue in Colmar is of Schwendi, excitedly brandishing not one of his weapons, but roots of the Tokay vine, which he'd brought back from a campaign in Hungary. That's a <i>very</i> Alsatian thing to commemorate:</div>
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A Belgium, though, with sun, and mountains, and hectares of vineyards - all that cool and smooth Reisling instead of beer-brewing. But with Germanic or Belgian moments: some mildly pornographic beer bottle labels caught my eye.</div>
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I had never seen these before, the White Storks, or heard their beaks clattering after they fly in from the fields by the Rhine:</div>
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Of course, I was at times keen to stay in early modern mode, and here I am, looking (I think) quite the part:</div>
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My chief artistic find was in this superbly-housed gallery, the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg (we motored into Germany for a day). Those are the original statues from the niches on the cathedral, elongated to be seen from pavement level.</div>
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It's a Sundenfall, a Fall of Man, carved in boxwood by Meister H.L., who was active c.1511-33. The tree of knowledge is a fig tree, its distinctive leaves carved with astonishing delicacy. There's no flattening, everything is rendered in the round.<br />
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I like the choice of a fig as the forbidden fruit.</div>
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The animals of paradise are superbly done - that fine lion, and the stag, its antlers carved (how?!)<br />
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Durer's parrot sits up the tree:<br />
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Freiburg also offers a Cathedral with extraordinary stained glass, all in the most vibrant colours. Those in the nave were funded by the city's guilds, so you have a shoemakers' window, one from the tailors, the breadmakers - and amongst these windows, one that you could only imagine had been sponsored by the torturers and executioners' guild (or, as Abhorson would say, 'our mystery'). Eye-poppingly hideous deaths<br />
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I shall have to ask medievalist colleagues to identify the saint depicted below. It must be some crazy yarn from the <i>Golden Legend</i>. I saw the motif in a painting in the Colmar Unterlinden museum, and here again in the glass at Freiburg. As you see, the saint shoes a horse by lopping off the horse's leg, nailing on the horseshoe to the hoof, and he then must re-attach the leg without causing the animal any inconvenience or pain. The magical act of the saint reminds me of the Alpine stories of the feasts of beef at sabbats with the <i>nachstvolk</i>, when the bones of the animal had to be placed back in the skin, and the animal would be alive again in the morning (though never quite as strong for work).</div>
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There's a concentration of <i>villages fleuries</i> around here, done so intensely that the car parks have notices explaining that the funds from parking charges go to the floral display in the village you are about to visit.</div>
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I wanted wildflowers, and at the top of the ridge by the Auberge de Heucote, and at the top of the Ballon D'Alsace, we found orchids that were long 'gone over' this year back in England, but in their prime at 2,000 to 3,000 metres in July in France. The French seem to call the Butterfly orchid the Orchidee de Montagne.</div>
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I was very mildly excited to find this solitary example of an orchid I'd never seen in the UK. It turns out to be the Small White Orchid: a suitably boring name for what must be one of the most boring of its kind:</div>
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New to me was <i>Pilosella</i>, or 'The Devil's Paintbrush' (now, that's a plant name for you). It's just a garden escape in this country, and classified as a noxious weed in other parts of the world where it is also spreading from gardens. But protected in its native habitat.</div>
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Nor had I ever seen a Spiked Rampion:</div>
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or really taken in the Yellow Gentians (The very bitter-tasted root used to be used in beer-making. The French, divided as ever between hypochondria and enjoyment of alcohol, still make a 'liqueur de gentiane' out of it.)</div>
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or such sheets of Bistort</div>
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The Unterlinden gallery in Colmar has the Issenheim altarpiece by Grunewald: a gallery in itself, bringing together art from the medieval period down to images that anticipate Blake. But I may post another time on that intense experience. Colmar also has this variant of Cranach's <i>Melancholia </i>- she aimlessly whittles at a stick, as the night-army hurtles through the sky, a mad mixture of mercenary <i>landesknechts</i> and witches.<br />
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-59809912833304695112016-07-01T12:25:00.001+01:002016-07-01T12:25:50.053+01:00Compare and contrast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As the nation bids farewell forever to another good that we had in common, I surprise myself by thinking that at least we have some people still who can voice such sentiments, and use such words, as would have been used on such a sad occasion back in centuries that were alive, too, the late poet's imagination.</div>
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One the other hand, the egregious Mr Gove. When he was Education Secretary, every state school received, unasked for, a copy of the King James Bible at his behest. Until yesterday, I was unaware of how he'd had the spine of the book decorated with this gilded self-reference:</div>
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(The cost! "Vanity of vanities,saith the preacher".)<br />
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-16338533061933396732016-06-29T21:23:00.000+01:002016-06-29T21:25:34.517+01:00"The beasts may teach the Atheist": Godfrey Goodman's 'The Creatures Praysing God', 1622<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was Godfrey Goodman’s <i>The Creatures Praysing God: or, The religion of dumbe creatures. An example and argument for the stirring up of our devotion and for the confusion of atheism,</i> G. G. (1622)? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ODNB life of the author, by Nicholas Cranfield, says that it was published as “an anonymous satire on the irreligion of his day”, which Goodman “used as a vehicle for dissemination of his sacramentalist understanding of the church.” This is probably the most sensible line one could take on a very odd little book. It’s not quite anonymous, being signed G.G. on the title page. The dedication to the reader (and I’m sure it’s Goodman himself writing) explains that “The Authour himselfe not vouchsafing his name, title, or preface to this his worke, and very unwilling that it should be published, I thought fit to let thee understand, that the booke it selfe containes no paradox, notwithstanding the title …” So the title we have read is not authorial, ‘G.G.’ is somehow fully anonymous, and it isn’t written as a prose paradox.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, we are alerted to the chance that it might be a paradox, something to be read as not written sincerely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Creatures Praysing God</i> might be bundled up with other early examples of failed irony (<i>The Knight of the Burning Pestle; The Shortest Way with the Dissenters</i>). The argument would go that Goodman means to incite more fervent devotion to God by shaming his Christian readers with an account of how pious the animals are. The animals he talks about (and they remain a very generalised concept, though he does mention a few species of birds) are like the citizens of Utopia, fictional beings designed to shame us into doing better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The trouble is, though, that Goodman, like a 17th century Boris Johnson, gets drawn into an ardent advocacy of a point of view he doesn’t necessarily hold. Instead of establishing a satiric distance – ‘these are just animals: while this is how we humans behave’ – he gets drawn into making his case as though the general notion of animal piety has become both plausible and pleasing to him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here, he considers ‘The use of the creatures’:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Thus as they were ordained for [man's] naturall use, for his food, clothing, labour: so it should seeme, they were appointed for his spirituall use, to serve him in the nature of Chaplaines, that they should honour and praise God, while their master, sinfull and wretched man, dishonours him, yet their service might seeme to be done by his appointment.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The satire wavers into view: just as a wealthy man delegates piety to a chaplain, so animals can be imagined to taking up the slack on worship on behalf of us all. This is a step towards Douglas Adams’ ‘robot monk’. The necessary satiric outrage, though, doesn’t appear, for Goodman seems (to me at least) to be pleased by this fancy of mute worship because that’s actually how he’d like people to be. In theory, he’s all for active and intellectual faith, but his politics are very monarchical, and his faith was really drawn towards a borderline ceremonial-Catholic display of the divine mysteries to a trusting lay congregation. So his animals (however he pictures them, for he never specifies any particular quadruped) actually are his ideal believers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, Goodman can’t have been unaware that creatures engaged in worship was a motif in earlier art in this country, and contemporary Catholic art abroad, especially in images of St Francis preaching to the birds. Therefore the thought that the animals might actually be crypto-catholics crosses his mind, and he hastens to assure us that animals are perfectly orthodox, if a little more reticent than good Church of England Protestants should be:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Let us then enquire of the Creatures, whether they acknowledge one God, or will admit a plurality of gods in their service. And here upon the first view and appearance, they seeme unto me to cry and to testifie one God, one God, for all nature is directed to one end …the Creatures do testifie of God, which in effect is their faith; but I will passe this over: yet give me leave to passe my censure upon it … Upon due examination I finde them to be sound and Orthodoxall, I cannot taxe them with Atheisme or Heresie, but what they say or testifie of God, it is most true; onely with this defect, that they say not enough; nature cannot be raised above nature; the mysteries of grace fall not within the compasse of naturall bounds.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Again, humour almost comes into view, but he can too readily think of human members of the church who are exactly like animals, and require things to be said for them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“all of them [the animals] testifying the same truth, do in a sort make one common confession of their faith, they say their Creed together, as we do; this is enough, to save and excuse them from the imputation of infidelity: for children do no more in their baptisme, whom notwithstanding we know to be in the number of Gods faithfull people.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His piety keeps taking off the satiric edge; he adores his dumb animals who can somehow say their creed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The obvious next step was to decide whether these good but four-legged Anglican believers who happen to be animals will go to heaven. Rather surprisingly, he decides they will, if not necessarily in the same nature. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a very long debate, the one about whether animals had souls. One thinks of John Wesley playing his flute to the lions in the Tower of London, or Boswell trying to argue that “when we see a very sensible dog, we know not what to think” (and Dr Johnson’s howl of derision, which I recall as being along the lines of “and when we see a very silly fellow…”).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What Goodman says is this, in a vein of pious witticism:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If this seeme a strange doctrine then, let this reason confirme it: Creatures were first created in Paradise. Then surely they were not so much ordained for slaughter, and mans use, as for the setting forth of Gods glory. Now since our fall, they groane and travell in paine together with us under the burthen of our sinnes, and our miseries, the punishments of sinne, Rom. 8.22. yet still they continue innocent in themselves, they are often imployed in Gods service, alwaies praysing God in their owne kinde, and never incurre the breach of his law, but are patient, notwithstanding our immoderate and inordinat abuse. Then surely by a course of justice, according to their manner, and the capacity of their owne nature, though not in themselves, (that is) in the fiercenesse, malignity and corruption of their nature, yet in their owne first elements and principles, or as they have now entred into mans body, and are become parts of mans flesh, all the Creatures in generall shall partake with us, in our future intended renovation.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is just a proof from "reason", not from faith (and he has the Bible text at Revelations 22: 15 directly against him regarding dogs). Maybe animals get into the Holy City as they were first created, or, as we have eaten some of them, our reincarnation will involve something of them being mixed up with us in heaven,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The purportedly satirical work sounds in places very much like neo-platonically influenced writing of the Vaughan / Thomas Traherne kind:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Thus the stocks and the stones in their silence, and in their naturall properties; the beasts in their sounds and their cries, in their sence and in their motions, all serue to praise him: for God requires no more then he hath first giuen, the right imployment of his gifts is indeed to praise him.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That reminds me of Vaughan’s assertion that even stones “are deep in contemplation” of God, and that ecstatic brushing aside of anything as petty as facts is like Traherne.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This odd work can perhaps be thought of as a kind of pendant to his earlier and better-known work, <i>The fall of man, or the corruption of nature, proved by the light of our naturall reason,</i> 1616, That work involved Goodman in a long contemplation of the fallen state of God's creation, and he has much to say about 'the creatures'. In fact, an incredible amount: he can't think about humankind without triangulating between the angels (sketchy data) and the animals (a point of reference on almost every page). In this earlier text, there's no fanciful imagining of the animals as worshiping God in some silent fashion. They are simply the lower creation, and the decayed state of humankind means that we are falling closer to them, and that they are in many ways better off than us. "It should seeme wee live upon the borders, betweene God and the creatures", reflects Goodman, in thinking about why mankind is more susceptible to illness than animals are. That's because God's plagues light first on us, as is just.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And suddenly, it bursts out of Goodman:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I have often seene and observed in the streets, an ould blinde decrepit man full of sores, and inward griefe; hungry, naked, cold, comfortlesse & harbourlesse, without patience to sustaine his griefe, without any helpe to releive him, without any counsell to comfort him, without feare of Gods justice, without hope of Gods mercy, which as at all times, so most especially in such distresse should be the sole comfort of a christian man. I protest before God that were it not, for the hope of my happines, and that I did truly beleeue the miseries of this life, to be the just punishments of sinne, I should much prefer the condition of dumbe creatures, before the state of man."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The human condition he sees as wretched. This destitute old man is damned in both worlds, this and the next ("without hope of Gods mercy"). Doctrinally, Goodman accepts that there is justice in God's having it so, it is the punishment we deserve. But otherwise, he'd prefer to be an animal. This seems to me to go beyond mere rhetoric. Can you really accept such a punitive God as being just? Goodman suddenly sounds like Faustus:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> O, no end is limited to damned souls!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Or why is this immortal that thou hast?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This soul should fly from me, and I be changed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> For, when they die,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Their souls are soon dissolved in elements;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or like John Donne:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If lecherous goats, if serpents envious</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "book antiqua";">The condition of the animals really is enviable. And it's because they prompt such disturbing reflections that Goodman goes on to reinvent the animal creation into perfect four-legged Christians, always worshipful, never questioning because unable to question.</span><br />
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-80456646698950092452016-06-16T18:12:00.001+01:002016-06-16T18:12:44.811+01:00I.M. Jo Cox,'best and bravest'<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">... Yes, you'd like an army of Sidney Cartons,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The best world made conveniently by wasters, second rates,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Someone we could conveniently spare,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And not the way it has to be made,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">By the loss of our best and bravest every where.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">All this is not more than we can deal with.</span></i><br />
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Extract from Margot Heinemann's 1937 elegy for John Cornford:<br />
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<b>Grieve in a New Way for New Losses</b><br />
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And after the first sense "He will not come again"<br />
Fearing still the images of corruption,<br />
To think he lies out there and changes<br />
In the process of the earth from what I knew,<br />
Decays and even there in the grave, shut close<br />
In the dark, away from me, speechless and cold,<br />
Is in no way left the same that I have known.<br />
<i>All this is not more than we can deal with.</i><br />
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The horror of the nightmare is that it evades<br />
Your steady look, steals past the corner of the eye,<br />
Lurks in the sides of pictures. Death<br />
Is fearful for the fifth part of a second,<br />
A fear that shakes the heart: and that fear lost<br />
As soon, yet leaves a sickness and a chill,<br />
Heavy hands and the weight of another day<br />
<i>All this is not more than we can deal with.</i><br />
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If we have said we'd face the dungeon dark<br />
And gallows grim, and have not meant to face<br />
The thin time, meals alone, in every eye<br />
The comfortless kindness of a stranger- then<br />
We have expected a privileged treatment,<br />
And were out of luck. Death has many ways<br />
To get at us: in every loving heart<br />
In which a comrade dies he strikes his dart<br />
<i>All this is not more than we can deal with.</i><br />
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In our long nights the honest tormentor speaks<br />
And in our casual conversations:<br />
"He was so live and young - need he have died<br />
Who had the wisest head, who worked so hard,<br />
Led by his own sheer strength: whom I so loved?"<br />
Yes, you'd like an army of Sidney Cartons,<br />
The best world made conveniently by wasters, second rates,<br />
Someone we could conveniently spare,<br />
And not the way it has to be made,<br />
By the loss of our best and bravest every where.<br />
<i>All this is not more than we can deal with.</i><br />
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-59675926210899974752016-06-11T15:17:00.000+01:002016-06-11T20:29:53.287+01:00'To heaven on a gibbet': the repentance of Nathaniel Butler, murderer, 1657<br />
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Because of Frank Thorney in <i>The Witch of Edmonton</i>, I have been thinking about exemplary penitence in early modern culture, and the way the felon who, accepting their punishment as just, and making all the right noises about contrition, is rehabilitated by a communal forgiveness (where ‘forgiveness’ means not remission of punishment, but assurances from the spiritual leaders of the community that they can die with some certainty of not being damned).<br />
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The case I’ve found as a historical parallel is that of Nathaniel Butler, who in 1657 perpetrated a brutal murder, attacking his sleeping bedfellow, a nineteen year old apprentice named John Knight. The motive was nothing to do with sex, or shame: nobody in any of the pamphlets about the case finds anything unusual about two young men sharing a bed. Rather, John Knight had been left in charge of his master’s business, a silk mercery, and Butler had seen just how much money was in the till. Knight had invited Butler to stay with him because he didn’t want to be alone with the responsibility of holding the keys to the till.<br />
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Only Knight knew that Butler was in the premises: Butler been leaving his own master’s house on the quiet, and had come and gone late and early to spend the nights with Knight. Again, this surreptitious aspect to his behaviour sprang, as far as you can tell, from not being under his own master’s roof at night.<br />
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It should also be said that Butler may have had a reputation as a bad sort, exactly the wrong sort of companion for a trusted apprentice. He had twice been moved on (‘turned over’ is the expression used), master to master. For a young male inhabitant of Oliver Cromwell’s London, Butler was managing to live a surprisingly rakish life, drinking and visiting brothels: “He lived in Fornication, frequenting the company and the Houses of Harlots”, asserted Samuel Ward in a later work, <i>A Warning-piece to all drunkards and health-drinkers. </i>He financed this way of carrying on by befriending other apprentices (who, in their trammelled lives, might have found a wicked friend intensely stimulating). Soon his friends or victims would be robbing the shop to fund their interesting new life with young Nathaniel.<br />
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I do recognise that part of the way Butler could tell his story was as a journey from what John Ford had Frank Thorney call the 'abyss' back to salvation, Butler might well have played up his vices as part of that narrative, as when he "condemned himself in his general ill led life, as having been addicted to gaming, drinking, and abusing himself with women, and other vices whereto the Devil had inured him, in order to this his black or rather bloody sin of Murder. He hath been often heard to cry out of his too licentious course of life, And as oft hath he cried out of the sight of the money, which led him into the snare of temptation to this vile Act." (<i>A Full and the truest narrative of the most horrid, barbarous and unparalled murder, </i>p.9. A word or two may have dropped from the text, the devil inuring him to vice in order to lead to his black or rather bloody sin of murder.)<br />
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The murder was most foul. Butler had seen two bags of full of money (there was £110) in the till on Tuesday, and had been brooding about getting his hands on it. During the daylight hours of Wednesday, August 5th, Knight and he had a ‘morning draught’ together at The Black Swan, and agreed to spend the afternoon fishing. Knight bought Butler a rod. They went fishing, having bought bread bait at a tavern called The Sun, from 2pm till 5pm. Then, “We appointed to meet together at eight of the clock that night, which we did at Honey-lane end, and thence went into Fish-street to the Maiden-head, and drunk three half pints of Sack, and eat a piece of Salmon of twelve pence.”<br />
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After briefly going back to his own lodgings, Butler was hiding in the warehouse when the silk merchant’s premises were locked up at 10pm. In Knight’s bed, Butler could not sleep: “I made proffer many a time with my knife to the intent to cut John's throat, and once put my knife up again: And between three and four of the clock, on Thursday morning, I took my knife and cut his Mouth to his Ear, at which he shrieked out and cried Murder. Then I put my right hand into his Mouth, and so lay struggling together for about half an hour, and at length I strangled him: after which I looked about the Chamber, and the Devil instigated me to cut his Throat, which I did with my right hand, we being both naked.<br />
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Then I slipped off my bloody Shirt, and wiped the blood off me, and put on my clothes, and having taken the Keys of the Till, where the money lay, out of John's pocket: I brought down my bloody shirt, and laid it on the Counter in the shop, and opened the Till and took out two Bags of money, and went away with them, leaving the Keys in the Till, and the shop door open standing a char.”<br />
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The murderous assault did not leave Butler unscathed: when the normal business of Thursday morning started: “A sad spectacle is discovered by a bloody shirt found (lying on the Counter in the Shop in the morning,) by the maid servant of the house, who presently called in some of the neighbours, who going to the chamber where the Apprentice lay, they found him lying with his feet on a corner of the bolster, and his head towards the lower end of the bed, in gore blood, and with a lock of hair in his right hand, and some scattering hairs were found in his left-hand also; they were all struck with amazement! The house is raised! The neighbourhood called in! A tumult about the door! The murder visible! The Murderer unknown and escaped in the morning, presently after the fact.”(<i>A Full and the truest narrative, </i>p.3.)<br />
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The various approved narratives of the killing stress that Butler was then incapacitated by guilt, conscience-stricken by what he has done. He did, despite this assertion, buy himself a new trunk, and had locked the two bags of money in it, but he stayed under his master’s roof. Back at Mr Worth’s shop, everybody in the neighbourhood queued up the stairs to view the victim’s body. A young man volunteered that he saw Knight fishing with another youth, not known to him, the day before. Asked to describe this person’s clothing, the witness unluckily described clothes exactly as worn by a young man who happened to be peeping round the door, who was seized and questioned.<br />
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Then a neighbour’s servant named Butler as an acquaintance of Knight, not as a suspect, but as someone who might know more about other acquaintances of the dead apprentice. Those sent to find Butler found him in a shop in Bread Street, and “asking him whether he knew one John Knight, he being as it seems smitten in his own heart, faltered in his speech, & made out of the shop with a dejected Countenance; at first denying that he knew him, but presently after confessed that he did know him; whereupon they asked him to accompany them to Milk-street? but he pretended businesse and said he could not go then, and went his way: In this discourse with him, having perceived his hands to be scratched, they began to be suspicious of him, so that they followed him at a distance, till they saw him in his Masters house in Carter lane.”<br />
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When this was reported back, one of the marshal’s men was sent to detain Butler at his master’s house in Carter Lane. He was brought to the scene of his crime without him making any resistance “where he was caused to be stripped, and in searching him, his Leather Drawers were found to be bloody, and some blood about his Clothes; also stains of blood on his Stockings, which with the scratches on his Face and Hands, were strong presumptions, that he had a hand in this Murder, with which he being charged, several times denied. During the time of this search of him, the Marshal of this City with another Gentleman went down to his Masters house, and enquiring for Butler's Trunk, a new Trunk was shewed them, which being instantly broke open, they therein found two Bags of money, one of which Bags had Mr. Worth’s Mark on it, which being brought by the Marshal to Mr. Worth’s house, and being thrown down upon a Table with acclamation! that they had not only found out the Murderer, but the money also: The Marshal’s man then called for a Cord, wherewith he bound his Hands; Some of his Hair being plucked off to be compared with the Hair which was found in the young man’s hand that was Murdered; and being ready to carry him away: He then began in a crying manner to Confess; the Coroner and some of the Jury with two Constables being present, he began by degrees to acknowledge one thing after another; and at last confessed the whole Murder, and the manner thereof before them.”<br />
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So much for the murder: Butler’s trial was a formality, his death sentence inevitable.<br />
This is the entry in the newsletter, Mercurius Politicus for the week of August 13th-20th:<br />
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As you see, two men and three women received death sentences in the same week, with 14 branded and 7 set to be whipped. Why Butler jumped to prominence among this company of felons and unfortunates stems from (obviously) the awfulness of his crime, a discovery of his guilt that was seen as under providential direction, and, most importantly, the elaborate thoroughness of his repentance.<br />
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At his trial, Butler confessed everything: his only plea to the court was that he be given more time to repent. It was objected by the Lord Mayor himself that he had given poor Knight no chance to die having purged<i> his</i> soul of sins. Nevertheless, Butler’s plea was upheld. One by one, divine by divine, then in numbers, clerics and chaplains came to his cell in Newgate. This mobilisation apparently stemmed from moral alarm at the bloodiness of this crime in Oliver Cromwell’s God-fearing London. In 1657, they were near enough in time to earlier habits of discourse to be shocked by a crime against friendship, but there’s also a real sense that they felt a money-motivated murder just ought not to be happening. Butler had revealed to them a worrying vision of apparently integrated and virtuous young men, London apprentices stealing from their masters to finance a range of urban debaucheries that ought not to be there. Butler represents a malaise: so he had to be turned into a figure of reclaimed godliness. One of the pamphlets says that "he hath declared some of his Complices, and what an ill instrument he had been for them, with their wicked practices in wronging of their Masters, and many other things tending to their Masters wrong, and their own ruins; which in time will be further enquired into." But that sounds like a vague assurance, half-expressive of a reluctance to find more trouble than is necessary. The main aim was getting Butler's life told to proper and instructive effect.<br />
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The Puritans set to work on him. Randolph Yearwood, the Lord Mayor’s chaplain, recounts how Butler needed to move beyond simply acknowledging his sins, to a full understanding of his sinful nature:<br />
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“At my first Conference with him which was about five or six days after his Condemnation, I found him very ready to acknowledge his actual sins, and to charge himself with them and the aggravations that did accompany them, and this with sad tears of complaint, and indignation against himself and his sins; but did take no notice of his sinful Nature; Which myself and a Friend with me (Mr Griffith of the Charter house) perceiving, We endeavoured by Scripture to shew him his sinful Nature, as the Root of all his sinful actions.”<br />
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This seems curious, or unexpected. 'Actual sin' is a technical theological term, and in the OED ("after post-classical Latin <i>peccatum actuale</i> ...<i>Theol</i>. sin committed through a person's own actions; opposed to original sin"). But it makes me see that Frank Thorney in the play, who talks so thoroughly about his accumulated sin from his earliest years, while barely saying anything in the way of pertinent regret and contrition for the dreadful killing he perpetrated, is conforming to the same type of idea: your larger and innate sinfulness is as important a priority as the specific sin in your specific crime, or maybe even more important. Once you acknowledge your 'sinful nature', then you can realise your utter dependence on divine grace, and so proceed towards salvation.<br />
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The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Robert Titchbourne, himself visited Butler’s cell four days after the murder, to instruct him. The Lord Mayor contributed to one of the pamphlets describing the case and its outcome: part of Yearwood's <i>The Penitent Murderer </i>is "under his Lordships own hand."<br />
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This mobilisation, born of a desire to control ad manage this piece of news, explains is why there is such an emphasis within the surviving pamphlets on how London readers must not pay attention to sensational, lying, slanderous pamphlets and ballads that have been published. (<i>A Full and the truest narrative of the most horrid, barbarous and unparalled murder, committed on the person of John Knight </i>was “Published after many Lying and false Relations both before and since his Death, with a detection of many lies and absurdities; and that the truth may be known.”) The story has to be a victory for faith, a re-assertion of civic order, not a fictionalised and sensationalised tale of gore. Of the pamphlets vilified by the various chaplains and Puritan divines dealing with the good outcome of this murder, I can only find <i>Heavens cry against murder. Or, a true relation of the the bloudy & unparallel'd murder of John Knight. </i>This would seem to be a plausible account of events, but was vehemently accused of various inaccuracies, such as impugning the probity of Butler’s father, asserting that the two young men had been baptised in the same font, and even alleging that Butler paid his master Mr Goodday half a crown a day to employ a journeyman to work in his place so that “he might have the more freedom of excess and riot”, adding “('Tis the more pity and misery, that such base gifts should blind a Master’s eyes and judgement too)”. I think this pamphleteer went too far in spreading blame to the senior adult generation. The convincing details in the pamphlet are probably novelistic in nature (the writer imagines that Butler turned up at Knight's funeral, and gave himself away). The author certainly spins out his sketchy knowledge of the events with not very illuminating moralisations about the evil of murder, which fill most of the little book.<br />
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Meanwhile, in the newsletter,<i> Mercurius Politicus</i>, a series of adverts announced the forthcoming approved version:<br />
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In his last fortnight, Butler became more and more the exemplary instance of the sinner reclaimed. His various counsellors express extraordinary confidence about his chance of salvation. Randolph Yearwood told the Lord Mayor, his patron, that “I verily believe you will see him yet once more; not as a Malefactor in an obscure disparaging Goal, but as an Angel of God in the Kingdom of Christ, whither (I am confident) he is gone, and you are going.” J.D. began his <i>Blood washed away by tears of repentence </i>with a letter to Butler, which he then took to the prison, paid his fee to enter, and delivered to the malefactor</div>
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In this febrile atmosphere, heady with repentance and a sense of the sinner reclaimed, the young man himself appears hysterically joyful, eager for the scaffold. This is the account of his last night, from Yearwood's <i>The penitent murderer - "</i>Evangelical joy" was an expression of approval used from 1617 onwards.</div>
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"About five a clock he fell into such a rapture and extasie of consolation as I never saw, nor (I believe) any of my fellow-Spectators; for he would shout for joy that the Lord should look on such a poor vile creature as he was: He often cried out, and made a noise, and indeed did not know how to express, and signifie fully enough his inward sense of Gods favour, saying, Must he be an heir, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ, a fellow Citizen with the Saints, &c.He could not bear such a glorious discovery. Now that his joy was right Evangelical joy, appeareth thus, in that mourning and bitterness went before it; yea, he rejoiced with trembling, and could exceedingly often say that he would yet have a deeper, and a more thorough sense of sin; he could never be sufficiently abased before the Lord.Now the time was at hand that he should be carried forth to Execution, but he thought it was not near enough; for he asked several times, What a clock is it? I demanded why he enquired so concerning the time of the day? Would you gladly die? said I. Yes, yes, saith he, I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ which is best of all." </div>
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One can note that the forgiveness is determined and led by the Puritan divines, in charge of community response. In the present day, perpetrators of awful crimes are expected to exhibit remorse, and the reactions to that remorse by friends or family of the victim is faithfully reported. Among all these pamphlets, I have not seen any indication of what poor Knight’s family thought about the murderer. Their opinion was not sought, not important.</div>
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In that bible-addled age, it only needed a platform for almost any person to set up as amateur preacher: the scaffold was one, the demonically possessed also tend to embark on emulations of the sermonising to which they had always been exposed. Butler did his best, trying to address the vast crowd that gathered to see him hanged from papers, and going on in sweaty terror and exultation for over an hour, before being asked to abbreviate and cease reading out from his papers what was anyway inaudible to most. Butler found further favour by officiously denouncing ‘papists’ who had visited him in prison, which he alleges they did to put the argument to him that only the true Catholic church could absolve his crime. Butler further asserted that among such visitors were ‘papist’ ladies. Anyone who paid the fee to the gaoler was admitted, and the thought of such a propaganda coup, executed right under Cromwell’s nose, as Butler’s late conversion and embrace of Rome may indeed have induced such an attempt, whatever its risks.</div>
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This is the first report of the murder I have discussed, from the newsletter (<i>Mercurius Politicus</i>) of the same week:</div>
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That is the bare report, unadorned, un-spun. There's little about it to suggest what an outpouring would follow:</div>
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One of the famous books of the age was John Reynolds' big anthology of stories in <i>The triumphs of Gods revenge against the crying and execrable sin of murther. </i>There had been an edition in 1656, but a new one appeared in 1657. The title page seems to have been augmented from a relatively plain </div>
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to one that didn't simply point to murders abroad, but acknowledged trouble at home: "histories which contain great variety of mournful and memorable accidents, historical, moral, and divine, very necessary to restrain and deter us from the bloody sin, which in these our days makes so ample, and large a progression". That would, I think, be Butler.</div>
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The quarto of <i>The Witch of Edmonton </i>was printed in 1658. I've often wondered why then, in that particular year, and very tentatively wonder now whether Frank Thorney didn't come into somebody's memory, triggering the thought that there had been a play with a very penitent murderer in it (and that type of person sold well).</div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-60213280011341908102016-06-02T16:45:00.000+01:002016-06-02T16:45:32.186+01:00The frustrations of Sapphic love, according to 'Cheat upon Cheat', 1680's.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>This week, a piece of mild Restoration era smut, delivering something rather less strong than the title promises. The ballad deals with a marriage contracted between two women, Susan, who dresses like a man to woo Sarah, who is delighted to have such a beautiful gallant as her suitor, marries in haste, and then is disappointed on the wedding night. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>More comment below the text, which I have slightly tidied up in spelling and punctuation.</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cheat upon Cheat, OR, The Debaucht Hypocrite.</span></b></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Being a True Account of two Maidens, who lived in London near Fish Street, the one being named Susan, the other Sarah. Susan, being dressed in Man's Apparel, Courted Sarah, to the Great Trouble of the deceived Damsel, who thought to be pleasured by her Bridals Night's Lodging, as you may find by the sequel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> When Maidens come to Love and Dote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> And want the use of man,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Against their wills they needs must shew't</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Let them do what they can.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To the Tune of, ‘Tender hearts of London City’.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Come and hear the strangest Story, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ever Fortune laid before ye, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">of a wedding strange but true, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For such a one was never known, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">as I will now declare to you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was two maids in London City </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One was wanton, t'other witty; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sue and Sarah were their Names, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It doth appear they married were, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and Sarah tasted Cupid’s flames. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Gentleman that lived nigh 'um, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Had a mighty mind to try 'um, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and this Susan did engage, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That she would go and court her so, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">that she her passion might assuage, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Disguised went she, and fell to wooing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sarah she would needs be doing, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">so she quickly gave consent, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They soon agreed to match with speed, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">but now poor Sarah doth lament. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Susan strangely was disguised, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sarah’s heart was soon surprised, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">so that she did condescend, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She ne'er denied to be a Bride, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">but her young Lover did commend. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While her joys were thus completed, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sarah was extremely cheated, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">which did make her vitals fail, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To bed they went with joint consent, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and she found a cat without a tail. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is Sarah much concerned, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But by this some wit she learned, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">though she for it paid full dear, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For from her eyes, with fresh supplies, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">down trickles many a brackish tear. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sarah thought love her befriended, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tho’ but mark what this attended, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">and twill make you much admire, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That Susan she, so arch should be, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to set poor Sarah’s heart on fire. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With sword and wig was Susan dressed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sarah thought that she was blessed, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">with a gallant none more fair, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But pity 'twas, a wanton lass, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">should be so much mistaken there. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is Sarah discontented, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Her misfortune much lamented, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Maidens then pray have a care, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lest Susan comes with sugar plums, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">to bring poor damsels into a snare. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Quoth Sarah ‘Why would you abuse one, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whom you loved, deceitful Susan, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">why would you me thus betray?’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">‘Oh’ then quoth she, 'twas jollitry, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">that made me thus the antic play. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let no one know how you miscarried, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How mistaken when you married, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">for twill make the world to laugh, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You walked your round, and then you found </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">a constable without a staff.’ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Wonder not why this I write you, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> To be merry I invite you, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> and to none I harm do think, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Let Sarah grieve, Sue did deceive, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> which made poor Sarah’s heart to sink. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> To all Maids let this be a warning, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> All are wise that still are learning, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Beauty is a mere decoy, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Then have a care, least Cupid's snare, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> do make you curse the blinking Boy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Printed for J. Blare, at the Looking-Glass in the New-Buildings on London-Bridge.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not a sophisticated performance, and written for unsophisticated readers - men, men who want to feel part of the libertinage and sexual knowingness of the era. The narrative stutters badly over the wooing/wedding night, which one would have thought a simple sequence to describe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The superfluous parts of the narrative are revealing: that the inception of Susan's deception comes from a man, glancing at the literary motif of 'trying' a potential partner before making a final choice to commit. But this third party is quickly forgotten, once he has served his function of removing the possibility that one woman might want to try sex with another woman.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The message of the rest of the ballad is to reassure the reader that women may indeed be beautiful (so a woman dressed as a man makes a very winning gallant). But, lacking a penis, such a wooer will only disappoint a woman, being a cat without a tail, a constable without a staff, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Who would have predicted that? Susan is a cheat because she's not a man; Sarah, surely cheated rather than cheating, can only be another cheat because she deserts true masculinity (ugly-faced but virile) with such rapidity in her haste to marry her (female) gallant. Imaginary female readers, 'Maids', are solemnly warned that Susan may still be out there, alluring young women with sugar plums rather than testicles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I suppose pornography, smut anyway, must always have a large element of the naive about it.</span><br />
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-87220953867815161472016-05-25T17:05:00.000+01:002016-05-25T17:05:53.310+01:00Jenner's Stages of Sin, 1635<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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These admonitory images are from Thomas Jenner's <i>The ages of sin, or Sinnes birth & groweth With the stepps, and degrees of sin, from thought to finall impenitencie. </i></div>
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The book appeared in 1635, and seems to have been popular enough for two further editions to appear in 1655, and what appears on EEBO to be a single sheet version in 1675, suitable for pasting up to edify the godly members of your godly household while they are in your godly privy.</div>
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It looks as if the woodcuts were local versions of a continental emblem book. The final image is signed with 'Ja. v. L. fecit'. Jan van Leyden came to mind, though 1635 seems to be rather early for the marine artist. A Dutch name anyway.</div>
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The book takes a seven ages of man format, and re-applies it to illustrate seven ages, or rather steps of sin, progressing from sinful thoughts to the sinful act, and so onwards to the latter stages of decline into a permanent sinful state.</div>
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My interest was fired by a student, who is going to be working on personifications of Thought in Shakespeare. Taking the subject quite literally, I reflected that the poet often writes about his or her thoughts in Petrachistic poetry, thoughts being apostrophised as unquiet, restless, etc. Then Sidney's pastoral lyric "My sheep are thoughts, which I both guide and serve" came to mind, and so to this set of images, where sinful thoughts are personified, or embodied, as various kinds of animals.</div>
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1 Suggestion.</div>
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Original-Concupiscence doth make </div>
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Our Nature like a foul great-Bellied Snake: </div>
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For, were not Sathan apt to tempt to Sin; </div>
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Yet, Lustful-Thoughts would breed & brood, within: </div>
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But, happy he, that takes these Little-Ones, </div>
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To dash their Brains (Soon) 'gainst repentant-Stones. </div>
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So, in this cheering opening image and verse about 'Suggestion' (we'd use 'Temptation'), original sin makes us like a pregnant viper, a snake of the non-oviparous kind. We hardly need Satan tempting us,because we breed sins within, like baby snakes (not the tinned pasta kind). Well, we must dash their brains out, before they grow up to be dangerous.</div>
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2. Rumination.</div>
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When Lust hath (thus) conceived, it brings forth Sin, </div>
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And ruminating-thoughts its Shape begin. </div>
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Like as the Bears oft-licking of her whelps. </div>
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That foul deformed Creatures shape much helps. </div>
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The dangers great, our Sinful thoughts to Cherish, </div>
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Stop their growth, or thy poor Soul will perish.</div>
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Here we are like mother bears,in the Plinian natural history of the day, licking our newly arrived sinful thought into shape, maybe planning how we will not just covet our neighbour's ass, or his wife, but actually carry out some theft or abduction.</div>
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Here's a picture of me in the former church at Castle Richard in Shropshire, thinking penitently about how often I have indeed coveted my neighbour's ass, and trying to resolve to do better:</div>
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DELECTATION. 3</div>
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If Sinful Thoughts (once) nestle in man’s heart, </div>
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The Sluice is ope, Delight (then) plays its part: </div>
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Then, like the old-Ape hugging in his arms, </div>
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His apish-young-ones, sin the Soul becharms: </div>
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And, when our apish impious-thoughts delight us, </div>
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Oh, then, (alas) most mortally they bite us. </div>
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Here we are, then, our sin resolved upon, our scheme to carry it out fully formed. Now we are like an old ape hugging its offspring, delighted with it. (But we will get bitten.)</div>
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CONSENT. 4</div>
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For, where Sin works Content, Consent will follow; </div>
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And, this, the Soul, into Sin’s Gulf, doth swallow. </div>
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For, as two rav'ning Wolves (for, tis their kind) </div>
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To suck Lambs-blood, do hunt with equal-mind: </div>
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Even so, the Soul & Sin Consent, in One, </div>
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Till, Soul & Body be quite overthrown. </div>
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Pleased with the sin we contemplate, we give in to it. Content and Consent are two wolves ravening a lamb. Jenner does concede that to do such a thing is only natural to wolves. This whole publication does quite ruthlessly treat animals as merely present to be moral examples to human beings, making them embody sinful human thoughts which of course, as Jenner concedes here, they simply do not have.</div>
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5 Act.</div>
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Sin and the Soul (thus) having stricken Hands, </div>
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The Sinner (now) for Action ready stands; </div>
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And Tyger-like swallows-up, at one-bit, </div>
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Whatever impious Prey his Heart doth fit: </div>
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Committing Sin, with eager greediness, </div>
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Selling his Soul to work all wickedness. </div>
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Sin in action is this splendid 'Tyger' (I suppose Blake scholars might have put the point that Blake might have seen this engraving), gobbling down its prey, boots, spurs and all.</div>
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Iteration. 6</div>
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From eager-acting Sin, comes Iteration, </div>
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Or, frequent Custom of Sins perpetration; </div>
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Which, like great Flesh-Flies' lighting on raw-Flesh, </div>
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Though oft beat-off, (if not killed) come afresh: </div>
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Hence, Be'lzebub is termed Prince of flesh-flies, </div>
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'Cause Sin, still Acts, until (by Grace) It Dies. </div>
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This unsavoury image of a menace to public health is a butcher trying to keep flies off his meat with a fly-flap. Our sins are now like flies, they will not go away, but, chased off, come buzzing right back.</div>
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GLORIATION. 7</div>
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Custom in Sin takes Sense of Sin away, </div>
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This makes All-Sin seem but a Sport, a play: </div>
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Yea, like a rampant-Lyon, proud and Stout, </div>
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Insulting o're his Prey, stalking about, </div>
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The Saucy-Sinner boasts & brags of Sin. </div>
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As One (oh woe) that doth a City win. </div>
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'Gloriation', rare or obsolete says the OED, a splendid word meaning, or course, boasting of our actions, proud as a lion over what we have done.</div>
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8 Obduration.</div>
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When Sin brings Sinners to this fearful pass, </div>
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What follows, but a hard heart, brow of brass· </div>
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A Heart (I say) more hard then Tortoise-back; </div>
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Which, nether Sword nor Axe can hew or hack; </div>
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Judgements nor mercies, treats nor threats can cause </div>
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To leave-off Sin, to love or fear Gods Laws. </div>
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Oh dear, now we are hardened in sin. Like a tortoise, nothing can get through to us, we are obdurated in it (OED says 'obdurate' was a word to express hardening of the soul before it had anything to do with anything merely material in nature simply being made harder).</div>
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9 FINAL IMPENITENCY.</div>
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And (now, alas) what is Sins last Extent? </div>
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A hard-Heart makes a Heart impenitent. </div>
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For, can a Leopard change his Spotted Skin? </div>
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No, nor a Heart accustomed (thus), his Sin. </div>
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Then, Conscience, headlong, casts impenitence, </div>
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With horrid frights of Hellish Recompense.</div>
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Can a leopard change his spots? Neither can a sinner. The leopard/sinner is I think meant to be committing suicide, driven by conscience into a final sin.</div>
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Setting off with original sin, and ending with conscience leading us to kill ourselves, 'The stages of sin' has little space for positives (but it does manage to mention repentance and grace). The animals are, however, quite jolly in some of the illustrations, and are generally doing what's natural to them</div>
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<br />DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-77707605027065168622016-05-18T19:52:00.000+01:002016-05-19T08:15:46.728+01:00The evil eye in early modern England<br />
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I had always rather casually assumed that Elizabeth Sawyer, in <i>The Witch of Edmonton,</i> could have been seen as a particularly striking example of a witch possessed of an evil eye - through having just the one. The play mentions that she's one-eyed, though rather in passing ("let her curse her t'other eye out"), and it's not necessarily the case that the actor went through with being consistent with this when preparing to go on stage and actually played her while wearing an eye patch.<br />
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The play does, on the other hand, seem conscious about eyes, and offers its own version of cruentation when the corpse of the murdered Susan Carter opens an eye to glare accusingly at Frank Thorney. So, in that moment of occult resemblance between the good and bad woman of the play, we understand that a spirit is doing this to Susan's body to bring Frank to justice.<br />
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But does the text show any awareness of the <i>evil </i>eye? According to the OED, it should not be thought to do so:<br />
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This took me slightly aback. The notion of the evil eye seems so ubiquitous in human cultures. There's a very good Wikipedia entry, giving a sense of how wide-spread the idea was and is:<br />
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This said, there's no great mystery as to why the evil eye could not be confined to witches: the English Bible translations had not only Solomon (in Proverbs chapters 23 and 28) but also, and crucially, Jesus using the idiom in a generalised fashion:<br />
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In the Parable of the Vineyard (Matthew, 20):<br />
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Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?</div>
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So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.<br />
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And in Mark, 7:<br />
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And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.</div>
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For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,</div>
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Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.</div>
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Therefore English early modern culture is full of moralised reflections on evil eyes. I particularly enjoyed finding John Sheffeild's <i>The sinfulnesse of evil thoughts</i>, 1650, who attempts a full taxonomy:<br />
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1. The Eye of envy, is a very bad and sore Eye</div>
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2. There is an evil Eye of disdain</div>
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3. The evil Eye of suspicion</div>
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4. The Censorious Eye, is another evil eye</div>
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5. The Covetous and Greedy Eye, is another evil Eye</div>
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6. The Eye of adultery is another evil eye</div>
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7. The malicious and revengefull Eye is a devilish evil Eye</div>
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8. The Unnaturall and Ungracious Eye of children to their parents</div>
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I dragged myself away from all this useful wisdom (you have to imagine that he moralises upon each of his eight categories, in this kind of vein: "The harlots eye-lids are very dangerous").<br />
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Is it possible to move an association of evil eyes and witches closer to the date of the play? In some senses, yes, it is. Authors writing about classical witches use the idea.<br />
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W. L., Gent, in his 1628 translation of Virgil's <i>Eclogues</i>, says that "Such an Eye the Shepherd in the third Eglogue complaines had looked upon his Lambs: this kind of mischievous looking he calls Fascination: Pliny (out of Cicero,) reports, that there are some women born with Eyes, having <i>duplices papillas</i>, the apples or pupils of their eyes double: & that such doe naturally <i>faescinum circumferre</i>, beare about them this kind of Eyewitchcraft, (as I may term it.)" After various examples of eye power (Basilisks and the like), he concludes that "wee may easily believe the witchcraft, and mischief of an evil Eye, to be a most true conclusion."<br />
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John Gaule, a witch-believer, but a critic of Matthew Hopkins, wrote in his <i>Select cases of conscience touching witches and witchcrafts </i>(1646) about the ways that witches bewitch their victims (this is just the start of his list):<br />
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"Let me instance more expressly in a few particulars, 1. Some work their bewitchings only by way of Invocation, or Imprecation. They wish it, or will it; and so it falls out. 2. Some by way of Emissary; sending out their Imps, or Familiars, to cross the way, justle, affront, flash in the Face, bark, howl, bite, scratch, or otherwise infest. 3. Some by Inspecting, or looking on, but to glare, or squint, or peep at with an envious and evil eye."<br />
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The respected Scottish divine John Weemes produced (oh dear) <i>A TREATISE OF THE FOURE DEGENERATE SONNES, The ATHEIST, the MAGITIAN, the IDOLATER, and the JEW </i>in 1636. He has a lot to say about evil eyes:<br />
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But Weemes would have so much to say, because he was Scottish, and Gaelic cultures seem to have a more extensive repertoire of folklore about the evil eye. In English authors, the term 'eye-biting' is used, and associated with Irish beliefs by the tireless Reginald Scot::</div>
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"The Irishmen addict themselves wonderfully to the credit and practise hereof; insomuch as they affirm, that not only their children, but their cattle, are (as they call it) eye-bitten, when they fall suddenly sick, and term one sort of their Witches eye-biters".</div>
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Thomas Ady, a sceptic like Scot, describes the bad consequences:</div>
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"Master Scot in his Discovery telleth us, That our English people in Ireland, whose posterity were lately barbarously cut off, were much given to this Idolatry in the Queens time, insomuch that there being a Disease amongst their Cattel that grew blind, being a common Disease in that Country, they did commonly execute people for it, calling them eye-biting Witches."</div>
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Scot gives a summary of beliefs about how the evil eye operated based on Leonardus Varius, <i>De fascino libri tres. In quibus omnes fascini species et causae optima methodo describuntur, et ex philosophorum ac theologorum sententiis scitè et eleganter explicantur: nec non contra praestigias, imposturas, illusionesque daemonum, cautiones et amuleta praescribuntur: ac denique nugae, quae de iisdem narrari solent, dilucidè confutantur.</i> (Venice, 1589, and Paris, 1583).</div>
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Varius gave a whole process for fascination, an account of how it works at the bodily level. Scot reports this account of how a human being, usually female, can focus and intensify natural influences, holding it (as is his manner) at arm's length as an interestingly awful of thinking before moving in to the kill at the end: </div>
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"But I may not omit here the reasons which they bring to prove what bodies. are the more apt and effectual to execute the art of fascination. And that is first they say, the force of celestial bodies, which indifferently communicated their virtues unto Men, Beasts, Trees, Stones, &c. But this gift and natural influence of fascination may be increased in man, <span style="font-size: x-small;">Note in marg: L. Vair. lib. de fascin. 1. c. 12</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span> according to his affections and perturbations, as through anger, fear, love, hate, &c. For by hate (saith Varius) entereth a fiery inflammation into the eye of man, which being violently sent out by beams and streams, &c. infect and bewitch those bodies against whom they are opposed. And therefore he saith (in the favour of women) that is the cause that women are oftener found to be Witches than men. For (saith he) they have an unbridled force of fury and concupiscence naturally, that by no means it is possible for them to temper or moderate the same. So as upon every trifling occasion, they (like brute beast) fix their furious eyes upon the party whom they bewitch. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Note in marg: Much like the Eye-biting Witches, of whom we have elsewhere spoken.</span> Hereby it cometh to pass, that whereas women having a marvellous fickle nature, what grief soever happeneth unto them, immediately all peaceableness of mind departeth; and they are so troubled with evil humours, that outgo their venemous exhalation, engendered through their ill-favoured diet; and increased by means of their pernicious excrements which they expel. Women are also (saith he) monthly filled full of superfluous humors, and with them the melancholic blood boileth; whereof spring vapours, and are carried up, and conveyed through the nostrils and mouth, &c. to the bewitching of whatsoever it meeteth: For they belch up a certain breath, wherewith they bewitch whomsoever they list. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Note in marg: Who are most likely to bewitch bewitch and to be bewitched.</span> And of all other women, lean, hollow-eyed, old, beetle-browed women (saith he) are the most infectious. Marry he saith, that hot, subtil, and thin bodies are most subject to be bewitched, if they be moist, and all they generally, whose veins, pipes, and passages of their bodies are open. And finally he saith, that all beautiful things whatsoever, are soon subject to be bewitched; as namely goodly young men, fair women, such as are naturally born to be rich, goodly Beasts, fair Horses, rank Corn, beautiful Trees, &c. Yea a friend of his told him, that he saw one with his eye break a precious stone in pieces. And all this he telleth as soberly, as though it were true. And if it were true, honest women may be Witches, in despite of all Inquisitors: neither can any avoid being a Witch, except she lock herself up in a chamber."</div>
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Or we have William Bishop in 1608: "Phisitions tel us of a perilous eye-sore called in Latin <i>Fascinatio,</i> Englished the Eye-biting: it appeareth most, when from a cancered stomach boiling with malice, certain venomous vapours ascend into the eyes, and flowing from them doe infect young and tender things, whereof the Poët <span style="font-size: x-small;">[he means Virgil] </span>speaketh: <i>Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos;</i> 'I wote not what biting eye hath blasted my tender lambs'. This contagious eye-malady, is to our purpose described more properly in the book of Wisdom".</div>
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This is Philemon Holland translating Pliny (1634), and talking about apotropaic charms: "We see it is an ordinary thing, that if a stranger come in place where a babe lieth in the cradle, or look upon the said infant whiles it is asleep, the nurse useth to spit thrice: although I am not ignorant that there is a religious opinion of this syllable 'Mu', that it is able to defend such young sucklings; as also of the foolish puppet Fascinus; both which are of power to put back any witchcraft from them, and return the mischief upon the eye-biting witch." </div>
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They were fully aware of the phallic amulets used by the Romans to protect children from the evil eye (image from the Wikipedia 'evil eye' entry, the phallus of the dwarfish figure swings behind him):</div>
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<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:entry=malus-oculus-harpers">http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:entry=malus-oculus-harpers</a> </div>
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<a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.729/--curse?rgn=main;view=fulltext">http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.729/--curse?rgn=main;view=fulltext</a> </div>
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So, did 'witches' in England have the evil eye? I think, not till the mid 17th century. John Gaule seems to be the first secure instance I have found (1646). That's a 150 year OED antedating. Yet they seem to have some repertoire of charms against the evil eye, and were willing to hang Irish 'eye-biters'.</div>
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This is William Hooke, in his <i>New Englands teares for old Englands feares </i>(1640): <i>"</i>it is commonly observed, that men and women who have turned Witches, and been in league with the devil, thereby to doe mischief, are never given over so to doe, till they begin to have an evil eye, which grieveth at the Prosperity, and rejoyceth at the misery of others. Hence Witchcraft is described by an evil eye." </div>
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He's talking about witches, but envisages a process in which pacted witches acquire an evil eye after the moralised and generalised fashion given in Solomon and in the gospels.</div>
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Yet eyes do crop up witchcraft accusations. This was Goodcole's really strange note about Elizabeth Sawyer. He's asking about how she came to be deprived of an eye, because he must have heard that one of her parents had suffered similarly (his syntax in the marginal note is muddled). His question seems to be connected to his next question, which is about whether she actually touched as well as saw the devil - there was nothing wrong with her eye, the devil was also there to be touched:</div>
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In 1612, Thomas Potts wrote this about Janet Device: "This odious Witch was branded with a preposterous mark in Nature, even from her birth, which was her left eye, standing lower then the other; the one looking down, the other looking up, so strangely deformed, as the best that were present in that Honorable Assembly, and great Audience, did affirm, they had not often seen the like."</div>
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It looks to me as though Jesus using 'evil eye' (as something any self-seeking or malignant person might have) kept the notion of a witch's evil eye in the background in the bible-fixated culture of early modern England. The witch fitted well enough to the idea, though, as a conduit for intensified 'influence'. The notion that you could simply be born with the evil eye (seventh daughter of a seventh daughter type of category) and only use it by accident, or even spend your life carefully NOT looking at things you might inadvertently kill is also around, especially in Ireland. A witch acquires an evil eye from the devil, and <i>means</i> to use it.</div>
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Wikipedia explains that evil eyes are blue. (But we all knew that.)</div>
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DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21432259.post-51748333317805809432016-05-11T10:32:00.003+01:002016-05-11T10:32:54.524+01:00Troublesome disguises: the Goddard monument at East Woodhay Church<br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Over to this slightly remote church (for the area) last night</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://www.stmartinschurch.hampshire.org.uk/rental.htm">http://www.stmartinschurch.hampshire.org.uk/rental.htm</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">at East Woodhay, justly rated for its acoustics and the total quiet outside, to listen to Stile Antico perform this concert</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><a href="http://www.stileantico.co.uk/concerts/2016/05/10/the-touches-of-sweet-harmony-6">http://www.stileantico.co.uk/concerts/2016/05/10/the-touches-of-sweet-harmony-6</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;">of Shakespearean or Shakespeare-inspired music. No plans, apparently, to release a CD, which I was very sorry to hear. Byrd's 'Tristitia et anxietas' was new to me, and overwhelming. They must at some time (surely) release Nico Muhly's 'Gentle sleep', a setting of words - snatches of text- from Henry V (IV i), a clever reduction of Henry's self-serving orotundities into something moving, with wonderful writing for high soprano and bass.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;">But the surprise in the church was this memorial to the left of the altar:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">The inscriptions tell you all I know:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">"Near this place lies the body of Edward GODDARD Esq, son of Wm </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">GODDARD Esq, late of this parish, by Elizabeth his wife who was </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">the daughter of John D’OYLE Esq, an ancient and honourable family </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">in the county of Oxford. He married Elizabeth the daughter of </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Edward GODDARD Esquire of Ogbourne St Andrews in the County</span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">of Wilts, by whom he had no issue.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">He was a person of sober life and conversation, constant in his </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">devotions both publick and private, whom neither the pleasures of </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">the age did lead into excess, nor the vices corrupt.</span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">By his last will he testified his respect for the House of God both in </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">this parish and in that of his Manor of Castle Eaton in the County of </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Wilts in both of which parishes the poor also will receive lasting </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">tokens of his charity</span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">He died the 7th day of October 1724 aged 65.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Elizabeth GODDARD, relict of Edward GODDARD Esq, a pious and </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">charitable lady, by her last will left one hundred pounds, the interest </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">whereof to be layd out by the Minister and Church Wardens in Linen </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">for the poor of this parish.</span><br />
<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">With this money and twenty pounds added were purchased lands in </span></span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Ashmansworth viz one toft and eight acres of bond land in the fields </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">there and Redland Coppice and lands in Privet Field, Wm RIME, </span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Tennant in Trust, for the uses aforesaid.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">She died the 30th day of September 1732 aged 72."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">The couple must have been related, outside the regulations about consanguinity, a Hampshire Goddard marrying a Wiltshire one. Their full-length figures are slightly smaller than life-size, but so raised up as to suggest the grand manner. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Edward and Elizabeth are a Gainsborough couple before Gainsborough; squirearchy out of Fielding or Hogarth. As the inscription tells us, Edward married Elizabeth "by whom he had no issue", so the memorial lacks the usual rising tide of offspring. To validate themselves, Edward has his sword and books:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">He looks out into the world. Elizabeth is given no extra attributes: she is just herself (except that she looks at her husband, so that in some senses he validates her). But she is striking, erect and proud, rising from her drapery like an English Minerva:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">The eyes, undrilled, make her remote. I'm interested in the contrast of their clothes: hers, tempestuous, make his look geometrical. The sculptor gave full detail:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">I suggested 'Minerva', but further reflection might suggest that these attires, these 'troublesome disguises which we wear' cast him as reason, her as passion. He has her (however), safely corralled off at the church's east end.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">I liked the self-approval, the complacency: they were no doubt charitable and pious, but they loom over the altar in proprietorial fashion. "H</span><span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">e testified his respect for the House of God" by condescending to be there, in life and thereafter.</span><br />
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In this review of an exhibition of swagger portraits, Andrew Graham-Dixon speaks of a "streak of solemn, anti-theatrical, empirical grand manner portraiture": </div>
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-posture-and-imposture-andrew-graham-dixon-finds-fantasy-pastiche-and-a-hint-of-the-boardroom-in-1558473.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-posture-and-imposture-andrew-graham-dixon-finds-fantasy-pastiche-and-a-hint-of-the-boardroom-in-1558473.html</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: Indy Serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;">Here it is in a Hampshire Church monument. I wonder what they were like! Absorbed, really, in the specifics of land-ownership, I guess.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #281e1e; font-family: 'Indy Serif'; font-size: 19px; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span>DrRoyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01351695058512676554noreply@blogger.com1