Who are these men in this picture? Why did they have their photo taken? Why are they wearing similar clothing? Where were they – in Great Dunmow or elsewhere?
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This photo was taken sometime between the 1860s and the 1880s by the Victorian photographer and nursery man of Great Dunmow, William Stacey. It is intriguing and offers up so many unanswerable questions. Can you help? What are the clothes they are wearing? Is a uniform or sports clothes? Are they really in front of a tree or bush – or is it something else? I ask this strange question because it seems that there are supports and pegs to the right of the photo (similar to tent ropes and pegs) which appear to be leading directly to the ‘tree’ – or is it just a trick of the camera angle?
Please do leave me a comment below if you can help out with some of these quandaries I have for this Essex boys from Victorian Great Dunmow…
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Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1527-9)
[in the left margin]The churchwardens
Choson Anno
xxjmc [21st regnal year of Henry VIII sometime between April 1529-April 1530]
Thom[a]s Savage
John Clark
John Cooleyn [Collin?]
John Dygby
[This margin note appears to be entered by a different set of churchwardens (or scribe) at a later date to the rest of the page. Analysing the churchwardens’ accounts chronologically show that this folio appears to relate to a period sometime between 1527 and 1529]
1. Dely[er]nd to the sayd wardens the s[um]ma aforsayd [delivered to the said wardens the sum aforesaid]
xxviijs ixd [28s 9d]
2. Item in the hands of wyll[ia]m Sturton [Item in the hands of William Sturton]
xs [10s]
3. It[e]m the halfe yere rent remaining ?? [Item the half year remaining ?]
xvijs jd [17s 1d]
4. Ite[m] res of Thom[a]s wete for the latt payment for hys howse [Item received of[f] Thomas Wete for the late payment for his house]
iijli vjs viijd [£3 6s 8d]
5. Ite[m] resayvyd att the fyrst maye [Item received at the first may]
xviijs xd [18s 10d]
6. Ite[m[ resayvyd att Corpuscrysty feste [Item received at Corpus Christi feast]
xxjd [21d]
7. Ite[m] res of John foster ych was gatheryd wha[n] he was lorde [Item received of John Foster which was gathered when he was lord]
liijs iiijd [53s 4d]
8. Item res of M[ister] Joyner [Item received off Mister Joyner]
vli [£5]
9. Ite[m] res of my lady gatys for washe of ye torchys [Item received off my lady ?? for washing of the torches]
xijd [12d]
10. Ite[m] res of the good ma[n] whale for hawys [Item received off the good man Whale for house]
xs [10s]
11. Ite[m] res of Nyclas Aylett of ye gyfte of mawde bemysche [Item received off Nicholas Aylett of [from] the gift of Maud Bemysche
iiijs [4s]
12. Ite[m] res of poole for halfe yerys rent of hawys [Item received of Poole (or Paul) for half years rent of house]
iijs iiijd [3s 4d]
13. Ite[m] res \for/ of ye hosker yt was solde of the cherchys [Item received for the ?? it was sold of [from] the church]
xs [10s]
14. Ite[m] res on Alhalows daye gatharde in the cherchye [Item received on All Hallows day gathered in the church]
xs xid [10s 11d]
15. Ite[m] res of Wylyem Sturton of ye gyfte of M[aster] Sturton [Item received off William Sturton of the gift of Master Sturton]
16. sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche [sometime vicar of this church]
lijs iiijd [53s 4d]
17. Ite[m] res att the laste maye [Item received at the last May]
xxvjs [26s]
18. Item res att corpuschrsti feste nexte folowynge [Item received at Corpus Christi feast next following]
xxs iiijd [20s 4d]
19. Ite[m] res A hole yerye rente [Item received a whole years rent]
xxxiiijs ijd [34s 2d]
20. Ite[m] gatheryd i[n] the cherche for p[ar]te of the cherche fence [Item gathered in the church for part of the church fence]
iijs vd [3s 5d]
21. Ite[m] reseyvyd for the olde tymber of the same fence [Item received for the old timber of the same fence]
iiijd [4d]
22. Ite[m] Res of Thom[a]s Savage towards the same fence [Item received off Thomas Savage towards the same fence]
xiid [12d]
[From here onwards starts the list of names of all the heads-of-households within the parish and their individual contributions towards the church’s bells. This list will be on a future blog]
Commentary Line 4: Whoever Thomas Wete was, he either hadn’t paid his rent for a long time or rented a large piece of church land/house. £3 6s 8d was a very large sum of money for the time equating to very roughly three or four months wages for a labourer.
Line 5 & 17: This must have been money collected for events held on May Day. The fact that there are two entries on this page for May Day gives unwitting testimony that the churchwardens hadn’t been as diligent as they should perhaps have been. They appear to have been ‘catching up’ on their yearly accounts long after the event.
Line 6 & 18: This is money collected during the festivities held on Corpus Christi day. See my post on Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi events. Again, as per the commentary above on May Day, these two entries for two years show that the churchwardens were writing up the church’s accounts years after the actual event.
Line 7: John Foster had been playing the lord of misrule – possibly during the Christmas celebrations in the parish.
Line 8: Mister Joyner’s gift of £5 was a large sum of money for an unspecified reason. However, at the bottom of this folio and on subsequent folios, the churchwardens’ document each house-holder in the parish and their individual contribution towards purchases a new church bell. Mister Joyner is not documented within the list so it is entirely plausible that this entry is his individual contribution to the collection. Perhaps he didn’t give money at the time the collection took place, or maybe he didn’t live in the town. Bearing in mind that the entries on this page were written up some years after the events they were recording (as shown by the May Day and Corpus Christi feast entries), it is therefore unsurprising that Mr Joyner’s substantial gift appears separate to the list of the town.
Line 9: I would love to be able to read the missing word in this line! Can anyone help? Were the ladies washing torches! This line probably relates to torches that were used during the funerals of the great and good of Dunmow. The elite were buried within the church and torches were kept lit around their bodies on the night before their funeral. But I’m not sure where the ‘ladys’ come into this – unless the word is ‘lads’?
Line 15 & 16: This is money from the old vicar, Robert Sturton’s, now missing will. William Sturton was possibly Vicar Sturton’s nephew or other relation. The Sturton family were a very large and important elite family within Tudor Great Dunmow.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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Today in my post, I would like your understanding and for you to spend a couple of minutes humouring me …
Read the original document below – it is from Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts of 1530 so is the financial records of a church. Read it aloud, without stopping (don’t bother with the Roman numerals for the shillings and pence at the end of each line). Don’t make notes but just read it in straight through in one attempt. If you stumble, just carry onto the next line. Everything you are reading is an English word or person’s name still in use today and all lines should make absolute perfect sense as you read it.
How did you get on? Could you read it? If you could, did you understand exactly what you are reading? Now you’ve finished, can you remember what you read and précis it to someone else? What if you were under pressure reading this in a roomful of your peers who found it easy-peasy? Would it make you break-out in a cold sweat of inadequacy and failure?
Unless you are very experienced in reading Tudor hand writing or you are a palaeography expert, then I suggest you found it very difficult – if not impossible. Not just reading it, but also understanding and remembering it. Did some of the words come in and out of focus – not just literal focus – blurry one minute but clear the next – but also mental focus? One minute you understood something but the next minute you couldn’t and its meaning simply vanished into the deepest depths of your mind?
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Thank you for humouring me and walking in my severely dyslexic child’s shoes. The difficulty you had in reading this 500 year old document is exactly the same experience my child has every day of his life reading modern English whether in a book, on a favourite iPad game, or written by hand.
Dyslexia is horrible. Not only do dyslexics have to cope with the difficulties you have just experienced but suffers are called “lazy”, “stupid”, “academically challenged” and “thick”. And to top it all, many dyslexic children, such as my child(ren), are denied a proper education suitable for their needs.
I should know. I am dyslexic too. And as a dyslexic, I had absolutely no trouble in reading the extract above because I have no pre-conceived ideas about the English language and ‘spelling rules’. Much like our Tudor accountant who most certainly didn’t know about modern-English spelling – just how many ways can anyone spell ‘church’! I spotted three different spellings just within that one little sample. Also, just look at the last word on second line (before the shillings & pence) and look at our Tudor scribe’s spelling of ‘house’ – ‘hawys’! And our Tudor accountant didn’t know that correct modern grammar meant he should have written ‘from’ or ‘for’ instead of ‘of’!
My child would certainly not make a good Tudor accountant. He’d be able to add up everything in his head without the need of a paper abacus because he’s a whiz at maths, but won’t be able to write it down in any comprehensible way. Oh, and if you think I was mean in displaying the extract in a strange black & white visual, then you may be surprised to know that many dyslexics also suffer from visual perception problems too. My son does. His is called Irlens Syndrome – black ink on bright white paper causes his eyes considerable stress. Not a good syndrome to have when you are also severely dyslexic.
These are just the problems a dyslexic faces when reading. There are equally severe problems with writing, which, for my child, is not helped by his dysprexia which makes pen control very difficult.
But for now, until his needs are properly met, there’s the misery of the school years for him to stagger and lurch through.
Thank you for walking in my son’s shoes
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Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he can’t read:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows he can really
Chorus: Wah! Wah! Wah
I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he can’t read:
For he can thoroughly enjoy
Reading when he pleases!
Chorus: Wah! Wah! Wah
(Written with tongue firmly in cheek and apologies to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
but dedicated to everyone everywhere who doesn’t ‘believe in dyslexia’
or thinks that dyslexic children are lazy or ‘aren’t trying’.)
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I have often published in the past images of medieval animals and creatures – cats, dogs and snails – all from the British Library’s illuminated manuscripts. Today, it’s the turn of the Macclesfield Psalter to yield up its secret feline friends who appear in its folios.
The first two images below are most certainly magnificent micing medieval cats. But the last two? Are they cats… Or are they bears?
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 79v
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 106r
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 14v
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 182v.
He seems to be a cat with a beautiful winged hybrid creature in his mouth.
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It’s not often I start a blog with warning from a Shakespearean soothsayer, but today I shall because today is the Ides of March – the 15th day of March. The day on which, in 44BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated by his Roman senators. Apparently 60 senators took part in Caesar’s mass stabbing and over 20 wounds were inflicted on him.
Below are medieval images of Caesar’s murder. I find it very interesting that in them, Caesar and his senators are depicted as Northern Renaissance wealthy merchants with their rich and ornate clothing, rather than toga and sandal-clad classical Romans. Could Medieval sensibilities not cope with classical clothes?
Beware the Ides of March!
Caesar being murdered from Bellum Gallicum (Les commentaires de Cesar), (France, N. (Lille) and Netherlands, S. (Bruges?), 1473-1476), shelfmark Royal 16 G VIII f.331v
Murder of Caesar from Les anciennes hystoires rommaines, (Paris, France, Last quarter of the 14th century), shelfmark Royal 16 G VIII f.389
Murder of Caesar from La grant hystoire Cesar, (Netherlands, S. (Bruges), 1479) shelfmark Royal 17 F II f.344
Murder of Caesar from La grant hystoire Cesar, (Netherlands, S. (Bruges), 1479) shelfmark Royal 18 E V f.355v
I can’t resist quoting that immortal line spoken by the late great Kenneth Williams during the film ‘Carry on Cleo’…
Many people use the word ‘journey’ to describe something very personal to them which has been life changing (and possibly life-enhancing). Maybe a ‘spiritual journey’ or an ‘emotional journey’ on their way to the top as a world-class Olympic champion? My own journey has far less lofty aspirations: mine is to provide my vulnerable child, who has severe learning difficulties, the correct education he so desperately needs. A year ago this month, I decided that we had to do ‘something’ to stop the downward emotional and mental spiral of our small child who was struggling, and failing spectacularly, in mainstream education. So we withdrew him from school and, after failing to convince our local education authority as to the extent of his needs, took to the Courts to get them to provide protection for his educational needs. Sadly, having won the legal battle to convince my local education authority that he requires a Statement of Special Educational Needs, the war continues with the grown-ups still fighting through the courts for the precise education he so desperately needs. In the meantime, my son continues to be ‘home educated’ and so continues the massive spiritual, emotional and physical ‘journey’ for him and me. (It is totally beyond my understanding why I have to go to the law of this land to get the education that my child so desperately needs – isn’t that a basic human right in our so-called progressive country?)
My own ‘journey’ is to be my child’s legal advocate, educational tutor and mentor. Me? Someone with nearly 30 years of experience of the hustle and bustle of the corporate IT world but zero experience of teaching children. Me: now tasked with organising the legal battle, along with personally tutoring one small vulnerable child, and, more importantly, arranging much more competent specialist tutoring than myself. But there are some considerable pluses to this ‘journey’. Now, my eyes and ears are more alert and more receptive to the sights and sounds of life. Mine are the ears and eyes which are the conduit to teach my child about life and the universe: anything and everything.
In the first week of March, during a beautiful balmy English Spring-time, my ‘journey’ became one that is physical as we once more headed for the hills and arrived in Cornwall for a week of rest, relaxation and tuition. Last term, our quest was to search out Romans at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. This term, our quest is to search out the dark ages and then onto medieval kings and queens. Our appetite was already wetted with watching every single programme on the recent discovery of the mortal remains of Richard III. We came to Cornwall expecting to find the far distant voices of King Arthur at Tintagel but didn’t expect the echoes of Richard III and Henry VII in the furthest tips of Cornwall.
Our journey across this, one of the most beautiful counties of England, included early-modern stories of smugglers, Revenue Men, and Wreckers, along with modern-day stories of the sacrifice of the heroic lifeboat men of Penlee and Mousehole. It therefore seemed appropriate that we spent Tuesday 5th March 2013, St Piran’s Day, the patron Saint of Cornwall, walking through that most iconic of Cornish lands, St Michael’s Mount.
5 March 2013, the Cornish flag on St Piran’s Day, St Michael’s Mount
What can be more enticing to a small child who can barely read and write then the legends and stories of this magical isle? Tales of seven foot giant skeletons found buried under the church’s staircase… The legend of Jack the giant killer: the giant whose heart still vigorously beats in the chests of today’s young children who pause for a moment to tread on his heart which is buried within the very pathway to the top of the Mount…
And there on the foreshore of St Michael’s Mount and the causeway to the island was lurking the Tudor story of Perkin Warbeck. The second of the Tudor Pretenders.
Perkin Warbeck, the second Tudor Pretender, born circa 1474, executed 1499
Perkin Warkbeck who pretended to be one of the Princes in the Tower. The long-dead brother of the long-since murdered Edward V, in 1490 Perkin Warbeck proclaimed himself to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York: the Yorkist king of England, Richard IV. A claim that was championed by no less than Margaret of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV and Richard III, and, therefore, aunt to the real Princes in the Tower: Edward V and Richard. After much adventuring and political championing throughout the Continent, Perkin Warbeck finally landed by sea in Cornwall in September 1497 and took occupation of St Michael’s Mount. After refortifying the Mount’s castle, he left his beautiful wife, Lady Catherine Gordon, on the Mount for safety. From St Michael’s Mount, he and his army of west-country rebels marched through Cornwall and the south-west of England in his attempt to seize the English throne: an attempt which ended in failure and his capture at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire. Henry VII reached Taunton on 4 October 1497 when the Cornish rebels and Perkins’army surrendered. Perkin Warbeck finally met his maker and an unceremonious end on 23 November 1499 at the end of a rope on the gallows of Tyburn, London.
And the fate of Warbeck’s wife, Lady Catherine Gordon? She suffered a very lenient fate at the hands of Henry VII. She was the daughter of the Scottish George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly. For political reasons, it had suited the Scottish king, James IV, to believe that Warbeck was indeed Richard, Duke of York. Therefore Warbeck was encouraged to marry the daughter of a Scottish nobleman. Warbeck and Lady Catherine had a grand and lavish wedding in Edinburgh. Calling herself the ‘Duchess of York’, Lady Catherine was finally captured by Henry VII’s forces at St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall in September or October 1497. She was brought back to London. Surprisingly Henry VII treated her very kindly and she became a much favoured (and favourite) lady-in-waiting to his wife, Elizabeth of York. Henry VII arranged for Lady Catherine to have a pension, paid for by him, and he also settled her expenses for her clothes. The favours continued when Lady Catherine attended her Scottish king, James IV’s, 1503 marriage to Henry VII’s daughter, Margaret and the same year, she was the Chief Mourner at Elizabeth of York’s funeral. Lady Catherine’s fate at the hands of Henry VII was remarkably kind and generous, especially considering that if Warbeck really had been Richard, Duke of York, then Elizabeth of York would have been her sister-in-law. Perhaps Henry VII decided that it was better to keep your (innocent) enemies close to you rather then have them holed up on a far-distant Cornish island? Lady Catherine went on to marry a further three husbands and died a peaceful death in 1537 – many many years after her adventures with the Tudor Pretender, Perkin Warbeck.
Was Warbeck Richard, Duke of York?… Who knows! But who-ever he was, my husband, child and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to St Michael’s Mount on St Piran’s Day.
The Castle on St Michael’s Mount
The perilous staircase up to the castle on St Michael’s Mount.
Whenever the castle was besieged throughout the centuries,
the poor troops had to run up these stairs to storm the castle!
The view from the top of St Michael’s Mount’s castle
One of the early-modern canons, now (strangely!)
trained on the amphibious boat used to transport modern-day
residents and visitors to the island
Looking down the canon into the bay
The canons on St Michael’s Mount
The ancient causeway totally under the water of high-tide
but visible from the top of St Michael’s Mount
Medieval stained glass windows from Bruges in the
Chevy Chase room, St Michael’s Mount
The medieval church of St Michael’s Mount
Medieval stained glass in the church of St Michael’s Mount
A medieval religious object within the church of St Michael’s Mount
Re-enacting Perkin Warbeck leaving St Michael’s Mount? Or King Canute trying to drive back the waves?
Postscript
Home educating a year on, it is somewhat strange that I have ended up teaching my special educational needs child about life and the universe in the very area where the controversial councillor, Collin Brewer, proclaimed that special educational needs children need ‘putting down’. Mr Brewer, if you are reading this, come spend a day (or two) with me and my child whilst I home educate him, and tell my child to his face that he needs putting down. Or alternatively, do some good by showing my child (and me) that you lofty councillors do care about some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Mr Brewer, come listen to the story of my child and my fight for him to have a basic human right: a school education. I promise you, our story will make you weep.
Can you believe that it’s finally March? The days for us in Britain are getting longer and the snow has hopefully gone once and for all. Is Spring just peaking around that elusive corner?
To celebrate, here is the calender page for March from the Macclesfield Psalter.
If you want to read more about The Macclesfield Psalter from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the ‘Subscribe via Email’ button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do ‘Like’ it with the Facebook button below.
How is your mental maths? When doing your household budgeting, can you quickly and easily add together pounds and pence (or dollars and cents)? In this modern day and age, the task is relatively easy – especially when using calculators or spreadsheets.
But what if you had to balance your books using pounds, shillings and pence without modern technology? As every-good English Tudor scribe knew, there was
– 240 pennies in every pound
– 12 pennies in every shilling
– 20 shillings in every pound
Then, of course, there’s also half-pennies, half-groats, groat, half angels and angels.
Look at the image above. Would you be able to quickly run down this page mentally summing it up correctly to get the total at the bottom?
Our invisible but ever present Tudor scribe within Great Dunmow couldn’t either! Every few pages within Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts there are very faint seemingly unintelligible scratchings on the page. These are our Tudor scribe’s ‘workings-out’ of his sums – rough calculations before he wrote down his totals.
You may have to zoom in at a high percentage to see the markings – but they are there and they are definitely accountancy ‘workings-out’!
Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts: folio 7r, 1527-1529
Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts: folio 7r, 1527-1529
Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts: folio 19v, 1532-1533
Henry VIII Testoon (shilling) from 1544-1547
Notes Great Dunmow’s original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
If you want to read more from my blog about a life in a Tudor Essex town, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button below.
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The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 79v
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 106r
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 14v
The Macclesfield Psalter – folio 182v.
5 March 2013, the Cornish flag on St Piran’s Day, St Michael’s Mount
Perkin Warbeck, the second Tudor Pretender, born circa 1474, executed 1499
The Castle on St Michael’s Mount
The perilous staircase up to the castle on St Michael’s Mount.
The view from the top of St Michael’s Mount’s castle
One of the early-modern canons, now (strangely!)
Looking down the canon into the bay
The canons on St Michael’s Mount
The ancient causeway totally under the water of high-tide
Medieval stained glass windows from Bruges in the
The medieval church of St Michael’s Mount
Medieval stained glass in the church of St Michael’s Mount
A medieval religious object within the church of St Michael’s Mount
Re-enacting Perkin Warbeck leaving St Michael’s Mount? 
Henry VIII Testoon (shilling) from 1544-1547