Richard ye was sonne to Richard Duwke of yorke & brother un to kyng Edward ye iiijth Was kyng after hys brother & raynyd ij yeres & lyth buryed at leator [Leicester]

So the council car park in Leicester has yielded up its secret.  The body discovered by archaeologists in September 2012 is that of King Richard III.  The analysis by today’s live conference at the University of Leicester was remarkable – there can be absolutely no doubt that they have got their man.  Science, genealogy and history all brought together with DNA analysis, wound analysis, genealogical and historical analysis to prove this.

The discovery is one of the most exciting historical events to happen in living memory.  Not because the discovery adds more to our historical understanding of Richard III: it doesn’t.  Or because it informs us of something that we didn’t already know: it doesn’t.  The discovery of his body merely confirms what we already knew: that Richard died a brutal death on the battlefield of Bosworth, and in death was not treated with dignity.

But more staggeringly, his re-interment in Leicester Cathedral will be a never to be repeated link from our modern-day present to our past: the burial of a king of England.  King Richard III – the last of the Plantagenets, the last truly medieval king, the last king of England to die in battle.  Or the child-murderer hunchbacked bogeyman of Shakespeare and English history?

With all that will be written and said about Richard III in the coming days and weeks, let us return to contemporary documents written during Richard’s life – along with snippets written afterwards by his nemeses, the Tudors.

Signature of Richard, Duke of Gloucester – future King Richard III

King Richard III

Royal arms of England supported by boars and surmounted by a crown from De re militari (the Book of Vegecye of Dedes of Knyghthode), (London, England, c1483-c1485), shelfmark Royal 18 A XII f.1

Royal arms Anne Neville (wife of Richard III) from De re militari (the Book of Vegecye of Dedes of Knyghthode), (London, England, c1483-c1485), shelfmark Royal 18 A XII f.49

The Genealogy of Richard III
The image at the start of this post is a small portion of The Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI, a remarkable document now in the care of the British Library. The chronicle is thought to have been written and illustrated circa 1511  (i.e. shortly after Henry VIII succeeded his father to the throne of England) with additions added by another hand after Edward VI’s death in 1553.  The book stayed in the possession of the kings and queens of England until it was given to the British Museum by King George IV in 1823. Below is the full image of the kings – a stupendous display of Tudor propaganda proving that they were the rightful monarchs of England.
The genealogy of the kings of England, including Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII from Biblical and genealogical chronicle from Adam and Eve to Edward VI (England, S. E. (London or Westminster), c. 1511 with additions before 1553) shelfmark King’s 395 ff.32v-33

Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Book of Hours
Margaret Beaufort (born 1443, died 1509) was the mother of Henry VII.  Below is an image of the entry for August from her Book of Hours.  This Book was made between 1430 and 1443 and owned firstly by Margaret’s mother, Margaret Beauchamp (born 1405/6, died 1482), and then by Margaret.  Margaret appeared to use her Book of Hours as a calendar to record significant events in the lives of her son and grandchildren.  Thus, she used August to record her son’s landing at Milford Haven and the death of Richard III (we do not know if this is her hand or if a scribe wrote the entries for her).

‘August’ from The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours (England, S. E. (London), c. 1430, before 1443) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f. 31v.

The first left margin note in black reads

The day landed king harry the vijth at milford have[n] the yere of o[u]r lord vijth cccc lxxxv [1485]

The second left margin note reads

The day king harri the vijth won[n] the feeld [field] wher was slayn ki[n]g Richard the third Ao Do[m] 1485

Postscript
Has the revival of interest in Richard III already started?  At a Christie’s auction of Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts held on 13 June 2012, a rare manuscript with Richard’s signature fetched £109,250 against an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000.  Two manuscripts signed by his usurper  Henry VII, fetched £7,500 and £8,750; whilst one signed by Henry VIII only managed £20,000.

Henry VII may have won the battle and the crown but Richard III will be the king that will experience a renaissance with the next generation of modern-day historians.

Tuck’s postcard Richard III from Kings and Queens circa 1902

Richard Plantagenet – Duke of Gloucester, Knight of the Garter, Lord High Constable of England, Lord High Admiral, Governor of the North of England, Chief Justice of North Wales, Chief Steward and Chamberlain of Wales, Commander in Chief, Lord Warden of the West Marches, Lord Protector of England,. King of England, France and Lord of Ireland

What do you think about the search and discovery of Richard III? Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings
– Shakespeare’s version of King Richard III

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

One more sleep until we find out if the body retrieved by University of Leicester’s archaeologists is that of King Richard III. In the meantime, here are some words and images of Shakespeare’s (and Tudor England’s) version of this much maligned king.

Act 1, Scene 2
Gloucester: Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have.
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
Lady Anne: Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No excuse current, but to hang thyself.

Act 1, Scene 4
First Murderer: Offended us you have not, but the king.
Duke of Clarence: I shall be reconciled to him again.
Second Murderer: Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.

Act 2, Scene 1
Duke of Gloucester: Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this
To be so bouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the noble duke is dead?
You do him injury to scorn his corpse

Act 3, Scene 7
Duke of Buckingham: Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
True ornaments to know a holy man.

Act 5, Scene 3
Ghost of Anne: Richard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,
That never slept a quiet hour with thee,
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!

Act 5, Scene 4
Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

English text taken from OpenSource Shakespeare online History of Richard
III (1592).  Images from Liebig’s Extract of Meat advertising trade cards series Richard III by Shakespeare published 1899.

What do you think about the search and possible discovery of Richard III? Please do leave your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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You may also be interested in the following posts
– Richard III lyth buryed at Leicester
– Richard III – ‘I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not’
– School Trip Friday – Of cabbages and kings

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

On the first day of each month, to each person you greet, it is traditional to give a (small!) pinch and punch whilst you recite the above ditty.  At the end, you must say ‘and no returns’ or ‘white rabbits’ to stop your poor victim from assailing you in return. At my school, it was tradition to return the compliment by saying – with the appropriate (gentle) actions: ‘Here’s a kick for being so quick’.

Instead of such extreme actions, how about you calm any such thoughts down by viewing the medieval calendar for February from the Macclesfield Psalter?

‘February’ folio 2v from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

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.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

My book

Please click the link below to purchase my local history book on historic town of Bishop’s Stortford

You may also be interested in the following
– January from The Macclesfield Psalter

– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

History is full of coincidences and ironies.  The date of 28th January is one such coincidence – 28 January 1457 and 28 January 1547 – two dates 90 years apart.  The former the date of birth of the first Tudor despot, the later the date of his son’s death, the most tyrannical Tudor monarch of all.

Calendar page for January with additions from three different handwritting: 1. the obit of Catherine de Valois and the date of marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (black ink); 2. the date of birth of Henry VII (in Latin – faded brown ink); and 3. the obit of Henry VIII (brown ink at bottom of folio), from Book of Hours (The ‘Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours’), Use of Sarum,  (England (London), after 1401, before 1415) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVIII f.28 January

Below are close-ups of the entries for the birth of Henry VII and the death of Henry VIII.

Natale d[omi]ni Henrici filij Emundi comitis Richemondie ac d[omi]ne M[ar]rgarete vxoris sui filie Joh[ann]is nup[er] duc[?is] Somersete anno d[omi]ni millio cccc quinquagesimo sexto. Born Henry son of the Earl of Richmond and Margaret his wife daughter of John, Duke of Somerset 1456.  (Latin text kindly transcribed by Rob Ellis of Medieval London)

The xxviijth [28th] daie of January deceassd the noble prynce Henry the eight the yere of owr lorde 1546.

Although Henry VII’s date of birth was 1457, and Henry VIII’s date of death 1547, the years above of  1456 and 1546 are correct because these are contemporary entries written at times when the old Julian Calendar was still in use in England.  Until 1752, the 1st January was not the start of the New Year, but instead the change to a new year started on Lady Day (25th March).  Thus English documents written prior to 1752 will have any dates between 1st January and 24th March written in the Old Style.  Modern historians either have to adjust these dates to the New Style or ‘double date’ the entry to show both old and new date (e.g. the above dates would be dated ‘1456/7’ and ‘1546/7’).

Henry VII from Guild Book of the Barber Surgeons of York
(England, N. (York?), 2nd half of the 16th century)
shelfmark Egerton 2572 f.7.

Henry VIII from Guild Book of the Barber Surgeons of York
(England, N. (York?), 2nd half of the 16th century)
shelfmark Egerton 2572 f.8.

Henry VII giving the manuscript to the monks of Westminster
from Indenture for Henry VII’s Chapel (England, S. E. (London), 1504)
shelfmark Harley 1498 f.98.

Henry VIII praying in his bedchamber
from The Psalter of Henry VIII (England, S. E. (London), c1540-1541)
shelfmark Royal 2 A XVI f.3.

All images on this page are from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts and are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

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 below. Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales
– Tudor Coronations
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 1
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 2 Henry in Love
– Henry VIII – Images of a King: Part 3

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Last year, I posted my first article on Medieval and early Tudor trade: a series of posts which uses images to illustrate the trades that were predominant and powerful in medieval England.  Today’s post continues that theme – although some of the images have very loose connections to the trade which they are illustrating – but I hope you enjoy viewing the pictures anyway!

Bowyers (longbow makers)

An archer sitting on a grotesque creature shooting a hapless rabbit (folio 143v) from The Macclesfield Psalter, (East Anglia, England, circa 1330), © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Brewers

A sinful hermit sitting outside a tavern drinking ale; the alewife approaches him with a flagon from The Smithfield Decretals (France, Last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century) shelfmark Royal 10 E IV f. 114v.

Broderers (embroiders)

Plaque on the wall of Gutter Lane, London, EC2 – the original site of Broders Hall which was destroyed in 1940 during The Blitz. The Worshipful Company of Broderers are now located in East Moseley and are strongly associated with The Royal School of Needlework who are based at Hampton Court.

Butchers

Smithfield Meat Market – London’s traditional livestock market for 900 years. ‘Smithfield, or “Smoothfield”, a plain, grassy space just outside the City Walls, was well known in the Middle Ages for its horse Market. In 1173 William FitzStephen, clerk to Thomas Becket, describes the area as “a smoth field where every Friday there is a celebrated rendevous of fine horses to be sold.” There was also trading in sheep, pigs and cattle. In 1305 oxen were being sold for 5s 6d each. In 1400 the City of London was granted the tolls from the market by charter. Bartholomew Fair was held here from 1123 until its suppression for rowdiness and debauchery in 1855.’ (Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert, ed, The London Encyclopaedia, (London, 1983) p.789.)

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All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

All images are from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts and are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

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This blog
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.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Image of Medieval and early Tudor trades – part 1
– My time at the Royal School of Needlework
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

As an IT professional with over 25 years experience, I am almost ashamed to admit that the professional diligence I display during my working day wasn’t being applied in the evening to my blog.  So keen have I been to write stories of our past, that I hadn’t attended my blog’s housekeeping.  However, an enforced spell at home because of a post-New Year bout of flu for my son (and to a lesser extent, for me) has meant that I’ve had a chance to redress this.

So today’s post is tips about your WordPress blog’s housekeeping and security by using WordPress Plugins.  If your blog uses anything other than WordPress, then the principles will still be the same but the methodology different.   For all the security issues I mention below, I use WordPress Plugins.  Plugins are just little computer programmes (Apps) which can be easily installed onto your WordPress blog.  They are often written by third-party developers (i.e. not by the makers of the WordPress software) so there is sometimes a baffling amount out there.  The plugins you choose are very much down to your personal preference.  But before you install any plugin, ensure that your version of WordPress is up-to-date with the most current version – unless, of course, you are supa-techie and have customised your installation of WordPress.

Installing a WordPress Plugin
Let’s say that, for example, you want to find a plugin that stops the endless stream of spam to your blog. Follow the steps on the screenshots below (click on the screenshots to open them in new windows).

For each plugin you’re interested in, click its ‘Details’ hyperlink on the search screen (as above) to view the details of the plugin (see below).

When I select a plugin, I use the following criteria before installing it:

• Does is support my version of WordPress?  Your WordPress dashboard will show your version of WordPress.  The Plugin’s ‘Details’ page will show you if it will support your version.  Do not install any that are not for your version of WordPress – you may introduce a problem into your blog.
• Is the developer regularly maintaining the plugin?  If it is being regularly maintained then the developer has a vested interest in their plugin.  Therefore, they will be ensuring that it works correctly and will be improving it all the time to cater for new technology and new security breeches.
• Has it got good ratings from other people?
• Does it (seemingly) do what you want the plugin to do?
• If you are still unsure about the plugin, then use google to search out reviews for that particular plugin.  All the best plugins should have reviews somewhere on google.  I reviewed every plugin I installed – knowledge is power!

So now onto the type of plugins you should have installed.  I won’t tell you exactly what I have installed because it’ll be an open invitation to be hacked.

1. Backup your blog
You must backup your blog.  On the front-end, you blog appears to be a series of posts you have lovingly crafted.  But at the backend it is a complex database with entries for your posts, categories, pages, comments and a 101 other things! If the worst comes to the worst and you are hacked or your database corrupts, having a backup will ensure that you won’t have lost all your hard work.

Because I’m paranoid about being hacked (and you’ll see why further down my post), I use two Plugins to backup my blog to the Cloud, I also backup the entire blog to my computer and I print all my posts out so I have hard copies. Yep, I know the last stage is probably me being over paranoid  but a lot of hard work and research has gone into my posts.

How frequently you backup is down to you and how frequently you update your blog.

2. Stop spam comments
During the lifetime of my blog, I have received thousands of spam comments – normally goods purporting to be from well-known designers (but more likely fake).  The majority of spam can be stopped by adopting two or three methods.

a) Make sure your comments are moderated, i.e. they are not published to your blog until you have read them and approved them.

b) Install a plugin that forces a human response when writing a comment.  For example, my plugin for comments will force you to complete a simple maths question before you can leave your comment.  No computer-bot will be able to answer these questions.

c) The above two options will stop the majority of spam, but you will still get computer-generated spam.  So to stop it all, install an anti-spam plugin – I use the most commonly used one and it stops dead all my spam.  It has occasionally trapped a real comment so you will have to regularly check it to ensure everything there is really spam.

I must admit that every-now-and-again I do read my spam.  Some of the comments really do make me laugh-out-loud – they are so clever and so finely crafted by the spammers. But, sadly, have no place on my blog.

3. Beware of hackers
I always had the above two points covered on my site.  But this part I didn’t until very recently – and it scared me silly – hence today’s blog post.  Do you know who is trying to hack into your site?  Mine is a history hobby blog, surely noone would hack me? WRONG! I installed a plugin which fires an email to me if anyone tries to hack into my blog.  Within a the very first 48 hours, I received over 300 emails alerting me that ‘someone’ was trying to log into my blog.  Of that number, over 50 emails were generated because of a single sustained attack on my blog over a 10 minute period.   ‘Someone’ (or rather someone running a computer-generated script) sent a stream of requests trying to login into my site.  Another sustained attack came from a well-known company who used about 20 different IP addresses.  Googling this company showed many many complaints on the internet all dating from January 2013.  One person complained to the MD, only to receive a ‘denial of service’ attack on his website.  So for obvious reasons I won’t name them here.

So tighten up your security.  Most hackers are like normal thieves – they are opportunist in nature so if your security is tight, they might give up and go away to the next poor person. Again, for obvious reasons I am not going to tell you what I’ve done to my security.  If you use any of my points below, ensure you do it calmly and not in a panic.  Take your time over each step.  Remember, you may end up locking yourself out of your own website (I did… Several times!) so ensure you have plenty of uninterrupted time to resolve any problems as they arise.  And backup your blog first.

a) Ensure that any passwords for your blog are super-tight.  No password is unbreakable but you can use very strong passwords to thwart hacking attempts.

b) If you are setting up a new WordPress blog, DO NOT use the username ‘admin’ – 90% of attacks will be aimed directly at this out-of-the-box name.  If you have already set up your blog, then you won’t be able to change the name.  Google the steps that you can take to secure your ‘admin’ user.

c) Install a plugin which will give you an extra layer of protection on the login-form to stop a human trying to login.  This won’t stop the computer-bots, but it will stop humans hacking.  Make your human-hacker work hard and have to guess at more than just the username and password before they can attack your blog.

d) Install a plugin that will send you an email when an attempt is made to login into your blog.  Your chosen plugin has to alert you both to the fact that the login-form has been reached (for human-hackers) and that at attempt has been made to login (the computer-bot will not reach the login page).   This part is the scary one because you will probably receive a stream of emails in your first 48 hours.  So set aside some time when you do this calmly without panicking that you are under attack!  Studying the emails will show you that sometimes the login-form has been reached but then no attempt was made to login (a human nosy-parker scared off from actually logging in?).  Other emails will show that the login page was never reached – the computer-bot hacker went straight in for the kill.

For each email you get, you will be given the IP address of the hacker.  An IP is a unique string of numbers separated by periods which identifies each computer attached to the internet.  So knowing the IP address can sometimes give you information such as the location and company of the hacker.  Google ‘whois ip’ to find a list of online apps that will give you free-of-charge full details about your hacker.  Once you find out more details, you can see if you are under attack by one hacker using several different IP addresses, or if IPs from a particular company are attacking you.  The ‘whois’ will also show you if your hacker has a range of sequential IP addresses.  My most frequent hacker uses a large range of IP addresses (some sequential, others not) but they are all registered to the same company. Once you have the IP addresses (or the sequential range), you can either block them by using WordPress plugins or by using your web-hosting Security software – most web-hosting companies will provide this free of charge.  If you are getting a lot of hacking attempts from one particular country, you may decide to stop access of your blog from anyone in that country.   A drastic step, especially if your blog appeals internationally, but if needs must…

e) Obviously the above (blocking IP addresses) is almost after the event – the attempt has been made and even if you’ve blocked the IP, the hacker can often quickly move onto another IP and restart their attack on your site.  So install a plugin which will shut down your hackers access to your blog if ‘unusual’ behaviour occurs.  For example, you may wish to restrict the number of login attempts.  I caught one computer-bot hacker sending a continuous stream of login attempts.  So limiting the login attempts to a very low number cut them short and gave me their IP address so they’re now blocked.  Of course, limiting the number of logins may mean that you lock yourself out, so be careful with this (but at least you know now that your tighter security has worked!).  Plugins can also show unusual behaviour if ‘someone’ is trying to access an ‘adminy’ type page i.e. one that a normal visitor shouldn’t be accessing.  Once again, you’ll have the IP address so you can block them – obviously if it’s a real blog visitor then you’ve blocked them too but they shouldn’t be hunting around your website.  Plugins could also help you block activity if ‘someone’ is hitting a large number of pages over short time-period.  Again, you could be blocking genuine visitors or spiders (I managed to block a few search-engine spiders !Doh!).  If it’s a genuine visitor then they should have spent more than a nano-second reading your finely crafted post!!

(f) Install a plugin to scan your blog for any issues or problems.  These type of plugins should show up any successful hacking attempts or viruses on your blog. Run the scan regularly and make sure you action any security points it highlights.

For all the points I’ve covered above, I managed to block and lock myself out of my own blog countless times.  Remember, do this calmly and with plenty of time so you can undo any damage… One plugin I installed managed to lock out my ability to upload media files (images) to my blog – I just uninstalled and then reinstalled the plugin and everything worked fine again.

I hope today’s post has been helpful to you and, at the very least, has made you think about your blog’s security.   Remember, the above steps are PREVENTATIVE which is far better than cure (i.e. at the worst starting all over again, at the very least spending hours to restore your blog).

Have I missed anything out?  
Have you had to take additional steps to secure your blog?  
Please do email me and let me know if I’ve missed anything.
thenarrator[at]essexvoicespast.com

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Disclaimer:  If you decide to action any of these points on this post, you do so entirely at your own risk. The author and Essex Voices Past expressly disclaims all liability for actions taken or not taken based on any or all of the contents of this blog. This blog is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, security, accuracy and non-infringement.

Sometimes when I look through facsimile folios of the Macclesfield Psalter, I feel as though I’m playing a weird medieval game of ‘Where’s Wally?’.  There is so much to discover and so many creatures hiding on each folio!  At first glance, today’s image from the psalter is seemingly very plain (or plain by the standards of other folios within the psalter).  But look closer….

On this folio, see if you can discover
– a beautiful song-bird
– the heads of red devils
– a two-legged creature with the body of a bird but the head of floppy-eared dog
– two strange creatures with long snake-like necks and sharp claws
– the head of a bearded man growing in a flower

Click on the image to open a new window where you can use your browser’s zoom to see the illustration in its full glory (300-400% works best for me).

If you do spot Wally, please do let me know where he is!

Folio 19r from The Macclesfield Psalter,
probably produced at Gorleston, East Anglia circa 1330
Gold & tempera on vellum, 17cm x 10.8cm,
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

 If you want to read more  from my blog about The Macclesfield Psalter or 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.

All digital images from the Macclesfield Psalter appear by courtesy of The Fitzwilliam Museum and may not be reproduced (© The Fitzwilliam Museum).

Further reading
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter: A Complete Facsimile (2008)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter Book (Cambridge, 2005)
Stella Panayotova The Macclesfield Psalter (PDF format on CD)(Cambridge, 2005)

You may also be interested in the following
– Images from the British Library’s online images from the early modern period
– Images from the medieval illuminated manuscripts
– The Macclesfield Psalter

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Yesterday and today I am publishing my most viewed 12 posts from the last year. My top 1 to 6 posts were described yesterday – so today I am sharing with you my top posts from 7 to 12.

7. The Medieval Spinsters – The medieval ladies from Raymund of Peñafort’s Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals’)

8. Mappy Monday – My top 7 websites for medieval, early-modern & modern maps of London & Great Britain

9. Tudor tradesmen of Great Dunmow – John Parker, the Fletcher, of Great Dunmow: the richest man in the parish.

10. Primary sources – ‘Unwitting Testimony’ – Research techniques for a trainee historian.

11. Coronation and Diamond Jubilee Goldwork – My time at the Royal School of Needlework mastering the technique of goldwork embroidery.

12. The Dunmow Flitch – Can you prove that you’ve been happily married for a year and a day without a cross word passing between you? Read my account of the 2012 Dunmow Flitch.

Which were your favourite posts and why?
Please do leave your thoughts on my blog below.
Thank you!

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

A year ago today, I published my first post, Great Dunmow’s Medieval Manors, on this blog.  Originally, I created my blog to publish some of my dissertation research ‘Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560′ from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012 (sadly, the degree no longer appears to be running).

However, over the year, this blog has evolved into a patchwork of posts all loosely based around the local history of the North Essex town of Great Dunmow, English medieval history, early-modern England and Tudor history. To celebrate my blog-anniversary, today and tomorrow I will be publishing my most viewed 12 posts from the last year.  Thank you for reading my posts, writing lovely inspiring comments, and ‘talking’ to me on twitter.  I look forward to writing another year of posts and sharing with you my view of England’s rich heritage and history.

Below are my most viewed top 6 posts from the last year.

1. Interpreting primary sources – the 6 ‘w’s – For all historians-in-training – analysing primary sources.

2. Images of medieval cats – Cats, as illustrated on the folios of medieval illuminated manuscripts now in the care of the British Library.

3. Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Great Dunmow – The story of Queen Elizabeth’s I’s Royal Progress through Essex and Suffolk during the Summer of 1561.

4. The clergy in pre-Reformation England – The vicars and ‘Sirs’ of the pre-Reformation Catholic clergy with particular reference to the 1520s clergy to Great Dunmow.

5. Blacksheep Sunday: Witches, witchcraft and bewitchment – The tragic story of a neighbourly conflict in Great Dunmow during the 1560s which exploded into the accusations of witchcraft and bewitchment.

6. Thomas Bowyer, weaver and martyr of Great Dunmow d.1556 – The story of how an established family from the town of Great Dunmow produced a son who in 1556 was burnt at the stake for his Protestant faith.

Join me next time to discover my next top 12 posts (6-12)

Which were your favourite posts and why?
Please do leave your thoughts on my blog below.
Thank you!

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Last week, I brought you British Costumes from the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII. This Friday, here are images of British costumes during the reign of Elizabeth I (born 1533, died  1603).

Cigarette cards printed and published by cigarette manufacturer, Ogdens.  Title of set is ‘British Costumes 100BC to 1904′ and printed circa 1905.  The selection of cards below are costumes from the reign of Elizabeth.

Time of Elizabeth – 1558                                                                    Time of Elizabeth – 1565

Time of Elizabeth – 1572                                                                  Time of Elizabeth – 1580

Time of Elizabeth – 1590                                                                 Time of Elizabeth – 1595

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales
– History Howlers – Henry VIII
– Tudor Coronations
– Images of Tudor people
– British Costumes from the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII