Suffolk's Connection to Jamestown

The Gosnold Memorial Plaque in the Great Graveyard.

Otley Hall

There is an interesting memorial plaque on the wall of the Chapel of the Charnel House in the Great Graveyard of the Abbey, Bury St Edmunds, which was erected in 2007 as part of the celebrations to commemorate the founding of Jamestown the first British colony in the state of Virginia, U.S.A. in 1607. I have been intending to follow up researching this sign since I arrived in Bury St Edmunds but only now to the task! Astonishing to realise that the man behind the founding of Jamestown was a local lawyer, Bartholomew Gosnold, born at the family seat, Otley Hall near Grundisburgh in Suffolk in 1571. A member of a wealthy family, he had been educated at Jesus College in Cambridge University and subsequently studied law in the Middle Temple. It was probably at Cambridge that Gosnold met John Brereton a friend who accompanied him on his initial voyage of discovery in 1602 when he became the first Englishman to land on the coastline of Virginia.

A likeness of Bartholomew Gosnold
from Jamestown Museum

In 1595, Bartholomew married Mary Goldinge, of Bury St Edmunds, grand-daughter of Sir Andrew Judge, a wealthy London merchant and Lord Mayor of London in 1550-51. Mary’s wealthy cousin was Sir Thomas Smythe, founder and Governor of the East India Company and of the Virginia Company and thus, through powerful family connections of his wife, Gosnold had moved from being a mere member of the Suffolk gentry to a strong national position of influence and power. Bartholomew’s brother, Anthony, accompanied him to Virginia in 1602, as well as a cousin, also Anthony Gosnold and though his brother died quite quickly, the cousin Anthony was still living in Virginia in 1615. Bartholomew and Mary had seven children, six of whom were baptised in Bury St Edmunds between 1597 and 1607. One of their daughters married Richard Pepys, great uncle of the diarist, Samuel Pepys.

A modern representation of the Godspeed, Gosnold's
ship in 1602. Situated outside the Pilgrims' Kitchen
near St Edmonds Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds.

1597, at the request of his uncle Robert, Gosnold joined the expedition of the second Earl of  Essex, Robert Devereux, to the Azores. It was not a success but Bartholomew spent several months afterwards in privateering, gaining some knowledge about navigation as well as piracy! In any event he managed to find
investors who trusted him to lead an expedition to New England in 1602. 

In both the Elizabethan and Stuart ages, exploration and colonisation were essentially private endeavours. The Crown did not share the huge expense involved but it did subsequently grant monopolies to an individual or corporation to develop and exploit an area or product, from the colony, selected by the Crown; obviously a potentially profitable venture, commercially. So a would-be coloniser like Gosnold had to raise significant amounts of money before gathering together the essentials for the long and dangerous trip into the unknown. There were considerable financial risks for the backers and obviously extraordinary physical and financial risks for the explorers/colonisers. Sir Walter Raleigh, for instance, lost £40,000 in founding the Roanoke Colony, pledging still more to attempt to attempt to find and save the lost settlers. Hundreds of years later, it still astounds a contemporary observer that there were men brave enough, perhaps foolhardy enough, to sail into the unknown in search of new lands to settle, in the face of danger, loss and death. What seems to have been fundamentally needed for this early colonisation as well as courage, were wealth and the desire for gold and glory!

The choice of Virginia was not by chance. In the mid 1590s, Edward Hayes had written a report for Lord Burghley setting forth the rationale and procedure for would-be colonisers. The principal recommendation was that settlements should begin in North Virginia because the area’s climate compared well with the conditions and practices familiar to English settlers. Its agriculture was similar to that of England; the coast of New England produced a wealth of fish, prized in Europe, and therefore supportive of initial foothold success and eventual commercial profit. Captain Gosnold obtained backing to attempt to found an English colony in the New World and in 1602 he sailed from Falmouth, Cornwall in Concord, a small bark, with 32 on board, bound for New England and what they hoped would be a new colony. Gosnold pioneered a direct sailing route due west from the Azores arriving at Cape Elizabeth on the southern coast of Maine on 14th May 1602 intending to  set up a small fishing outpost with 20 of the crew. On the 15 May, he sailed into Provincetown Harbour which he named Cape Cod after the abundance of fish in evidence and soon sailed on, following the coastline for several days and discovering Martha’s Vineyard, which the group explored but found uninhabited. Gosnold named the area after his deceased daughter, Martha, and also after the extensive growth of wild grapes covering much of the land.

Map of Martha's Vineyard Two Hundred Years
after Gosnold discovered and named it.

Gosnold spent several years after his return to England promoting a more ambitious attempt; through his influential family contacts, he obtained from King James 1 an exclusive charter for a Virginia Company. To form the core of what would become the Virginia Colony of Jamestown, he recruited his brother, Anthony, his cousin-by-marriage, Edward Maria Wingfield, as well as John Smith [who eventually became Governor of Jamestown after Wingfield] in addition to the members of the 1602 expedition. Gosnold served as vice-admiral of this Merchant Taylor, three ship contingent. Gosnold also obtained the support of Matthew Scrivener, a cousin of Edward Maria Wingfield who became Acting Governor of the new colony but who drowned in a sad accident in 1609 along with Anthony Gosnold, Bartholomew’s brother.

Gosnold was popular among the colonists and opposed the choice of site for the colony at Jamestown Island as he perceived it to be an unhealthy location but was anyway appointed a member of the resident council for the new settlement. He was, however, over-ruled about the choice of location by Edward Maria Wingfield, President of the Council but Gosnold nonetheless, helped design the fort for the initial colony. He died from malaria [some sources say ‘dysentery and malnutrition’] four months after the party landed on 22 August, 1607, rather sadly underlining his opinion of the unsavoury climate of the new Jamestown location. By the first winter of 1607, only 50 of the original colonists remained alive and the colony suffered continuing hardship; Jamestown did not prosper until the 1640s.

Grave of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold 1571-1607
Established in 2003/4

In 2003 archaeologists uncovered what they believed to be Gosnold’s remains, just outside the grounds of the historical settlement. Although DNA testing proved inconclusive, it is virtually certain that, four hundred years after the event, his correct internment site has been located. The coffin contained the skeleton of a male aged in his late thirties and between 5 feet and 5 feet 6 inches tall. This could have applied to five members of the party but there was a ceremonial staff, lined up along the edge of the coffin, which implied that this was to identify a person of some importance. Burial goods were never left at this time normally and Gosnold was said to have been buried "with full honours."

Painting of the early Jamestown settlement

 

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 This is not a blog; more a signpost to say that my Bruges Blogs are now complete. Finished, as is my lovely period of living in Brugge.

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Partire e un po' morire [To leave is to die a little]

 

 

Some of the Amsterdam group in January.

 The last weeks in Brugge seemed to be a continuing carousel of coffee, drinks, lunches, meetings and goodbyes! I enjoyed it all in spite of the bustle and concentration and despite saying Au revoir to friends who had been so important to me during my seven years’ sojourn in that lovely little town-which-thinks-it-is-a-city!! It was lovely but sad though, even so, I was looking forward to life in Bury St Edmunds which I hardly know. During 2021 I had a developing urge to live nearer to my family, a common reaction to life on the upper slopes of ageing, and, as the title of this first Bury Blog suggests, in spite of my choice, freely taken, to leave after a fairly significant period of being embedded in a life in Bruges, leaving was a jolt; a rupture; a slicing through comfortable and much-loved routines and the leaving of loved friends and groups.

Moving out.

Much as I felt stressed with all the pressures of leaving, [especially with the stream of Brexit-inspired bureaucracy via the Removal firm, the conduit, not the origin of the offending minefield of requirements] it turned out that the arriving was much worse. Wonderful to be surrounded by willing family helpers to Move In but the serious downsizing was something of a shock. Five ‘girls’ worked solidly on my behalf during the first week; 2 daughters, one who was over specially to join the fun from California!; two grand-daughters and one fiancee; huge help much-needed! In fact, they did it practically all! However, the flat which I already love, is around a third the size of my Bruges apartment, and required instant and further pruning of furniture, plates, jugs and in particular, books! I had sent ten boxes of books to Sue Ryder Books in Bruges plus given away a few more to friends. I had donated three bookshelves on the urgent advice of my daughter but suddenly here, there were impressive towers of books lining walls with nowhere to go!! I ignored the books for the first few weeks while I organised trips of furniture and other impedimenta to the local auction house and a variety of expendables to the nearby Cancer Research. I had quite forgotten the British penchant for charity shops; there seem to be dozens in Bury and a wonderful invention they are!! But this week, I have concentrated on winnowing the books which I am donating to Oxfam Books and Music, a very civilised feature of Bury cultural life. Each trip, I fill my old-lady-bag-on-wheels with books then drag it valiantly to Oxfam up what can only be called A Hill! I feel valiant in the execution but weighed down in the actual heavy heave!!

Moving in.

I am quite proud to have found in this first month, an odd job man; a plumber; a painter; an electrician; a cleaner; a hairdresser; a nail place; a curtain/blinds emporium; a beer shop [Dutch owner!] which delivers; a very kind neighbourly couple who are so helpful; and two possible friends! Many of the craftsmen have been located through my local daughter’s considerable list of skilled workers!! During the last few days, the apartment [without notable storage facilities it must be said] is beginning to resemble home, especially after two visits from my son and his wife, to hang pictures. The new normality is tiptoeing in! Meanwhile, there is no need to wonder why I am so tired. Tired but stressed no longer!

Ten days after I moved in

The woman who came a couple of weeks ago to measure up for blinds and a door curtain, offered to give my name and number to a very near neighbour in the same street as she thought we would ‘get on’. Such a generous thought and resulted in my meeting Catherine who invited me one evening to meet several of her friends. Great for a newcomer to the area and indeed I went with one of them to a lunchtime screening of The Duke with the perennially excellent Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. My First Outing and much enjoyed. Such a break from the seemingly relentless Reducing Strategy.

Some of the many beautiful ruins of the 10th century abbey
in the huge Abbey Gardens,

I have done two or three walks in the superb Abbey Gardens though still too tired to do the usual hour plus. I am only now discovering how much time is needed for the existential energy to resume its past level. A month or two at least. But I have had to go shopping and gradually I am learning the layout of the town. Immediately almost I was surprised and delighted at the open friendliness of people in the street. I do remember the same feeling in Wye where I lived for over 30 years and the surprise to discover there wasn’t the same spontaneity of spirit and openness in Bruges. Individually, the people are lovely but there is a distinct avoidance of eye contact in the street and an absence of greeting strangers as one passes, in Bruges, perhaps partly due to its long history of being invaded, conquered, repressed, taken over, plundered etc! And it does belie the essential friendliness of its people! But in Bury, to go out to buy bread at Woosters, early in the morning, is to encounter the ordinary, everyday friendliness of the town, given without thought or effort. Heart-warming. As were the displays of creativity glimpsed two mornings ago in the town centre.

Crochet cap fit for a post box

 !

And another.

Love Letter to Brugge

 As I do the countless chores preparatory to moving my home from Bruges to Bury St Edmunds, I feel pressured, especially with the myriad tasks essential to keeping Customs happy enough to let me back in, without charging me punitive taxes. I cannot help but remember February 5^th 2015 when I made the reverse trip. I just booked a Removals firm from the next village; dates to suit were arranged; men came and packed then drove off to Bruges on February 4, moving my household possessions in through the

Part of the narrative of ...

windows on the following day. After which, tutto a posto! NOW, post Brexit, there exists much bureaucracy including TORs, to ensure I don’t pay Customs duties on my furniture etc. To obtain a Transfer of Residence Relief URN number I have submitted online, relevant passport page, documents to prove residence here and future residence in Bury plus three pages of A4 detailing every item of furniture etc which I intend to have transported to the U.K. 15 working days after receipt, Govt UK, has just issued my URN, Unique Reference Number, which my Dutch transport firm must have to enable entry into Fort Brexit a short distance away.

..

......the Wintergloed, Walk of Light.

In addition there are POAs for both Belgian and British Customs submitted by PDF; lengthy [approaching two months] enquiries and demands to ascertain my real identity and how I managed to obtain the money to buy a small, two bed flat in Bury. The latter would not be necessary were I to rent in Bury but I am buying which complicates matters a lot apparently! [En passant, it seems ageist that a person of 87 is not allowed to raise a small mortgage. Post relocation, I am going to discover who my new-to-me M.P. is and write to complain about this.]

In the meantime I walk, when I have time, along canals, admiring this jewel of a little mediaeval

Not only picturesque canals, but also dramatic skies
to take the eye.

city which has experienced epochal events over the centuries and reading its story through its ancient bricks, its stone bridges, some still with stone ledges to permit mediaeval merchants to display their goods for sale; through its gables, chimneys, steeples, cobbled narrow but tall streets. I love the rhythms of the town echoed in the regular clopping of the horses pulling carriages for sight-seeing and punctuated by the melange of chapel and church bells at different intervals and decibels and the delightful cascade of sound from the carillon. The Belfort, surviving past fire and partial collapse, in the historic Markt which has seen processions, hangings, celebratory crowds, civic murders, civil unrest, markets but which now is just a magnetic arena for the weekly market, crowds of tourists and a continuing cafe culture with its relaxing air and quiet discussion.

The Grote Markt

Brugge’s history is a story of a thousand years of early peasant economy, great lords and powerful families, interminable wars and armed uprisings, occupation by ‘others’ with Bruges freed only by counter occupations. The seventeenth century religious wars led to the partition of the Low Countries and eventually to a nineteenth century of prolonged poverty and stagnation. It was during this period that George Rodenbach’s Bruges La Morte, and his Le Carillonneur were published both to wide acclaim and prompt disparagement! For Bruggelingen Rodenbach’s stories were perhaps too near the truth! But they caught the then contemporary melancholy mood and the grey inertia. But the new port of Zeebrugge [1905-8] brought industrialisation and increasing prosperity and led to the twentieth century and a widening awareness of the exquisite charms of Brugge, an almost perfectly preserved [or renewed] little mediaeval city. Delighted tourists arrived in increasing numbers bringing fame and money which sparked its present affluence, displayed in the numerous golden flourishes on old buildings, the unbelievable cleanliness and tidiness, the variety of rich processions and events, the literary wealth of the Library and Archives and the art treasures in museums. This is truly a place for aesthetes and historians!

\The Belfort, Brugge Markt
Built in 1240; upper  part burned down 1280.
Extensions over the centuries but 1493 a lightning strike
started a blaze and upper Belfort with clocks, burned down.
1741 more fire and fury burned spire and upper section.
1822 spire replaced by neo-Gothic crown seen today.

Golden statues adorn the facade of the 
Basilica of the Holy Blood in the Burg.

Alpha Beta

 

Greek Alphabet slightly simplified for children

  My son-in-law works for Google and perhaps that is why I know that the parent company of Google is called Alphabet which is, in fact, described as a multinational conglomerate. The very word is Greek, or rather two Greek words conjoined, alpha, beta.

Greek vase showing alphabet

Ornamental letter D in old manuscript

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, 7 of which are vowels, though we are not about to study them! BUT it is interesting to note that the Greek alphabet has been used since the late ninth or early eighth century BC, derived from the early Phoenician alphabet. As in so many other areas, the importance of the ancient Greeks in the history of the alphabet is paramount. All of the alphabets in use in European languages today are directly or indirectly related to the Greek. The Greek's particular achievement was to provide representations for vowel sounds not present in the Phoenician. Consonants plus vowels made a writing system which was both economical and unambiguous. The true alphabetical system has remained for 3,000 years with only slight modifications, an amazing vehicle of communication and expression among the most diverse nationalities and languages. The Greek alphabet has spread to many others but the most important and widespread descendants are the Latin, through the Etruscan, and Cyrillic alphabets. The Encyclopaedia Britannica points to the varied examples of alphabets displayed in everyday objects or areas of life, which have survived to give evidential proof of use, since ancient times onwards, through documents, grave inscriptions, lettering on vases and monuments, manuscripts, private and civic records.

Omicron variant

My interest in this has been stirred by the current habit of the naming of the various strains of Covid 19 after the Greek alphabet letters by the World Health Organisation though quite why Omicron has followed ‘Delta’ is a mystery! Should have been Epsilon! Perhaps something to do with the shape of the virus. It is very pleasing to see how easily the Greek names for the Covid variants, have been quickly accommodated into everyday language so easily. After 3,000 years and an academic record par excellence, even small children can recognise Omicron and use it correctly in the modern context.

 

Illumination in part of Wintergloed

And now for something completely different. Bruges' Wintergloed has been a resounding success; it is the long walk, devised by the commune, to enable spectators to follow a trail of lights and lighting effects in celebration of Christmas and the Christmas Market. The latter has been, I suspect, a little less successful this year; certainly, the twenty plus stalls on ‘t Zand packed up and left after the first week while the Markt, situated in the centre, was much busier. However the Walk of Light has been widely applauded and on opening night, an estimated 10,000 walked the walk. The burgemeister, Dirk de fauw, in fact, cancelled the display on the following evening, and weekend because of Covid anxieties. Notwithstanding, this year, the organisers have introduced a novel cultural element. In an endeavour to strike up a dialogue with the city through light and words, there has been a light installation on the Rozenhoedkaai and people are invited to write a haiku and send it in online. The best 20 haikus selected each week are then projected in light on the Rozenhoedkaai in a 10 minute loop of the best 20 haikus that week, for the following seven days. Alain, who is visiting at the moment from Cologne, has had his contribution selected; great joy this end!! Not to be outdone, I have just composed my own haiku [after all, I used to include haiku in my English Literature lessons half a century ago!] We shall see if honour ….. or possibly unreal, vain expectation

is met!

 

I should define Haiku for the uninitiated! It is a three line poem, non-rhymed, with 5,7,5 syllables in three lines totalling seventeen syllables. It emerged in seventeenth century Japan almost as a protest against the over-elaborate poetry of the time. My entry, in response to requests for haiku about Wintergloed, is published below as I realised, after sending it in on Jan.8th, that the whole Christmas Market including the Wintergloed finished on January 9th!!

Eyes shine in light

Bruges captures tranquillity

Bathed in Winter glow.

Haiku try to convey emotion through
specified verbal limits

And here is Alain's winning entry displayed in 
all its glory 

Kusse im Winter
Schenken Sommer im Herzen
Und Fruhling im Herbst

Kisses in Winter
Give Summer in the heart
And Spring in Autumn.

And a little part of the glorious display.
The Bandstand in Astridpark.

The two photographs above of Wintergloed, courtesy of
Joachim Diessner, Cologne.

Christmas Present.

 

Sir John Betjeman in St Pancras.
My hero who saved this beautiful station from
developers in the Sixties.

Santa, masquerading as a Red Gnome,
and a laughing Snowman.

A lacuna in this blog due to festive activities and travel. I was reluctant to go back to Britain, not for the family Christmas but because of Covid risks and tests, but was persuaded and managed to stay positive, or more accurately, resigned, during the 4 hour 10 minutes Eurostar journey from Brussels on

The Meeting Point, St Pancras.

December 22 due to a broken-down train ahead which proved immoveable for about two hours. My son, waiting for me in St Pancras, responded magnificently by making up quiz questions on St Pancras about which he seemed to discover lots. I was proud to know several of the answers! When I arrived and eventually managed to locate him at the Meeting Point, he suggested a choice between going home immediately or a glass of champagne tout de suite. No prizes for guessing my grateful response for an early start to Christmas!

Colour-coordinated Californian branch.

Thus began an one of my best, perhaps The Best, Christmas Ever. Eventually we had all the family together except the Californian branch at home in very snowy Lake Tahoe. The Day passed in monumental amounts of present-opening; astonishing bonhomie and laughter; steady alcohol consumption by some; splendid walks; fabulous food; silly dressing up; more games than I could shake a stick at and altogether sufficient ‘Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men’ to astonish Scrooge. Our Christmas 2021 certainly put Covid in the shade completely as we totally forgot about it, an achievement in itself. Two of our number, from Norwich, did not arrive due to negative Covid tests reducing our total number to 11; a very sad development for them and very much for us though, on the cheerful side, probably less cider was consumed.

Numbers resident gradually thinned out until one grandson [perhaps the most 'bien dans sa peau' of all my family] and his equally-chilled partner, plus me, departed early on December 30; earlier than anticipated as my Eurostar had been cancelled!! The young people accompanied me to St Pancras, a great start to the day, and I sailed on without mishap. A friend met me in his car in Brugge, drove like the clappers to my home thus ensuring I was not only fatigued but also queasy on arrival. It took grisailles and a Duvel to set me up before unpacking and an early night. New Year’s Eve and Day have passed in a bubble of decreasing fatigue as I try to persuade myself to think about resuming the Downsizing details to be dealt with. I start tomorrow!! I feel somewhat disloyal and ungrateful to mention that the tranquillity here and the silence have indeed been golden.

Worker bees not seen as the rest wait
in lazy anticipation!

This pre-walk photo demonstrates a personal
puzzle. How come I am now the shortest
when I used to be so tall?

A short ponder on Things I Learned over the Christmas break.

1. The rapid expertise on the phone/GSM of those not in their eighties is amazing. Realising this demonstrated my own place in the electronic pecking order, mistakenly assumed to be O.K. hitherto, as actually low! I must DO MORE on my Iphone!

2. The kindness of the young is inspiring and reminds me of how callow I probably was in my twenties!

3. The complete abandonment of Self to enjoying the moment, evident in the young, was inspiring.  Carpe Diem writ large.

4. The silliness of one individual when multiplied by eleven, is life-enhancing and probably life-extending!!

The Macclesfield Alphabet Book

 

Local map of Shirburn Castle area, near Watlington, Oxford.

I am in the process of downsizing; that includes disposing of furniture, ornaments, books, files, crockery, linen, clothes. Theoretically, this is a most useful discipline; practically, it is Very Hard Work. Mostly I can dispose without pain but with books, it is really challenging! Before I came to Brugge, I had given away all my husband’s professional books and mine too; all too elderly for modern professional use. I also managed to shed quite a number of others no longer deemed necessary to my well-being and entertainment! I remember thinking around 35/40% of the volumes in my house must have gone. But now, my daughter who lives in Bury St Edmunds where I intend to live, has visited my apartment-to-be several times and measured up. Her judgement, obviously based on fact and measurement, unlike mine based on possessiveness, is that three of my bookcases Must GO. Hence my present wrestling over which book goes where?

Shirburn Castle, seat of the 
Earls of Macclesfield.

During this current effort I have come across so many books I had shamefully forgotten I had and have spent far too long flicking through forgotten pages; dipping into unremembered volumes. A splendid volume entitled The Macclesfield Alphabet Book has me currently enthralled. Until very recently, this wonderful book, that is the original, was unknown to the mediaeval manuscript world and only emerged to share its glory in the early 2000s from the vast library of the Earl of Macclesfield in Shirburn Castle near Watlington in the Chilterns in Oxfordshire. In fact, the Castle had three great libraries chiefly assembled by Thomas Parker [1667-1732] Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Macclesfield, supplemented by the second Earl [1697-1764] and his family, all voracious collectors and polymaths’ as described by Christopher de Hamel in his Introduction in my copy. Apparently there was little further family interest in these treasures and the libraries remained in situ for more than two hundred years.

Thomas Park, first Earl
of Macclesfield.

By the early twentieth century it had become obvious that life in Shirburn Castle still without many modern amenities, was untenable and the family began to sell off books from 2004 onwards, to partially finance a move to a nearby new house. This series of sales at Sothebys also revealed a hitherto unknown fourteenth century East Anglian Macclesfield Psalter sold in June 2004 to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Subsequently the British Library acquired the Liber de Hyda, cartulary of Hyde Abbey in Winchester and the Macclesfield Alphabet Book in 2009. One must read the book i.e. my book introduced by Christopher de Hamel and Patricia Lovett, for all the lovingly detailed descriptions of the different folios contained therein, but basically, the Macclesfield Alphabet Book is a calligraphic alphabet book. Its possible purpose is discussed in the Introduction; for use by a scribe or illuminator; a showcase for a prospective client; used in a studio as an exemplar for apprentices; a record of pictorial information for wealthy patrons?

Sample page from the Alphabet Book

Principally, the work, comprises simplified images from natural history, mainly trees, animals and flowers, arranged in alphabetical order without text. The manuscript is composed of 46 leaves of parchment divided into sections which would originally have been separate, circulating perhaps as loosely folded separate booklets. The letters, both capital and lower case, are illuminated often by grotesque or whimsical images of members of all levels of society including kings. Many are of peasants or ugly people, spitting, grimacing, sticking out their tongues or showing their teeth [a particularly heinous social offence in the Middle Ages.] Animals in the illustrations are strange birds, dragons and monsters which might possibly have aided memory in the illiterate viewer. Patricia Lovett identifies the work of several hands in the book’s composition with some examples accomplished by a very able scribe but there are contributions by less able artists, possibly a left-handed scribe at one point; a working artist in a hurry; elsewhere, another level of skill is apparent, “a tour de force” in fact. Patricia Lovett’s introductory essay provides an amazingly detailed commentary on the levels of skill of the different artistic hands involved in this production.

Christopher de Hamel.

De Hamel concludes that the style of artistry is extremely competent but not of the highest order and the Alphabet Book is likely to have been made away from the professional workshops of London, almost certainly in Suffolk. At the end of the first alphabet, appears the phrase, ‘ Amen q’ [fryer] Baldry. The word ‘fryer’ has been scratched out undoubtedly at the Reformation when friars and monks were abolished in England. The initials R.B. drawn on a shield in an illustration may indicate the friar as Roger Baldry who was a Franciscan monk, subsequent prior [1503-1518] at the Cluniac Priory of Saint Mary at Thetford in Norfolk. The name Baldry comes from East Anglia and was especially common in the area around Ipswich. In the fifteenth century the greatest concentration of the name Baldry was at Creeting, eight miles north of Ipswich, Friars were not allowed to own property nor produce books professionally though they were often attached to great houses as spiritual mentors who might well advise on the production of manuscripts for domestic use.

Sample pages.

Mediaeval Franciscan friars.

 eight miles north of Ipswich. Friars were not allowed to own property nor produce books professionally though they were often attached to great houses as spiritual mentors who might well advise on the production of manuscripts for domestic use.