 |
| 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.
