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The Collation

Unbidden guests, moldy pies, and other holiday drama

As we enter the holiday season and look forward to spending time with our families and friends, it is of course always useful to take a moment to reflect upon the antics of other people’s families. Even better if those families are over four hundred years old. And even better if their antics are described in English secretary or italic hand.

The snippets below come from letters in the Folger manuscript collection written between 1551 and 1624 that refer to Christmas and New Year’s plans and activities. Try reading the letters themselves, if you are paleographically-minded. Otherwise, just enjoy the transcriptions, which provide a great window into family celebrations, Renaissance-style.

Expectations run high around this time of year, and the weather is always iffy:

where are you?

Folger MS L.d.599, Letter to Roger Townshend, bart. (1596-1637) from his unidentified kinsman Roger Townshend, 1624 December 23. Click on this image and all other images to see bigger versions.

Sir Wee haue expected yow here euer since the last post, who told vs yow had appointed to sett out the monday following, but I perceaue the weather or something els, hath hindred yow, and now it growes too neare Christmas to expect yow…

Comments

Barton-under-Needwood is not in Lincolnshire but near the Bagots’ estate in Staffordshire.

John Drackley — December 24, 2013

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Thanks! The post has now been updated.

Erin Blake — December 28, 2013

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Have so enjoyed this post, opening a window on Christmas as celebrated in Shakespeare’s time, and showing off some of the Folger’s great resources.

Sylvia Morris — January 1, 2014

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Re the Christmas at Ludlow, there is this account noted in Records of Early English Drama: Shropshire, vol. 1, ed. J. Alan B. Somerset, pp. 89–90:

1596–97
Sir John Stradling, The Storie of the Lower Borowes
Merthyr Mawr House
ff 13v–14* (28 October–27 October)

. . . Within few weekes after was kept a grand Christmas in the castle of Ludlowe, whither among others of this countrie, resorted the young gentleman Edmond van to do his lord & | master the Earle of Pembroke seruice at that solumne time^ what he spent there ys not to be estemed, being bestowed in ye seruice of his good lorde, at so solemne a season, among such honorable, worshipfull & gentlemanlie companie, where a young man might haue learned as much good behauiour & manners, as should haue stuck by him ever after whiles he lived. And yf I be not deceauved, our young gentleman learned somewhat there that he shall not forgett these vij yeares, though he would. He was at that feast squier of the body [at yat feast] to one of king Arthures knights (Sir Gawen I trowe was his name) from the estimacon of which superficiall aduancement, distilled into his head such a superfluous humor of vaine self weening and ambition, that vnneth xvj. ounces of the purest tobacco receaued in at his nares by artificyall fumigacion might stop the course thereof. Of the aboundance of this humor was engendred a festred ulcer, which sithens hath broken out to so daungerous a sore, that I doubt the curing of yt will cost litle lesse then five hundred powndes. . . .

Somerset’s endnotes in vol. 2, p.645:
. . . it seems there was a grand Christmas kept at Ludlow Castle by the earl of Pembroke, lord President of the Council, at which a Christmas court was held with various persons taking the parts of the members of King Arthur’s court. Van apparently took the part of squire of the body to ‘Sir Gawen.’ Beyond this, the facts begin to become encumbered with irony and private allusions. The ‘superfluous humor’ that engendered an ulcer resulting in a dangerous sore costing £500 to cure apparently refers to Edmund Van’s pride, which Stradling implies caused his involvement in a misdemeanour and eventually led to a prosecution in Star Chamber which, Stradling predicts here, will cost the young man a fine of £500. In fact, as Randall indicates in a note to this passage, Van was eventually fined £1000 for his part in the affair.
. . . . .

Thus ‘My ladie’ in the letter is most likely Mary Sidney Herbert, the countess of Pembroke.

Robin Williams — January 21, 2014

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