Manuscripts teem with life. They are not only the stuff of history and literature, but they offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded.
Hidden Hands tells the stories of the artisans, artists, scribes and readers, patrons and collectors who made and kept the beautiful, fragile objects that have survived the ravages of fire, water and deliberate destruction to form a picture of both English culture and the wider European culture of which it is part.
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In Preparation
Lost to the Flames: Women Executed by Fire (Quercus)
THE Unfaithful Servant; AND The Cruel Husband.
Being a perfect and true account of one Judith Brown, who together with her Master Iohn Cupper, conspired the Death of her Mistris, his Wife, which accordingly they did accomplish in the time of Child-bed, when she lay in with two Children, by mixing of her Drink with cruel Poyson; for which Fact she received due Sentence of Death at the late Assizes in the County of Salop, to be Burned; which was accordingly Executed upon the Old Heath near Shrewsbury, on Thursday the Twenty-first day of August, 1684. A maid, in love with her master, conspires to poison her mistress shortly after she has given birth. It does not mention the sentence of the husband. (he is hanged in chains) Magdalene College – Pepys Library, Pepys Ballads 2.151; EBBA 20769. Audio recordings by (1) Hannah Sullivan, (2) EBBA.
Anne VVallens Lamentation,
For the Murthering of her husband Iohn Wallen a Turner in Cow-lane neere Smithfield; done by his owne wife, on satterday the 22 of Iune. 1616. who was burnt in Smithfield the first of Iuly following. Anne Wallen sings from the scaffold of her remorse at the stabbing death of her husband. However, spectators at her burning were convinced it was in self-defense against a violent attacker. Magdalene College – Pepys Library, Pepys Ballads 1.124-125; EBBA 20053. Audio recording by Hannah Sullivan.
The vnnaturall Wife:
Or, The lamentable Murther, of one goodman Dauis, LockeSmith in Tutle-streete, who was stabbed to death by his Wife, on the 29. of Iune, 1628. For which fact, She was Araigned, Condemned, and Adiudged. to be Burnt to Death in Smithfield, the 12. Iuly 1628. Magdalene College – Pepys Library, Pepys Ballads 1.122-1.123r; EBBA 20051
A warning for all desperate VVomen.
By the example of Alice Dauis who for killing of her husband was burned in Smithfield the 12 of Iuly 1628. to the terror of all the beholders. One of two ballads about Alice Davis, convicted of petty treason for the murder of her husband and burned at the stake in Smithfield, London in 1628. Davis was one of a spate of executions of women for this crime in early seventeenth-century London, and the ballad’s judgmental tone is meant to teach a lesson of subservience to all listening wives. Magdalene College – Pepys Library, Pepys Ballads 1.120-121; EBBA 20050. Audio recording by Hannah Sullivan.
A warning for wiues,
By the example of one Katherine Francis, alias Stoke, who for killing her husband, Robert Francis with a paire of Sizers, on the 8. of Aprill at night, was burned on Clarkenwell-greene, on Tuesday, the 21 of the same moneth, 1629. Magdalene College – Pepys Library, Pepys Ballads 1.118-119; EBBA 20049
A Mirror of mans lyfe made by a modest virgine Fransisca Chauesia a Nonne of the cloyster of S. Elizabeth in Spaine burned for the profession of the gospell.
[with separate but related verse following] Axon reports that Francesca de Chaves was a nun of the order of St. Francis of Assisi who belonged to the convent of Santa Isabel in Seville, whereas the title of the broadsheet declares her to be of the cloister of St. Elizabeth. With twelve other victims, she was burned by the Inquisition on 22 Dec 1560, at the auto-da-fe in Seville. Chetam’s Library – Halliwell-Phillipps, Shelfmark: H.P.469; EBBA 36173
Writing for a lay audience, Mary Wellesley introduces the collaborators – patrons, artists, scribes and authors – whose labour is revealed or hidden in manuscripts. She interweaves her tale of book production with the case histories of many individual works, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the prayer book of Henry VIII, giving anecdotal accounts of the ways in which they were lost or found, preserved or destroyed.
Nov 8, 2022
Hidden Hands
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Disgruntled scribes, protective owners, artists interrupted… manuscripts teem with life. They are not only the stuff of history and literature, but they offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded.
In this year’s Annual Lecture, Dr Mary Wellesley will trace the stories of the people who made, loved and sometimes destroyed medieval manuscripts, which are some of the most engaging artefacts ever made by human hands.
