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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I like Double Decker's turn of phrase. It is really rather good.
| Dekker’s pamphlet 1603: The Wonderful Year, wrote: | | Upon Thursday it was treason to cry ‘God save King James, King of England, and upon Friday high treason not to cry so. In the morning no voice heard but murmurs and lamentation, at noon nothing but shouts of gladness and triumph. Saint George and Saint Andrew that many hundred years had defied one another, were now sworn brothers: England and Scotland (being parted only with a narrow river, and the people of both empires speaking a language less differing than English within it self, as though providence had enacted, that one day those two nations should marry one another) are now made sure together, and King James’s coronation is the solemn wedding day. Happiest of all thy ancestors (thou mirror of all princes that ever were or are) that at seven of the clock wert a king but over a piece of a little land, and before eleven the greatest monarch in Christendom |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Thomas Dekker, or someone of that name, had financial troubles and was imprisoned for debt. This is not, automatically as it were, a red flag but one to keep in mind. Wiki entry notes this is when Dekker turned to pamphlet-writing though no information on whether the pamphlets survived, or even where the info came from
In 1612, Dekker's lifelong problem with debt (he had earlier, 1599, been imprisoned in Poultry Compter) reached a crisis when he was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison on a debt of forty pounds |
A new red flag. John Jones who, ahem, transcribed much of the early Welsh stuff now in the National Library of Wales did it when in prison for debt. We've had lots of fakers in prison, we've had loads of fakers in debt, but not both together.
| to the father of John Webster. |
Are they serious? 'Dad, can you help out a competitor of mine? You'll never get it back.'
| He remained there for seven years, and despite the support of associates such as Edward Alleyn and Endymion Porter, these years were difficult; |
If I had friends who seem okay to leave me in prison for seven years, my hair would go quite white with rage.
| Dekker reports that the experience turned his hair white. He continued as pamphleteer throughout his years in prison. |
Just as John Jones did. The thing about pamphleteers is you have to have your finger on the pulse. Perhaps he had a cell phone. (A more complicated pun than usual.)
According to Professor Li, the information about Dekker's stints in debtor's prisons is from the Diary
However, as the entries show, this was a man who could regularly go from remarkable achievements to immediate destitution and his record of debt would be repeated over and over again. |
Given the lifespans of Elizabethan dramatists, I would say seven years is not going to be too repeatable.
| The highs and lows of 1598 were to be the pattern of his whole career and a similar story was already unfolding in the following year. An entry dated 18 January 1598/9 in the Diary shows that Dekker was paid £1 as a first instalment on a playbook called Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight (Diary, f. 67), while at the same time he borrowed £3 from Henslowe, despite the fact that he had been working industriously for the company for the whole of the previous year. |
Now if I'm writing a diary in the frenzied time of Elizabethan London would I really be dutifully putting in such mind-sapping minutiae? In the office ledgers, maybe.
| This is a fairly important diary entry. The Shoemaker's Holiday, written in 1599, is the only surviving play attributed to Thomas Dekker, for which the only surviving performance record is either on Christmas Day or New Year's Day 1600. Whether or not Dekker wrote the play is a moot point as it seems once again to be down to Henslowe's Diary |
That was lucky then, wasn't it? Very Pepysian.
| The diary of theatrical impresario Philip Henslowe records a payment of £3 to "Thomas Dickers" for the play. |
Ledger or diary, Mr Henslowe? ' 'Oh, diary, I think.'
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Henslowe's Diary runs out in 1604 but not so Dekker who continues with an active literary career whether in or out of prison. But evidence for Dekker's output is most unsatisfactory. Lots of collaborations with greater and lesser dramatists, plus lots of pamphlets, though predictably no original copies have been found The best known Dekker pamphlet, 'The Wonderfull Yeare' (1603), was first published 'FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY' in 1884 by Alexander B. Grosart, a Scottish author and editor specialising in 'reprints of rare Elizabethan and Jacobean literature'. |
Sounds more like porn cf Pepys than scholarship.
This is the first attempt to elucidate in full Dekker’s presence in the Henslowe–Alleyn papers alongside other historical and literary documents.
The other documents referred to by Prof. Li are letters either written or dictated by Dekker |
Not what you would exactly call 'other'.
| Dekker’s long prison silence was otherwise broken by two letters written in the King’s Bench, addressed to Edward Alleyn Henslowe’s son-in-law and Dekker’s former colleague at the Rose and the Fortune) because Henslowe himself had died in 1616. One of these letters (Dulwich MS 108), undated, bearing Dekker’s autograph, was dictated by Dekker himself but evidently written by a prison scribe. The other (Dulwich MS 109), dated 12 September 1616, was in Dekker’s hand. |
I thought he was the prison scribe. Perhaps the scribe has a scribe for his personal letters. Again shades of Pepys and his shorthand and his 'get others to do it because his eyes were railing'.
| Dulwich College says the manuscripts' provenance is Henslowe's Diary and/or Edward Alleyn's collected papers |
I think it began and ended with Dulwich College but I'm biased against them for not accepting me. But taking my best mate, Leechy.
| In: A collection of papers of the actor Edward Alleyn (1566-1626). Letter in a scribal hand and signed by Dekker, to Edward Alleyn, [c.1616]. c.1616. |
I think 'autographed' means he signed it. It always helps. Unless you're writing poison pen letters.
and, incredibly
An autograph receipt signed by Dekker, for 20 shillings from Philip Henslowe for Dekker's play Truth's Supplication to Candle Light, dated 18 January 1598/9. 1599.
In: A slip cut from a leaf in the ‘Diary’ of Philip Henslowe (c.1555-1616), theatre financier. 1599.
Extracted, probably by John Payne Collier (1789-1883), literary scholar, editor and forger, from the ‘Diary’ now at Dulwich College |
Incredibly? Par foe course, I think you mean.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | I like Double Decker's turn of phrase. It is really rather good. |
I thought Victorian. But the content suggests Hanoverian versus Jacobites.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Wiley wrote: | | I like Double Decker's turn of phrase. It is really rather good. |
I thought Victorian. But the content suggests Hanoverian versus Jacobites. |
The Wonderfull Yeare was a satirical work, focussing on the ravages of the plague rather than celebrating the new monarch. The Stationers' Company archives reveal it was banned
| On 5th December 1603, the Court of the Company ordered that Stationers Nicholas Ling, John Smethwick and John Browne be fined ‘for printinge a booke called the wonderfull yere without Aucthoritie or entrance, contrary to th[e] ordonnance for pryntinge. Also that they shall forbeare and never hereafter entermedle to printe or sell the same book or any parte thereof.’ |
It might have been a tad risky for Dekker to have his name on the pamphlet in view of his prison record but the stamp of official disapproval naturally generated interest and printing seems to have gone ahead regardless.
The Wonderfull Yeare, with its mix of fact and fiction, and a narrative structure that owed much to Dekker’s dramatic practice, similarly sold enough copies to warrant the gamble taken by Ling and his associates.
It’s also an interesting text to consider in the context of the history of print culture. Shakespeare's move to poetry in 1593 was at once a matter of financial expediency, and a venture into a different (and, at the time, more prestigious) literary mode. When Dekker and his fellow playwrights adopted the form of the pamphlet – high volume, low quality publications – a mere ten years later, they demonstrated the extent to which the patronage system had begun to give way to the commodification of the printed text. The writer had entered the marketplace. |
https://www.stationers.org/news/archive-news/literature-in-lockdown-3
It does seem a bit odd to go from writing plays to producing pamphlets, odd enough that the Stationers appear to feel an explanation is needed. The obvious one is that theatres were closed down during plague outbreaks though, as lockdown showed, audiences soon flock back. Another reason to give up playwriting could be lack of demand as suggested by the shortage of 16-17th century playhouses. Public performances took place not in purpose-built theatres but in venues that were used for sports, games, music and dancing.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It's a clear loud voice, surely post Acts of Union 1706, 1707.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I like Double Decker's turn of phrase. It is really rather good.
I thought Victorian. But the content suggests Hanoverian versus Jacobites.
The Wonderfull Yeare was a satirical work, focussing on the ravages of the plague rather than celebrating the new monarch. The Stationers' Company archives reveal it was banned |
The trouble is the Stationers' Company are suspected to be in the mix so their archives should be cited with circumspection.
On 5th December 1603, the Court of the Company ordered that Stationers Nicholas Ling, John Smethwick and John Browne be fined ‘for printinge a booke called the wonderfull yere without Aucthoritie or entrance, contrary to th[e] ordonnance for pryntinge. Also that they shall forbeare and never hereafter entermedle to printe or sell the same book or any parte thereof.’
It might have been a tad risky for Dekker to have his name on the pamphlet in view of his prison record but the stamp of official disapproval naturally generated interest and printing seems to have gone ahead regardless. |
I wish someone would ban one of my books. If you are risking a run-in with the law I would have thought putting your name on it in any circumstances is ill advised.
| The Wonderfull Yeare, with its mix of fact and fiction, and a narrative structure that owed much to Dekker’s dramatic practice, similarly sold enough copies to warrant the gamble taken by Ling and his associates. |
How wonderful to have this sure grasp of the long ago.
| It’s also an interesting text to consider in the context of the history of print culture. Shakespeare's move to poetry in 1593 was at once a matter of financial expediency, and a venture into a different (and, at the time, more prestigious) literary mode. When Dekker and his fellow playwrights adopted the form of the pamphlet – high volume, low quality publications – a mere ten years later, they demonstrated the extent to which the patronage system had begun to give way to the commodification of the printed text. The writer had entered the marketplace. https://www.stationers.org/news/archive-news/literature-in-lockdown- |
Gordon Bennet, do they even know how many hostages to fortune they are parading here? But what say you?
| It does seem a bit odd to go from writing plays to producing pamphlets, odd enough that the Stationers appear to feel an explanation is needed. The obvious one is that theatres were closed down during plague outbreaks though, as lockdown showed, audiences soon flock back. Another reason to give up playwriting could be lack of demand as suggested by the shortage of 16-17th century playhouses. Public performances took place not in purpose-built theatres but in venues that were used for sports, games, music and dancing. |
You went for the 'truth is always boring' approach.
| Wiley wrote: | | It's a clear loud voice, surely post Acts of Union 1706, 1707. |
I thought that too early but, yes, that's good too.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wiley spotted quite a few red tomato and green pepper flags as I started my not extensive research into cook books.
The Forme of Cury is a vellum scroll in the British Library, thought to have been written around 1390 by the chief master of cooks of Richard II. It is one of the oldest known manuscripts on cookery in the English Language and contains 196 so-called recipes.
It describes itself as a beginner to expert cooking guide
| First it teacheth a man for to make common pottages and common meats for household as they should be made — craftily and wholesomely. Afterward it teacheth for to make curious pottages and meats and subtleties for all manner of states, both high and low. And the teaching of the form of making of pottages and of meats, both of flesh and of fish, both set here by number and by order; so this little table here showing will teach a man, without tarrying, to find what meat that him lust for to have. |
Rather unhelpfully it does not contain quantities, measurements, instructions or cooking times. On the positive side, the recipes were written with the advice of the best experts in medicine and philosophy.
It's also a bit of mystery why it is on a vellum scroll, experts have compared it to a pipe roll (financiial records kept by the Exchequer).
Recently a codex has been found, dated (how?) to the same era, that is held at the John Rylands Museum in Manchester.
Some of the ingredients might have been difficult to source at short notice as it requires exotic animals such as whales, cranes, curlews, herons, seals and porpoises, as well as, for that time, what would have been unusual exotic spices.
The first publication according to Wiki.
The Forme of Cury by Samuel Pegge, who published an edition of one of the manuscripts in 1780 for a trustee of the British Museum, Gustavus Brander.[5] It is one of the best-known medieval guides to cooking. The Forme of Cury may have been written partly to compete with Le Viandier of Taillevent, a French cookery book created at about the same time. This supports the idea that banquets were a symbol of power and prestige for medieval lords and kings
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Symbols of power eh? Apparently the chef would use sugar, jelly or wax to confect models of buildings, ships or eagles. Guests woukld be entertained by meat that appeared outwardly to be fruit.
Pegge published and also wrote for "The Gentleman" | signing himself "Paul Gemsege" – an anagram of Samuel Pegge), T. Row ( = The Rector Of Whittington), and "L. E." ( = [Samue]L [Pegg]E). |
Pegge wrote articles on Anglo Saxon coins, King Arthur and Roman Roads.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Great find, Wiley! Interesting that Samuel Pegge was a vicar - antiquarian as clergymen are frequently involved in our red and green flag investigations.
Samuel is listed as 'the Elder' in Wiki which is potentially a red flag, usually encountered in artistic pairings. (Out of curiosity, have you come across Pegge 'the Younger'?)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Too may crooks spoil the broth.
| Rather unhelpfully it does not contain quantities, measurements, instructions or cooking times. |
It may have too few of these but it seems to have an excess of target audiences.
| Recently a codex has been found, dated (how?) to the same era, that is held at the John Rylands Museum in Manchester. |
I am always worried about manuscripts that disappear for five hundred years, then found and -- blow me -- turn out to equal the world record for the genre.
| Pegge published and also wrote for "The Gentleman" |
If this is the 'Gentleman's Magazine' then be put on notice that we have found this to be the source for many a whiffy production.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Pegge is also interesting for Wiley, (you can see the way I am going) as he translated FitzStephen's Description of London from the Latin, in 1772.
FitzStephen, was supposedly a a cleric and administrator in the service of Thomas Becket, he appears paradoxically more interested in recording the recreational pastimes and habits of Londoners rather than church-going or religious matters.
| Fitzstephen wrote a biography of Becket, in which he gives a clear description of the differences between the archbishop and the King.[4] This also included an account of London in the 12th century, which was included in the biography as a preface, Descriptio Nobilissimi Civitatis Londoniae. | |
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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'Descriptio nobilissimae civitatis Londoniae' is treasured as being the first topographical description of London, predating John Stow by four centuries. Is this another 'oldest' record brought to light, or life, by Pegge?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Very useful Hats. It's still early days yet. I believe Pegge also wrote an essay in 1722 which was the the first comprehensive review of English ecclesisastical coinage and mints, pre-Norman conquest.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
It may have too few of these but it seems to have an excess of target audiences. |
You got it.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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FitzStephen's account has the common touch. Are there other early English examples of the encomium urbis genre of literature? I found this comparable example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_laude_Cestrie
| Unlike William fitz Stephen's work on London, De laude Cestrie concentrates on religious rather than secular aspects of his chosen town.[11] Lucian describes Chester via Biblical parallels; according to Barrett, "the city's streets and buildings become scripture made manifest."[23] Faulkner describes the text as "perhaps the fullest application of this Neo-Platonic theology to survive from the Middle Ages."[11] Barrett and Keith D. Lilley highlight several instances where Lucian distorts Chester's geography to suit his rhetorical purposes.[19] |
This caught my eye. Great fire eyewitness, eh?
| Lucian gives an apparently eye-witness account of the fire of 1180, which he states was extinguished when St Werburgh's shrine was carried in procession through the streets. |
I am not really buying this, date-wise. Still, I would like to think this is true, especially the Welsh bit below. It seems it's an aerial view from the city walls?
| ‘Chester has four gates corresponding to the four winds: from the East it looks towards India; from the West towards Ireland; from the North to greater Normandy; from the South to the place where God's severity left the Welsh a narrow corner to punish their innate rebelliousness’. | |
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