CeSMA — 4.0 — March, 2011 CeSMA: Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages In September 2010 I attended a sympo- sium on the patronage of the magnifi- cent late fifteenth-century church of the Holy Trinity at Long Melford in Suffolk. My paper – delivered from the pulpit! – announced newly ‘discovered’ English and Latin inscriptions in John Clopton’s chantry chapel, including a verse by the local poet-monk John Lydgate (c. 1370- 1449/50). Other papers during the day discussed the unique collection of early Tudor stained glass portraits of the Clop- tons and their associates, and tombs and monumental brasses covering the period 1410-1630. This recent Lydgate ‘discovery’ is one of the 4500 vernacular inscriptions in a database under development in the Eng- lish Department. Taking inscriptional texts to mean those employed in distinc- tively non-manuscript forms – whether painted, carved, incised, molded, woven or scratched -- the project is creating a corpus for the entire later medieval pe- riod in England. Already recovered are texts English, French, Cornish, Welsh, Hebrew and Dutch. With public texts used so extensively in English society, to express personal and communal beliefs, allegiances and aspirations, we have a wealth of inscribed objects and buildings. The corpus covers all manner of vernacu- lar inscriptions, from simple lines of com- memoration for blacksmiths and parish clerks to aristocratic and royal epitaphs, devotional texts in glass and wall paint- ings in parish churches, texts in hospitals and guildhalls, in Jewish ritual bath- houses, and on civic structures such as city walls and bridges. Also, graffiti, texts found in royal residences and domestic houses, and words inscribed on personal items including clothes, jewelry, badges, weapons, drinking vessels, and seals and seal matrices. The earliest of these post- Conquest examples dates from the late eleventh century (in runes and in Roman letters) and the project has taken the death of Mary I as a natural end point. With the Protestant settlement public textuality in all forms -- in ecclesiastical, civic and domestic settings -- is radically altered. The primary concern of the project is to record surviving vernacular inscriptions and where possible to supply antiquarian readings for fragmentary or destroyed texts. Antiquaries’ collections are a major resource and the project makes full use of their transcriptions and descriptions, especially those made for the great county histories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This diverse body of texts hardly figures in contemporary academic discourses. Corpora for medieval inscriptions in French and German-speaking lands are well advanced and are under develop- ment for pre-Conquest Britain but there has been no systematic attempt to col- lect inscriptions made between 1066 and the Protestant Reformations. And as many sectors of English society were bi- or multilingual during this period this constitutes a remarkable body of mate- rial. As well as providing a resource for scholars working in a range of disciplines, the corpus will generate new modes of literary and linguistic analysis that will help shape the emergent interest in the materiality of medieval texts, in the interrelations of Latin and the vernacular languages, and in text-image relations. If you’re interested to learn more, drop me a line – or perhaps just carve a message on my office door! Vernacular Inscriptions from Later Medieval England: A Developing Corpus - by David Griffith Yarnton (Oxon). Bird quarries with English texts from a Reynard the fox narrative, c.1485-1500 Long Melford, Clopton. Chantry chapel, with squint and inscription from John Lydgate's poem 'A Balade at the Reverence of Our Lady', c. 1487-94. Haddiscoe. Slab to Barbele, wife of Peter, son of Peter the Dykegraaf (master of the dykes, d. 1525), text in Dutch.
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CeSMA — 4.0 — March, 2011
CeSMA: Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages
In September 2010 I attended a sympo-
sium on the patronage of the magnifi-
cent late fifteenth-century church of the
Holy Trinity at Long Melford in Suffolk.
My paper – delivered from the pulpit! –
announced newly ‘discovered’ English
and Latin inscriptions in John Clopton’s
chantry chapel, including a verse by the
local poet-monk John Lydgate (c. 1370-
1449/50). Other papers during the day
discussed the unique collection of early
Tudor stained glass portraits of the Clop-
tons and their associates, and tombs and
monumental brasses covering the period
1410-1630.
This recent Lydgate ‘discovery’ is one of
the 4500 vernacular inscriptions in a
database under development in the Eng-
lish Department. Taking inscriptional
texts to mean those employed in distinc-
tively non-manuscript forms – whether
painted, carved, incised, molded, woven
or scratched -- the project is creating a
corpus for the entire later medieval pe-
riod in England. Already recovered are
texts English, French, Cornish, Welsh,
Hebrew and Dutch. With public texts
used so extensively in English society, to
express personal and communal beliefs,
allegiances and aspirations, we have a
wealth of inscribed objects and buildings.
The corpus covers all manner of vernacu-
lar inscriptions, from simple lines of com-
memoration for blacksmiths and parish
clerks to aristocratic and royal epitaphs,
devotional texts in glass and wall paint-
ings in parish churches, texts in hospitals
and guildhalls, in Jewish ritual bath-
houses, and on civic structures such as
city walls and bridges. Also, graffiti, texts
found in royal residences and domestic
houses, and words inscribed on personal
items including clothes, jewelry, badges,
weapons, drinking vessels, and seals and
seal matrices. The earliest of these post-
Conquest examples dates from the late
eleventh century (in runes and in Roman
letters) and the project has taken the
death of Mary I as a natural end point.
With the Protestant settlement public
textuality in all forms -- in ecclesiastical,
civic and domestic settings -- is radically
altered.
The primary concern of the project is to
record surviving vernacular inscriptions
and where possible to supply antiquarian
readings for fragmentary or destroyed
texts. Antiquaries’ collections are a major
resource and the project makes full use
of their transcriptions and descriptions,
especially those made for the great
county histories of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
This diverse body of texts hardly figures
in contemporary academic discourses.
Corpora for medieval inscriptions in
French and German-speaking lands are
well advanced and are under develop-
ment for pre-Conquest Britain but there
has been no systematic attempt to col-
lect inscriptions made between 1066 and
the Protestant Reformations. And as
many sectors of English society were
bi- or multilingual during this period this
constitutes a remarkable body of mate-
rial. As well as providing a resource for
scholars working in a range of disciplines,
the corpus will generate new modes of
literary and linguistic analysis that will
help shape the emergent interest in the
materiality of medieval texts, in the
interrelations of Latin and the vernacular
languages, and in text-image relations. If
you’re interested to learn more, drop me
a line – or perhaps just carve a message
on my office door!
Vernacular Inscriptions from Later Medieval England:
A Developing Corpus - by David Griffith
Yarnton (Oxon). Bird quarries with English texts
from a Reynard the fox narrative, c.1485-1500
Long Melford, Clopton. Chantry chapel, with
squint and inscription from John Lydgate's poem
'A Balade at the Reverence of Our Lady', c. 1487-94.
Haddiscoe. Slab to Barbele, wife of Peter, son of
Peter the Dykegraaf (master of the dykes, d. 1525),