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The Arrival of Humanistic Script in York?*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Extract
Amongst the very fragmentary collection concerning elections of deans of York, now in the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research at the University of York, is a file of the surviving papers for the election, in 1503, of Christopher Bainbridge, ‘capellanum et consiliarium’ to Henry VII. In it there are two examples of humanistic script - an autograph subscription to a letter written for the prebendary of Botevant, John Colet, and a letter written by Peter Carmelian, prebendary of Ampleforth. The occurrence of this script is rare, possibly unique, in the archbishops’ archives.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 12: Life and Thought in the Northern Church , 1999 , pp. 171 - 181
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999
Footnotes
*
For their help (and patience) I thank Claire Breay, Ursula Carlyle, Claire Cross, Paul Gwynne, Moira Habberjam, Louise Hampson, Peter Rycraft, David Smith, and Livia Visser-Fuchs.
References
1 BI, DY 4, 1-9.
2 DY 4, 6d and 6a. Modern references to Carmelian give various forms of his name: Petrus Carmelianus, Peter Carmelianus, Pietro Carmeliano. The form used here (as also for the names of other York prebendaries) is that given in Neve, John le, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300-1541. vi Northern Province, compiled by Jones, Bridget (London, 1963).Google Scholar
3 DY 4, 4; list of actions numbered 1-22.
4 DY 4, 5.
5 DY 4, 6b.
6 DY 4, 6c. Alexander Lawson’s notarial sign is reproduced in Purvis, J. S., Notarial Signs from the York Archiepiscopal Records (York, 1957), p. 57.Google Scholar
7 DY 4, 6d; plate 1.
8 Jayne, S., John Colet and Marsilio Ficino (Oxford, 1963), pp. 35–6.Google Scholar
9 London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS DC1, fol. 8r. Facsimile in Jayne, John Colet, plate 3.
10 For instance, CUL, MS Gg.iv.26 and Oxford, All Souls’ College, MS L infra 1.5.
11 BL, MS Add. 6274.
12 London, Mercers’ Hall, Statutes of St Paul’s School. Reduced facsimiles of both BL and Mercers’ manuscripts in Trapp, J. B., Erasmus, Colet and More: the Early Tudor Humanists and their Books (London, 1991), pp. 109–13Google Scholar
13 DY 4, 6a; plate 2.
14 In 1529, during enquiries before the dissolution of the marriage, Carmelian was referred to as having been responsible for keeping the correspondence concerning these negotiations.
15 There are examples of ‘humanistic’ scripts written in Oxford from the mid-fifteenth century, see also Mare, A. C. de la, ‘Humanistic hands in England’, in Mare, A. C. de la and Barker-Benfield, B. C. eds, Manuscripts at Oxford: R. W. Hunt Memorial Exhibition (Oxford, 1980), pp. 93–6.Google Scholar
16 For details of Carmelian’s life and career, see the article by Firpo, M. in Ghisalberti, A. M., ed., Dizionario biografico degli italiani 20 (Rome, 1977), pp. 410–13Google Scholar. Rundle, D., ‘On the difference between virtue and Weiss: humanist texts in England during the fifteenth century’, in Dunn, D. E. S., ed., Courts, Counties and the Capital in the Later Middle Ages (Stroud, 1996)Google Scholar, has shown that there is no need to regard all Italians who came to England seeking employment as necessarily second-rate.
17 ‘De vere carmen ad Edwardum Angliae principem’, BL, MS Royal 12 A XXIX All the manuscripts composed and copied by Carmelian are described and discussed in Sutton, A. F. and Visser-Fuchs, L., Richard III’s Books (Stroud, 1997).Google Scholar
18 Weiss, R., Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1957), p. 171.Google Scholar
19 Dublin, Trinity College, MS 429.
20 Weiss, Humanism, p. 172.
21 The copy dedicated to Russell is now Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 196/102, and that for Brackenbury is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 501.
22 BL, MS Add. 33736.
23 Otway-Ruthven, J., The King’s Secretary and the Signet Office in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1939), appendix F.Google Scholar
24 There are facsimiles of the manuscripts referred to above in Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Books, and in Watson, A. G., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, c.700-1600, in the Department of Manuscripts, the British Library (London, 1979).Google Scholar
25 As, for instance, in BL, MS Royal 12 A XXIX fols. 8r-v and 9v.
26 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. F.5.4. There are some annotations which might be by Carmelian.
27 The Spanish letters are in BL, MS Egerton 616. A facsimile of one letter in Fairbank, A. and Wolpe, B., Renaissance Handwriting (London, 1960), plate 6Google Scholar, and another is reproduced in Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII (London, 1972), plate 15.Google Scholar
28 York, Minster Archives, Chapter Act Book 1427-1504.
29 York, Minster Library, MS XVI N 2. Described in Ker, N. R. and Piper, A. J., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 746–7Google Scholar. For Nagonius, see Wormald, F., ‘An Italian poet at the court of Henry VII’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1951), pp. 118–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gwynne, P. G., ‘The Life and Works of Johannes Michael Nagonius, “poeta laureatus”, c. 1450-1510’ (London, Warburg Institute, Ph.D. thesis, 1990), which examines the extant Nagonius manuscripts.Google Scholar
30 Much-reduced facsimile of the Henry VII portrait in Trapp, Erasmus, Colet and More, plate 12. See also Gwynne, P., ‘The frontispiece to an illuminated panegyric of Henry VII: a note on the sources’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 55 (1992), pp. 266–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 PRO, E315/160, fols 107v-115r; Hearne, T., ed., J. Lelandi de Rebus Britannicis Collectanea (Oxford, 1715), 3, pp. 36–7Google Scholar. The Nagonius manuscript is first mentioned at York in Bernard, E., Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford, 1697).Google Scholar