My entries in Atlantia's
Pentathlon in Persona, March 2005
Click here to go to my 2006 entries
The Pentathlon in Persona was created several years ago (by me, as a matter of fact) as a high level competition to be held in conjunction with Atlantia's annual Kingdom Arts & Sciences festival. All enties must be directly (and logically) connected to the persona of the artisan's choice, and competitors must include a brief description of that persona with their entries. Much to my relief, the Order of the Laurel took over administration of this competition beginning with KASF in March 2004. This is the first time I've been able to enter the competition myself.
PAGES UPDATED April 29, 2005. Images were added to all pages except for Item 5.
Persona Description | Item 1: Crimson Satin |Item 2: Panel of Embroidered Slips | Item 3: A Commonplace Book | Item 4: Dyed Silk Scarf | Item 5: A Hodgepodge of Beef | Full Project Bibliography
My entries are all related to my primary SCA persona, Lady Kateryn Rous, a member of the Norfolk gentry living during the mid to late 16th Century. Born in 1530, she is both the daughter and wife of large landowners who hold the rank of Knight and are regularly elected to Parliament. Thus she is securely positioned among the social and economic elite of East Anglia. Her husband holds a law degree, and serves as a Justice of the Peace. Lady Kateryn actively participates in administering both his estate and her dower lands, especially when her husband is away from home. The family's properties lie in central Norfolk, and include one principal manor, several farms and rental properties, and a town home in the city of Norwich.
Lady Kateryn is literate, and enjoys reading contemporary poetry and fiction. She also has an interest in some of the more theoretical works produced by humanist scholars addressing the responsibilities of the ruling classes and the abilities of women, but she strongly dislikes fervent protestant writers who she sees as narrow minded.
She has never been to Court, although she has visited London. Her family
has close connections with the Howard dukes of Norfolk. As a teenager she
served in the household of Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond during the same
years the Duchess had custody of the children of her late brother, the earl
of Surrey. The Howard family's unstable political positions in the late 1540s
and again after 1570 cause some social and political strains for Lady Kateryn's
family. Like many of the Howard family and their supporters, Kateryn is a
recusant (a Catholic in the now protestant England), while her husband and
most of her neighbors are not.
Notes
1. In England, the 'nobility' consists only of the peers of the
realm, who at this time were all male. Anyone else of rank was technically
a commoner. The 'gentry' were landed families, usually well connected to the
great noble families, whose members formed the core of the ruling elite in
the English counties. As the daughter and wife of a knight (a member of the
gentry), Kateryn would have been allowed the courtesy title of 'lady.'
2. E.A. Wasson, "The Penetration of New Wealth into the English Governing
Class from the Middle Ages to the First World War," Economic History
Review, 51(1), 27.
3.Norwich was the second largest city in late medieval and Tudor England,
and an important center of wool production. It remains the county seat of
Norfolk, and home to the diocese of Norwich. See Moreton, 1993, for a discussion
of the contents of Sir Robert Townsend's Norwich house. Lady Kateryn is imagined
to come from a similar social & political background as Townsend.
Primary Sources
Anon. (1594). A good huswifes handmaide for the kitchen. London: Richard Iones.
Ascham, Robert (1570). The scholemaster or plaine and perfite way of teachyng children, to vnderstand, write, and speake, the Latin tong but specially purposed for the priuate brynging vp of youth in ientlemen and noble mens houses, and commodious also for all such, as haue forgot the Latin tonge ... London: Printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling ouer Aldersgate. Cum gratia & priuilegio Regiae Maiestatis, per decennium
A.W. (1591) A book of cookery Very necessary for all such as delight therein. London: Edward Allde.
Dawson, Thomas (1587). The good husvvifes ievvell Wherein is to be found most excellent and rare deuises for conceits in cookerie…London: Iohn Wolfe for Edward White.
De Beau Chesne, John (1571). A booke containing divers sortes of hands, as well the English as French secretarie with the Italian, Roman, Chancelry & court hands. London: Thomas Vautrouillier.
De Bruyn, Abraham ( before 1587). Omnium pene Europae, Asiae, Aphricae atque Americae Genitum Habitus. LACMA, AC1997.164 1a-bbb, available for viewing by searching their online collection at http://www.lacma.org.
De Gex, Jenny (1994). Shakespeare's Flowers. London: Pavilion Books Ltd.
Elyot, Sir Thomas (1544). The castel of helth…London: In aedibus Thomae Bertheleti typis impress.
Foxe, John (1572). Pandectae. Locorum communium, praecipua rerum capita & titulos, ordinem eleme[n]torum complectentes. London: Iohannes Dayus.
Hoby, Margaret.(1599-1605). The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599-1605. Edited by Joanna Moody. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Press, 1998.
Hoby, Thomas (1561). The courtier of Count Baldessar Castillio diuided into foure bookes. London: William Seres at the signe of the Hedghogge.
Levey, Santina M. and Peter Thornton (2001). Of Household Stuff: the 1601 Inventories of Bess of Hardwick. London: The National Trust.
Markham, Gervase (1615). The English Huswife. London.
Panke, William (1591). A most breefe, easie and plaine receite for faire writing. London: Printed by E.A. for John Perin.
Philip, William (1596). A Booke of Secrets. London: Adam Islip for Edward White.
Rosetti, Gioanventura (1548). The Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti: Instructions in the Art of the Dyers which Teaches the Dyeing of Woolen Cloths, Linens, Cottons, and Silk by the Great Art as Well as by the Common. S. M. Edelstein and HC Borghettym, trans. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.
Sylvester, Richard S., editor (1984). English Sixteenth-Century Verse: An Anthology. New York: WW Norton & Company.
Stubbes, Phillip (1583) The anatomie of abuses… London: By [John Kingston for] Richard Iones
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of (1565). Songes and sonnettes written by the right honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other. London: Richard Tottel
The inventorie…of the honourable Sir Henrie Unton, Knight, Ambassator in Fraunce, late deceased there… (1595). Transcript available at http://www.mape.org.uk/activities/unton/inventories.htm. The cushions referenced are listed in the parlor of his house at Wadley.
Trevellian, Thomas (1608). Commonplace Book. Unpublished manuscript. Folger Ms V.b.232.
Secondary Sources
Arnold, Janet (1988). Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. Leeds [England] : Maney.
Blair, Ann (1992). "Humanist Methodas in Natural Philosophy: The Commonplace Book." Journal of the History of Ideas. 53(4), 541-551.
Brown, Michelle P. (1998). The British Library Guide to Writing and Scripts: History and Techniques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Brunello, Franco (1973). The Art of Dyeing in the History of Mankind. English translation by Pheonix Dyeworks, Cleveland, Ohio
Bukofzer, Manfred F. (1955) "Discussion; Blame Not my Lute." Renaissance News, 8(1), 12.
Cressy, David (1977). "Levels of Illiteracy in England, 1530-1730.´Historical Journal, 20(1), 1-23.
Dawson, Giles and Laetitia Kennedy -Skipton (1966). Elizabethan Handwriting 1500-1650: A Manual. New York: WW Norton & Co.
De Hamel, Christopher (1992). Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators. London: British Museum Press.
Digby, George Winfield (1963). Elizabethan Embroidery. London: Faber & Faber.
Green, Juana (2000). "The Sempster's Wares: Merchandising and Marrying in the Fair Maid of Exchange (1607)," Renaissance Quarterly, 53(4), 1084-1118.
Hearn, Karen, ed. (1995). Dynasties: Painting in Tudor & Jacobean England. New York: Rizzoli.
King, Donald and Santina Levey (1993). Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750. London: V&A Publications.
King, Donald (1956). "Textiles" in The Tudor Period 1500-1603. London: The Connoisseur, 101-112.
Levey, Santina (1998). Elizabethan Treasures: The Hardwick Hall Textiles. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Moreton, C.E. (1993). "Mid-Tudor Trespass: A Break-in at Norwich, 1549." English Historical Review, 108(427), 387-398.
Moss, Ann (1998). "The Politica of Justus Lipsius and the Commonplace-Book." Journal of the History of Ideas. 59(3), 421-436.
Nevinson, J.L. (1938). Catalogue of English Domestic Embroidery of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London: Victoria & Albert Museum.
Privat-Savigny, Maria-Anne (2003). Quand les princesses d'Europe brodaient : broderie au petit point, 1570-1610. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux
Raymo, Robert R. (1956). "Three New Latin Poems of Giles Fletcher the Elder." Modern Language Notes, 71(6), 399-401.
Rechtien, John G. (1978). "John Foxe's Comprehensive Collection of Commonplaces: A Renaissance Memory System for Students and Theologians." Sixteenth Century Journal, 9(1), 82-89.
Renfrow, Cindy (1990). Take a Thousand Eggs or More: A Collection of 15th Century Recipes. Volume 1. Self published.
Rhodes, Mary (1983). The Batsford Book of Canvas Work. London: BT Batsford LTD.
Robinson, Stuart (1969). A History of Dyed Textiles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Sim, Alison (1997). Food and Feast in Tudor England. Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing.
Starkey, David and Susan Doran (2003). Elizabeth: The Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum. London: The National Maritime Museum.
Internet Resources not listed above
British Library, http://www.bl.uk/
Early English Books Online, http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home
Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk
Karen Lardatter's page, http://www.geocities.com/karen_larsdatter/karen.htm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, http://lacma.org/
Matterer, James. "A Boke of Gode Cookery", http://godecookery.com
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), http://www.mfa.org.
Oxford English Dictionary online, http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl
Victoria & Albert Museum, http://www.vam.ac.uk.
Yale University, Beinke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Digital Collections, http://beinecke.library.yale.edu