As a start this week, I thought I would mention that there is an advert in the February edition of the BBC History magazine for the Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend in late April this year. I hope readers of the magazine and the blog see it and please tell someone else about it because we will be delighted to welcome you all to CCCU to hear fantastic speakers throughout from the Friday evening unto the Sunday afternoon. Moreover, the CCCU Bookstall will be there all weekend under the care of Craig Dadds. If you haven’t yet discovered the programme, please see: https://ckhh.org.uk/tudors-stuarts which will furnish you with all the details about our wonderful speakers and their lectures.

Next, I thought I would mention what is coming up in February that involves people from the Centre for Kent History and Heritage (CKHH). Starting with next Thursday, just a quick reminder that I’ll be giving the next Canterbury Historical Association lecture on Thursday 6 February at 7pm in the Clagett Auditorium, Canterbury Cathedral Lodge. The title is ‘A gateway county: migrants in 15^th-century Canterbury and Kent’ and all are welcome, please note admission is free to HA members, branch members and students, for others it is £5 and branch membership to the full programme of history lectures is £10 per year. If you want further information, please contact: hacanterburybranch@gmail.com 01227 722476.

Then on the Friday I will be joining Dr Nikolaos Karydis (School of Architecture, University of Kent), Professor Paul Bennett (former Director of CAT) and Joel Hopkinson (Head of Estates and Fabric, Canterbury Cathedral) to discuss the next stage of a project to investigate the history of Christ Church Priory through its buildings. The pilot project involves the Infirmary building that has already provided new discoveries about its developmental phases, thereby linking it in exciting ways to events that affected other parts of the cathedral and priory buildings – watch this space for details.

The middle of the month brings an organisational meeting concerns matters about ‘Dover at Night’. The CKHH stall will focus on aspects of the Maison Dieu linked to the River Dour, while another partner within CKHH, Professor Carolyn Oulton’s and Michelle Crowther’s ‘Kent Maps Online’ will highlight stories about Dover in the past. For the CKHH/Maison Dieu contingent, Kieron Hoyle and I will be talking to people and offering handouts on ‘Medieval Dover’, on the Ladywell and which freshwater fish were caught and consumed locally.

Kieron is also busy working on her doctoral investigation of the development of Dover through its Elizabethan harbour works and the refinement of the naval victualling system under men such as Edward Baeshe. The latter will be the focus of her presentation to the Kent History Postgraduates on Wednesday 26 February, so more to come.

Keeping with the subject of project meetings, I have one on the 19^th concerning the Maidstone history project which is an exciting collaboration that involves the VCH among others. The project leader is Dr Jack Newman, and the plan is to develop educational resources in addition to researching and writing the book on a crucial period in Maidstone’s history. It will also involve input from community volunteers, not unlike the Tenterden Custumal project featured last week, as well as engaging students from schools in Maidstone.

The same week will see an online meeting of the Lossenham wills group who are continuing to transcribe probate materials linked to the parishes of the Rother Levels. These records continue to throw up fascinating queries, which keeps the group’s WhatsApp very busy and we are also developing a great glossary of local and regional terms for a wide range of objects, activities and occupations.

The final two outreach activities involving those from CKHH will take place in the last week of February. Firstly, Dr Astrid Stilma, who worked on the funded Aphra Behn project with colleagues from the University of Kent and Loughborough University, with others from the Centre will be at the unveiling of the new Aphra Behn statue. This will be in Canterbury’s High Street just outside the entrance to The Beaney and is also the culmination of work by Canterbury Commemoration Society.

Another linked to the city, this time in death rather than birth, is Becket or St Thomas of Canterbury, and those from the CKHH have been involved over several years in aiding Professor Rachel Koopmans and Leonie Seliger gain funding to research and conserve the Becket Miracle Windows in the cathedral. As has been reported previously, the team is currently working on their third window, the ‘Kent window’. Having the various panels on the bench in the cathedral’s glass studio has meant they can look far more closely to ascertain, as a start, which glass in early 13^th century and even more which actual pieces (as well as whole panels) actually belong to this window on the north side of the Trinity chapel. Additionally, the team is investigating what, when and by whom pieces and panels were altered/added by later cathedral glaziers, right down to sections of the Latin inscriptions that complement the pictorial elements.

Rachel came over from York University, Toronto, last September and apart from a break over Christmas, has been hard and work and will continue to be so throughout her stay until the early summer this year. As well as working on the window, Rachel has given and will be giving talks to a wide range of groups, in addition to giving the CKHH Becket Lecture on Tuesday 27 May and being a lead contributor to a study day on Monday 31 March at the cathedral. However, in the last week of February trustees from two of the charitable organisations supporting this extremely important investigation will be visiting the glass studios to see for themselves how work is progressing. For this very early and incredibly fine stained glass is one of the cathedral’s greatest treasures and of worldwide importance.

Finally, and keeping with the Becket theme in that Henry VIII saw himself as finishing the job Henry II had failed to complete, this week I was exploring the Prebendaries’ Plot with postgraduate students on the Taught History MA. The depositions collected by Archbishop Cranmer are fascinating because they provide a snapshot about the state of much of the diocese of Canterbury during the early 1540s. and I have mentioned them before in terms of Faversham and Lenham. Consequently, here I’ll just pick out a couple of other depositions to illustrate just how valuable this primary source is as a way of looking at responses from ordinary people, as well as members of the clergy, to the Henrician Reformation.

Looking at incidents in the parish of Tenterden, which as Dr Rob Lutton has discussed included families in the early Tudor period that he believes espoused heterodox religious views, the 3 depositions illustrate markedly different positions. For example, both the chantry priest Sir Humfrey Cotton and the vicar held traditionalist views, the former reported as having said among other things that “there be heresies in the Bible”, while the vicar had refused, according to witnesses, to ‘put out of the manual which he daily useth the Bishop of Rome’s name, his usurped autoritie and pardon expressed in the rubic and last absolution of extreme unction.’ Even though the witnesses were not named in the deposition relating to the accusation against the vicar, it would seem highly likely that they were from Tenterden who sought religious reform of the parish priest’s liturgical practices. One of these was Hugh Cooper who had been reported as saying, among other things, “that God was neither pleased with fasting nor discontent with eating” and “that neither alms deeds, fasting, nor prayer did help the soul, but faith alone” (as a point of interest echoed in the preamble of Thomas Arden’s will made in 1567). Among those agreeing with Cooper were Christopher Baker and Peter James, but the chantry priest was equally supported by others in the parish, for eight others had joined him in witnessing against Cooper. Such divisive attitudes presumably led to considerable tensions at St Mildred’s, Tenterden, but may have affected neighbouring parishes too, although whether Edward Dyngledon of Rolvenden’s decision to go to Walsingham two years running at Easter time rather than “receive the Sacrament” at his home parish is symptomatic of such tensions, he was reported by the curate at Rolvenden, is unknown but suggestive!

And next week I’ll be exploring those who saw Kent as a ‘gateway county’ in the 15^th century.