{"id":7473,"date":"2019-11-01T11:49:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=7473"},"modified":"2019-11-01T12:02:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:02:54","slug":"exploring-british-library-and-cambridge-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/exploring-british-library-and-cambridge-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring British Library and Cambridge sources"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week I’m reporting on the Kent History Postgraduates meeting and bringing news about future Centre events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Join Sophie Page at Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2020 when she explores ‘Medieval Monsters and the Capacious Christian Universe’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As well as sending out details of the Medieval Canterbury\nWeekend 2020 to local history and similar societies in Kent, the Centre has\nbeen working with various partners concerning a couple of one-day conferences\nin May and June next year. The first of these will be part of the Becket 2020\nprogramme and is a collaboration on \u2018Saints and Seals\u2019 with Canterbury\nCathedral Archives & Library, while a month later Christopher Marlowe and\nthe flora of Kent will be the focus in conjunction with the Christopher Marlowe\nStatue committee. More on these as details become available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this week I primarily want to report on the monthly meeting of the Kent History Postgraduates group. Although we were somewhat depleted in terms of numbers due to illness, work and family commitments, the group still met to hear Peter Joyce\u2019s presentation and to explore a workshop on the 1542 Prebendaries\u2019 Plot in the diocese of Canterbury that I had prepared. Just as an aside, next month we will be back to two postgraduate presentations that will be given by Janet Clayton and Dean Irwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So back to Peter\u2019s presentation which came out of his\nresearch on the Rev. Caleb Parfect for his recently submitted MA by Research\nthesis. As some of you may remember from earlier blogs, Caleb Parfect is an\nextremely interesting late 18th<\/sup>-century clergyman from the Rochester\ndiocese who worked in Strood and neighbouring parishes, was heavily involved in\nthe early developments of the SPCK and had friends and relatives in very high\nplaces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this time rather than focusing on Parfect, Peter told us about his detective work in locating the \u2018lost\u2019 churchwardens accounts for St Nicholas\u2019 parish in Strood (in Parfect\u2019s time the spelling was Stroud). For Peter the problem is the need to get behind the two published versions of this area\u2019s history: Henry Smetham\u2019s History of Strood<\/em> and Odette Buchanan\u2019s Two Gentlemen of Strood<\/em> because they aren\u2019t contemporary with Parfect, and while good, Smetham relies on secondary accounts and his conversations with another antiquarian and cleric Canon Scott-Robertson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Nicholas’ church, Strood (Photo: Kent Archaeological Society)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The specific problem Peter faced was that Smetham said in a\nfootnote on page 127 of his book that the churchwardens\u2019 accounts\/vestry book\nhad been \u201clost\u201d and he wished that \u201cit may soon find its way back to its home\namong the archives of Strood parish\u201d. Yet prior to this it had apparently been\nseen by Scott-Robertson, who noted that it had been in the custody of another\nantiquarian Humphrey Wickham, who had been collecting local documents and other\nartefacts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point Peter thought the trail had gone cold until he came across a volume in the Kent Archaeological Society Records Series published in 1927. This contains the transcriptions done by Henry Plomer from 1915 of first the vestry accounts and churchwardens\u2019 accounts for St Nicholas\u2019 Strood for the period 1555\u20131600 and then for the period 1603\u20131662. Plomer\u2019s source was Add MSS 36,937, which at that time was in the British Museum\u2019s Department of Manuscripts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chatham and the River Medway (Copyright: Medway Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter believes the manuscript found its way into the British\nMuseum collections through the work of Wickham\u2019s executor Mr Humphrey Wood, who,\nas well as overseeing this post mortem donation of Wickham\u2019s collection of\noriginal documents to the Museum, also saw to the sale of Wickham\u2019s goods\nthrough Sotheby\u2019s. For at this time the Museum collection had at its heart the\nhuge manuscript collection of Sir Hans Sloane who had bequeathed it to the\nnation upon his death to ensure they would be available for study by future\ngenerations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus having solved the provenance of the churchwardens\u2019\naccounts during his research on Parfect\u2019s published works, Peter was similarly\nstruck by the stamp of the British Museum on many of the available electronic\nversions of Parfect\u2019s works, which means he thinks the collection from\nWickham\u2019s estate that arrived at the Museum is actually a lot large than\npreviously thought. To date he has only had a limited opportunity to examine\nthe churchwardens\u2019 accounts and vestry minutes for Parfect\u2019s time but this has\ngiven him valuable insights regarding the old Strood workhouse, including the\nname of the builder and the identities of the members of the vestry who were\nactively involved. Moreover, he believes these and associated sources will\nreveal far more about how the poor were \u2018cared\u2019 for locally, as well as ideas\nabout the broader context surrounding economic conditions in Strood and the surrounding\nparishes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter is very excited about this prospect and he thinks such a project will reveal a great deal about how coastal communities fared and functioned during the long 18th<\/sup> century. His audience agreed and there followed a lively discussion about the potential of his sources and how he might take this forward as a social history project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Mary Northgate church and gate (Copyright: Canterbury Museums and Galleries)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then, having sampled Dean\u2019s Halloween cupcakes \u2013 thanks Dean;\nthe group turned its attention to exploring some of the depositions collected\nby Archbishop Cranmer in response to what is known as the Prebendaries\u2019 Plot.\nWe confined our workshop to looking at those involving Canterbury city parishes,\nand, as Peter noted, it is interesting to see how the conservative (\u2018Catholic\u2019)\nplotters used Cranmer\u2019s words from the Book of Common Prayer against him when\nthey attacked John Toftes public reading of the (English) Bible in St Mary\u2019s\nNorthgate church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just very briefly if this is unfamiliar territory, the plot took place following the reforming of Canterbury Cathedral\u2019s clerical community in 1541. The 12 prebendaries and Six Preachers were not men of moderate views but contained a mix of those of the Old Learning and those of the New, the former seeing it as an opportunity to bring down Cranmer when they believed the king was more sympathetic to their viewpoint. They were sadly mistaken in terms of Henry\u2019s opposition to Cranmer and instead the archbishop was given the task of investigating those plotting against him. As well as the conspiracy itself, the evidence uncovered a preaching war between the conservatives and the reformers across the diocese, their theological, political and social message reinforced by certain parish clerics through their own sermons and the responses of certain members of the laity. Cranmer\u2019s response was to imprison the conspirators, although the radicals also found themselves before the courts, but the main outcome was the plotters\u2019 defeat and an insight into the strife-torn state of large parts of the diocese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Detail from St Mildred’s church, Canterbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What also struck people this week was the way elements of\ncontemporary Christian ritual had been integrated or appropriated by those\nemploying what Cranmer termed superstitious elements. For example, Johanna\nMeryweder of St Mildred\u2019s parish was accused by the old schoolmaster of saying\nshe had performed an enchantment in that \u201cfor displeasure that she bare to a\nyoung maid named Elizabeth Celsay and her mother, made a fire upon the dung of\nthe said Elizabeth and took a holy candle, and dropped upon the said dung 7\ntimes\u201d. Such persons were in many ways easy targets for the reformers, but the\ndiscussion then moved on to consider how both reformers and conservatives did\nnot just employ destruction (of people and objects) as the sole weapon at their\ndisposal. Instead we saw that both sides sought to demonstrate their belief,\nstrengthen their fellows and provoke opponents through a variety of different\nstrategies that involved speech and action, including as here the idea of\nreporting, of memory and of communal response.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the depositions associated with the Plot have been used by several historians, people felt that like Peter\u2019s Strood churchwardens\u2019 accounts there is more to be done in both cases. Consequently, we ended the session by wishing Peter every success with the final stages of his MA and with his next venture as he decides on a doctoral proposal that will concentrate on the modern social history of this part of north Kent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Medieval chest at St John’s hospital, Canterbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, as well at the ‘Picture this …’ workshop in Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, which is a joint venture between MEMS postgraduates at CCCU and Kent and for CCCU led by Dr Diane Heath, there is a lecture on Thursday. This lecture, at 7pm in Ng07, will be the second of the Centre\u2019s joint autumn lectures with FCAT when Professor Chris Pickvance (University of Kent) will discuss medieval chests in Kent of which the oldest, dating from c.1250, is in Canterbury. Booking not required, thus if this sounds interesting do come along you will be most welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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