The Preservation of the Sources for English Medieval History in the Sixteenth Century

Chapter 8 opens with two events which took place in the summer of 1568: the commission to Archbishop Matthew Parker to identify and record manuscripts dispersed from monastic libraries, especially books with a bearing on English history, and the publication of William Lambarde’s APXAIONOMIA, his edition of Old English law, much of it in parallel text, Old English and Latin. The chapter then reverts to the dissolution itself, and who can be shown to have saved which particular books. It pays particular attention to the activities of John Leland, John Bale, and certain bibliophilic royal commissioners, most notably Sir John Prise. Although initial official interest in English history concentrated on the period of the conversion and before, collectors saved the great works of the twelfth century, and it was these that Prise envisaged in his will should be edited and printed. The chapter then considers the circle around Parker, most particularly John Joscelyn, and the use they made of the medieval English histories in their polemical works on ecclesiastical history. Parker’s editions of Matthew Paris were the first works of medieval English historiography to be printed, probably on account of Matthew’s anti-papal instincts. In counterpoint with all this concern for the sources, the chapter also addresses the Italian Polydore Vergil’s recently published and influential attempt to write up English medieval history, for the period in question largely on the basis of the great histories of the early twelfth century.

BISHOP TUNSTALL’S ALTERATIONS TO DURHAM CASTLE, 1536–48

Since its foundation in 1072 Durham Castle has served as a fortress, palace of the prince bishops of Durham and, from 1837, as a college of the University of Durham. Durham Castle was the bishops’ home and a symbol of their secular authority, whilst its proximity to the bishops’ ecclesiastical centre, Durham Cathedral, established spiritual and ceremonial roles for the castle. This paper will examine the major alterations made to Durham Castle by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall (bishop from 1530–59), including a new first-floor gallery, stair turret and chapel. A hitherto un-noted gunloop in the stair tower suggests that the turbulent political and religious events of his bishopric, particularly the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, caused Tunstall to provide some defensive capability within what has previously been considered a purely domestic building programme. Analysis of the documented progress of building also dates the visit to Durham of the antiquarian John Leland to 1543, not 1538 as stated in the Victoria County History.

Introduction

Reformers in England saw losses as well as gains in the Reformation. John Leland and John Bale recorded the contents of monastic libraries. Matthew Parker recovered manuscripts from the past. The Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, comprised of lawyers, scholars, and country gentlemen, developed methods of ascertaining accurate information about the past. William Camden, the author of Annals of Elizabeth (1615, Latin) and Britannia (1586, Latin), wrote a new kind of history: dispassionate, based on reliable evidence, and concerned with changes in society. Fifty years after Camden’s lifetime, Thomas Fuller followed methods and approaches that the antiquaries and their successors employed, while developing ideas very much his own.