Each month, we post an amusing, interesting, or noteworthy entry drawn from our discoveries in the archives of the North East.
Here’s an interesting little puzzle. On 21 January 1617/18, Richard Cholmeley paid the players of Philip Lord Wharton (of Healaugh, WR) six shillings for a performance of ‘The Dumb Knight’ at his estate in Brandsby/Stearsby. This play, by Lewis Machin and Gervase Markham, has twenty-three speaking parts and at least nine non-speaking roles as printed […]
This record of a local court case of 1522 from the Beverley Great Guild Book (East Riding Archives BC/II/3, f. 27) illuminates not only the contemporary spectator sport of bear-baiting but the political tensions (and often open war) between English and Scots at that period. It shows us that John of Grene, the Earl of […]
October’s Flower tells of a scandalous libel case from the villages of West Yorkshire. One of the main reasons that defamation—libel and slander—became an issue for the civil courts—was to punish those who would undermine the credibility and authority of administrators of justice. Shakespeare captures this idea near the end of Measure for Measure when […]
This month’s flower comes from the catalogue of Locelli in the Durham Cathedral Muniments (Loc. VI.20), and seems to record the death of a 13th-century tightrope walker, performing on the towers of Durham Cathedral! The record concerns the King Henry III’s objections to the election of of a new bishop. It seems the the […]
‘William our bishope, hath oppugnant been … Confirme our graunt good King‘. This month’s Flower follows on from April’s, both of which concern James I royal visit to Durham in 1617. It too comes from the Order Book of the City of Durham (Durham County Archives ref. Du 1/4/4). In April’s Flower we noted that […]
This month’s flower is the only record that survives from Beverley (East Riding of Yorkshire) to list props used in a pageant of the local Corpus Christi play. It’s an early document in the life of the Play (1392), contained in a bound volume now called the Great Guild Book, although it belonged to the […]
This months’ Flower comes from the Order Book of the City of Durham (Durham County Archives ref. Du 1/4/4). James I visited Durham in 1617 on his way to Scotland and was welcomed into the city with all due pomp and ceremony. However, behind the scenes there had been a conflict raging in the city […]
Each month, we will post an amusing, interesting, or noteworthy entry drawn from the growing REED-NE evidence. This month’s ‘flower’: ‘Modyr Nakett’ In the Durham Priory Bursar’s annual account running from 11th November for 1433-1434, a number of payments are recorded as having been made to various entertainers, including an entry for 4 pence given […]