A Tsar-Studded Affair

Last week we came across a story in one of the Cathedral Library’s travel books which took us by surprise, and got us putting on our detectives’ hats again.  Few would expect to find a rakish Elizabethan Merchant Adventurer from Worcestershire hobnobbing with a Russian queen in the court of one of Ivan the Terrible’s protégés.  However, we had not reckoned on Mr William Barnsley of Bromsgrove...

In 1598, Boris Godunov was crowned tsar of Russia.  Boris came to prominence as a soldier during the reign of Ivan the IV (‘The Terrible’), becoming a member of his personal guard.  In 1581 he witnessed Ivan murder his own son and heir.  After Ivan’s death in 1584 Boris became regent for Fyodor I, Ivan’s second son, who was considered incapable of government.  When Fyodor died in 1598 no-one challenged Boris’s claim to the crown.  Although Boris had manoeuvred himself into an enormously influential position, there was still one problem: his wife.  The travel book says that,

Though he got several Advantages by this Marriage, he lost one that was more valuable than all the rest, which was his Quiet.  He was old and jealous, his Wife handsome and young: they quarrelled in a little time.

One of the causes of these quarrels was Mr William Barnsley, of Barnsley Hall in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.  Alleged to have lived until the age of 126, Barnsley was a Merchant Adventurer, first dispatched to Russia to take advantage of Ivan’s tax exemptions for English traders.  There he became acquainted with Tsar Boris’s ‘handsome and young’ wife, Maria.  After a time Boris realised that the pair were growing ‘too familiar’ and banished Barnsley to Siberia.  The Worcestershire man reportedly spent twenty years in exile before being allowed back into society.  Despite this indignity, Barnsley ‘turned from the Protestant religion to the Russian, married a great fortune and lived at Moscow in splendour.’  He certainly landed on his feet!

We found Barnsley’s story in the 1748 edition of John Harris’s A Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels.  This work is a compilation of various earlier accounts of journeys across the globe, from Europe and Asia to Africa and America.  The chapter on the ‘Voyage to the North’ was taken from the work of a Frenchman, also a merchant, recorded at the end of the seventeenth century.

 

Russian Sleds in Siberia

From: A Journey into Siberia, Made by Order of the King of France,

by l'abbé Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche (1770)

Alternative Easter Celebrations in Nineteenth-Century Worcestershire

What will you be doing to celebrate Easter this year?  Chances are you won’t be grating up a year-old hot cross bun to create your own medicine, or indulging in a spot of ‘heaving’ in Kidderminster.  But 150 years ago you may have been doing just that.  John Noake’s 1856 work, Notes and Queries on Worcestershire, describes a variety of curious customs observed in the county, including those reserved for Easter Week.

Good Friday, according to Noake, was ‘the occasion of great superstition’.  It was widely believed that things planted on that day would grow more abundantly than if they had been sown at any other time.  However, bad luck could also befall you if you had washing out, or failed to empty your washtub before Good Friday.

Baking hot cross buns at Easter is a custom which continues to this day.  However, in Noake’s time, they were thought ‘never to grow mouldy, and if kept for twelve months and then grated into some liquor, will prove a great soother of stomach ache’.  Noake reported that ‘the superstitious frequently preserved Good Friday buns from year to year, from the belief in their efficacy in the cure of diseases.’

Another Easter custom in Worcestershire was ‘Heaving’ or ‘Lifting’.  In the 1850s Noake commented that this practice had not long been discontinued in the Birdport area of the city.  ‘Heaving’ occurred on Easter Monday, and was a reference to the resurrection of Christ.  On that day, ‘the women would surround any man who happened to be passing by, and by their joint efforts lift him up in the air, and on the next day the men did the same to the women’.  Men could only escape by paying for drinks.  In Kidderminster, the women ‘would deck themselves gaily for the occasion’, ‘dress a chair with ribbons, and place a rope across the street to prevent the escape of any unfortunate man who chanced to pass that way’.  The man was lifted up in the chair, turned three times around then kissed by each of the women.  He also had to contribute to the evening’s festivities of ‘tea and dancing’.  At Hartlebury it was considered good luck if a male servant ‘heaved’ a female servant, because it meant she would not break any crockery during the following year.

So here's wishing you a very lucky Easter from Worcester Cathedral Library!

Æthelflæd, ‘Lady of the Mercians’ (d. 918)

If you stand at the top of the Cathedral Tower and look out over Worcester today, you cannot help but notice the number of new buildings and developments appearing on the horizon.  But did you know that the basic shape of the town was established by an Anglo-Saxon warrior queen, whose rule paved the way for Worcester’s commercial and ecclesiastical development?  Who was this woman, depicted sword in hand in the stained glass of the Cathedral cloister?  What is the story of Æthelflæd, the ‘Lady of the Mercians’?

Æthelflæd, the daughter of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was born in the early 870s.  As Alfred’s eldest child, she was destined to play a leading role in the political life of Anglo-Saxon England.  Inheriting the kingdom of Mercia (an largely corresponding to the English Midlands) on her husband’s death, Æthelflæd fortified a number of towns and raised her armies against Viking invaders in the east.  She was one of only a handful of Anglo-Saxon women to wield this kind of power, maintaining the loyalty and devotion of her forces until her death.

Little is known of Æthelflæd’s early years, but by 890 she was married to Ealdorman Æthelred, ruler of Mercia.  In Æthelred’s time the eastern part of the kingdom was controlled by Danish occupiers as part of the ‘Danelaw’.  Æthelflæd’s marriage to Æthelred meant that Mercia came under the influence of Wessex, with Alfred claiming overlordship of both kingdoms in return for helping Æthelred reconquer the Danelaw.  When her husband fell ill, Æthelflæd and her brother Edward assumed nominal control of the Mercian forces.  Æthelred died in 911, leaving the kingdom to Æthelflæd.  Unusually, Edward did not have a claim to the Mercian seat.  However, he used his sister’s position to extend his influence, arranging for his son, Athelstan, to be brought up in Æthelflæd’s court.  Athelstan would later go on to become the first king of all England.

Æthelflæd and Edward were both intent on reconquering the Danelaw and reclaiming land for the Anglo-Saxon rulers of Mercia.  One of the ways in which they did this was by building a system of fortified towns (burhs), from which to launch attacks on the Danes.  It was her father, Alfred, who devised the programme of burh construction, so Æthelflæd must have been familiar with them from an early age.  At some point between 889 and 899 Worcester was fortified as a burh.  The charter recording its foundation is one of the best pieces of evidence of its kind in England.  It reads:

At the request of Bishop Wærfirth, their friend, Ealdorman Æthelred and Æthelflæd ordered the burh of Worcester to be built for the protection of all the people [...] and they now make it known, with the witness of God, in this Charter, that they will grant to God and St. Peter, and to the Lord of that Church, half of all the rights which belong to their lordship whether in the market or the street, both within the fortifications and outside [...] except that the wagon-shilling and load-penny at Droitwich go to the King as they have always done. Otherwise, land-rent, the fine for fighting, or theft, or dishonest trading, and the contribution to the borough wall and all the [fines for] offences which admit compensation, are to belong half to the Lord of the Church.

Æthelflæd clearly understood the commercial as well as strategic importance of the burhs.  In 904, in addition to the trade revenue allotted to them by the charter, she and her husband were granted a haga (an enclosure) by Bishop Wærfirth, which represented a significant portion of the burh.  It included a river frontage which could be used to land men and goods.  This demonstrates Æthelflæd’s power over the burhs – a picture repeated across western Mercia.

In 917, the Vikings of East Anglia submitted to Edward’s army.  Unfortunately, Æthelflæd never saw the reconquest of the southern Danelaw three years later; she died in Tamworth in 919.  Her daughter Ælfwynn inherited the rulership of Mercia, but after six months was stripped of her authority by Edward and taken to Wessex.  This highlights Æthelflæd’s fortitude in keeping her brother’s ambitions in check under her rule.  Edward’s desire to unite the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia was eventually realised by his son, Athelstan, who ruled the lands as ‘England’.  Æthelflæd’s unyielding defence of the Anglo-Saxon territories against the Danes, and the union of Wessex and Mercia effected by her marriage and subsequent leadership, shows she was instrumental to the formation of the English nation.

Beastly Books: Ornithology and Zoology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Francis Willoughby (1635-1672)

Two of the most influential books in the world of British ornithology and zoology sit on the shelves of Worcester Cathedral Library.  The first, Ornithology, was written by Warwickshire naturalist Francis Willoughby, and published posthumously in 1676.  Willoughby was a studious young man, and developed an interest in the fields of mathematics and taxonomy, botany and natural history.  Although in poor health for most of his life, he travelled the Continent and collected many specimens for documentation and categorisation.

Ornithology was put together by the naturalist John Ray, Willoughby’s long-time friend and mentor.  The edition of 1676 contains some remarkable engravings of birds, from the commonplace to the exotic.  The images below depict firstly the golden eagle and sea eagle, and secondly the eagle owl, horned owl and little horned owl.

 

Thomas Pennant (1726-1798)

When he was twelve years old, Thomas Pennant (the son of a Flintshire landowner) was given a copy of Francis Willoughby’s Ornithology.  The book ignited a passion for natural history which would turn the young man into one of Britain’s leading zoologists of the eighteenth century.  Pennant pursued the subject with what he called ‘constitutional ardor’, travelling around Britain and the Continent collecting fossil specimens and observing wildlife.  He corresponded with a number of eminent figures in the field including the Cornish naturalist William Borlase and the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus.

Pennant is best known for British Zoology, the first volume of which was published in 1766.  The completed work comprised four volumes, which dealt with quadrupeds, birds, reptiles and fish.  Printed in a compact octavo form, the second and subsequent editions met with considerable success.  The Cathedral Library has the fourth edition from 1776.  This book typifies the Enlightenment enthusiasm for the ‘modern systems’ of categorisation and taxonomy.  Indeed, it is generally agreed that its importance lays in its organisation and synthesis rather than in its literary merit.  Each section begins with the etymology of the animal’s name.  This is followed by a general description of its character and physiology.  The example of the sheep can be seen below (I particularly like the appearance of the word ‘fleecy’ in the margin!).

Despite its arrangement, British Zoology is neither dry nor discouraging.  In the Preface, Pennant expressed his hope that the work would inspire ‘sedentary’ readers to leave the house and explore the wonders of nature.  To that end it contains entertaining stories about the eradication of wolves and bears from the British Isles, poems and fishermen’s incantations, and insights into the medicinal uses of the viper’s flesh and the electric ray.  The book also reveals a less than scientific standpoint on the moral worth of particular creatures.  For example, Pennant had a very low opinion of the pig, which reflected popular notions of the time.  He called it ‘useless and rapacious’, ‘stupid, inactive and drowsy’ with ‘sordid manners’ and a ‘more than common brutality’.  The reader is warned that the pig’s ‘intestines have a strong resemblance to those of the human species; a circumstance that should mortify our pride’.

Other descriptions are more familiar to us, however, such as that of the cat: ‘a useful, but deceitful domestic; active, neat, sedate, intent on its pray.  When pleased it purres and moves its tail: when angry spits, hisses, and strikes with its foot.  When walking it draws its claws: it drinks little: is fond of fish: it washes its face with its fore-foot’.