It’s the first week in September and still the book buying goes on, so much I want to own! 4 volumes of the Paston Letters are here, letters written by members of the Paston family to one another or letters written to the Pastons in the 15th century. They are invaluable for historians. I have 500 letters in 4 volumes, and today ordered a book from Amazon of the letters in modern English. That means I can go back to the originals when I need to quote them. These will do for many of the upcoming books, as will the books on the Battle of Towton and several others which have arrived. Trouble is, they all need to be read and I do need to sleep occasionally…
The timeline is coming together. I have several dates on which the Earl was ‘excused Court’ which gives me questions, where would he have gone not to be at a St George’s celebration, which home was he at or was he off on a pilgrimage? I need to check all this out, but first, a timeline. I have a timeline of years, and then finally a timeline of days which I have marked ‘countdown to disaster’ but that is for me alone. That kind of comment would not go well in a biography.
8th September. I sent my agent the actual synopsis and outline for the biography, detailing work done and work I want to do. He sent a note back saying he had been off line all day as the lines were down and they have to move from their lovely old offices – as they are falling down! News on Monday, he promises me. I wait…
A print arrived from the British Museum. Very expensive but then they had to photograph it specially, transfer it to CD and post it. It’s really lovely. The antique print I have of the Earl shows him clean shaven, this one, ‘Earl Rivers with William Caxton’, shows him with a heavy moustache. The psychic portrait I have of him shows him with a moustache and beard, not a usual thing in that time. All a part of his ‘being different’, I think.
I wrote to the Vatican to ask if there is a record of his visit there. No address, took a chance on addressing it to The Vatican Library, The Holy See, Rome, Italy and today, 15th Sept, received an email response from the Reference Librarian, directing me to the Vatican Archives and giving me their email address. I have emailed. Meantime, there is a response from Lambeth Palace Library, everyone is being so helpful. The curator of Pontefract Museum was charming, even if he couldn’t help. It gets more interesting as it goes. I am getting impatient to begin work but there is still a way to go with research. Many books are arriving, heavy historical tomes. They need going through, carefully. I’ve brought home a pack of Post It notelets, small ones, so I can mark the pages. The Paston Letters have a few from him, I will need to Post It mark those so I can find them quickly when I need them. Preparation.
Later: the Vatican can’t help. I can go there as a researcher if I fit their ‘Rules’ but that’s out of the question. I will take it as read he went there and had an audience with Pope Sixtus V, otherwise he would not have been given the title of Defender of Papal Causes in England.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Yet more ...
Today the ‘official’ translation arrived. Well, different interpretations. I have typed it into the beginning of the book; I will add a scan of the signature and leave the readers to make up their own minds. Another letter arrived from Yorkshire, still no information on a grave. I am beginning to think he lies in unconsecrated ground. It would make sense of the statement I received via another medium, that he does not like where he is buried. If it is unconsecrated, then he would be unhappy. I will have to work on this one, somehow. I have an idea or two…
Talkback friends (Writers News Forum) continue to be supportive and helpful. I wonder how I managed before such an invention came into my (writing) life.
The letter in the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post (identical) has produced more results. No grave but loads of helpful information and friendly people, can I ask for more? There is definitely no grave, they were thrown into a common grave and no monument was ever erected. Job for me later.
Bank Holiday Weekend.
Too many scooters here to go out on the roads, so I spent the afternoon surfing. British History Online, great help for the land holdings for the Woodvilles, lots of information downloaded, printed and stored. More work done on the duel, almost there, almost at the point of actually fighting. The preliminaries! Nowhere does it say what Lady Scales thought about her husband risking life, limb and expensive armour to fight someone for the sake of knightly valour and honour!
30th August. Books and more books being bought, the reading load gets heavier, as do the expenses. But … the heaviest and most expensive book I bought today will do duty for the other books I want to write on the Yorks, so I do not begrudge the cost. It’s all tax deductible anyway, as long as I keep a record of what I buy.
Talkback friends (Writers News Forum) continue to be supportive and helpful. I wonder how I managed before such an invention came into my (writing) life.
The letter in the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post (identical) has produced more results. No grave but loads of helpful information and friendly people, can I ask for more? There is definitely no grave, they were thrown into a common grave and no monument was ever erected. Job for me later.
Bank Holiday Weekend.
Too many scooters here to go out on the roads, so I spent the afternoon surfing. British History Online, great help for the land holdings for the Woodvilles, lots of information downloaded, printed and stored. More work done on the duel, almost there, almost at the point of actually fighting. The preliminaries! Nowhere does it say what Lady Scales thought about her husband risking life, limb and expensive armour to fight someone for the sake of knightly valour and honour!
30th August. Books and more books being bought, the reading load gets heavier, as do the expenses. But … the heaviest and most expensive book I bought today will do duty for the other books I want to write on the Yorks, so I do not begrudge the cost. It’s all tax deductible anyway, as long as I keep a record of what I buy.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
the saga of the biography continues ...
Sunday in August. Ran a few ‘strange’ words past Encarta, turned up two or three definitions, not anywhere near enough to make me wish I hadn’t spent all that money … emprise turns out to be chivalrous adventure or undertaking, so I have left it in, with an explanatory note at the start of the ‘translation.’ Some of the medieval English is clear to me, some of it is extremely difficult, especially as people had a bad habit of using ‘ and chopping up words, ‘which he p’posid’ is easy to work out but often it isn’t. I found, through Google, two of the ‘strange’ words relating to armour. That helped as well as puzzled me, why would anyone fighting a duel use a Pavis, a full body shield that archers used to protect themselves when fitting a new arrow? Unless he felt he had to offer his opponent the chance of using a pavis.
Oxford University finally said they couldn’t help, so I have turned to another translation firm. As it happens, the man I am in contact with is retiring this week, he is making it his last project, determined to get an answer for me. His early translation is opposite to that proposed by the Librarian at Oxford University, would you not know it … but still deeply religious. It is still unofficial, mere theory. I wait …
Tonight I went onto ebay (again) and typed in Earl Rivers (again) and turned up the print I have been searching for – purchased immediately. I have a beautiful print of Elizabeth Woodville, she of the hair and the eyes and the ability to capture a king and change a path of history, all grist to the Earl Rivers mill/biography. His life is so bound up with hers, it would not be possible to leave her out.
Work on The Duel goes on, 11 pages ‘translated’ into modern English and a 3 page list of ‘odd’ words to work on when the dictionary arrives. The more I read of the medieval English, though, the clearer it becomes in my mind and some words are now crossed off the list; I have worked out what they are.
My daughter called me earlier to see the programme on Windsor Castle, the man measuring the distance of the chairs to the table. ‘So much fuss,’ she commented, ‘so much ceremony.’ It was in fact reminiscent of the ceremony which accompanied this duel, the preparations for it, the ceremonial sending of the Herald to the knight to invite him to fight, the way the knight received the invitation, the return of the Herald, the arrival of the knight, and all this before they strike a single blow! Very elaborate, very ritualistic, life was dictated by rules and formalities. I need to bring this over in the book without overdoing it. The Duel will do the job well for me, it sets out the formalities of court life in Medieval times beautifully. ‘The king’s highness, my said sovereign lord’ every time the king is mentioned, without fail.
More work tomorrow…
Oxford University finally said they couldn’t help, so I have turned to another translation firm. As it happens, the man I am in contact with is retiring this week, he is making it his last project, determined to get an answer for me. His early translation is opposite to that proposed by the Librarian at Oxford University, would you not know it … but still deeply religious. It is still unofficial, mere theory. I wait …
Tonight I went onto ebay (again) and typed in Earl Rivers (again) and turned up the print I have been searching for – purchased immediately. I have a beautiful print of Elizabeth Woodville, she of the hair and the eyes and the ability to capture a king and change a path of history, all grist to the Earl Rivers mill/biography. His life is so bound up with hers, it would not be possible to leave her out.
Work on The Duel goes on, 11 pages ‘translated’ into modern English and a 3 page list of ‘odd’ words to work on when the dictionary arrives. The more I read of the medieval English, though, the clearer it becomes in my mind and some words are now crossed off the list; I have worked out what they are.
My daughter called me earlier to see the programme on Windsor Castle, the man measuring the distance of the chairs to the table. ‘So much fuss,’ she commented, ‘so much ceremony.’ It was in fact reminiscent of the ceremony which accompanied this duel, the preparations for it, the ceremonial sending of the Herald to the knight to invite him to fight, the way the knight received the invitation, the return of the Herald, the arrival of the knight, and all this before they strike a single blow! Very elaborate, very ritualistic, life was dictated by rules and formalities. I need to bring this over in the book without overdoing it. The Duel will do the job well for me, it sets out the formalities of court life in Medieval times beautifully. ‘The king’s highness, my said sovereign lord’ every time the king is mentioned, without fail.
More work tomorrow…
Sunday, February 3, 2008
the saga continues ...
Sunday in August.
Ran a few ‘strange’ words past Encarta, turned up two or three definitions, not anywhere near enough to make me wish I hadn’t spent all that money … emprise turns out to be chivalrous adventure or undertaking, so I have left it in, with an explanatory note at the start of the ‘translation.’ Some of the medieval English is clear to me, some of it is extremely difficult, especially as people had a bad habit of using ‘ and chopping up words, ‘which he p’posid’ is easy to work out but often it isn’t. I found, through Google, two of the ‘strange’ words relating to armour. That helped as well as puzzled me, why would anyone fighting a duel use a Pavis, a full body shield that archers used to protect themselves when fitting a new arrow? Unless he felt he had to offer his opponent the chance of using a pavis.
Oxford University finally said they couldn’t help, so I have turned to another translation firm. As it happens, the man I am in contact with is retiring this week, he is making it his last project, determined to get an answer for me. His early translation is opposite to that proposed by the Librarian at Oxford University, would you not know it … but still deeply religious. It is still unofficial, mere theory. I wait …
I went onto ebay (again) and typed in Earl Rivers (again) and turned up the print I have been searching for – purchased immediately. I have a beautiful print of Elizabeth Woodville, she of the hair and the eyes and the ability to capture a king and change a path of history, all grist to the Earl Rivers mill/biography. His life is so bound up with hers, it would not be possible to leave her out.
Work on The Duel goes on, 11 pages ‘translated’ into modern English and a 3 page list of ‘odd’ words to work on when the dictionary arrives. The more I read of the medieval English, though, the clearer it becomes in my mind and some words are now crossed off the list; I have worked out what they are.
My daughter called me earlier to see the programme on Windsor Castle, the man measuring the distance of the chairs to the table. ‘So much fuss,’ she commented, ‘so much ceremony.’ It was in fact reminiscent of the ceremony which accompanied this duel, the preparations for it, the ceremonial sending of the Herald to the knight to invite him to fight, the way the knight received the invitation, the return of the Herald, the arrival of the knight, and all this before they strike a single blow! Very elaborate, very ritualistic, life was dictated by rules and formalities. I need to bring this over in the book without overdoing it. The Duel will do the job well for me, it sets out the formalities of court life in Medieval times beautifully. ‘The king’s highness, my said sovereign lord’ every time the king is mentioned, without fail.
More work tomorrow…
Ran a few ‘strange’ words past Encarta, turned up two or three definitions, not anywhere near enough to make me wish I hadn’t spent all that money … emprise turns out to be chivalrous adventure or undertaking, so I have left it in, with an explanatory note at the start of the ‘translation.’ Some of the medieval English is clear to me, some of it is extremely difficult, especially as people had a bad habit of using ‘ and chopping up words, ‘which he p’posid’ is easy to work out but often it isn’t. I found, through Google, two of the ‘strange’ words relating to armour. That helped as well as puzzled me, why would anyone fighting a duel use a Pavis, a full body shield that archers used to protect themselves when fitting a new arrow? Unless he felt he had to offer his opponent the chance of using a pavis.
Oxford University finally said they couldn’t help, so I have turned to another translation firm. As it happens, the man I am in contact with is retiring this week, he is making it his last project, determined to get an answer for me. His early translation is opposite to that proposed by the Librarian at Oxford University, would you not know it … but still deeply religious. It is still unofficial, mere theory. I wait …
I went onto ebay (again) and typed in Earl Rivers (again) and turned up the print I have been searching for – purchased immediately. I have a beautiful print of Elizabeth Woodville, she of the hair and the eyes and the ability to capture a king and change a path of history, all grist to the Earl Rivers mill/biography. His life is so bound up with hers, it would not be possible to leave her out.
Work on The Duel goes on, 11 pages ‘translated’ into modern English and a 3 page list of ‘odd’ words to work on when the dictionary arrives. The more I read of the medieval English, though, the clearer it becomes in my mind and some words are now crossed off the list; I have worked out what they are.
My daughter called me earlier to see the programme on Windsor Castle, the man measuring the distance of the chairs to the table. ‘So much fuss,’ she commented, ‘so much ceremony.’ It was in fact reminiscent of the ceremony which accompanied this duel, the preparations for it, the ceremonial sending of the Herald to the knight to invite him to fight, the way the knight received the invitation, the return of the Herald, the arrival of the knight, and all this before they strike a single blow! Very elaborate, very ritualistic, life was dictated by rules and formalities. I need to bring this over in the book without overdoing it. The Duel will do the job well for me, it sets out the formalities of court life in Medieval times beautifully. ‘The king’s highness, my said sovereign lord’ every time the king is mentioned, without fail.
More work tomorrow…
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