Exhibit for Center's Garden Conference (5/7)

I've been busy today preparing a small exhibit of rare books for this weekend's Garden Conference at the Renaissance Center. The following images and descriptions are derived from the exhibit.

"You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights, beyond the reach of exception"

--Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus (1658) 

 

the Garden of Eden, from The Holy Bible [Bishop's Bible] (1602)

“And the Lord God placed a garden Eastwarde in Eden, and there he put the man whome he had made. For out of the grounde made the Lord God to growe everie tre pleasant to the sight, and good for meat: the tre of life also in the middes of the garden, and the tre of of knowledge of good and of evil” (Geneva Bible, 1560: Genesis 2:8-9).

Early printed Bibles frequently contain woodcut images of Eden, as seen above in the image from the 1602 Bishop's Bible. Our quarto copy of the KJV features a similar image. 

Engraved illustration in Paradise Lost (London: Tonson, 1705): Book Nine

The engraving shown here illustrates Book Nine of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and depicts  the serpent tempting and suborning Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.

Engraved illustration in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, trans. John Harington (1591): Canto Six

To complete their intended quests and fulfill the prophecies of ghosts and gods, epic heroes have had to face a seemingly endless series of redoubtable foes, including disaffected gods (Poseidon and Juno), monstrous creatures (Scylla and Polyphemus), and uninvited house guests (Penelope’s suitors). Yet these heroes must also avoid distraction, especially in the form of luxurious, paradisal lands inhabited by beautiful goddesses (Odysseus with Circe on Aeaea and Calypso on Ogygia; Aeneas with Dido at Carthage).  Modern readers might upbraid Odysseus and Aeneas for loving and leaving these women, but in the early modern period these paradisal places became literary tropes, imaginary locations symbolizing the deadly allure of seemingly beautiful lands and people. In the epic tradition of the Italian Renaissance, these places were figured as enchanted gardens, most notably those belonging to Alcina in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516) and Armida in Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (1580). The first garden is described in Harington's English translation as a place where the “air is alway temperate and cleare, / And wants both winters storms, and summers heate, / As though that Aprill lasted all the yeare.” After luring the knight Ruggiero into her sumptuous palace, Alcina reveals her true form as a witch, a deformed hag made beautiful through enchantment.

Ariosto’s poem had an enormous influence on Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590), whose allegorical knight Guyon encounters the “Bower of Bliss” in Book Two. In the last canto Guyon enters the bower, “a place pickt out by choice of best alive, / That natures worke by art can imitate: / In which what ever in this worldly state / Is sweet, and pleasing unto living sense … Was poured forth with plentifull dispence, / And made there to abound with lavish affluence.” Despite its profound beauty, the Bower of Bliss is a site of temptation and evil in the allegorical project of the poem, and so must be destroyed. In an unsettling show of violent power that to this day troubles critics, Guyon brutally razes the bower to the ground, spoiling its “plentifull dispence” and “lavish affluence”:

                      But all those pleasant bowres and Pallace braue,
                      Guyon broke downe, with rigour pittilesse;
                      Ne ought their goodly workmanship might saue
                      Them from the tempest of his wrathfulnesse,
                      But that their blisse he turn'd to balefulnesse:
                      Their groues he feld, their gardins did deface,
                      Their arbers spoyle, their Cabinets suppresse,
                      Their banket houses burne, their buildings race,
                      And of the fairest late, now made the fowlest place.

"May," from John Evelyn, Kalendarium hortense (1683)

One of the Center's several early printed almanacs, John Evelyn’s Kalendarium hortense (1683) is subtitled “The Gard’ners Almanac, directing what he is to do Monthly throughout the year.” In the “Introduction to the Kalendar,” Evelyn notes that “as Paradise… was no longer Paradise than the Man was put into it to dress it, and to keep it; so, nor will our Gardens (as near as we can contrive them to the resemblance of that blessed abode) remain long in their perfection, unless they are also continually cultivated.” For every month of the year Evelyn offers his readers basic information (length of month, average times of sunrise and sunset), a list of tasks “to be done” in the garden (including planting, pruning, fertilizing, etc.), and a list of “flowers [or fruits] in prime, or yet lasting.”

Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus (1658)

a Quincuncial Pattern

Well known for his work as a physician and empirical scientist, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was one of early modern England’s most inventive prose writers, composing  unique works like Religio medici (1642) and Pseudodoxia epidemica (1646). His Garden of Cyrus, or, The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, Artifically, Naturally, Mystically Considered (1658) is a prolonged commentary and meditation on “X”-shaped forms in the human, natural, and mystical worlds. The “quincunx,” which literally means “five-twelfths” and was used in Classical antiquity to describe the spots of the “five” on a die, is “a pattern used for planting trees in which they are arranged in one or more groups of five, so placed that four occupy the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth occupies its center” (OED). You can see an example of a quincuncial pattern in the image above. 

Intended as a “Garden Discourse” rather than a “massy Herball” (like John Gerard’s Herball—also owned by the Center), the work begins with a discussion of Babylon’s hanging gardens and the quincuncial layout of King Cyrus’ garden at Sardis. As the author notes in the dedicatory epistle to Nicholas Bacon, The Garden of Cyrus "range[s] into extraneous things, and many parts of Art and Nature...follow[ing] herein the example of old and new Plantations, wherein noble spirits contented not themselves with Trees, but by the attendance of Aviaries, Fish Ponds, and all variety of Animals, they made their gardens the Epitome of the earth, and some resemblance of the secular shows of old." 

Browne proceeds to trace the “X” or “net-work” (i.e. shaped like a net) pattern in the world around him, noting architectural styles, manners of sitting cross-legged, reticulated windows, the “pyramidal” cuts on precious gems, staggered battle lines, and astral constellations. His account of terrestrial and submarine plant life finds the quincunx in pineapples, seed pods, leaf structures, and various flowers. He finds it in the animal world, marking the scales of rattlesnakes and fish, the bee’s honeycomb, and even human skin. He points out that the motion of fins, wings, and human limbs depend on a back-and-forth, X-shaped movement. He even likens the elliptical shape of sound and light waves to the “decussated” line of the quincunx. At the end of his treatise, Browne applies the quincuncial  form to  more abstract ideas, including “intellectual reception” (“intellectual … lines be not thus rightly disposed, but magnified, diminished, distorted, and ill placed … whereby they [people] have irregular apprehensions of things”) and mystical philosophy. The structure of a garden, as Browne so creatively implies, can indeed reflect the organizational principles of nature itself, and become an “Epitome  of the world.”

Browne 1625 Almanac with Contemporary Annotations

notes for March (sig.A7r)

Browne, Daniel, fl. 1614-1631.

Browne, 1625 : A new almanacke and prognostication for the yeere of our Lord God 1625 : being the first from the bissextile : with briefe tables of the foure termes, and their returnes / composed and properly referred to the longitude and latitude of the pole artick of the famous Citty of London, and may serue generally for the most part of Greate-Britaine ; by Daniel Browne, vvell-vviller to the mathemat.

[London] : Printed for the Company of Stationers, [1625].

[48] p. : ill. ; 15 cm. STC (2nd ed.) 421.10 Renaissance Center copy is in later (19th-century?) dark blue straight-grain morocco (lacks leaves A2, A6, B3, and ²A6-8); extensive ms. notes in the blank spaces for each month. Surviving Copies: Seven (MCRS, BL, Lambeth Palace, Bodleian, Folger, Newberry, American Antiquarian Society)

In early modern England almanacs served as helpful guides for farmers and merchants, containing information on important dates of the year, market times, lunar/tidal cycles, and the astrological configuration of the human body. The early modern almanac was often published with a “prognostication,” usually marked by a new title page, as can be seen in the text of Browne’s almanac, which contains a list of major historical events, astrological predictions based on season and region, a husbandry guide, and chart for computing interest. The pragmatic information found in almanacs kept them in high demand during the early modern period, and at 2d a piece most people could readily afford these cheap books. Wealthier book buyers often purchased several different almanacs (over a dozen writers produced almanacs in 1625 alone) and bound them together in one volume, creating an personalized compendium of annual information. While their bindings increased the life-expectancy of such collections, since the relevancy of almanacs expired once their designated years had passed, most copies eventually found their way to the rubbish heap.

February calendar (sig.A5v)

Those almanacs surviving today typically contain clues as to how they were used. Almanacs have always been a site for “life-writing,” especially brief and inherently ephemeral notes about the intricacies of everyday life. The calendrical sections of almanacs often contained large blank spaces (or were even interleaved with blank paper) for personal annotations, usually brief and rather mundane in nature. The anonymous owner of the Center’s 1625 almanac has written in his own notes in the blank spaces complementing the book’s calendars. For the most part, the notes make reference to the owner’s travels (probably for business) in Cheshire, England, the typical entry reading something like “to chester” or “to Darby to speak with Thos pulford.” There are notes referring to money paid or received (Sept. 9: to moreton. Rec 30 li of mr wrington”), dinner engagements (Jan. 19: “to Choreley dinner with my mr and mris”), sermons attended (Oct. 23: “at warrington mr weytorne preached”), and local deaths (April 22: “mr hollinshed our parson abijt [died] about 8t in the morning”). Although usually traveling alone, at certain points the almanac-owner travels “with my lady.” We can follow him to “knottsford faire” on June 7 and the “Goosetree exercyse” on February 16. All entries appear in the same pragmatic and business-like style, even those for June 16-17, when the writer’s mother died (“my ould mris obijt about 12”; “my ould mris sepult [buried] at night: at knotsford”).

January notes (sig.A5r)

November notes (sig. B7r)

December notes (sig.B8r)

Here is a transcription of the almanac's manuscript notes:

• MS notes (sig. A5r; “January”): [10] “to Socklich: & to crickitt ther alnight”; [11] “to Shockletch:”; [12] “Re: of Sr Ric Egerton intrest standing x li”; [13] “to Chester: & to Swanlow: cum mr & mrs:”; [14] “to Alderley y neator [sic? does he mean “Alderley the Nether”?]; [19] “to Choreley dinner with my mr & mrs”; [20] “at knottsford Tho: Whitt: & Adair Cragg:”; [24] “at peevor [I think this is referring to the house of a man surnamed “Peevor” rather than a place name, there seem to be a fair amount of “Peevors” in Cheshire] with Sr Rau” [or “Ran,” the two-minim character has a tiddle over it; two manicules after this name]
• MS notes (sig. A7r; “March”): [3] “to Darby to speak with. Thos pulford”; [4] “to Alderley per vtkinton”; [11] “Gandie ye drover sepult.”; [12] “at Congleton with mr Ouldfeeld ye maior”; [16] “at Goosetree exercyse”; [17] “at Knottsford exercyse”; [26] “with mrs Margaret to chester per tabley & vtkinton”; [29] “to vtkinton:”; [30] “to Alderley per holfed”
• MS notes (sig. A8r; April): [2] “to congleton:”; [3] “to prestbury christen: et millhouse diner”; [4] to manc [with tiddle over the “c”; I believe this is “Manchester”]; [22] “mr hollinshed our parson abijt about 8t in the morning”; [23] att prestbury: 222: mr hollinshed sepulter”; [25] “the Saboth day mr westrem [?] [……]”; [26: indecipherable]; [28] “mr Shipton: per mr wood vicar de Sandvich [sic] / to chester”
• MS notes (sig. B1r; May): [8] “to chester cum Ric. deanam: [?]”; [9] “to Rixhom [Wrexham]:”; [11] “the great show for election of knight per shaw [?]; [14] “to chester”; [17] to Alderley: Tho: hollinshed obijt”; [22] “paid the 22d xd to Tho: deanem 2 leges being ixs pd.”; [26] “with the Jury to veiwe the meerts [?] at edge: [?]”; [28] “at Congleton with mr menri & mr Swettenam”; [31] “at Knottsford faire”
• MS notes (sig. B2r; June): [7] “at knottsford faire:”; [11] “at macc. [Macclesfield] faire my lady came to Alderley”; [14] “with my lady towardes vtkinton: knot: hens [?]”; [16] “my ould mris obijt about 12”; [17] “my ould mris sepult at night: at knotsford”; [20] “goodes prinsde [?]:”; [22] “to Chester per weevor:”
• MS notes (sig. B4r; August): [2] “at Radbruck & withington”; [7] “Tom: wilinthon [?] bapt:”; [11] “to Chester:”; [13] “to Alderley:”; [18] to Keridge for ix loades sclate [?]”; [20] “to Congleton & mr Swettenham to Sendford”; [25] “to chounber in the frees & to vttkinton:”; [26] “to Barton ther alnight”; [27] “to melyns [?] ffens Shockleach & Chester”; [29] “to Stanney to Barrowe & back to chester”
• MS notes (sig. B5r; September): [1] “to Alderley: John Ridgway with mee”; [4] “mr: Jne – lendes – hic.”; [6] “the rent”; [9] “to moreton. Rec[eived] 30 li of mr wrington”; [17] “at peevor et wyth: [withington]”; [24] “to chester with my mr.”; [27] “Justic chamblen obijt at Ludlowe”
• MS notes (sig. B6r; October): [6] “to Alderley from chester:”; [8] “at wyth:”; [14] “with mr Swettenham & coyth:”; [17] “to chester with my mr”; [20] “to Bewsie”; [23] “at warrington mr weytorne preached”; [24] “to Bould”; [25] “to Bewsie”; [26] “to Areley”; [28] “to chester.”; [31] “to Alderley: mr: R: to Tabley”
• MS notes (sig. B7r; November): [3] “at Somfordes at Congleton & wything:”; [15] “at wyth:”; [28] “at cheadle with mris kelsall”; [29] “at wyth:”
• MS notes (sig. B8r; December): [2] “at wyth:”; [3] “to chester with mr Shipton”; [10] “to Aldeley [sic] per wyth:”; [12] “at wyth:”; [15] “at wyth:”; [17] “at wyth:”; [18] “ego nupta: mr Baskervyle obijt in the […]ff”; [20] “to Alderley. John Screer his bastard”; [21] “to wyth:”; [22] “to Alderley & buck:”; [23] “to Alderly Ran: moltershedes business”; [24] “to Congleton & to wyth:”; [28] “to Alderly”; [29] “to wyth:”; [30] “to Ridley”; [31] “to chester:”

Here is the digitized version of the majority of this book:

Browne

1658 English Almanac with Manuscript Recipes

George Wharton’s Calendarium Ecclesiasticum: or, A New Almanack after the Old Fashion (1658) is in many ways a typical seventeenth-century almanac, containing conventional information on meteorological phenomena, tidal activity, market dates, English history, and law terms. But there are many features of Wharton’s book, published from 1657-1660, which set it apart from other printed almanacs. Wharton omits the woodcut of the “zodiac man,” a feature of virtually every almanac published in England in the early modern period, instead incorporating a humoural interpretation of the human body into the calendars themselves. There are also large sections on religious festivals (“a summary account of the Festivals and Fasts, as well Jewish as Christian, with the original end of their institution”) and seventeenth-century English historical events (“Gesta Britannorum, or a Brief Chronologie...from the year 1600...untill the present 1658”).

Wharton himself was well known earlier in the century for his politically charged and Royalist-leaning prognostications and almanacs. He used the pages of his works to engage in fierce verbal exchanges with Parliamentary almanac writers such as William Lilly, especially concerning astrological predictions of battles during the Civil War. Wharton found himself in a lot of trouble with the authorities as a result of his politicized almanacs, especially after the execution of King Charles I in 1649. After brief periods of imprisonment in the late 1640s and early 1650s, Wharton finally agreed to omit political prognostications from his almanacs, although his “Gesta Britannorum” delivers a largely partisan view on seventeenth-century English history. He continued to publish almanacs into the Restoration, switching to the title Calendarium Carolinum after 1660.

Although Wharton’s almanac is an interesting example of the genre and a very rare book (the ESTC lists eight other copies), our copy is much more interesting for its unique manuscript content. It is now widely known that early modern book buyers could purchase almanacs either as printed or interleaved with “blanks,” i.e. blank pages of paper. Many almanac owners filled these blanks with writing, typically that associated with the activities of daily life. Therefore we see annotated almanacs filled with notes of local travel, household accounts, and even medicinal or culinary recipes.

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A former owner of the Wharton almanac purchased the book interleaved with four blanks, in addition to an additional nine leaves at the end of the printed text. Written on these blanks in a large, italic hand (probably belonging to a woman) are dozens of recipes for a range of medicines, drinks, and food items. As is the case with many MS receipt books of this period, this MS compendia lists a recipe for ink first, underscoring the importance of writing technologies in producing the book’s handwritten notes. The remaining notes list recipes for a variety of concoctions, including medicines for pregnant women and equine illness, a “diett drink for scurvy,” and “Metheglean,” a “spiced or medicated variety of mead, esp. popular in Wales” (OED metheglin). Most of the recipes provide instructions for cooking a variety of food items, particularly cakes, creams, and “jumballs,” “a kind of fine sweet cake or biscuit” (OED jumbal). Here is a transcribed recipe for “shropsheer cake”:

Take a ^l [pound] of sugar: halfe an ounce of

sinnomen: 2 nutmegs a letle cloves &

mace: finly beaten: then break in 2

pounds & a halfe of butter: & 4 or 5

eggs: into your sugar & spice: & mixe

them with a gallon of flower: so mould

it together: as you doe, for past [paste?]: mak

it into letle round bals: waighing 3

ounces a pece so pating it into thin

cakes bake them

Not all of the recipes sound as appetizing as this one. While modern eaters may be able to stomach early modern recipes for pickled mushrooms and cucumbers, others containing ingredients such as “the spawn of toads” gathered “at the later end of February” and a recipe for preserving a side of venison for an entire year stretch even the most adventurous of modern palates.

Besides being an almanac and recipe collection, the book is also a wonderful example of early modern women’s writing. Further research into the almanac could reveal what (if any) recipes the annotator copied out of printed books. In a few cases, the writer identifies a particular individual with whom a recipe originated, suggesting the existence of a socialized textual network of local information exchange. In studying the social practices and quotidian uses underpinning an annotated almanac such as this, we can take a glimpse into the forgotten histories of average people in seventeenth-century England.

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