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| It's that time again! It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday! |
1) The first known mention of the tulip in Europe is found
in a 1554 letter of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, Austrian ambassador to the court
of Suleyman the Magnificent. The flower
arrived from Constantinople under the name “tullpa,” being a Turkish word for a type of turban which it was reputed to
resemble. Some contemporary reports
claim that it first arrived in Constantinople from Cappadocia.
2) Conrad Gesner saw his
first tulip in the beginning of April 1559, at Augsburg, in the garden of John
Henry Herwart. Being the first to classify
the tulip in question, it is called Tulipa Gesneriana.
3) Richard Hakluyt reports the arrival of the tulip in
England during the late 16th century. John Gerard already cites a dozen variations
of “Tvlipa or the Dalmatian cap,… a strang and forraine flower,… with which all
studious and Painefull Herbarists desire to be better acquainted” in his The
Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597).
4) In the year 1588, duke Julius of Brunswick published an
order forbidding his vassals to ride in carriages. This was presumably done in order to prevent the
loss of vital horsemanship skills among the class from which the officers of
his military were chosen.
“…We also will and command our before-mentioned vassals and
servants to take notice, that when we order them to assemble, either all
together, or in part, in times of turbulence, or to receive their fiefs, or
when on other occasions they visit our court, they shall not travel or appear
in coaches, but on their riding horses, &c."
5) It was a practice,
until the 18th century, for English ambassadors to leave scocheons [escutcheons]
at the houses where they slept.
6) When King Henry VIII changed his lodgings, an officer was
appointed to remove the locks from the doors of the king’s privy chambers and
have them re-installed at the new location.
7) In Love’s
Labour Lost Shakespeare Boyard quips “the dancing horse will tell you”. This is a reference to Morocco, the famous
horse of mister Bankes. The horse’s act
is described at length in the following anonymous chronicle of the time:
'September, 1591- This yeare and against the assise tyme on
Master Banckes, a Staffordshire gentile, brought into this towne of Salop a white
horsse whiche wolld doe woonderfull and strange thinges, as thease,—wold in a
company or prese tell howe many peeces of money by hys foote were in a mans purce;
also, yf the partie his master wolld name any man beinge hyd never so secret in
the company, wold fatche hym owt with his mowthe, either naming hym the veriest
knave in the company, or what cullerid coate he hadd ; he pronowncid further to
his horse and said, Sirha, there be two baylyves in the towne, the one of them
bid mee welcom unto this towne and usid me in frindly maner; I wold have the[e]
goe to hym and gyve hym thanckes for mee ; and he wold goe truly to the right
baylyf that did so use hys sayd master as he did in the sight of a number of
people, unto Master Baylyffe Sherar, and bowyd unto hym in making curchey withe
hys foote in sutche maner as he coullde, withe suche strange feates for sutche
a beast to doe, that many people judgid that it were impossible to be don
except he had a famyliar or don by the arte of magicke.' Anonymous Chronicle of Shrewsbury.
The horse was written about for many years after.
8) In 1516, Richard
Byrchett, of Pesemershe, deceased, bequeathed his wife, “lyberte at ye fyer in
the house;… so long she ys wedo." An
irrevocable right to a seat beside the fire at the house they had occupied.
9) Recounting his
tour of England, around 1558, Master Estienne Perlin informs his readers that: “As to their manner of living, they are rather
unpolite, for they belch at table without reserve or shame, even in the
presence of persons of the greatest dignity.”
10) Most ships from
ports north of France put in at Gravesend just up from the mouth of the Thames.
Upon each high tide passenger barges traveled the 20 miles to London for a fare, in 1588, of 2
pence. More comfortable tiltboats[link]
were available for 6 pence.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador. April 3, 2019. “…the Queen of England, with the permission of her physicians, has been able to come out of her private chamber, she has permitted me… to see her…”
- Lady Southwell on the Final Days of Queen Elizabeth I. March 24, 2019. “her majesty told [Lady Scrope] (commanding her to conceal the same ) that she saw, one night, in her bed, her body exceeding lean, and fearful in a light of fire.”
- Shakespeare’s Barnacles. March 3, 2016. “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
- Hedingham Castle 1485-1562 with Virtual Tour Link. January 29, 2019. “Mr. Sheffeld told me that afore the old Erle of Oxford tyme, that cam yn with King Henry the vii., the Castelle of Hengham was yn much ruine,…”
- The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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