Readers of this journal will be familiar with at least some of Carole Rawcliffe’s many publications on late medieval medicine. From her early (and ongoing) examination of the hospitals and medical practices and practitioners of medieval England, to her later studies on healing gardens, leprosy and lepers, and public and communal health, Rawcliffe’s work has informed and inspired generations of medical historians. What historians of medicine may not realise is that Rawcliffe is also a well-respected mentor and literata on many other medieval history topics. This collection of nine essays written in Rawcliffe’s honour highlights and exemplifies the extent of her influence across a broad spectrum of historical subjects.
The volume begins with a touching set of tributes that span the full range of Rawcliffe’s professional life, from her early days as a graduate student researching English aristocracy, through her time working at the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and later on the History of Parliament project, to her long and rewarding career at the University of East Anglia. The tributes do not only highlight her many academic and employment achievements, though: generously sprinkled throughout are humorous references to Rawcliffe’s dogs, her sense of fashion, and her attention to detail.
Rawcliffe hails from Yorkshire, but several of the volume’s essays give homage to her long-term residence in East Anglia and her dedicated academic study of medieval Norwich. Brian Ayers unpacks and re-interprets older historical and archaeological studies of Coslany, a long neglected – and largely disparaged – north-western district of later medieval Norwich. Although Coslany remained detached from Norwich’s ‘cohesive and unified urban centre’ (p. 7) well into the Middle Ages, Ayers argues that the district, and the Anglo-Scandinavian manor that likely controlled much of it, played a significant role in the city’s complex process of urban growth. Carole Hill offers keen insight into the way that Norwich’s wealthy merchants interpreted and displayed their piety in the long fifteenth century, especially upon their deaths. The monumental brasses and testamentary bequests of the Baxters and the Purdans, for example, along with material donations made by other residents ‘provide a chink through which to view the commercial, political and spiritual life’ of the city’s deeply interconnected secular and spiritual communities (p. 140). They also demonstrate a trend towards less ostentatious commemorative gifts in an era during which death was always close at hand and eremitic influence was on the rise. John Alban’s close examination of fourteenth-century muster rolls from East Anglia reveals the extent, structure, and evolution of coastal defences against perceived seaborne threats from the Continent. Alban uses the muster rolls and other documentary evidence to assess the extent to which weapons requirements set down by the 1285 Statute of Winchester, which assigned each man’s obligation against a sliding scale of property ownership, and the expected organisation of defensive levies matched what actually transpired on the ground. He pays special attention to the multiple roles and functions of lesser officials responsible for mustering levies from their local communities; as community insiders, these men were selected by their peers and often had to tread a fine line between official orders and expectations and realities on the ground. Jean Agnew follows the fortunes and follies of William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth (1654–1732). Unlike his more famous ancestors of the fifteenth century, Yarmouth left behind few personal papers by which historians can trace his life; even more unlike his ancestors, he oversaw the gentry family’s financial demise rather than its carefully crafted rise. Agnew cleverly draws from official archives and Yarmouth’s posthumous library sale catalogue to paint an image of a likeable man whose great intellect, personal charm, and industriousness were overshadowed by his father’s debts and his own financial and political naivety.
Two essays turn their attention to London. Nicholas Vincent recounts Isabella of Gloucester’s role in the lead-up to the Magna Carta. Using witness signatures on charters drawn up for King John’s one-time wife, Vincent demonstrates that Isabella spent time in the company of the kingdom’s leading rebel barons during the civil war of 1215. He also argues that the pattern of witnessing sheds new light on relationships among and between these rebels. Caroline Barron takes us on an enjoyable topographical tour of fourteenth-century London in search of the city’s first public clock. Marking a shift from ecclesiastical to merchant time, mechanical public clocks are well attested in Europe from the previous century and are known in England from the 1320s. Barron challenges the assumption that London’s earliest public clock was erected in Westminster in the 1360s. Using the city’s letter books and civic records, she argues convincingly that it was established earlier and located more centrally, in the tower of the small parish church of St. Pancras in the 1350s.
The three remaining essays return us to the familiar field of medical history. Hannes Kleineke recounts the long career of Lettice Waddesworth-Oo to illustrate that women played an often-significant role in England’s late medieval apothecary trade, unlike other medical professions. The trade could be equally both lucrative and financially precarious, however. Even, or perhaps especially, those apothecaries like Waddesworth-Oo who provided assistance to royal families often had to resort to lawsuits for payment of goods and services. Christopher Bonfield contends that the proliferation of printed vernacular health regimens meant that late medieval English men and women of all social stations had access to, and relied upon, dietary health advice. Peregrine Horden rounds out the volume with an interesting exposé of the apparently invented tradition of Ottoman hospital music therapy. Despite current claims that music formed an integral part of Ottoman medical healing practices, Horden argues that a few contemporary descriptions of music being played in late medieval and early modern hospitals should not be construed as a ‘whole “tradition” ’ (p.179), especially since many of those same accounts found the orchestras to be highly unusual. Instead, the attribution of tradition speaks to a misreading, wilful or otherwise, of sources that simply theorised about the healing properties of music.
This somewhat uneven volume concludes with two long lists: one of Carole Rawcliffe’s many publications and another of people and organisations offering their congratulations to her long and prodigious career. We can only hope that retirement brings not an end to Rawcliffe’s contributions, but just a new phase.
