A manuscript written by Elizabeth I has come to light in Lambeth Palace Library - the first such discovery in more than a century. [Image credit: Lambeth Palace Library]
Posted on 12/03/2019 7:15:44 AM PST by SunkenCiv
"The manuscript features a very specific kind of paper stock, which gained special prominence among the Elizabethan secretariat in the 1590s. There was, however, only one translator at the Tudor court to whom a translation of Tacitus was ascribed by a contemporary and who was using the same paper in her translations and private correspondence: the queen herself.
"The corrections made to the translation are a match for Elizabeth's late hand, which was, to put it mildly, idiosyncratic. The higher you are in the social hierarchy of Tudor England, the messier you can let your handwriting become. For the queen, comprehension is somebody else's problem.
"The translation itself has been copied out in an elegant scribal hand, which is itself a match for one of Elizabeth's secretaries, but the author's changes and additions are in an extremely distinctive, disjointed hand - Elizabeth's. Her late handwriting is usefully messy - there really is nothing like it - and the idiosyncratic flourishes serve as diagnostic tools."
An article published today in the Review of English Studies ('Elizabeth I's Translation of Tacitus') outlines other clues Dr Philo used to determine that the late-16th Century translation came from the queen's hand. For instance, the three watermarks featured in this manuscript (a rampant lion and the initials 'G.B.' with a crossbow countermark) are also found in the paper Elizabeth I used for her other translations and personal correspondence. So too the scribal handwriting present in the manuscript is a match for a professional copyist working in the Elizabethan secretariat in the mid-1590s.
The translation focuses on the first book of the Annales, which sees the death of Augustus and the rise of the emperor Tiberius, tracing the steady centralization of governmental powers in a single individual.
(Excerpt) Read more at uea.ac.uk ...
A manuscript written by Elizabeth I has come to light in Lambeth Palace Library - the first such discovery in more than a century. [Image credit: Lambeth Palace Library]
I am a suspicious soul....
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/57192
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Title-page.jpg
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/11-r-with-correction.jpg
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Tacitus-translation.jpg
That’s messy? I don’t think they know what that word means.
My thoughts exactly!!
I am not sure why this is surprising. Elizabeth the 1st was very well educated. Her tutoring was the finest available. Her education was in many ways superior to the other rulers of her times.
I agree. Having read a goodly share of contemporary documents, especially in parish registers, I find the handwriting rather disciplined. The only thing that draws my notice is that the pages have lined margins and the scribe overran them at times - for whatever reason.
She spoke and was literate in a number of languages by the time she was in her teens. In Britain there was a great value placed on education during the Renaissance, and the landed gentry got the best available. Henry VIII had been well educated, and expected his children to be well educated.
“The corrections made to the translation are a match for Elizabeth’s late hand, which was, to put it mildly, idiosyncratic....”
I think the image in the thread is the stuff written by the scribe - yes, very nice!
Hmm. So the Queen was like Travon’s friend. Could write cursive, but couldn’t read it!
I wholeheartedly agree. It's no more messy than any other handwritten draft of pretty much anything, not even considering the length of the work.
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interesting that she translated Tacitus.
However, it has long been known she did a translation of Boethius, so she must have been a scholar.
Her translation of Boethius is mentioned in the article, I'm not sure I put it into the excerpt.
Elizabeth had an exceptional intellect and had always loved learning for its own sake. From the age of five, she had been taught a range of languages, including Latin and Greek, and she loved to make translations of classical authors. It was clearly an abiding passion because the translation shown here was undertaken by the queen shortly after her sixtieth birthday. There is no evidence that it was intended for circulation, but rather for the pleasure that it gave her. She worked on it while staying at Windsor Castle in the autumn of 1593 and began writing it all in her own hand. After a few pages, however, she started dictating the prose sections to her secretary, Thomas Windebank, while continuing to write the verse herself. Boethius's work had been written from prison during the closing years of the Roman Empire. It had already been 'Englished' by authors such as King Alfred, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Caxton. The following verse, in Elizabeth's hand, uses the example of Orpheus to show that the light of truth may be lost by returning to darkness.
The [UK] National Archives | October and November 1593 (SP 12/289 f.48) | Elizabeth's translation of The Consolation of Philosophy
Well, my name is Elizabeth and my handwriting is getting seriously messy in my older years, so I’m glad to find out that I am in such illustrious company. But, I see nothing awry about the page pictured here. Looks like a professional calligrapher wrote it.
Now, I see the corrected page. That looks like something my grandmother would have corrected.
That one in post 16 is from her Boethius.
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