How to read the Paston Letters #2

Meeting Margaret

Bodleian MS Douce 208, f.1r

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Jane Austen’s truth of 1813 would have been instantly recognisable to Agnes Paston in 1440.

Agnes’s son John wasn’t yet in possession of his fortune, since his father William was still alive. But William had delayed his own search for a wife while he turned himself from a peasant’s son into a successful lawyer and then a landed gentleman. And that meant there was no time to lose in arranging the marriage of his son and heir. By 1440 William was already sixty-one. John – though he was only eighteen – would need to grow up fast.

So the second letter I’ve picked is the one in which we first meet the young woman whom Agnes and William chose to be John’s bride.

But before I introduce her, two matters arising from the first letter I posted.

1. I’m so delighted by how many of you want to read along with me and the Pastons. Welcome, and huge thanks, to you and to anyone who’d like to join us in future.

2. I belatedly realised that I could have shown you the lost letter thorn – þ – being used in the manuscript I posted a couple of weeks ago to illustrate the story of Lucia Visconti’s life. So here it is:

   

   BL Harley MS 565, f. 68r

   Picked out at top right, you can see the word ‘the’, spelt with a ‘þ’ and then a superscript ‘e’. There it is, the ‘ye’ of ‘Ye Olde’, appearing in the wild in fifteenth-century handwriting. (The ‘þ’ plus superscript ‘e’ serve here as an abbreviation, neatly contrasted with ‘The’, spelt out with a ‘T’ and an ‘h’, five words earlier in the same line.)

   And in the middle of the paragraph is a phrase – ‘þis yere’ (‘this year’) – that demonstrates the clear visual difference between the elongated ‘þ’ and the curly-tailed ‘y’, even if the two became conflated into one in movable type once printing began to spread.

   Both ‘þe’ and ‘þis yere’ appear several times in the paragraph. Take a look, and let me know in the comments if you have any questions about those or any other words in this particular manuscript.

And, with that out of the way, on to the new letter.¹

Agnes’s letter: BL Add. MS 43488, f. 4

As usual, I’ll give you the full text first.

On the outside, the address:

To my worshepefull housbond W Paston be þis lettere takyn

And then the letter itself:

Dere housbond I recomaunde me to yow &c. Blyssyd be God I sende yow gode tydynggys of þe comyng and þe brynggyn hoom of þe gentylwomman þat ye wetyn of fro Redham þis same nyght acordyng to poyntmen þat ye made þer for yowre self. And as for þe furste aqweyntaunce be twhen John Paston and þe seyde gentilwomman she made hym gentil chere in gyntyl wyse and seyde he was verrayly yowre son. And so I hope þer shal nede no gret trete be twyxe hem. þe parson of Stocton toold me yif ye wolde byin here a goune here moder wolde yeue ther to a godely furre. þe goune nedyth for to be had and of coloure it wolde be a godely blew or ellys a bryghte sanggueyn. I prey yow do byen for me ij pypys of gold. Yowre stewes do weel. The holy trinite have yow in gouernaunce. Wretyn at Paston in hast þe Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibus for defaute of a good secretarye &c.

Yowres Agnes Paston

Let’s start at the end, with the date. ‘Deus qui errantibus’ is the opening phrase of the prayer for the third Sunday after Easter – and we can work out the date of that Sunday, and of the Wednesday that followed it, if we know the year in which the letter was written and therefore when Easter itself fell.

This letter alone can’t tell us – but I do have hints to offer. Agnes was writing to William in the spring, about the girl they’re hoping John will marry. We know that John was married to this girl by November 1440. It’s a good bet that the letter was written just a few months earlier.

And if the year was 1440, we can use our trusty Handbook of Dates for Students of English History to find the exact day.

First we need the ‘Chronological Table of Easter Days’, which tells us that Easter Sunday in 1440 was 27 March:

And then we can turn to the calendar for all the years when Easter fell on that day:

And that tells us that the Wednesday after the third Sunday after Easter in 1440 was 20 April. As it happens – and I’m working it out in real time, having stopped myself looking at the date in the printed edition – that’s exactly 585 years ago: exactly 585 years before the day on which I’m writing this post.

While I deal with my historical shivers – I hadn’t seen that coming! – let’s look at the formalities. Agnes is polite – there’s that key adjective ‘worshipful’ again – but direct, businesslike, and in no mood to waste time on unnecessary verbiage: ‘Dear husband, I recommend me to you, etc’. She’s writing ‘in haste’, she says; but she was also an heiress from a landed family addressing a husband who had made his own money – a man who, as Alan Clark might have said, bought all his own furniture. She knew that she’d brought him status along with her family’s estates, and she saw no need to defer to him as her superior.

The framework of their faith is apparent not only in the dating of the letter but also in its construction: ‘Blessed be God’, Agnes begins, and ends ‘The Holy Trinity have you in governance’. But its contents – despite the brief appearance of the parson of Stockton, a parish in south-eastern Norfolk – are intensely practical.

Before I give you the text in modernised form, some vocabulary. As last time, to ‘wit’ or to ‘wet’ (appearing here as ‘wetyn’) means ‘to know’. ‘Pipes of gold’ means gold wire to be used as ornament for a woman’s hair or clothes. And ‘stews’, in this context, are fishponds.

Ready?

To my worshipful husband W. Paston be this letter taken

Dear husband, I recommend me to you, etc. Blessed be God, I send you good tidings of the coming and the bringing home of the gentlewoman that you wit of from Reedham this same night, according to appointment that you made therefor yourself. And as for the first acquaintance between John Paston and the said gentlewoman, she made him gentle cheer in gentle wise and said he was verily your son. And so I hope there shall need no great treaty betwixt them. The parson of Stockton told me if you would buy her a gown, her mother would give thereto a goodly fur. The gown needs for to be had, and of colour it would be a goodly blue or else a bright sanguine. I pray you do buy for me 2 pipes of gold. Your stews do well. The Holy Trinity have you in governance. Written at Paston in haste, the Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibus, for default of a good secretary, etc.

Yours, Agnes Paston

(It’s very unlikely that Agnes could write – writing was a technical skill that few women learned – and the hand seems to be that of one of her husband’s clerks, but perhaps not one she rated, given the last sentence?)

Apart from the report of the fishponds and Agnes’s shopping needs – presumably William was in one of the metropolises of Norwich, then England’s second city, or London – the main business of the letter is the first meeting between John and his future bride, a young woman who had been chosen for him by negotiation between his parents and hers.

We don’t learn her name, but there are clues. She has been brought from Reedham, a Norfolk manor belonging to the Berney family, and the parson of Stockton is involved in the discussions. The woman who connected those two places was a Berney, Margery, now married to a gentleman named Ralph Garneys who owned the manor of Stockton. But Margery had been married before, to another Norfolk gentleman named John Mautby; and before his death she had given him a daughter, who was now the heiress to his estates: Margaret Mautby.

Eighteen-year-old Margaret’s value as a bride lies in the repeated (and variously spelled) word ‘gentle’. She is a ‘gentlewoman’, that is, a member of the landed classes, which means she has both wealth and status. She can demonstrate the gentility of her birth, and displays gentility of behaviour. And she, like Agnes before her, is an heiress, who will bring her own valuable Mautby lands to add to the Paston estates.

But the most advantageous marriage was not worth having if the couple didn’t get along. Husband and wife would need to work as a team in the best interests of the family’s future – and those best interests would also require the bearing of children. The hope was for a kind of practical compatibility from which love might grow; and in this case, the omens looked good. As Agnes says, 'I hope there shall need no great treaty betwixt them’.

The gown Agnes mentions must be Margaret’s wedding dress, the cost to be shared between the two families: blue, she says, or bright sanguine – blood-red – with a fine fur trim or lining.

In your mind’s eye, you can put the young bride in either colour, since we don’t know which one Margaret, or her prospective in-laws, ended up choosing. But we do know the marriage took place within a few months of this first meeting.

And the next time we visit the Pastons, we’ll hear the voice of Margaret herself.

1. Gairdner, no. 34; Davis, no. 13.