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Add MS 43491
- Record Id:
- 040-002056405
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002056401
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001102.0x00001e
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 43491
- Title:
- Paston Letters and Papers
- Scope & Content:
-
The 4th of four volumes of letters and papers of the Paston family.
(Numbers in brackets refer to numbering in Davis, Paston Letters (Early English Text Society, 2004), from which the dates are also drawn).
f. 1: Letter from John Payn, servant to Sir John Fastolf, to John Paston I, 1465 (Davis, 692);
f. 2: Letter from James Gresham, of Holt, county Norfolk to John Paston I, 28 October, 1455 (Davis, 534);
f. 3: Memorandum of 'erandys (errands) to London of Agnes Paston, wife of William Paston I, 28 January, 1458 (Davis, 28);
f. 4: Letter from William Paston II to his brother, John Paston I, 28 January, 1460 (Davis, 88);
f. 4 Thomas Playter, alias Plaiter: Letters to J. Paston 1: 1461-1462.
f. 5: Letter from Sir Robert, 3rd Baron Hungerford, Lord Moleyns to William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester: 13 June, 1448;
f. 6: Letter from Christopher Hansson to John Paston I, 12 October, 1460 (Davis, 613);
f. 7: Letter from Robert Wenyngton of Dartmouth to Thomas Danyell, of Castle Rising, Squire for the King's Body,1449.
f. 8: Copy of a letter from Robert, 3rd Baron Hungerford and Sir Robert Whityngham to Queen Margaret of Anjou, 30 August, 1461 (Davis, 646a);
ff. 9, 14-16, 18-20, 25: Correspondence between Sir John Paston II, and his brother, John Paston III: 1462-1478 (Davis, 268, 248, 256, 263, 269, 270, 296);
ff. 10, 17, 23, 24: Correspondence between Margaret Paston, wife of John Paston and her son Sir John II: 1469-1479. (f. 10: October, 1468 (Davis, 245), f. 17: 8 January, 1472 (Davis 266);
f. 11: Letter from John Paston III to Margaret Paston, wife of John Paston, 8 July, 1468 (Davis, 330);
ff. 12, 13: Letter from William Ebsham to John Paston II, with accounts for books written, 1468-1469 (Davis, 751, 755);
ff. 14, 15, 16: Letters from John Paston II to John Paston III, ?20 February, 1470 (Davis, 248), 5 August, 1470 (Davis, 256), 15 September, 1471 (Davis, 263);
ff. 21, 22: Letters from John Pympe to John Paston II, 1477 (Davis, 774, 776);
f. 22: Verses by J. Pympe in a letter to Sir J. Paston II: 1477.
f. 23: Letter from John Paston II to Margaret Paston, 28 March, 1477 (Davis, 304);
f. 24: Draft letter from Margaret Paston to John Paston II, 27 May, 1478 (Davis, 228);
f. 26: Inventory of books from the library of John Paston II, dated before 1479 (Davis, 316);
f. 27: Verses in the handwriting of John Paston III.
The verso of each letter has the address and traces of the wax seal visible.
The letter on f. 9 was annotated by Francis Blomefield, Norfolk historian in 1752. The letter on f. 26 contains 18th-century notes by Thomas Martin of Palgrave.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002056401
040-002056405 - Is part of:
- Add MS 43488-43491 : Paston Letters and Papers
Add MS 43491 : Paston Letters and Papers - Hierarchy:
- 032-002056401[0004]/040-002056405
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 43488-43491
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A collection of letters and papers bound together, 27 folios
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_43491 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1440
- End Date:
- 1489
- Date Range:
- 1440-1489
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 440 x 340 mm; the dimensions of the letters and papers vary.
Folation: ff. 27 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end; two paper leaves have been mounted onto the third and fourth front endleaves, and contain a typed list of contents).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1949.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
William Paston (b. 1653/4, d. 1732) 2nd Earl of Yarmouth, by descent through the Paston family.
Peter le Neve (d. 1729), collector and antiquary, purchased by him from William Paston (see Gairdner, Paston Letters (1900) I, p. 4).
Rev. Francis Blomefield (d. 1752), historian of Norfolk, annotated by him (f. 9).
Thomas Martin (d. 1771), antiquary of Palgrave, acquired by him as executor of Peter le Neve and annotated by him (f. 26).
John Worth, chemist of Diss, sold by him in 1774 to John Fenn (see Gairdner, Paston Letters (1900) I, p. 6).
John Fenn (b. 1739, d. 1794), antiquary, rebound and published by him in the first two volumes of his five-volume Original Letters; he recorded that the manuscripts of Volumes I and II were presented by him to King George III at St James's Palace on 23 May 1787 and were in the Royal Library in 1789, though there is no further evidence for this (see the editorial in The Athenaeum, 29 March, 1890, p. 405, in Davis, Paston Letters, II (2004), p. xxix).
? Sir George Pretyman-Tomline, (b. 1750, d. 1827) Bishop of Lincoln and private secretary to William Pitt the younger (b. 1759, d.1806), prime minister, possibly acquired by him from Pitt (see Gairdner, Paston Letters (1900) I, pp. 10-11).
Colonel George Tomline (d. 1889), grandson of Sir George Pretyman-Tomline; discovered in his library at Orwell Park, Suffolk after his death (see The Athenaeum, 29 March, 1890, p. 405).
The Right Honourable Ernest George Pretyman (b. 1860, d. 1931), Secretary to the Admiralty, cousin of Colonel Tomline, by descent and advertised in his sale catalogue of 'One hundred and fifty-five Original letters known as the Paston letters', Sotheby's, London, 1 April 1931. The reserve of £15 000 was not reached and they were bought in at £6500.
Bought by the British Museum in 1933 for £3000 with the aid of contributions from the Friends of the National Libraries. Rearranged and rebound in four volumes (now Additionals 43488-43491) in 1947/8.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Original Letters, written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III..., ed. by John Fenn, 5 vols (London, Robinsons, 1787-1823), vols I and II (1787).
The Paston Letters, 1422-1509 A.D., ed. by James Gairdner, 4 vols (Westminster, 1900-1901); 6 vols (London and Exeter, 1904).
H.S. Bennett: The Pastons and their England: Studies in an Age of Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937).
Norman Davis, 'A Scribal Problem in the Paston Letters', English and Germanic Studies, 4 (1952), 31-64.
A. I. Doyle, 'The Work of a 15th-century English Scribe, William Evesham', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 39.2 (March, 1957), p. 298, pl. 1.
David Stoker, ''Innumerable letters of good consequence in history': the discovery and first publication of the Paston letters', The Library, 6th series 17 (1995), 107–55.
Colin Richmond, The Paston family in the fifteenth century, 3 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996-2001).
The Paston women: Selected letters: trans. by Diane Watt (Cambridge; D.S. Brewer, 2004).
Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Norman Davis, 3 vols, Early English Text Society, Supplementary Series, 20-22 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [an edition of the texts in this and other manuscripts, with notes and additional bibliography].
Alexander Bergs, Social networks and historical sociolinguistics: Studies in morphosyntactic variation in the Paston letters, 1421-1503 (Berlin : Mouton de Gruyter, 2005).
Joel T. Rosenthal, Margaret Paston: ?1422-1484 (Dereham, Norfolk: Larks Press, 2009).
Jukka Tyrkkö, 'The positioning of adverbial clauses in the Paston letters' in Meaning in the history of English: Words and Texts in Context, ed. by Andreas H. Jucker, Daniela Landert, Annina Seiler and Nicole Studer-Joho (Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2013), pp. 211-28.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)