#historian: margaret condon

[richmond-rex]

Henry VII also had a fondness for tennis, both as a player and a spectator. Payments for tennis balls and arrangements for ‘tenesplay’ are common particularly in the 1490s. A loss in 1494 to Sir Robert Curson in 1494 cost the king 27s; the opponent to whom he lost to in 1499 was perhaps of a lesser quality, as he received only 8s. New opponents often received generous rewards, such as the 40s given to ‘a spanyard the tenes pleyer’ in 1494, slightly less generous than the £4 given to the ‘new pleyer at tenes’ in 1496. That these men were not named or previously known to the king suggests he was not fussy about the social standing of his opponent, only the quality of his game. The last payment for tennis appears in 1499, suggesting that perhaps the king no longer remained fit enough to play after this time.

— Margaret Condon, Samantha Harper and James Ross, The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485-1521: An Analysis of the Books and a Study of Henry VII and his Life at Court.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

A Timeworn Scroll Reveals King Henry VII’s Interests in New World Colonization

By Ashley Cowie, 6 October 2018

Rolled up parchment with information of payment to William Weston from Henry VII. (Source: The National Archives, UK)

In AD 1499, England launched its very first English-led expedition to "Terra Nova” (New World) and now researchers studying a 16th century scroll have found King Henry VII awarded William Weston, one the explorers, with a handsome paycheck.

While the payment of 30 British pounds sterling could hardly be called a king’s ransom, at that time, this was a considerable sum of money; equivalent of a laborers salary for six years, said researchers in a their paper, which was published online on October 2 in the  journal Historical Research.

The information was discovered on a huge parchment dating back more than 500 years and ultraviolet light was required to reveal the hidden text said study co-researcher Evan Jones, a senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Bristol in a report in Live Science .

Early Transatlantic Rumors

In 2009, the University of Bristol published Jones paper titled The lost voyage: First English-led expedition to North America in which a “long lost letter” written by King Henry VII was addressed to Weston as he “was preparing for an expedition to the new found land.”

The king was excited and in support of Weston because in AD 1497 and 1498, the Venetian explorer John Cabot had successfully sailed the Atlantic having set off from the southern English port of Bristol. But it seems Weston was preparing a British-led expedition.

“The Cabot Project” is an international project aimed at researching the late 15th and early 16th centuries Transatlantic voyages from Bristol.

Margaret Condon of the University of Bristol, who is part of the Cabot Project, researched endless tax records gathering data about the oceanic adventurers traveling to and from North America.

These were “written on huge parchment rolls, created from the skin of more than 200 sheep” according to the Live Science article, and each segment on the roll measured “6.5 feet (2 meters) long.”

In the University of Bristol’s statement about the discoveries, Condon said that the rolls were "beasts to deal with, but also precious and irreplaceable documents.”

Handling them, she said, “sometimes feels like you're wrestling, very gently, with an obstreperous [boisterous] baby elephant!”

Returning to the main discovery, King Henry VII rewarded Weston in January 1498 after they met.

Researchers believe “it appears that Weston was likely one of the unnamed 'great seamen' from Bristol whom Italian diplomats wrote about during the winter of 1497 to 1498” while describing the Bristol explorers who joined Cabot on his two 1490’s expeditions.

Nobody is quite sure how Cabot's last 1498 expedition turned out but perhaps its ill fate inspired King Henry VII to send his expedition the following year, led by one of Cabot's deputies, the researchers speculated.

Further evidence gathered by members of the Cabot Project revealed that "Weston was a bit of a gambler, but perhaps you had to be, to risk your life on such a dangerous voyage into unknown seas.”

On another level of this fascinating story, the new study also confirmed two extraordinary claims made by Alwyn Ruddock, a deceased historian from the University of London who, having studied the early English voyages to the Americas for over 4 decades, claimed that Cabot had explored most of the North American continent’s east coast by AD 1500.

Ruddock never published her discoveries and in a bizarre act, upon her death in 2005, she ordered that all her notes were destroyed, and so they were.

These new findings support the two extraordinary claims made by Ruddock who spent over 40 years researching England's first voyages to North America, and although she never published any of her work, she did submit a book synopsis and this was shared with Jones.

Ruddock also claimed that a band of Italian friars had sailed with Cabot on his AD 1498 expedition who went on to establish “the first European Christian colony and church in North America” according to an article in Newsweek.

Offering reason as to why the king rewarded Weston, she implied that Weston moved northwards up the Labrador coast searching for the North West passage around the continent.

The authors of the latest study suggest it was for this specific reason that Weston was rewarded by Henry VII.

[edharrisdaily]

Luca Guadagnino, Margaret Atwood, Pedro Almodóvar, Ed Harris & More Sign Letter Of Solidarity For Polish LGBT+ Rights

A wide group of global entertainment figures have signed a letter supporting the Polish LGBT+ community in the face of growing controversy in the country.

On Tuesday, the government stepped in to support the Polish town of Tuchow, which recently lost financial support from the EU after it set up a ‘LGBT-free’ zone. The authorities said they were “supporting a municipality that has a pro-family agenda”; the decision has provoked angry responses around the world. On August 8, authorities detained 48 people at a reportedly peaceful pro-LGBT+ protest.

The responses now include an open letter signed by a cross-section of notable figures from film, literature and further afield, including the Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodóvar and Oscar-nominated Luca Guadagnino, the Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk, The Handmaid’s Tale writer Margaret Atwood, and Polish filmmakers Agnieszka Holland and Jan Komasa.

The letter, published on the website wyborcza.pl, states that homophobia in Poland is growing because of the incumbent socially conservative government, which it claims is using LGBT+ groups as a “scapegoat”. The letter is addressed to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and calls on the organization to step in and “defend core European values” of “equality, non-discrimination, respect for minorities” which it says are being “blatantly violated in Poland”.

You can read the full letter and see the signatories below.

Dear Dr. von der Leyen:

We, the undersigned, express our outrage at repressions directed against the LGBT+ community in Poland. We speak out in solidarity with activists and their allies, who are being detained, brutalized, and intimidated. We voice our grave concern about the future of democracy in Poland, a country with an admirable history of resistance to totalitarianism and struggle for freedom.

On Friday, 7 August 2020, 48 persons were arrested in Warsaw – in some cases quite brutally – and detained on the grounds that they had participated in a violent illegal gathering. In fact, they were engaged in a peaceful protest in solidarity with an LGBT+ activist named Margot, who had been arrested for damaging a homophobic campaigner’s van. Her group had also placed rainbow flags over statues, including a statue of Christ. These actions were neither “hooliganism” nor “provocations,” as Poland’s government-run media insist, but rather desperate acts of resistance against degrading homophobic hate speech. The van is one of many similar vehicles parading outrageous claims around the cities of Poland: equating homosexuality with pedophilia, and asserting that gays are the source of diseases and a threat to children. Efforts to stop this well-funded hate campaign by legal means had led to nothing.

The broader context is the persistent use of anti-LGBT+ rhetoric by Polish politicians and media, attacks against “LGBT ideology” in the recent presidential campaign, preceded by the emergence in many municipalities and districts of “zones free of LGBT ideology,” allegedly defending the safety of families and children, and last year’s violent attacks against Equality March in Białystok. Homophobic aggression in Poland is growing because it is condoned by the ruling party, which has chosen sexual minorities as a scapegoat with no regard for the safety and well-being of citizens. Margot is, in fact, a political prisoner, held captive for her refusal to accept indignity.

We call on the Polish government to stop targeting sexual minorities, to stop supporting organizations that spread homophobia and to hold accountable those who are responsible for unlawful and violent arrests of August 7, 2020.

We call on the European Commission to take immediate steps to defend core European values – equality, non-discrimination, respect for minorities – which are being blatantly violated in Poland. LGBT+ rights are human rights and must be defended as such.

Naja Marie Aidt, writer, Danish language Pedro Almodóvar, film director, Spain Jakuta Alikavazovic, writer, France Margaret Atwood, writer, Canada Paul Auster, writer, USA John Banville, writer, Ireland Sebastian Barry, writer, Ireland Judith Butler, philosopher, USA Sophie Calle, writer and artist, France John Maxwell Coetzee, writer, South Africa Isabel Coixet, director, Spain Stephen Daldry, director, UK Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, writer, France Lucas Dhont, director, Belgium Marion Döring, director of European Film Academy Cynthia Enloe, political scientist, USA Anne Enright, writer, Ireland Ildiko Enyedi, director, Hungary Richard Flanagan, writer, Australia Barbara Frey, theatre and opera director, Switzerland/Austria Timothy Garton Ash, historian, UK Agnieszka Graff, americanist, Poland Luca Guadagnino, director, Italy Miron Hackenbeck, dramaturg, Germany Ed Harris, actor, director USA Aleksander Hemon, writer, Bosnia/USA Agnieszka Holland, director, Poland Siri Hustvedt, writer, USA Isabelle Huppert, actress, France Aki Kaurismäki, director, Finland Padraic Kenney, historian, USA Jan Komasa, director, Poland Ivan Krastev, political scientist, Bulgaria Jan Kubik, political scientist, UK Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, choreographer, Belgium Yorgos Lanthimos, director, Greece Andrzej Leder, philosopher, Poland Jacek Leociak, historian, Poland Jonathan Littell, writer, France Mike Leigh, director, UK Deborah Levi, writer, UK Edouard Louis, writer, France Sergei Loznitsa, director, Germany/Ukraine Valeria Luiselli, writer, USA Dorota Masłowska, writer, Poland Hisham Matar, writer, USA Ulrich Matthes, actor, Germany Ian McEwan, writer, UK Lina Meruane, writer, Chile Teona Mitevska, director, North Macedonia Chantal Mouffe, philosopher, Belgium James Norton, actor, UK Claus Offe, sociologist, Germany Paweł Pawlikowski, director, Poland Richard Powers, writer, USA Axel Ranisch, filmmaker and opera director, Germany Keith Ridgway, writer, Ireland Philippe Sands, lawyer and writer, UK Volker Schlöndorff, director, Germany Marci Shore, historian, USA Stellan Skarsgaard, actor, Sweden Leila Slimani, writer, France Timothy Snyder, historian, USA Johanna ter Steege, actress, the Netherlands Dariusz Stola, historian, Poland Małgorzata Szczęśniak, stage designer, Poland Małgorzata Szumowska, director, Poland Colm Toibin, writer, Ireland Olga Tokarczuk, writer, Poland Alia Trabucco Zerán, writer, Chile Fien Troch, director, Belgium Jan Vandenhouwe, artistic director and opera dramaturg, Belgium Krzysztof Warlikowski, theater director, Poland/France Beau Willimon, playwright, screenwriter, USA Adam Zagajewski, poet, Poland Slavoj Žižek, philosopher, Slovenia

[jackdoakstx]

Regional book review: “Imagining a Great Republic”

Rowman & Littlefield

“Imagining a Great Republic” by Thomas E. Cronin

“Imagining a Great Republic” by Thomas E. Cronin

Fiction gives heart and soul to the bones of history.  Novelists, not historians, are the writers charged with evoking the human element.  In “Imagining a Great Republic,” Thomas E. Cronin —  a Colorado College professor and expert on American politics —  tells of the great novels, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to “Beloved,” that raised American readers’ consciousness or called us to action.

Political novelists are a moral compass. “The American political novel may be primarily written to entertain us,” Cronin writes. Still, “good writers want to be renouncers of lies, restorers of truths, and undaunted advocates of what communities, and the nation, ideally might become.”

Most political novelists are optimistic. Their storytelling is a “means of pointing the way to a more desired future,” the author says. They are realists, and a surprising number of them are women, even back in a time when women couldn’t vote.  Writing a political novel can be a form of political activism, he says, although many writers are introverts, using their pens, not their actions to promote change.

In an extensively researched work that is a major addition to literary interpretation, Cronin evaluates some 40 novels, dividing them into four categories. He sees the novelist as:

 Political agitator:  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Both led to significant changes.  Stowe’s book contributed to the start of the Civil War, of course, and the Sinclair novel brought about regulations in the meat industry.

 Consciousness raiser: Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” — who couldn’t be indignant about treatment of blacks after reading it? — and Colorado author Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona, considered an Indian version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

     Political satirist: Richard Condon’s “The Manchurian Candidate,” Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

    Political anthropologist:  Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind” and almost anything written by Horatio Alger.

In addition, Cronin includes a section on the novelist on the campaign trail.

Related Articles

January 18, 2018 Staff Pick: “Hue 1968” is an unsparing look at the Vietnam War and how it changed America

January 18, 2018 Imagining Colorado: Books, authors with connections to the Centennial State

January 17, 2018 Book review: Burke’s Robicheaux is back, and is as good as ever

January 11, 2018 Book review: “Fire and Fury” is the hottest book of 2018 — too bad it’s so dull

January 3, 2018 Regional books: Margaret Coel; “The Accidents”; “The Last Suppers”

Most of the books he features are well-known, but Cronin gives a nod to “1988,” “an overlooked novel of special interest” by former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm and Arnold Grossman. Cronin describes it as part political thriller and part political anthropology, “a delight for political junkies.”

“Imagining a Great Republic” is a comprehensive and thought-provoking book that underscores the importance of literature in shaping a free society.  Cronin concludes that “the best political writers remind us of the work to be done.”

from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/25/imagining-a-great-republic-thomas-e-cronin-book-review/

[laurendzim]

Regional book review: “Imagining a Great Republic”

Rowman & Littlefield

“Imagining a Great Republic” by Thomas E. Cronin

“Imagining a Great Republic” by Thomas E. Cronin

Fiction gives heart and soul to the bones of history.  Novelists, not historians, are the writers charged with evoking the human element.  In “Imagining a Great Republic,” Thomas E. Cronin —  a Colorado College professor and expert on American politics —  tells of the great novels, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to “Beloved,” that raised American readers’ consciousness or called us to action.

Political novelists are a moral compass. “The American political novel may be primarily written to entertain us,” Cronin writes. Still, “good writers want to be renouncers of lies, restorers of truths, and undaunted advocates of what communities, and the nation, ideally might become.”

Most political novelists are optimistic. Their storytelling is a “means of pointing the way to a more desired future,” the author says. They are realists, and a surprising number of them are women, even back in a time when women couldn’t vote.  Writing a political novel can be a form of political activism, he says, although many writers are introverts, using their pens, not their actions to promote change.

In an extensively researched work that is a major addition to literary interpretation, Cronin evaluates some 40 novels, dividing them into four categories. He sees the novelist as:

 Political agitator:  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Both led to significant changes.  Stowe’s book contributed to the start of the Civil War, of course, and the Sinclair novel brought about regulations in the meat industry.

 Consciousness raiser: Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” — who couldn’t be indignant about treatment of blacks after reading it? — and Colorado author Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona, considered an Indian version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

     Political satirist: Richard Condon’s “The Manchurian Candidate,” Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

    Political anthropologist:  Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind” and almost anything written by Horatio Alger.

In addition, Cronin includes a section on the novelist on the campaign trail.

Related Articles

January 18, 2018 Staff Pick: “Hue 1968” is an unsparing look at the Vietnam War and how it changed America

January 18, 2018 Imagining Colorado: Books, authors with connections to the Centennial State

January 17, 2018 Book review: Burke’s Robicheaux is back, and is as good as ever

January 11, 2018 Book review: “Fire and Fury” is the hottest book of 2018 — too bad it’s so dull

January 3, 2018 Regional books: Margaret Coel; “The Accidents”; “The Last Suppers”

Most of the books he features are well-known, but Cronin gives a nod to “1988,” “an overlooked novel of special interest” by former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm and Arnold Grossman. Cronin describes it as part political thriller and part political anthropology, “a delight for political junkies.”

“Imagining a Great Republic” is a comprehensive and thought-provoking book that underscores the importance of literature in shaping a free society.  Cronin concludes that “the best political writers remind us of the work to be done.”

from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/25/imagining-a-great-republic-thomas-e-cronin-book-review/

[richmond-rex]

Of note was the multi-cultural nature of the king’s personal staff. Though the majority of Henry VII’s closest servants in the Privy Chamber were derived from the families of minor gentry, there are named within the payment books a profusion of Bretons, French and Welsh household servants and courtiers. This perhaps might have been expected initially, given the composition of Henry’s supporters at Bosworth and the fourteen years he spent in Breton and French exile prior to the battle, but the numbers remained or were renewed throughout the reign.

— Margaret Condon, Samantha Harper and James Ross, The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485-1521: An Analysis of the Books and a Study of Henry VII and his Life at Court.

To illustrate the point, two of the highest paid, and probably among the most intimate body servants of the king, are elusively mysterious. Piers Champion and Piers Barbour may have been Breton in origin, and may have come to England with the king in 1485. Both received the same salary of 66s 8d per quarter from the Chamber in the 1490s, and both were trusted to receive money intended for the king’s hands in the first receipt book (1488-1490).

[richmond-rex]

The regularity of payments to servants of Sir Walter Herbert for bringing of gifts to [Henry VII] is suggestive of a long-standing relationship maintained until the end of their lives. Every year, in August, Sir Walter Herbert sent a gift of a hawk to the king. It is possible this was to commemorate the king’s Bosworth battlefield victory, where Walter may have had fought, or simply because it was hunting season and the King’s love of hawking was well known. Herbert was not alone in gifting the king hawks, of course, but he does appear to be the most consistent in his gifts.

— Margaret Condon, Samantha Harper and James Ross, The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485-1521: An Analysis of the Books and a Study of Henry VII and his Life at Court.

Walter Herbert was the second son of Sir William Herbert (later earl of Pembroke), who had been awarded the custody and wardship of the young Henry, then earl of Richmond, in 1461. [Herbert]'s two eldest boys, William and Walter, were of an age with Henry and the boys would have had lessons together in subjects such as literacy, Latin and numeracy, and they would have trained together in the tiltyard. If not close friends, certainly they were close acquaintances for the eight years that Henry lived at Raglan, and Walter’s regular gifts suggest the former was true.

[richmond-rex]

Hi, I was wondering if Henry VII made a will in 1492 before he set off to France and what it contained? I remember reading something about it but I've searched through two of his biographies and I cannot seem to find any mention of it, so maybe I was mistaken.

Hi! We don't know if Henry VII really made a will in 1492 before crossing to France because no will dating from that time has survived. But! It makes sense that he did that though, in the same way that Edward IV wrote a will before crossing in 1475, the same way Henry V wrote one before and during his campaigns in France, etc. Henry VII's last will, dated from three weeks before his death, is the longest medieval royal will and most likely was a revised form of earlier wills that were carefully written over his reign.

The will signed and sealed in 1509 was not the first made by Henry VII, although it is the only text to survive. Revision of testamentary dispositions was, then as now, by no means an uncommon practice. Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort made a whole series of wills during the last seven or eight years of her life, each year causing the previous will to be read to her, and renewing and revising it as necessary. The much-disputed final will of Henry’s son and successor, Henry VIII, was an amalgam of new provisions and rewriting of earlier texts and dispositions; and the same can be said of the will of Henry V, where a collation of the extant texts is instructive. It is likely that Henry VII followed precedent and made a will in 1492 before he left England to campaign in France (Margaret Condon, The last will of Henry VII: document and text).

We know, for example, that Henry drew up a will in 1507, the same year he lay seriously ill. During the spring, on 19 March 1507 one of the 'underclerks' of the signet was paid forty shillings for writing the king’s will. So yeah, in my opinion, it is very likely that he made a will before crossing to France in 1492. It hasn't survived, unfortunately, so we will never know what kind of provisions he left in place to protect his 6-year-old heir, for example. or his queen.

[richmond-rex]

— The Last Will of Henry VII (31 March 1509)

Although it cannot be certain beyond doubt that Henry himself participated in the anniversary services, Bernard Andre, Henry’s blind court poet, tells of the enormous solemnity and reverence with which Elizabeth’s anniversary was regularly observed. There are other pointers also. On the anniversary date between 1504 and 1509, Henry was most usually at Westminster itself or at his favourite palaces of Richmond or Greenwich, both within easy reach of Westminster by barge [...] In 1508, when Henry was too ill to leave Richmond, he sent his chamberlain, Giles, Lord Daubeney, as his representative. Daubeney sat in the place of honour, above a large presence of lords spiritual and temporal. On this occasion the bishop of London presided at the altar. Although in 1506 the king spent 11 February at Windsor, he remained within his secret chamber, in contrast to the public activity of surrounding days, and dined privately with his guest, Philip, king of Castile. Ten days later both kings dined with Abbot Islip at Westminster, and included the tomb of Elizabeth of York in their official itinerary.

Margaret Condon, “God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda, and the Perpetual Memorial” In: Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (2003)

[richmond-rex]

For the foundation of his Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey, Henry VII bequeathed a rich set of twenty-nine copes and other vestments of extraordinary value for the abbot and convent of Westminster. The set was made at the king's own expense between about 1500 and 1505 for the priests, deacons, and sub-deacons that were to officiate at the ceremonies in his chapel, fashioned in cloth of gold and wrought with red roses and portcullises. Six copes of the richest possible (‘riccio sopra riccio’) version of cloth of gold were completed by Antonio Corsi of Florence by 1500. The bulk of the remainder was delivered by Lorenzo and Ieronimo Bonvisi in 1502, although work on the embroidery of the copes and other vestments continued until 1505. In the words of Margaret Condon:

"The king cared, and cared passionately about the Westminster project. The chapel is instantly familiar, as is the chantry grate begun in the king’s lifetime and the tomb commissioned after his death. So too, increasingly if belatedly, are the vestments given in 1509. The one surviving cope is one of the two or three most outstanding pieces of renaissance weaving still extant."

It seems such was the extraordinary magnificence of the vestments bequeathed to the Abbey that they would be borrowed by Henry VIII for use at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Margaret Condon, “God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda, and the Perpetual Memorial” In: Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (2003) | image source |

[richmond-rex]

The psalms ordained to be said or sung during the canon of the mass, and the responses, garnered from the psalms with minimal alteration to name Henry VII, were carefully chosen. They recall his coronation and triumph, including in full the ‘Coronation Psalm’, Psalm 21(20), sung during the anointing with the holy oils. By analogy they remember also the tribulations of his reign, his desire for the peace and prosperity of his realm, and his trust in and intercession for the saving grace of God [...] After the king’s death both the psalms and the prayers were to be replaced by others more appropriate to the commemoration of and intercession for the dead. The justified sense of repeated danger, of intercession for, and divine intervention in, the king’s preservation and good estate, is one of the repeated undercurrents of the reign. It appears again in the king’s will, and was firmly incorporated into the memorial services to be held in the king’s lifetime.

— Margaret Condon, “God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda, and the Perpetual Memorial” In: Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (2003)

[richmond-rex]

Yet that anticipated translation of a canonised familial saint profoundly influenced the ground plan of the chapel and, during Henry VII’s life, the implied association with Henry VI’s supposed sanctity was a continuing strand in the construction of Henry Tudor’s own memorial. It was further extended by his will through the bequests for the completion of the chapel of Henry VI’s foundation at King’s College, Cambridge; the special bequest to Henry VI’s altar at Westminster; and even in the completion of Henry VII’s most innovative project, the hospital of the Savoy, whose imagery included a painted statue of Holy King Henry.

Margaret Condon, “God Save the King! Piety, Propaganda, and the Perpetual Memorial” | Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (2003)

[richmond-rex]

— The Last Will of Henry VII (31 March 1509)

A pyx (from the Greek for ‘box’) is an object used in Roman Catholic worship to contain the Sacred Host, the consecrated bread or wafer used during mass. In the medieval period, it came in various forms, the most standard being the conical shape. Although silver was the preferred metal, other materials were also used, a practice noted by King Henry VII to his ‘inward regret and displeasure’.

(Godsfield Pyx, ca. 1400-1500, England - V&A Collection)

Individual clauses of the will were being put into execution even before the text had been finally completed, signed and sealed. For example, on 14 March two London goldsmiths, John Mundy and Nicholas Worley, were paid £500 for making pyxes; and an equal sum was paid by the king’s treasurer of the chamber to two more goldsmiths, Robert Amadas and William Kebill, on 2 April. There can be little doubt that these payments, made in the king’s lifetime, were for the silver-gilt pyxes, ornamented with the king’s badges of the red rose and portcullis, that were to be distributed under the terms of his will to every parish and religious house in which the sacred vessels were of wood or base metal.

Margaret Condon, “The Last Will of Henry VII: Document and Text” In: Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (2003)