Reconstructing Literary Life in the Provinces with special reference to the Elizabethan Gentry of Kent

113 Reconstructing Literary Life in the Provinces with SpsPecial Reference to the EleLizabethan Gentry of Kent claire bartram T his article begins to reconstruct the nature of book culture in Kent during the latter decades of the sixteenth century. Its focus is the early printed and manuscript writings of members of the gentry in Kent and as such it endeavours to extend discussion on this social group as consumers of book culture by charting their active participation in textual production. The article is not designed to be an exhaustive survey of writers and patrons in the county but rather an initial exploration of the various ways in which what Margaret Ezell has termed ‘the nature of literary life in the provinces’ could be examined and partially reconstructed.1 T he literary lives of the provincial gentry in the sixteenth century is not a fashionable topic, it seems; although valuable studies proliferate on the seventeenth century.2 While single author studies do exist, few works engage with provincial coteries or networks of writers; to this author’s knowledge the only comparable regional study remains A.G. Dickens’ 1963 article on the ‘The Writers of Tudor Yorkshire’.3 There may be good reason for this – Kent and Yorkshire may be exceptional examples of counties where authors proliferated; or the county may be an irrelevant unit of analysis when we consider the ways in which cultural neighbourhoods or patronage networks redefine county boundaries in this period.4 However, in discussing literary lives in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Ezell laments that few studies have engaged with ‘the author’s experience of writing in the material conditions of the times’ or have ‘paid much attention to the practical impact of an author being born and raised’ in a particular place. Similarly, she comments ‘we have no sense of the patterns or practices of authorship as part of a group’.5 It may be that there is scope for research that engages with these questions in this earlier period as well. T he one exception is the research into the antiquarian interests of the gentry which continues to reveal the vitality of one aspect of provincial book culture. In particular, work on Archbishop Parker’s circle has C LAI RE BA RTRAM 114 established the active involvement of Kentish antiquaries including Dean Nicholas Wotton, John Twyne, William Lambarde and Alexander Neville in the collecting, copying and print publication of historical texts while work on the antiquarian collection of Peter Manwood suggests, not least, that further attention need be paid to the book collections of his father Sir Roger and other Elizabethan gentlemen in Kent.6 Ovenden’s recent work on antiquarian libraries is also pertinent to broader discussion of the literary lives of the provincial gentry. Aspects of antiquarian activity such as the collecting, sharing, gifting, exchanging and copying of manuscripts and books amongst a network of like-minded collectors are practices which can be seen to extend beyond the antiquarian interests of the gentry in Elizabethan Kent. Similarly, Ovenden’s observations about the provincial and metropolitan contexts in which these antiquarians worked and the ties of religion, family and shared interest which bound these individuals together are also pertinent to discussion of the wider literary interests of the Kentish gentry.7 W hile this work on antiquarianism recognises an active, intellectual engagement which could result in the preparation for print publication of medieval historical works and original compositions, studies of the materiality of the early printed book and élite libraries at times implicitly posits the gentry as passive consumers rather than as active participants in book culture. Pamela and David Selwyn’s recent article on élite libraries reminds us of the gentry’s sometimes voracious collection and display of early printed works. However, they also emphasise that these libraries were often ‘working collections’ which included a surprising range of works that combined the specific interests of the gentleman with the recreational and utilitarian needs of his household.8 The association of the gentleman’s library with ‘leisure’ is now being re-evaluated through studies in the history of reading and through engagement with the studious activities of the gentry.9 Jardine and Sherman in particular have demonstrated the significance of such study characterising the work of exceptional scholars like John Dee and Gabriel Harvey as ‘knowledge transactions’. These men applied academic theory to civic practice in a form of civic humanism which stressed the communication and practical application of knowledge.10 Recognition of the humanist principles of education and the value of knowledge in service to the commonwealth as key attributes of gentility is essential to an understanding of provincial book culture. The ethics of Christian Humanism emphasised the social role of the gentleman, his status as an active citizen within the commonwealth. Particularly striking within this ideology was the ‘Vir Virtutis’, an ideal man of wisdom who was able to put his knowledge to use in the service of the commonwealth and who addressed his writings to a body of fellow citizens.11 Y et social historical studies of the provincial gentry appear largely RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 115 resistant to engagement with or narrowly interpretative in relation to gentry book culture.12 The example of Sir John Newdigate of Warwickshire is instructive in this context, for his rigorous study programme in matters of theology, history, justice and husbandry is considered in terms of the extent to which it is typically ‘gentle’ in its conformity to conventional discourses concerning the reading practices of this social élite as established in contemporary conduct books. It is only further relevant in terms of the ways in which this reading might have informed processes of social organisation and control.13 These are perfectly relevant modes of analysis but the present author’s sense is that this kind of approach runs the risk of foreclosing further discussion, particularly in relation to Ezell’s comments about the social value of manuscript circulation within provincial society of which common-placing was a part. Her work on women social writers in particular reminds us of the richness and complexity of provincial book culture as she demonstrates the ways in which ‘the manuscript text operates as a medium of social exchange’ and of how writers used their writings ‘to cohere social bonds among like-minded (and local) readers’.14 T he History of the Book arguably provides a context in which the interdisciplinary study of provincial book culture could be meaningfully undertaken. In discussing ‘texts’ or ‘books’ it facilitates discussion of a broad range of literature that was previously discounted as not ‘literary’ but merely ‘practical’. This validation is further facilitated by journals such as Book History which defined the field as encompassing ‘the creation, dissemination and uses of script and print in any medium’. In its endeavour to ‘understand textual production as part of human social communication structures’, the History of the Book also provides a theoretical framework which maps circuits of communication between the author and the reader. In so doing it endeavours to engage with the ‘intangible networks of interconnected individuals and how they can affect textual publication and reception’. Finally, in its essential interdisciplinarity and in its study of the sociology of the text, the History of the Book enables ‘a way of conceiving the production of texts as a multifaceted enterprise encompassing social, economic, political and intellectual conditions’.15 T he author’s study of gentry book culture is indebted to these highlighted principles of Book History. In studying the broad range of the gentry’s reading and writing practices, the research endeavours to engage with cultural production in the provinces and to anticipate the driving forces behind the production and consumption of works by provincial élites. The author’s contention is that the texts written demonstrated the interests of local coteries and that these interests corresponded with long term and short term needs identified within Kentish society. Patterns of textual production suggested by a writer such as William Lambarde with works CLAI RE BA RTRAM 116 which ranged from printed antiquarian and legal works to the manuscript circulation of husbandry and military treatises not only meaningfully coincided with the works of his Kentish associates but also can be read as an index of social interaction in Kent on matters such as the enforcement of law and order, the promulgation of Protestantism or the defence of the realm. Interdisciplinary study of the gentry, to include a consideration of their textual output could play a vital role in reinvigorating discussion about the role of the gentry as active determinants rather than implicitly passive consumers of book culture. But it also has the potential to enhance our understanding of the nature of social and cultural interaction in the provinces which in turn may extend our understanding of the active role of the gentry as figures of authority in their societies; facilitating discussion about how the gentry governed. T his second section begins to map aspects of book culture in Kent. Research on the Kentish gentry has established their social and political prominence within county society. It is argued that the Kentish gentry enjoyed a particularly ‘clan-like’ identity through close kin links and local intermarriage, that the county was noted for its early adoption of reformation change, and that there was also a certain stability derived from the involvement in county governance of a cluster of key families. Increasingly in the latter decades of the sixteenth century this social position was enhanced by a favourable economic climate and the demands of central administration which encouraged the perception of the gentleman as governor.16 Strong patronage in the county together with the accessibility of the metropolis with all that this implied in terms of patronage, printing and the purchase of books were also key factors. T hese factors are invaluable in determining the social and cultural context in which these literary coteries functioned. Edward Dering, the puritan divine, for example received patronage from Lady Elizabeth Golding of East Peckham. Lady Golding, née Roydon, was the aunt of Mary Darell who, in turn, was the wife of the writer Barnabe Googe. Mary Darell’s grandfather was Thomas Roydon, a patron of Thomas Becon in the 1540s, who had married Margaret Whetenhall. Margaret’s brother, George, also a patron of Becon, was the grandfather of Reginald Scot and father of Thomas Whetenhall who fled abroad to avoid persecution in Mary’s reign. Thomas Whetenhall was later mentioned as one of the English husbandry authorities Barnabe Googe consulted in his translation of Herebach’s Foure Bookes of Husbandry.17 Within this coterie, it is possible to see patterns of local intermarriage and the patronage of Protestant texts across two generations of families who claimed descent from or affiliation to Protestant families involved in Wyatt’s Rebellion (1554) or of the household of Archbishop Cranmer. Arguably, the texts play a significant role within complex processes of social interaction RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 117 reinforcing religious identity and, in the case of Barnabe Googe, perhaps facilitating his absorption into the group on his marriage. Reconstruction of coterie activity in Elizabethan Kent is also facilitated by the lists of works consulted or ‘authorities’ included in printed works by these gentlemen. William Lambarde’s list in A Perambulation of Kent (1576) presents an unbroken line of Kentish writers from Saxon times onwards. Current writers included Thomas Digges, Edward Dering, Reginald Scot, Alexander Neville and Francis Thynne while writers of the previous generation included Thomas Wyatt senior, Leonard Digges and John Twyne.18 When Francis Thynne compiled a catalogue in the second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicle of those ‘that have purposelie in several histories of this realme or by the waie in the histories of other countries written of England and English things’, a number of these Kentish names recurred, namely William Lambarde, ‘now living and deserving well of all antiquitie’, Alexander Nevill, Reginald Scot, John Proctor ‘of Tunbridge to whom I was sometime scholar’ and John Twyne.19 Reginald Scot acknowledges Barnabe Googe, Edward Dering and William Lambarde on his list of ‘Forren and English Authors’ in A Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) while Barnabe Googe extended his translation of Heresbach’s Four Books of Husbandry (1577) incorporating the ‘experience of sundry my freendes’ which included kin and neighbours in the county as well as William ‘Lambert’ and ‘Master Reynolde Scots booke of Hoppe Gardens’ (Plate I).20 S uch lists also facilitate the partial reconstruction of provincial libraries. The list of authorities in Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) suggests that he had access to a considerable library of two hundred or more titles. References within the printed works of these writers suggests that they also owned or had access to the writings of their Kentish associates with Reginald Scot precisely referencing both Lambarde’s Perambulation of Kent and ‘B. Googe his third booke [of Husbandry] treating cattell’ in the course of A Discoverie of Witchcraft.21 Scot’s autograph copy of A Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden (now Lambeth Palace (ZZzz)1576.3) is further suggestive of this practice while its gold-tooled white leather binding gives a rare insight into the binding of works owned by Kentish gentry amongst whom Thomas Wotton is known for his extravagant tastes (Plate II).22 O ther, predominantly antiquarian evidence demonstrates the loaning of books between interested parties. A letter to Sir Henry Sidney suggests evidence of active book lending between himself and Archbishop Parker who sent him ‘one of my poore Bookes of Thomas Walsinghams Storie in the hope that ‘you will let me have the sight of sum bookes that you have’. ‘If that your Lordship will effectuouslie sende to mee the bookes which you have at Home in your Howse’, bartered Parker, ‘I maie further unto you sum other booke that I have of late caused to be printed, meate CLAI RE BA RTRAM 118 PLATEate I RB 38403 Heresbach, Conrad. Foure Bookes of Husbandrie. London, 1586. [page () 4v.] T his item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The image is produced by ProQuest as part of Early English Books Online and is published with permission of ProQuest. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 119 PLATEate ii A utographed title-page of Reginald Scot’s A Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden, London, 1576. B y permission of Lambeth Palace Library, (ZZzz)1576.3. CLAI RE BA RTRAM 120 for your Knowledge’.23 Flower also highlights the presence of Francis Thynne and others at William Lambarde’s house at Halling in the early 1590s transcribing Alexander Nowell’s manuscripts, perhaps in relation to the activities of the Society of Antiquaries.24 But there is other evidence as well which suggests that this practice was not restricted to antiquarian interests. The close publication dates of Reginald Scot’s hop growing manual (1574, with a second edition 1576) and Googe’s translation of Heresbach’s encyclopaedic volume on agriculture (1577) together with contemporaneous manuscript activity by William Lambarde, suggests that this is not an accidental correspondence of interests. Lambarde’s notebook (now BL Add MS 20709) demonstrates engagement with a range of French and Latin texts on agriculture including Heresbach and manuscripts probably borrowed from Archbishop Parker.25 His translation of ‘Walter of Hendley’s Husbandrye’ taken from ‘an olde Frenche booke founde in the library of William Lovelace esquire’ and presented to the Hendle family in 1578 is also suggestive of a local coterie context in which to consider the compilation of printed agricultural works by Googe and Scot (Plate III).26 Local patronage is a further vital component in the reconstruction of the ‘literary environment in which writers wrote and readers read’.27 It seems likely that on occasion Kentish patronage was closely associated with local coterie activity. For example, Sir William Lovelace’s patron-age of Scot’s Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden, a manual on hop growing which included a substantial number of detailed and costly woodcuts, takes on an additional significance when further evidence per-haps promotes Lovelace as a collector of husbandry texts. Archbishop Parker in his turn acted as patron of historical writings including work by Alexander Neville. He also provided ‘mine advice’ on a manuscript copy of A Perambulation of Kent which Lambarde had sent for him ‘to peruse, to correct and amend’ as one ‘whom he judgeth to be conversant in histories’.28 Parker’s edition of Asser’s life of King Alfred Alfredi regis rex gestae (1574) included an overt tribute to the writings of William Lambarde, publicly confirming their intellectual interaction.29 Lambarde also demonstrated knowledge of further patronage networks within Kent, in his dedication of A Perambulation to Thomas Wotton, custos rostulorum, and his presentation of a printed copy to Sir Henry Sidney whose marriage to Robert Dudley’s sister Mary aligned him with Leicester’s circle at court.30 Interestingly, his Perambulation had already reached the attentions of another key court patron William Cecil Lord Burghley, when Parker had forwarded it to him in 1573 with the proviso that ‘your lordship … keep it to yourself’ for ‘the author doth repute it to be imperfect’.31 Francis Thynne’s biographies of Thomas Wotton, William, Lord Cobham and Sir Roger Manwood in Holinshed’s Chronicle demonstrate three further avenues of literary patronage within RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 121 PLATEate iii U 1044/F1 fol.228r, Centre for Kentish Studies, Kent Archives and Local History Service. All reasonable attempts were made to contact the current copyright owner of this manuscript. CLAI RE BA RTRAM 122 the county. With their high office on the county or national stage, these patrons frequently had links to rival court factions, with the Sidney’s key political rivals in the county, the Cobhams aligned with Burghley through marriage.32 T he dedicatory epistle extends our understanding of the ways in which literary patronage operated within broader processes of social interaction in provincial society. Often complex and varied in their rhetorical construction, the client frequently employed discourses of friendship, kinship and neighbourhood in his appeal to the patron. On dedicating A Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden, Reginald Scot demonstrated a familiarity with Sir William Lovelace’s estate and offered to assist in the preparation of a hop garden.33 Both Thomas Twyne and William Lambarde suggested a level of intimacy through references to members of the chosen patron’s family at the close of their dedications, with Twyne specifically naming ‘the good gentlewoman Mistress Mary Lovelace your loving wife’ in his epistle to Sir William Lovelace.34 Such claims of familiarity perhaps heightened the need for reciprocity through the client’s pose as one already affiliated to their patron in some form and their placing the gift of the text in the context of other kinds of reciprocal act. In providing patronage for Thomas Twyne and Reginald Scot in the period c.1563-74, Sir William Lovelace extended the level of interaction with these families. Living at Eastwell, Reginald Scot was indeed a close neighbour of Lovelace at Bethersden. Thomas and his father John Twyne, the antiquarian and master of the King’s School, Canterbury, both stood as witnesses to Lovelace’s will in 1578 while Sir Thomas Scott, Reginald’s cousin was initially nominated as an overseer of this document.35 T he gift of the text was also located within other social processes such as the rituals of gift giving.36 Alexander Neville for example, recalled the status of his patron Dean Nicholas Wotton as his godfather in the dedication of his first publication, a translation of Seneca’s tragedy Oedipus. Neville stated that his recent sixteenth birthday: Reneweth a gratefull memory of your great goodness towardes mee: for at my Baptisme your honour vouchsafed to aunsweare for mee and causeth me thus boldly to present these greene and unmellowed fruites of my first travailes unto you: as signes and testimonies of a well disposed minde unto your honour.37 C ressy and others have argued that the relationship between Godparent and Godchild was ideally one of reciprocal obligation, a latent resource which could be made effective in times of need such as at the child’s apprenticeship or marriage.38 Here Neville not only recalled the spiritual guardianship that Wotton had undertaken but placed the presentation of his text – his reciprocal act – in the context of the ritual event of baptism with its associated pledges of affiliation and gift giving. Barnabe Googe’s RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 123 presentation of a text to his sisters-in-law might also be considered within the rituals of gift giving, this time on the occasion of marriage. The work entitled A Newe Booke called the Shippe of Safegarde was presented ‘to shew my good will towards you, as to satisfie your well inclined affections’, and formed part of a longer process of reciprocity.39 Googe subsequently named a daughter Frances after one of his sisters-in-law and Frances Darrell bequeathed gifts of money to Googe’s children in her will of 1574.40 F inally, it may be possible to highlight particular contexts and centres which supported these literary lives. By far the best documented is Archbishop Parker’s household with centres of activity at Canterbury, nearby Bekesbourne Palace and at Lambeth Palace. Alexander Neville, resident in Parker’s household described it as ‘a kind of flourishing University of learned men’ stating that: W hen he took any into his family, he would always exhort him to pursue learning and piety with an ardent desire… [whom] besides their daily attendaunce, employed them selves at their leisure hours in some kind of laudable exercise; as in reading, making collections, transcribing, compos-ing, painting, drawing or some other application in learning or art.41 Parker’s support of Neville’s writing is evident in the dedication of Neville’s De Furoribus Norfolcensium Ketto Duce in memory of the Archbishop in 1575. Robinson also notes that Neville had been paid £100 by Parker for this work; he was also bequeathed £5 by Parker in his will.42 O ther private households also had the potential to support literary activity. The households of Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham and Sir Henry Sidney, as centres of intellectual endeavour would benefit from further research. Both men were patrons associated with Holinshed’s Chronicle with Cobham the patron of William Harrison who had previously been employed as chaplain to his household. William, Lord Cobham styled as an ‘honourable Mecenas of lerning’ and ‘a lover of learned persons’ by Francis Thynne in Holinshed’s Chronicle was also the projected patron of Thynne’s handwritten copy of the Lives of the Lords Cobham’ which, excised from the Chronicle was eventually presented to Cobham’s son complete with eulogistic poetry on the demise of his father.43 It is also possible to pinpoint individual gentry households such as that of William Lambarde or Sir William Lovelace which, as demonstrated above, allowed access to book and manuscript collections and, certainly in Lambarde’s case, provided a space in which to collectively work on the material. I t may also be useful to think beyond individual households towards a sense of local intellectual neighbourhoods. Thirsk, for example, has revealed the activity of clusters of gentry friends and collaborators who, in the sixteenth, and increasingly in the seventeenth century, implemented CLAI RE BA RTRAM 124 agricultural improvements at a local level and promoted these processes in printed works. Thirsk describes one such cluster of gentry in Henrician Kent, situated on the rim of the Weald, the Guildfords at Rolvenden, the Fanes at Hadlow, the Culpepers, and the Sidney family of Robertsbridge (Sussex) and subsequently Penshurst.44 Many of the writers and patrons discussed here inhabited similar neighbourhoods and were resident in the Greensand region of Mid Kent, between Maidstone and Ashford: the Wottons at Boughton Malherbe, the main branch of the Scotts at Smeeth, Reginald Scot at Eastwell, the Derings at Surrenden, the Lovelaces at Bethersden. Barnabe Googe’s associates whose husbandry advice he includes in his translation of Heresbach also coincide with this neighbourhood namely Henry Brockhull of Chart, Philip Partrige of Smeeth, John Franklyn of East Sutton. H ospitality, a key facet of gentility, facilitated further opportunities for intellectual interaction. Sir George Wyatt recalls how his father had debated military defence with ‘sum of his familiers and companions at many martial bankets’. These associates were ‘men that had seene and experiensed much in their travels and servisese abrode and at home’.45 Wyatt describes how this discussion prompted the compilation of a military treatise which, drawn up by ‘thos that were best acquainted with the same’, was ‘by the rest perused and perfected by one common consent and opinion in such sort as it grew to a large volume’.46 Sir Thomas Wyatt’s ‘consort’ included his ‘friends and alise’ Sir James Wilford and Lenard Digges, whose sons Thomas Wilford and Thomas Digges later produced military texts and disputed with one another over the correct policy for the defence of Kent.47 A dministrative changes in the period also assured that key urban centres like Canterbury became a gathering point for like-minded gentlemen and lawyers as the seat of the regionally significant Quarter Sessions and Assizes. It seems likely that Parker’s ‘Archiepiscopall feasts’ recorded by Francis Thynne for Holinshed’s Chronicle might have provided a similar opportunity for interaction. Held for ‘the multitude of parishioners of Kent’ they coincided with the assizes to ensure that the banquet ‘might be replenished with the people of Kent’. On the ‘day of the appointed feast the hall was decked with rich clothes and furnished with much and rich plate and silver vessell’: A t what time the judges, the shiriffes with knights, gentlemen and all the whole companie of the bench with lawyers and other officers attending on the court, togither with the whole multitude of the people entered the hall and were placed according to their degrees.48 I n July of 1570, ‘when the judges were againe (with the whole traine of the shire) assembled at Canterburie to hold the assises he did once more … invite the whole companie to another feast’.49 RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 125 T his article begins to consider some of the contexts and instances in which literary lives could be reconstructed in Elizabethan Kent. As such it argues for the study of the diverse texts of non-canonical writers and the consideration of these writers not as single authors but as writers whose lives and interests were interconnected. Ezell comments that we rarely ask ‘who was writing and who was reading as opposed to who was printing and who was purchasing’.50 This article sees the Kentish gentleman as both writer and reader, as producer and consumer and it situates the text within processes of social interaction occasioned by the gentry’s status as governors within the county, as concerned neighbours, as friends and family. As such it also highlights aspects of the complex motivation behind textual production: the momentum which a coterie interest might gain, the need to respond to local problems and conditions, to strengthen religious faith or to present a gift within pre-existing modes of social interaction. Further work might establish the degree to which specific local conditions of settlement, social dominance and religion characterised book culture in the county but it is evident that many of these writers were moved by the merits of Christian Humanism to publicise their knowledge in manuscript or printed form. In thinking about these texts within a culture of communication, as a mechanism of social interaction, the article also gestures towards the unrecoverable conversations, book borrowing and other aspects of intellectual interaction as described by George Wyatt that drove cultural production.51 It sees book culture in Tudor Kent as complex and dynamic. acknowledgement T hanks are due to the Canterbury Archaeological Society whose research grant enabled the completion of research in 2004 and facilitated the inclusion of the plates in this article. endnotes 1 C. Bartram, ‘The Reading and Writing Practices of the Kentish Gentry: the Emergence of a Protestant Identity in Elizabethan Kent’ (unpubl. doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2005); M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 2. 2 N notably in relation to Kent, see the doctoral work of S. Hingley, ‘The Oxindens, Warlys and Elham Parish Library: a Family Library and its Place in Print Culture in East Kent’ (unpubl. doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2004) and S. Petrie, ‘Sir Roger Twysden, 1597-1672: a Re-appraisal of his Life and Writings’ (unpubl. doctoral thesis, University of Kent, 2006). See also, P. Laslett, ‘The Gentry of Kent in 1640’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 9 (1948), 148-164; M. Leslie and T. Raylor, eds, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England: Writing and the Land (Leicester University Press, 1992). 3 A a.G. Dickens, ‘The Writers of Tudor Yorkshire’, Royal Historical Society Transactions 5th Series, 13 (1963), 49-76 (pp. 62-71). CLAI RE BA RTRAM 126 4 S see, for example, M. Blackstone ‘Lancashire, Shakespeare and the construction of cultural neighbourhoods in sixteenth century England’, in R. Dutton, A. Findlay and R. Wilson, eds, Reg-ion, Religion and Patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare (Manchester University Press, 2003). 5 M. Ezell, pp. 12, 18, 25. 6 T t. Graham, ‘Matthew Parker’s Manuscripts: an Elizabethan Library and its Use’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland I, ed. by E. Leadham Green and T. Webber (CUcuP, 2006), pp. 322-41; H.R. Woudhuysen Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts 1558-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 130-3. 7 R. Ovenden, ‘The Libraries of the Antiquaries (c.1580-1640) and the Idea of a National Collection’, in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland I, ed. by E. Leadham Green and T. Webber (CUcuP, 2006), pp. 527-561 (pp. 531-33; 546). 8 P. Selwyn and D. Selwyn, ‘“The Profession of a Gentleman”: Books for the Gentry and the Nobility (c.1560-1540)’, in Leadham Green and Webber (see note 7), pp. 489-519. 9 J. Raven, H. Small and N. Tadmor, eds, The Practice and Representation of Reading in England (CUcuP, 1996); K. Sharpe and S.N. Zwicker, eds., Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England (CUcuP, 2003); K. Sharpe Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England (London: Yale University Press, 2000). 10 L. Jardine and A. Grafton, ‘Studied for Action’: How Gabriel Harvey Read his Livy’, Past and Present, 29 (1990), 30-78; W.H. Sherman ‘The Place of Reading in the English Renaissance: John Dee Revisited’, in Raven et al. eds, The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, pp. 62-76 (pp. 67-8) and his monograph John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995). 11 Q. Skinner, Foundations of Political Thought I (CUcuP, 1978), pp. 81, 87, 109. 12 T the author has so far not been able to locate any recent historical study of the provincial gentry that engages with gentry book culture beyond V. Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture: The Seventeenth Century Newdigates of Arbury and their World (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995). Her survey includes the following: A. Hassell-Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk 1558-1603 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974); D. MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County 1500-1600 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986); M. Wolffe, Gentry Leaders in Peace and War: the Gentry Governors of Devon in the Early Seventeenth Century (University of Exeter Press, 1997); G. Jones, The Welsh Gentry, 1536-1640: Images of Status, Honour and Authority (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998); D. Newton, North-East England, 1569-1625: Governance, Culture and Identity (Regions and Regionalism in History, 5) (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006). 13 V v. Larminie, ‘The Godly Magistrate: the Private Philosophy and Public Life of Sir John Newdigate 1571-1610’, Dugdale Occasional Papers, 28 (1982), 7. 14 M. Ezell, pp. 40, 42. 15 D. Finkelstein and A. McCleery, eds, An Introduction to Book History (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 4, 12, 16, 98. 16 A a. Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-60 (Old Woking: Leicester University Press, 1973), p. 35; P. Clark, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion, Politics and Society in Kent 1500-1640 (Sussex: Harvester, 1977), pp. 6-7; M. Zell, ‘The Coming of Religious Reform’, in Early Modern Kent 1540-1640, ed. by M. Zell (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000), pp. 177-206; and M. Zell ‘The Establishment of a Protestant Church’, in Early Modern Kent 1540-1640, pp. 207-44. P. Hyde and M. Zell, ‘Governing the County’, in Early Modern Kent 1540-1640, pp. 7-38; M. Zell, ‘Kent’s Elizabethan JPs at Work’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 119 (1999), 1-43. 17 F for biographical information, see M. Eccles, ‘Barnabe Googe in England, Spain and Ireland’, English Literary Renaissance, 15 (1985), 353-70; Thomas Becon: Early Works, ed. by J. RECONST RUCTING LITE RARY LIFE IN THE PROVINCES : ELIZABETHAN KENT 127 A yre (Parker Society: Cambridge, 1843); and P. Collinson, ‘A Mirror of English Puritanism: the Life and Letters of ‘Godly Master Dering’, in Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism, ed. by P. Collinson (London: Hambledon, 1983), pp. 288-324. 18 W w. Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent (1576), fol. 58v-59r. 19 R. Holinshed, Holinshed’s Chronicle IViv, ed. Henry Ellis (London, 1807-8; repr. with an introduction by Vernon Snow, New York 1965), pp. 946-51. 20 M. McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age (OUouP, 1971), pp. 135-6. The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, Collected by M. Conradus Heresbachius, Counseller… Newely Englished and increased by Barnabe Googe Esquire (1577), fol. iij; 61v . 21 R. Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. M. Summers (New York: Dover, 1972), p. 161. 22 P. Selwyn and D. Selwyn, p. 508; E.G. Duff, ‘The Bindings of Thomas Wotton’, The Library, n.s. 1 (4) (1910), 337-347. 23 M. McKisack, p. 31. 24 R. Flower, ‘Lawrence Nowell and the Discovery of England in Tudor Times’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 21 (1935), p. 9. 25 B british Library, Add MS 20709 fol. 23r. See also D. Oschinsky, Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), pp. 6-9, 113-190. 26 C centre for Kentish Studies, U1044/F1 fol. 228r. 27 M. Ezell, p. 6. 28 The Correspondence of Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury 1535-1575, ed. J. Bruce, (CUcuP, 1853), Letter no. 325, pp. 424-26. 29 F f.J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1967), pp. 117-21; M. McKisack, pp. 26-49. 30 M. McKisack, p. 34; Bodleian Library 4o Rawl. 587. 31 The Correspondence of Matthew Parker, Letter no. 335, p. 441. 32 J. Eales, ‘The Rise of Ideological Politics in Kent, 1558-1640’, in Early Modern Kent 1540-1640, ed. by M. Zell (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000), pp. 279-314 (pp. 287-8). 33 R. Scot, A Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden (1574), fol. Aiiijr-v. 34 T t. Twyne, The Survey of the World (1572), fol. iijr. 35 PCCcc PRob 11/59 William Lovelace Sergeant at Law (1576). 36 N n. Zemon Davis, ‘Beyond the Market: Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 33 (1983), 69-88 (pp. 78-9). 37 A a. Neville, Oedipus The Fifth Tragedy of Seneca (1560). See Seneca, His Tenne Trag-edies Newly translated into English 1581 (New York: Spencer Society Reprint, 1967), p. 158. 38 D. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (OUouP, 1997), pp. 156-60; N.Z. Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth Century France (OUouP, 2000), p. 43. 39 B b. Googe, A Newe Booke Called the Shippe of Safegarde (1569), fol. Aijr. 40 PCCcc PRob 11/57. 41 J. Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker IIii (Oxford: Clarendon, 1821), pp. 441-2, quoted in M. McKisack, p. 49. 42 B b.S. Robinson, ‘Matthew Parker and the Reforming of History,’ Sixteenth Century Journal, 29 (1998), 1061-1083 (p. 1073); Lambeth Palace Library MS 737 fol. 140r. 43 Holinshed’s Chronicle IV, p. 778; British Library Additional Manuscript 37666; and D. Carlson, ‘The Writings and Manuscript Collections of the Elizabethan Alchemist, Antiquary and Herald Francis Thynne’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 52 (1989), 203-72. 44 J. Thirsk, ‘The Fashioning of the Tudor and Stuart Gentry’, Bulletin of John Rylands Library, 72 (1990), 69-85 (p. 77). CLAI RE BA RTRAM 128 45 The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire, ed. D.M. Loades, Camden Fourth Series, 5 (1968), p. 57. 46 The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire, p. 58. 47 The Papers of George Wyatt Esquire, p. 57. See T. Digges’s, Treatise concerning Invasion incorporated into his second revised edition of The Arithmeticall Militare Treatise, named Stratioticos (1590) and T. Wilford’s, A Military Discourse Whether it be Better for England to give an Invador Present Battle or to Temporize and defer the same (1734). 48 Holinshed’s Chronicle IV, p. 765. 49 Holinshed’s Chronicle IV, p. 766. 50 M. Ezell, p. 2. 51 D. Finkelstein and A. McCleery, p. 12.