Amenable Anne

I was flicking through Sean Cunningham's Richard III book and noticed
it contained the quote from the Rous roll about Anne. Usually she's
described as seemly, amiable and gracious. This translation replaced
amiable with amenable. Is this a mistake or is it a better
translation?

Also someone mentioned a lecture by Joanna Laynesmith/Chamberlayne
about Cecily and Anne. What did she say about Anne? Usually books
say we know nothing about her and leave it at that. I'd like any
information available.

Thanks.

Joanne

--- In , "jotwo2003"
<jsummerill@s...> wrote:
> I was flicking through Sean Cunningham's Richard III book and
noticed
> it contained the quote from the Rous roll about Anne. Usually
she's
> described as seemly, amiable and gracious. This translation
replaced
> amiable with amenable. Is this a mistake or is it a better
> translation?
>
> Also someone mentioned a lecture by Joanna Laynesmith/Chamberlayne
> about Cecily and Anne. What did she say about Anne? Usually books
> say we know nothing about her and leave it at that. I'd like any
> information available.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Joanne

Speaking of transkations, I have found that it is useful to consult
the Oxford English Dictionary when studying quotations from earlier
centuries. Words that were in common usage then are often still in
common usage now, but thei meaning may have shifted. Sometimes it's
only amatter of nuance, but sometimes it's more radical. One may
think they understand exactly what someone meant then because we know
what the words mean today, but actually the meaning was somewhat
different.

Some examples that come to mind:

"Argument" in the Middle Ages was a legal term that meant the salient
clauses of a contract

"Merry" meant clement or mild; in a person, amiable or good-natured

"Infant" was a person under seven years of age

"Melancholy" could mean angry or intemperate or irascible

etc and so on. The OED helpfully gives the date a word was first
found in print and often provides the quote.

It's very interesting to take some important quotes from our favorite
era and run them through the OED test. Sometimes people are not
saying what we think they are.

Katy

--- In , "jotwo2003"
<jsummerill@s...> wrote:
> I was flicking through Sean Cunningham's Richard III book and
noticed
> it contained the quote from the Rous roll about Anne. Usually
she's
> described as seemly, amiable and gracious. This translation
replaced
> amiable with amenable. Is this a mistake or is it a better
> translation?
>
> Also someone mentioned a lecture by Joanna Laynesmith/Chamberlayne
> about Cecily and Anne. What did she say about Anne? Usually books
> say we know nothing about her and leave it at that. I'd like any
> information available.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Joanne

1) Amenable Anne.
I've just looked into this, and it would seem that Sean Cunningham
has made a mistake. There are two questions:
a) was the word 'amiable' or 'amenable' in the original?
b) if it was 'amiable', did it mean 'amenable'?

Answers:
a) Rous's original has "Ameabyll". It is possible he read this
as "Amenabyll", but there is absolutely no '-n-'. Neither is there
any omission mark; it is possible that Cunningham mistook the curl on
the tail of the y in the word 'victoryus' above as an omission mark,
but even this not in the right place but lies over the space between
the 'a' and the 'b'.

b) Firstly let's be clear that Cunnigham is given transcriptions in
modernised spelling, not translations into modern English. Also I
have just been out and popped into the library to look up the OED,
which as Katy rightly says in an invaluable resource. This indicates
that amiable (from Old French amiable, the root being the verb to
love) meant the same in the 15th century as it means now: ie, of
persons, "friendly, amicable, kind". There is no definition given,
archaic, obsolete or otherwise, which means anything like amenable.

The word 'amenable' itself comes from a quite different root
(ie 'mener' to lead)does not seem to have been in use before the 16th
century, and until about 1800 its meaning was legal or quasi so,
ie "liable to be brought before any jurisdiction, answerable, liable
to answer, responsible..."

So my feeling is that Cunnigham has simply made a transcribing error.
Not the only one. I haven't checked the whole book out at all, but I
have studied the George Cely note, and there is a small error there.
Where Cunningham has "The Chamberlain", the original actually has
simply "schamberlayne"; it seems that Cunningham has mistaken the
long 's' at the beginning of the word for a thorn, and assumed it to
represent the word "the": ie he has misread "schamberlayne" as "the
chamberlayne".

-------------------

It were me mister wot mentioned the lecture by Joanna Laynesmith
(that name rings a bell, rather than Chamberlain). I haven't gotv the
names of the speakers because I had the programme so didn't feel the
need to write the names on the nots themselves. Then I thhrew the
programme away before I got round to typing up the notes!) Anyway, I
took the following notes on Anne Neville:

Opinions about her hinge on whether she was happily married or not.

Her early death and single pregnancy are given as proof of delicacy,
but Crowland suggests the illness came on after Christmas 1484.

Her marriage to Edward of Lancaster was real, and Clarence may have
been holding her to see if she was pregnant by him.

In 1476 she was in, or joined, the sisterhood of Durham Priory.

She joined the York Corpus Christi Guild.

The description of the coronation suggests that Richard and Anne were
anointed at the same time, and that they were both revested in cloth
of gold. The Queen did not normally get this; however, there were no
gold revestments made for Anne, so this appears to be a false record.
It seems certain that certain Duchy of Lancaster lands that had been
Edward IV's were assigned to Anne.

She seems to have been at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton more than
Richard during the reign, and may have been involved in setting up
the Prince of Wales' household and the administrative centre of the
North.

As Queen she endowed Queen's College Cambridge very handsomely. Many
of the lands used were Beauchamp ones, so it was probably her idea,
not Richard's.

Croyland mentions that Anne and Elizabeth of York had similar figures
and complexions.

Her only surviving book is Mechtild (Matilda of Hackeborn),
signed "A. [or possibly R.] Warwick & R. Gloucester". Cecily is also
known to have owned a copy of this book. She wonders whether it might
be the same copy, given to Richard and Anne by Cecily.

She wonders why Anne was buried at Wesatminster, not at St George's
Windsor.

--------------

Personally, I am actually coming back to the idea that Anne may have
died of TB, but I'll martial my thoughts on this and post them later.

As regards the burial, Richard was in the process of building a huge
college attached to York Minster which it is thought he intended as
his family mausoleum (building work on the foundations was already
underway when Bosworth happened). So Anne's burial place, like
Edward's, may not have been intended as permanent.

Marie