Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-08 06:37:06
>
>Another couple of questioins on this:
>
>a) Do I assume from the above that Henry's men foraged only on the
>north side of the road? Why? Were they all left-handers? (sorry for
>ridiculing unscholarly approach - blame the remains of the Xmas
>spirit)
Bill: The areas of Warwickshire immediately to the south of Watling
Street comprise somewhat hilly, wood covered country, not rich pickings
for foraging compared to the villages on the Leicestershire. The relief
difference is up to 100m and the ground is broken relative to the
Leicestershire side. The award of compensation to Mancetter is
interesting as the village is to the south of the road and very little
of the township lies to the north of the Roman Road.
Even if I accepted the spill over into Drayton and Atterton I find it
hard to encompass Mancetter into the scenario.
>
>b) Since you deny that the Athrstone related to crops damaged during
>the battle, etc grant Are you proposing that NO crop damage was
>caused by the battle itself (since there is not other compensation
>grant for such)? Perhaps you are, since you want uncultivated area
>for a cavalry charge, but since the battlefield peaople are now
>talking in terms of up to 20,000 men, and everyone had to have their
>crops, I'd take some persuading. Remember, I do not accept that the
>surviving grant is a fluke survival.
Bill: I am sceptical about the MKJ location, I interpret the grants
differently to you. In terms of Redemoor there would not be any crops to
damage in terms of the moor/heath setting implied by that name. It is
conceivable that Richard's army may have damaged crops in moving to meet
Tudor, but the latter would be hardly likely to pay for damage done by
the enemy.
I do not require uncultivated ground for a cavalry charge, the argument
concerns the significance of the earliest references to Redemore and the
topographic significance of the name (as per Foss) compared to my
interpretation that the MKJ site was largely cultivated and consequently
does not fit.
On the subject of numbers with Oxford's division being about the same
size as Norfolk's this would give about 10,000. Northumberland never
committed to battle and the Stanley's only came in towards the end like
jackals so the actual combatant number would be much smaller.
>
>Regarding Katy's post, yes, very good points. I had meant to add that
>harvesting time would depend on crop, and a greater variety of crops
>would have been grown in a small area then than now. I believe.
>
>I should also like answer to Katy's question on the plough and
>furrow. The permanancy, and ever-increasing depth, of the furrows is
>of concern. If they were only equal to, or even smaller than, the
>moddern furrows, then any post-harvest grazing would surely do for
>them if the land were not too baked.
Bill: The point is that they were bigger and more substantial than
modern features, these are features built up over several hundred years.
Diomedes' post put it rather better than I could. It also seems that he
has conducted some practical kind of experiments in the context of an
ECW re-enactment society (which I certainly have not). Post harvest
grazing does not remove them. Several hundred years of grazing does not
remove them!
>
>And I come back again to your reliance on Witherly for the plough-and-
>furrow evidence, although on your own evidence this townland was a
>poor runner in the 'battle' compensation grant, and therefore
>possibly a small player in the fighting (please don't tell me I have
>to accept Jones' battle plan in order to interpret the grant this
>way). I return to the Sheepy placenames as evidence of a history of
>sheep pasturing in the area Jones proposes for Richard's encampment.
Bill: My interpretation of Witherley, Ratcliffe, Atterton Drayton is
that the area where Jones indicates the battle was cultivated, thus
conflicts with the earliest reference to Redemore (moor/heath) in the
York Records as outlined above.
>
>Incidentally, since we have in the extant account of Crowland a
>figure (ie the distance between Richard's encampment and Leicester)
>which is demonstrably incorrect [I have no difficulty in
>reinterpreting docs. when it is clear they must be incorrect not
>because they differ from tradition but because they do not square
>with verifiable facts]
Bill: I am unsure which verifiable facts you are referring. The 12.3
miles to Ambion I recall from your previous post. If Crowland can be
wrong about the distance, then he could also be mistaken about Merevale.
His discussion of the battle is hardly the best we have. If Michael
Hicks is right he may have been lurking back in Leicester or even
Nottingham.
>, I thought today of the likeliest way it had
>gone wrong. One would be through Crowland's ignorance, which seemed
>unlikely given that 8 miles is awfully near to Leicester, and far
>from Merevale (a place of whch a canon lawyer such as the CC must
>have been aware).
> The other likely way is dropping or transposing a
>word or figure from the number. Rendering 18 as 8 wouldn't be at all
>unusual from my experience of documents of this period (easy whether
>written in words in Latin or as Roman numerals). So where, I
>wondered, does 18 miles bring us. Just checked on Autoroute. Answer:
>Sheepy Magna.
Bill: This is nothing more than speculation it has a certain
plausibility as to method but it is still just speculation not fact. It
also seems something of a circular argument. What do the original
manuscripts show, not transcriptions, the original mss?
--
Bill Braham
>Another couple of questioins on this:
>
>a) Do I assume from the above that Henry's men foraged only on the
>north side of the road? Why? Were they all left-handers? (sorry for
>ridiculing unscholarly approach - blame the remains of the Xmas
>spirit)
Bill: The areas of Warwickshire immediately to the south of Watling
Street comprise somewhat hilly, wood covered country, not rich pickings
for foraging compared to the villages on the Leicestershire. The relief
difference is up to 100m and the ground is broken relative to the
Leicestershire side. The award of compensation to Mancetter is
interesting as the village is to the south of the road and very little
of the township lies to the north of the Roman Road.
Even if I accepted the spill over into Drayton and Atterton I find it
hard to encompass Mancetter into the scenario.
>
>b) Since you deny that the Athrstone related to crops damaged during
>the battle, etc grant Are you proposing that NO crop damage was
>caused by the battle itself (since there is not other compensation
>grant for such)? Perhaps you are, since you want uncultivated area
>for a cavalry charge, but since the battlefield peaople are now
>talking in terms of up to 20,000 men, and everyone had to have their
>crops, I'd take some persuading. Remember, I do not accept that the
>surviving grant is a fluke survival.
Bill: I am sceptical about the MKJ location, I interpret the grants
differently to you. In terms of Redemoor there would not be any crops to
damage in terms of the moor/heath setting implied by that name. It is
conceivable that Richard's army may have damaged crops in moving to meet
Tudor, but the latter would be hardly likely to pay for damage done by
the enemy.
I do not require uncultivated ground for a cavalry charge, the argument
concerns the significance of the earliest references to Redemore and the
topographic significance of the name (as per Foss) compared to my
interpretation that the MKJ site was largely cultivated and consequently
does not fit.
On the subject of numbers with Oxford's division being about the same
size as Norfolk's this would give about 10,000. Northumberland never
committed to battle and the Stanley's only came in towards the end like
jackals so the actual combatant number would be much smaller.
>
>Regarding Katy's post, yes, very good points. I had meant to add that
>harvesting time would depend on crop, and a greater variety of crops
>would have been grown in a small area then than now. I believe.
>
>I should also like answer to Katy's question on the plough and
>furrow. The permanancy, and ever-increasing depth, of the furrows is
>of concern. If they were only equal to, or even smaller than, the
>moddern furrows, then any post-harvest grazing would surely do for
>them if the land were not too baked.
Bill: The point is that they were bigger and more substantial than
modern features, these are features built up over several hundred years.
Diomedes' post put it rather better than I could. It also seems that he
has conducted some practical kind of experiments in the context of an
ECW re-enactment society (which I certainly have not). Post harvest
grazing does not remove them. Several hundred years of grazing does not
remove them!
>
>And I come back again to your reliance on Witherly for the plough-and-
>furrow evidence, although on your own evidence this townland was a
>poor runner in the 'battle' compensation grant, and therefore
>possibly a small player in the fighting (please don't tell me I have
>to accept Jones' battle plan in order to interpret the grant this
>way). I return to the Sheepy placenames as evidence of a history of
>sheep pasturing in the area Jones proposes for Richard's encampment.
Bill: My interpretation of Witherley, Ratcliffe, Atterton Drayton is
that the area where Jones indicates the battle was cultivated, thus
conflicts with the earliest reference to Redemore (moor/heath) in the
York Records as outlined above.
>
>Incidentally, since we have in the extant account of Crowland a
>figure (ie the distance between Richard's encampment and Leicester)
>which is demonstrably incorrect [I have no difficulty in
>reinterpreting docs. when it is clear they must be incorrect not
>because they differ from tradition but because they do not square
>with verifiable facts]
Bill: I am unsure which verifiable facts you are referring. The 12.3
miles to Ambion I recall from your previous post. If Crowland can be
wrong about the distance, then he could also be mistaken about Merevale.
His discussion of the battle is hardly the best we have. If Michael
Hicks is right he may have been lurking back in Leicester or even
Nottingham.
>, I thought today of the likeliest way it had
>gone wrong. One would be through Crowland's ignorance, which seemed
>unlikely given that 8 miles is awfully near to Leicester, and far
>from Merevale (a place of whch a canon lawyer such as the CC must
>have been aware).
> The other likely way is dropping or transposing a
>word or figure from the number. Rendering 18 as 8 wouldn't be at all
>unusual from my experience of documents of this period (easy whether
>written in words in Latin or as Roman numerals). So where, I
>wondered, does 18 miles bring us. Just checked on Autoroute. Answer:
>Sheepy Magna.
Bill: This is nothing more than speculation it has a certain
plausibility as to method but it is still just speculation not fact. It
also seems something of a circular argument. What do the original
manuscripts show, not transcriptions, the original mss?
--
Bill Braham
Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-08 06:37:07
>
>I am in awe of the depth of knowledge, both of geography and of
>Medieval warfare, that has been presented in posts on this subject.
>Admitting that I am woefully ignorant on both subjects except in a
>pretty superficial sense, I would like to ask if it is possible
>that "that town" is Mereval itself...ie, that the Abbey of Mereval
>was eight miles from Mereval?
Bill: Katy welcome to the discussion, apologies for a delay in replying
but I have been off line for a couple of days. The distance between
Richard's putative camp at Mythe and Merevale is no more than 3km/ just
under 2 miles as the crow flies. Thus contextually the '8 miles' I think
makes more sense in reference to Leicester. The key is what the original
Latin says and means.
The particular Latin phrase from Crowland is "ad octo miliaria ab eo
opido distantia, juxta Abbathiam de Mirivall'' (quoted from a note in
Foss' book). As far as my knowledge goes opido refers to a town (native
settlements in Roman Britain were known as oppida) but without recourse
to a Latin dictionary....
>
>Secondly, are the various discussions of the areas involved taking
>into account changes of climate that may have occurred over the past
>500 years, and of the effect of weather, not just at the time of the
>battle itself, but of, say, the previous few seasons or years?
Bill: Very valid point in the context of the extent of any marshy
ground. Grape vines were grown as far north as York earlier in the
Middle Ages (i.e. much warmer climate) plus there was a mini-ice age in
the mid C17th (Thames froze up). As to precisely what the climatic
shifts were during this period I have no answer but it provides another
avenue for investigation.
>I am in awe of the depth of knowledge, both of geography and of
>Medieval warfare, that has been presented in posts on this subject.
>Admitting that I am woefully ignorant on both subjects except in a
>pretty superficial sense, I would like to ask if it is possible
>that "that town" is Mereval itself...ie, that the Abbey of Mereval
>was eight miles from Mereval?
Bill: Katy welcome to the discussion, apologies for a delay in replying
but I have been off line for a couple of days. The distance between
Richard's putative camp at Mythe and Merevale is no more than 3km/ just
under 2 miles as the crow flies. Thus contextually the '8 miles' I think
makes more sense in reference to Leicester. The key is what the original
Latin says and means.
The particular Latin phrase from Crowland is "ad octo miliaria ab eo
opido distantia, juxta Abbathiam de Mirivall'' (quoted from a note in
Foss' book). As far as my knowledge goes opido refers to a town (native
settlements in Roman Britain were known as oppida) but without recourse
to a Latin dictionary....
>
>Secondly, are the various discussions of the areas involved taking
>into account changes of climate that may have occurred over the past
>500 years, and of the effect of weather, not just at the time of the
>battle itself, but of, say, the previous few seasons or years?
Bill: Very valid point in the context of the extent of any marshy
ground. Grape vines were grown as far north as York earlier in the
Middle Ages (i.e. much warmer climate) plus there was a mini-ice age in
the mid C17th (Thames froze up). As to precisely what the climatic
shifts were during this period I have no answer but it provides another
avenue for investigation.
Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-08 06:37:09
>
>Marie: I'll have to make this reply brief. I spent all night on one,
>then lost it. Yes, I came away none the wiser. Jones offered some
>fascinating asides, but did not really peg his theory down. Paul
>Startin's Dadlington map and scenario looked hopeless. But in August
>Jones' site looked good on viewing.
Bill: It is my intention to walk over the Witherley site this August,
assuming it does not turn into the typical English summer. In particular
there is a straight hedge (looks like one on air photos) between parts
of Witherley and Ratcliffe Culey which looks like it might be older than
the interlocking enclosure act boundaries.
>>
>
>
>Marie: Which seems to leave us with three problem sites.
Bill: It will be interesting to see exactly what is planned in the
investigation, whether any effort is put into the Wright locality. I
would have thought not, but it is geographically close to the Foss-Foard
site.
>>
>>
>> >
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>> > >
>
>Marie: But we must still assess the evidence for the Atherstone-Fenny
>Drayton site on its own merits, not the merits of some other argument
>of Jones', or indeed on the merits of his presentation of the site.
Bill: I cannot see how it is possible to divorce the arguments for the
Witherley site from Jones' other assertions. His presentation of his
site is slender enough being mainly the compensation grants plus the
'King Dick' traditions and burial mounds. One could have wished that MKJ
had been as thorough with his footnotes as Foss was in his booklet. In
this respect his failure to document his case is one of the things that
weakens it.
>>
>>>
>>
>
>Marie: I'm only too well aware. But contacting family historians and
>genealogists is not so hard. Local history societies. FFHS
>(Federation of Family History Socs) branches. Internet genealogy
>message boards. Plus old-fashioned slog. The site has been under
>dispute of some sort for 20 years, fo heaven's sake.
Bill: 20 years compared to over 400 years of 'paperwork' is nothing! Try
an afternoon running through a piece from SP28 (Commonwealth Exchequer
Papers) in the PRO. It is slow going and takes time, add in C12th-X15th
calligraphy and it is a slow rate of progress.
Of course MKJ did make contact with John D Austin when writing Bosworth
1485 as acknowledged in his book, plus Austin acknowledges MKJ in his
book. One problem is that I think (cannot prove) that there has been a
bit of circular argument going on.
>>
>> Bill: Crowland is silent on Tudor's location, he says the following
>> about Richard:
>>
>> `On departing from the town of Leicester, he was informed by scouts
>> where the enemy most probably intended to remain the following
>night;
>> upon which, he encamped near the abbey of Mirival, at a distance of
>> about eight miles from that town.'
>
>Marie: I wouldn't call that being "silent on Henry's location": the
>inference is clear.
Bill: But the inference is implicit, not explicit.
>
>Marie: My software gives the shortest route from Leicester to Sutton
>Cheyney (nearest it can provide to Ambion hill) as 12.3 miles. So 8
>miles is wrong for any scenario. Which is Crowland more likely to
>have mistaken, his king's intended destination (or perhaps
>enacampment place as reported by Tudor's incoming army next day), or
>the distance?
Bill: Much depends on what they understood by mile. We of course have
the statute mile 63360 inches (any idea when that was finalised?) but
there were different measures for a mile on the Continent certainly in
the C18th.
Your other post makes the Mythe position for Richard's putative camp 18
miles from Leicester. Even MKJ admitted that it would have pushed
Richard's army hard to get there. Equally it would have been a hard slog
subsequently for Tudor to have made Leicester on the night of the 22nd
after having fought a battle and having 15-16 miles to go from Fenny
Drayton?
>>
>> My understanding is that MKJ is interpreting that Tudor was at
>> Merevale on the night 21/22 based on the wording of the document
>> awarding 100 marks in compensation plus his interpretation of the
>> chroniclers?
>
>Marie: He uses both. I also feel that they tend to support each other.
Bill: We differ in interpretation here.
>>
>
>Marie: Fine, I wasn't suggesting they should be everywhere at once.
>But that won't happen, will it, because LCC will have already rebuilt
>the Visitors' Centre. Which was my whole problem. So it seems we're
>really in agreement there.
Bill: All depends on the results of the investigations. My main worry is
that the chap who has been metal detecting Towton has been doing it for
years and only scraps of information trickle out via some of the
archaeologists involved. There may be good reasons for this?
>>
>> >
>> Bill: One of the things about the recognition of ridge & furrow is
>> that it points to cultivated fields. The mention of Redemore in the
>> York documents in 1485 is a very early association (as indeed is
>> Henry Tudor's proclamation mentioning Sandeford). These are
>> descriptive of the landscape, Redemore/Redesmore has the meaning of
>> name as a heath or moor next to some reeds. This patently does not
>> describe a locality in/under cultivation. True the identifiaction
>> depends upon one document however at least it is one which is
>> demonstrably earlier than the battle.
>
>Marie: And Sheepy means "island of dry land in marsh where sheep are
>grazed". Just what the doctor ordered!
Bill: Apart from the position of the Sheepey villages about 2km north of
Ratcliffe Culey. The marshes are presumably those associated with the
Sence. This is way outside the area of the proposed battle site and the
putative campsite for Richard.
>
>
>>
>> Marie: Okay, I know nothing about cavalry. I shouldn't have
>digressed, but we still don't know whether there was ridge and furrow
>over the whole area.
Bill: But that is the inference from the ridge & furrow plus the
interlocking township boundaries. Foss refers to a paper by one of the
chaps from Leicester museum who apparently surveyed the whole of Leics
by air photo and published in 1989 plus W.G. Hoskins has looked at the
distribution of deserted village sites and crop marks. Two more things
to follow up.
>> >
>> >
>> > >>
>> Bill: Again we come to the fragmentray nature of the written
>record.
>
>Marie: If as you say below, the compensation grant, although
>reproduced in Campbell's 'Materials', comes originally from the
>Patent Rolls, then we should have any other grants made as the Patent
>Rolls survive, so far as I know, intact from Henry's reign. Certainly
>the published version is two big volumes. It is a very well
>documented reign compared with the preceding ones (Campbell, for
>inst., is 8 very fat volumes). If you are suggesting there were
>grants to places all the way from Dale to Leicester, then a) where
>are they? (see above), and b)why are the only surviving ones by
>coincidence in the 'hot' area?
Bill: Once again the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We
can only deal with evidence that we have (and that is hard enough) not
what we do not have. Personally I doubt there were any grants to places
encountered before 21st August because Henry dated his reign from then,
anything before that time ain't his responsibility. But that still does
not mean there were no other grants. The discovery of one document could
turn MKJ's interpretation on its head or possibly even confirm it. Are
you prepared to absolutely deny the possibility? Until then we can only
deal with what we have nothing more.
>> Not evidence but an laternative view of "at our late
>victorious
>> field".
>
>Marie: Sorry, Bill, 'at' means 'at' (not for nothing did I used to be
>a technical editor).
Bill: But what language is the original text? English, Latin or Norman
French? 'At' as you know can denote presence, nearness or relation
(Chambers). Furthermore the meaning of language does shift with time, I
have more experience of this with C17th and C18th documents. Ever tried
to read Chaucer in the original? The key really is what is in the
original text.
>
>Marie: The Patent Rolls are usually read in the published
>translation. But if this were my subject of study and I had such a
>critical doc. I would certainly go and view the original. If this
>hasn't been done it should have been: it's a question of the original
>Latin preposition, isn't it?
Bill: Exactly. It ought to have been done, but I suspect it has not. I
have checked back and I cannot find whether the documents are in the
Patent Rolls but John D Austin gives the National Archives references
E404/79/339 and E404/79/340.
>
>Marie: Don't take Jones' map too seriously. That the battle happened
>at the location covered by these townlands is what the grant says;
>Jones then comes up with a map of his idea of one stage of the
>battle - you can't dismiss the compensation grant on the basis of
>this.
Bill: But if the map is not to be taken seriously why bother drawing it?
What are we to take seriously? If the grants indicate the locale of the
battle how come Mancetter and Atherstone are included?
MKJ gives some key to his thinking about the confusion of Medieval
warfare in his discussion of Montlhery based on Commines. The essence of
this was groups of horsemen rushing around all over the place. But what
he fails to mentions is the centre division of each army was composed of
infantry and just stood each other off.
At Bosworth both Oxford and Norfolk commanded battles or divisions
composed of infantry. Basically this was a slogging match after the
initial exchange of archery. It is not going to move far from the
initial point of contact until one side breaks, thus I cannot see how
the action can range over Witherley, Atterton, Fenny Drayton and
Mancetter. In terms of the infantry forces it does not make sense.
Even if Norfolk came right down into Drayton before engaging (thus
ignoring the map as you suggest) the losses in Atterton and Witherley
could be construed as damage inflicted in the flight but why no grant to
Ratcliffe Culey which would also be affected in the same way? And there
is still the Mancetter & Athertsone problem.
This back to scenarios again but this why you cannot really get away
from them. It is no good coming up with a battle site if the 'action'
cannot be fitted onto the canvas.
>>
> We could all do with map
>of parish and townlands boundaries.
Bill: Look at the Oldmaps site in my last post, they are indicated on
the online versions. You will need to search under both Warwickshire and
Leicestershire in order to overcome a blank space.
>> A burial mound does require a lot of effort
>to
>> make in contrast to digging a trench.
>
>Marie: Wouldn't they just dig more topsoil from the surrounding land
>and pile it on? Much easier than digging another deep hole.
Bill: Not necessarily, by digging the topsoil either a circumferential
ditch results or one has to move in an increasing radius from the mounds
scraping up topsoil. Still a lot of effort. Disposing of any number of
bodies is hard work.
>
>
>
>Marie: I don't dispute that this is not Towton, but there should
>still have been a significant number of bodies buried.
Bill: The key being what is meant by the word 'significant'. Most
casualties result from a rout, which usually is directly away from the
threat (think of Towton for example, Warwick at 2nd St Albans. This
could have happened to Norfolk's battle (several sources assert that it
did indeed break) but it would have been away from the threat viz.
Oxford's battle back in a north/north easterly direction. Sorry but it
back to scenario again.
>
>Marie: I've given my reasons above why I do not accept this. I base
>my interest not on Jones' scenario, but on the compensation grants
>which, taken together with Crowland, have aroused my interest.
Bill: But how do you reconcile those with Redemore in the York Records,
plus the mss notes in the Scottish chronicle (?Pittscottie)?
>
>> Other factors also need to be born in
>mind
>> such as how wet was the summer of 1485? How waterlogged were the
>> margins of the moor/heath.
>
>Marie: A very good point that I thought of raising myself. Paul
>Startin has recently had this scenario published in the ricardian
>Bulletin. But I see that the marshland area depicted is the maximum
>extent. Were it considerably dried out at the time, the possibilities
>for the site would look a lot healthier.
Bill: Depending on climatic variation over a period of several years the
amount of marshy waterlogged ground might vary considerably. Other
factors could be whether any attempts were made to increase the are of
rough grazing on the moor by drainage works or whether the streams were
allowed to silt up.
>> >
>> The Redemore/Sandeford material is of a
>> different calibre to the `King Dick's Hole' etc. traditions. Both
>the
>> former have impeccable pedigrees in terms of association with the
>> battle. The latter do not. I actually think that Ken's placing of
>> Sandeford is not particularly convincing,
>
>Marie: Well, you know I accept the Redemore evidence. And on
>Sandeford you have just said exactly what I meant myself.
Bill: Fair enough. In some respects it comes down to the
weighting/emphasis given to the Redemore references against the
compensation grants.
> But
>I am, I have to say, more than a little worried about the negative
>aspects of this debate.
Bill: How can it be negative to question either a site or a scenario? I
have some concerns over the execution of Oxford's flank attack as
portrayed in the Foss/Foard setup. I would have thought it an ideal
opportunity for Norfolk to push his archers forward where protected by
the marsh they could inflict some damage on Oxford's battle as it
manoeuvred. This is little different from doubting Tudor marching with
his back to the enemy in the MKJ model.
>
> On the
>> other issues I fear we shall have to agree to differ
>
>Marie: I don't think we do differ so much. You portray me as sold on
>Jones' hypothesis and so make this discussion more polemical than it
>needs to be. We actually seem to have wide areas of agreement.
Bill: We certainly differ considerably over the emphasis to be placed on
the compensation grants.
--
Bill Braham
>Marie: I'll have to make this reply brief. I spent all night on one,
>then lost it. Yes, I came away none the wiser. Jones offered some
>fascinating asides, but did not really peg his theory down. Paul
>Startin's Dadlington map and scenario looked hopeless. But in August
>Jones' site looked good on viewing.
Bill: It is my intention to walk over the Witherley site this August,
assuming it does not turn into the typical English summer. In particular
there is a straight hedge (looks like one on air photos) between parts
of Witherley and Ratcliffe Culey which looks like it might be older than
the interlocking enclosure act boundaries.
>>
>
>
>Marie: Which seems to leave us with three problem sites.
Bill: It will be interesting to see exactly what is planned in the
investigation, whether any effort is put into the Wright locality. I
would have thought not, but it is geographically close to the Foss-Foard
site.
>>
>>
>> >
>> > >
>>
>> > >
>> > >
>
>Marie: But we must still assess the evidence for the Atherstone-Fenny
>Drayton site on its own merits, not the merits of some other argument
>of Jones', or indeed on the merits of his presentation of the site.
Bill: I cannot see how it is possible to divorce the arguments for the
Witherley site from Jones' other assertions. His presentation of his
site is slender enough being mainly the compensation grants plus the
'King Dick' traditions and burial mounds. One could have wished that MKJ
had been as thorough with his footnotes as Foss was in his booklet. In
this respect his failure to document his case is one of the things that
weakens it.
>>
>>>
>>
>
>Marie: I'm only too well aware. But contacting family historians and
>genealogists is not so hard. Local history societies. FFHS
>(Federation of Family History Socs) branches. Internet genealogy
>message boards. Plus old-fashioned slog. The site has been under
>dispute of some sort for 20 years, fo heaven's sake.
Bill: 20 years compared to over 400 years of 'paperwork' is nothing! Try
an afternoon running through a piece from SP28 (Commonwealth Exchequer
Papers) in the PRO. It is slow going and takes time, add in C12th-X15th
calligraphy and it is a slow rate of progress.
Of course MKJ did make contact with John D Austin when writing Bosworth
1485 as acknowledged in his book, plus Austin acknowledges MKJ in his
book. One problem is that I think (cannot prove) that there has been a
bit of circular argument going on.
>>
>> Bill: Crowland is silent on Tudor's location, he says the following
>> about Richard:
>>
>> `On departing from the town of Leicester, he was informed by scouts
>> where the enemy most probably intended to remain the following
>night;
>> upon which, he encamped near the abbey of Mirival, at a distance of
>> about eight miles from that town.'
>
>Marie: I wouldn't call that being "silent on Henry's location": the
>inference is clear.
Bill: But the inference is implicit, not explicit.
>
>Marie: My software gives the shortest route from Leicester to Sutton
>Cheyney (nearest it can provide to Ambion hill) as 12.3 miles. So 8
>miles is wrong for any scenario. Which is Crowland more likely to
>have mistaken, his king's intended destination (or perhaps
>enacampment place as reported by Tudor's incoming army next day), or
>the distance?
Bill: Much depends on what they understood by mile. We of course have
the statute mile 63360 inches (any idea when that was finalised?) but
there were different measures for a mile on the Continent certainly in
the C18th.
Your other post makes the Mythe position for Richard's putative camp 18
miles from Leicester. Even MKJ admitted that it would have pushed
Richard's army hard to get there. Equally it would have been a hard slog
subsequently for Tudor to have made Leicester on the night of the 22nd
after having fought a battle and having 15-16 miles to go from Fenny
Drayton?
>>
>> My understanding is that MKJ is interpreting that Tudor was at
>> Merevale on the night 21/22 based on the wording of the document
>> awarding 100 marks in compensation plus his interpretation of the
>> chroniclers?
>
>Marie: He uses both. I also feel that they tend to support each other.
Bill: We differ in interpretation here.
>>
>
>Marie: Fine, I wasn't suggesting they should be everywhere at once.
>But that won't happen, will it, because LCC will have already rebuilt
>the Visitors' Centre. Which was my whole problem. So it seems we're
>really in agreement there.
Bill: All depends on the results of the investigations. My main worry is
that the chap who has been metal detecting Towton has been doing it for
years and only scraps of information trickle out via some of the
archaeologists involved. There may be good reasons for this?
>>
>> >
>> Bill: One of the things about the recognition of ridge & furrow is
>> that it points to cultivated fields. The mention of Redemore in the
>> York documents in 1485 is a very early association (as indeed is
>> Henry Tudor's proclamation mentioning Sandeford). These are
>> descriptive of the landscape, Redemore/Redesmore has the meaning of
>> name as a heath or moor next to some reeds. This patently does not
>> describe a locality in/under cultivation. True the identifiaction
>> depends upon one document however at least it is one which is
>> demonstrably earlier than the battle.
>
>Marie: And Sheepy means "island of dry land in marsh where sheep are
>grazed". Just what the doctor ordered!
Bill: Apart from the position of the Sheepey villages about 2km north of
Ratcliffe Culey. The marshes are presumably those associated with the
Sence. This is way outside the area of the proposed battle site and the
putative campsite for Richard.
>
>
>>
>> Marie: Okay, I know nothing about cavalry. I shouldn't have
>digressed, but we still don't know whether there was ridge and furrow
>over the whole area.
Bill: But that is the inference from the ridge & furrow plus the
interlocking township boundaries. Foss refers to a paper by one of the
chaps from Leicester museum who apparently surveyed the whole of Leics
by air photo and published in 1989 plus W.G. Hoskins has looked at the
distribution of deserted village sites and crop marks. Two more things
to follow up.
>> >
>> >
>> > >>
>> Bill: Again we come to the fragmentray nature of the written
>record.
>
>Marie: If as you say below, the compensation grant, although
>reproduced in Campbell's 'Materials', comes originally from the
>Patent Rolls, then we should have any other grants made as the Patent
>Rolls survive, so far as I know, intact from Henry's reign. Certainly
>the published version is two big volumes. It is a very well
>documented reign compared with the preceding ones (Campbell, for
>inst., is 8 very fat volumes). If you are suggesting there were
>grants to places all the way from Dale to Leicester, then a) where
>are they? (see above), and b)why are the only surviving ones by
>coincidence in the 'hot' area?
Bill: Once again the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We
can only deal with evidence that we have (and that is hard enough) not
what we do not have. Personally I doubt there were any grants to places
encountered before 21st August because Henry dated his reign from then,
anything before that time ain't his responsibility. But that still does
not mean there were no other grants. The discovery of one document could
turn MKJ's interpretation on its head or possibly even confirm it. Are
you prepared to absolutely deny the possibility? Until then we can only
deal with what we have nothing more.
>> Not evidence but an laternative view of "at our late
>victorious
>> field".
>
>Marie: Sorry, Bill, 'at' means 'at' (not for nothing did I used to be
>a technical editor).
Bill: But what language is the original text? English, Latin or Norman
French? 'At' as you know can denote presence, nearness or relation
(Chambers). Furthermore the meaning of language does shift with time, I
have more experience of this with C17th and C18th documents. Ever tried
to read Chaucer in the original? The key really is what is in the
original text.
>
>Marie: The Patent Rolls are usually read in the published
>translation. But if this were my subject of study and I had such a
>critical doc. I would certainly go and view the original. If this
>hasn't been done it should have been: it's a question of the original
>Latin preposition, isn't it?
Bill: Exactly. It ought to have been done, but I suspect it has not. I
have checked back and I cannot find whether the documents are in the
Patent Rolls but John D Austin gives the National Archives references
E404/79/339 and E404/79/340.
>
>Marie: Don't take Jones' map too seriously. That the battle happened
>at the location covered by these townlands is what the grant says;
>Jones then comes up with a map of his idea of one stage of the
>battle - you can't dismiss the compensation grant on the basis of
>this.
Bill: But if the map is not to be taken seriously why bother drawing it?
What are we to take seriously? If the grants indicate the locale of the
battle how come Mancetter and Atherstone are included?
MKJ gives some key to his thinking about the confusion of Medieval
warfare in his discussion of Montlhery based on Commines. The essence of
this was groups of horsemen rushing around all over the place. But what
he fails to mentions is the centre division of each army was composed of
infantry and just stood each other off.
At Bosworth both Oxford and Norfolk commanded battles or divisions
composed of infantry. Basically this was a slogging match after the
initial exchange of archery. It is not going to move far from the
initial point of contact until one side breaks, thus I cannot see how
the action can range over Witherley, Atterton, Fenny Drayton and
Mancetter. In terms of the infantry forces it does not make sense.
Even if Norfolk came right down into Drayton before engaging (thus
ignoring the map as you suggest) the losses in Atterton and Witherley
could be construed as damage inflicted in the flight but why no grant to
Ratcliffe Culey which would also be affected in the same way? And there
is still the Mancetter & Athertsone problem.
This back to scenarios again but this why you cannot really get away
from them. It is no good coming up with a battle site if the 'action'
cannot be fitted onto the canvas.
>>
> We could all do with map
>of parish and townlands boundaries.
Bill: Look at the Oldmaps site in my last post, they are indicated on
the online versions. You will need to search under both Warwickshire and
Leicestershire in order to overcome a blank space.
>> A burial mound does require a lot of effort
>to
>> make in contrast to digging a trench.
>
>Marie: Wouldn't they just dig more topsoil from the surrounding land
>and pile it on? Much easier than digging another deep hole.
Bill: Not necessarily, by digging the topsoil either a circumferential
ditch results or one has to move in an increasing radius from the mounds
scraping up topsoil. Still a lot of effort. Disposing of any number of
bodies is hard work.
>
>
>
>Marie: I don't dispute that this is not Towton, but there should
>still have been a significant number of bodies buried.
Bill: The key being what is meant by the word 'significant'. Most
casualties result from a rout, which usually is directly away from the
threat (think of Towton for example, Warwick at 2nd St Albans. This
could have happened to Norfolk's battle (several sources assert that it
did indeed break) but it would have been away from the threat viz.
Oxford's battle back in a north/north easterly direction. Sorry but it
back to scenario again.
>
>Marie: I've given my reasons above why I do not accept this. I base
>my interest not on Jones' scenario, but on the compensation grants
>which, taken together with Crowland, have aroused my interest.
Bill: But how do you reconcile those with Redemore in the York Records,
plus the mss notes in the Scottish chronicle (?Pittscottie)?
>
>> Other factors also need to be born in
>mind
>> such as how wet was the summer of 1485? How waterlogged were the
>> margins of the moor/heath.
>
>Marie: A very good point that I thought of raising myself. Paul
>Startin has recently had this scenario published in the ricardian
>Bulletin. But I see that the marshland area depicted is the maximum
>extent. Were it considerably dried out at the time, the possibilities
>for the site would look a lot healthier.
Bill: Depending on climatic variation over a period of several years the
amount of marshy waterlogged ground might vary considerably. Other
factors could be whether any attempts were made to increase the are of
rough grazing on the moor by drainage works or whether the streams were
allowed to silt up.
>> >
>> The Redemore/Sandeford material is of a
>> different calibre to the `King Dick's Hole' etc. traditions. Both
>the
>> former have impeccable pedigrees in terms of association with the
>> battle. The latter do not. I actually think that Ken's placing of
>> Sandeford is not particularly convincing,
>
>Marie: Well, you know I accept the Redemore evidence. And on
>Sandeford you have just said exactly what I meant myself.
Bill: Fair enough. In some respects it comes down to the
weighting/emphasis given to the Redemore references against the
compensation grants.
> But
>I am, I have to say, more than a little worried about the negative
>aspects of this debate.
Bill: How can it be negative to question either a site or a scenario? I
have some concerns over the execution of Oxford's flank attack as
portrayed in the Foss/Foard setup. I would have thought it an ideal
opportunity for Norfolk to push his archers forward where protected by
the marsh they could inflict some damage on Oxford's battle as it
manoeuvred. This is little different from doubting Tudor marching with
his back to the enemy in the MKJ model.
>
> On the
>> other issues I fear we shall have to agree to differ
>
>Marie: I don't think we do differ so much. You portray me as sold on
>Jones' hypothesis and so make this discussion more polemical than it
>needs to be. We actually seem to have wide areas of agreement.
Bill: We certainly differ considerably over the emphasis to be placed on
the compensation grants.
--
Bill Braham
Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-08 06:37:09
>
>>
>
>Could you explain the ridge and furrow topography to me?
>board
Katy,
Diomedes has just said it and far more eloquently than I could. The
impact of this kind of microtopography is key to understanding the
impact on the movement.
As to tactics, at this point English tactics were becoming a bit old
hat. By the end of the 100 Years War the French had worked out how to
deal with the Archer/Man at Arms combination. The Burgundians who had
imitated it had begun to move to mixed tactical combinations of missile
infantry, heavy and light cavalry.
Essentially it was a case of standing up and going toe to toe (or hoof
to hoof!).
> Were the same furrows plowed
>over and over, not being leveled between crops, gradually digging
>them ever deeper, to produce the ridge and furrow landscape you
>mention?
Basically yes.
>
>Also, the difficulty of traversing culivated land would depend on
>what crops were in the field and at what grwing stage. Do we know
>what might have been growing there in August 1485? I don't know the
>growing seasons of that area nor what crops were cultivated. A field
>from which grain had been already harvested would be a quite
>different proposition from one still in root vegetables.
It would vary, a kind of crop rotation was practised with some areas
being left fallow for one year. The same crop e.g. wheat, peas would be
grown in the same part of the common fields. Thus contiguous strips
would be under the same crop between headlands. Fallow areas were often
grazed, the livestock being penned in by 'dead hedges'.
>
>Another thought is the climate and the weather. What the climate of
>that area like 500 years ago, and what the weathr had been, not just
>in the weeks or days before the battle, but in the previous year or
>two, could be very important. I would imagine that more battles of
>history have been won or lost through the influence of the weather
>than by battlefield tactics.
Weather certainly had an effect on the battles of Towton and Barnet!
>
>Katy
>
>But what you say about ridge and furrow farming reminds me of
>tgerracing of hillsides or rice paddies, which are permanent or at
>least in place for long periods.
A reasonable analogy.
Regards
--
Bill
>>
>
>Could you explain the ridge and furrow topography to me?
>board
Katy,
Diomedes has just said it and far more eloquently than I could. The
impact of this kind of microtopography is key to understanding the
impact on the movement.
As to tactics, at this point English tactics were becoming a bit old
hat. By the end of the 100 Years War the French had worked out how to
deal with the Archer/Man at Arms combination. The Burgundians who had
imitated it had begun to move to mixed tactical combinations of missile
infantry, heavy and light cavalry.
Essentially it was a case of standing up and going toe to toe (or hoof
to hoof!).
> Were the same furrows plowed
>over and over, not being leveled between crops, gradually digging
>them ever deeper, to produce the ridge and furrow landscape you
>mention?
Basically yes.
>
>Also, the difficulty of traversing culivated land would depend on
>what crops were in the field and at what grwing stage. Do we know
>what might have been growing there in August 1485? I don't know the
>growing seasons of that area nor what crops were cultivated. A field
>from which grain had been already harvested would be a quite
>different proposition from one still in root vegetables.
It would vary, a kind of crop rotation was practised with some areas
being left fallow for one year. The same crop e.g. wheat, peas would be
grown in the same part of the common fields. Thus contiguous strips
would be under the same crop between headlands. Fallow areas were often
grazed, the livestock being penned in by 'dead hedges'.
>
>Another thought is the climate and the weather. What the climate of
>that area like 500 years ago, and what the weathr had been, not just
>in the weeks or days before the battle, but in the previous year or
>two, could be very important. I would imagine that more battles of
>history have been won or lost through the influence of the weather
>than by battlefield tactics.
Weather certainly had an effect on the battles of Towton and Barnet!
>
>Katy
>
>But what you say about ridge and furrow farming reminds me of
>tgerracing of hillsides or rice paddies, which are permanent or at
>least in place for long periods.
A reasonable analogy.
Regards
--
Bill
Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-09 01:31:34
--- In , Bill Braham
<bill@w...> wrote:
> >
> >Another couple of questioins on this:
> >
> >a) Do I assume from the above that Henry's men foraged only on the
> >north side of the road? Why? Were they all left-handers? (sorry for
> >ridiculing unscholarly approach - blame the remains of the Xmas
> >spirit)
>
> Bill: The areas of Warwickshire immediately to the south of Watling
> Street comprise somewhat hilly, wood covered country, not rich
pickings
> for foraging compared to the villages on the Leicestershire. The
relief
> difference is up to 100m and the ground is broken relative to the
> Leicestershire side. The award of compensation to Mancetter is
> interesting as the village is to the south of the road and very
little
> of the township lies to the north of the Roman Road.
>
> Even if I accepted the spill over into Drayton and Atterton I find
it
> hard to encompass Mancetter into the scenario.
>
It doesn't fit in Jones' scenario, but I still don't understand why
you claim that the contemporary evidence has to be tied to his
recently-invented battle plan (to stand your own order of take-up on
its feet). Any movement westward from Merevale is likely to have
included Mancetter since Merevale itself lies south of Watling
Street. Yes, looking at it, these townlands could indeed have been
included in foraging on Watling Street/ Fenn Lanes, but equally if
Tudor and Richard were marching towards each other, Tudor on Watling
Street (towards London), and richard from Leicester on Fenn Lanes (to
intercept him where the roads met), this could have been the site of
the battle. As suggested by the only currently available version of
the compensation grant.
Also, to borrow your own argument, the compensation grant to
Mancetter was the measliest of the lot.
>
> >
> >b) Since you deny that the Athrstone related to crops damaged
during
> >the battle, etc grant Are you proposing that NO crop damage was
> >caused by the battle itself (since there is not other compensation
> >grant for such)? Perhaps you are, since you want uncultivated area
> >for a cavalry charge, but since the battlefield peaople are now
> >talking in terms of up to 20,000 men, and everyone had to have
their
> >crops, I'd take some persuading. Remember, I do not accept that the
> >surviving grant is a fluke survival.
>
> Bill: I am sceptical about the MKJ location, I interpret the grants
> differently to you. In terms of Redemoor there would not be any
crops to
> damage in terms of the moor/heath setting implied by that name. It
is
> conceivable that Richard's army may have damaged crops in moving to
meet
> Tudor, but the latter would be hardly likely to pay for damage done
by
> the enemy.
>
> I do not require uncultivated ground for a cavalry charge, the
argument
> concerns the significance of the earliest references to Redemore
and the
> topographic significance of the name (as per Foss) compared to my
> interpretation that the MKJ site was largely cultivated and
consequently
> does not fit.
>
> On the subject of numbers with Oxford's division being about the
same
> size as Norfolk's this would give about 10,000. Northumberland
never
> committed to battle and the Stanley's only came in towards the end
like
> jackals so the actual combatant number would be much smaller.
>
> >
> >Regarding Katy's post, yes, very good points. I had meant to add
that
> >harvesting time would depend on crop, and a greater variety of
crops
> >would have been grown in a small area then than now. I believe.
> >
> >I should also like answer to Katy's question on the plough and
> >furrow. The permanancy, and ever-increasing depth, of the furrows
is
> >of concern. If they were only equal to, or even smaller than, the
> >moddern furrows, then any post-harvest grazing would surely do for
> >them if the land were not too baked.
>
> Bill: The point is that they were bigger and more substantial than
> modern features, these are features built up over several hundred
years.
> Diomedes' post put it rather better than I could. It also seems
that he
> has conducted some practical kind of experiments in the context of
an
> ECW re-enactment society (which I certainly have not). Post harvest
> grazing does not remove them. Several hundred years of grazing does
not
> remove them!
Yes, many thanks to Diomedes for that most informative post. That has
helped us a lot. What we now need properly established is the exact
extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
>
> >
> >And I come back again to your reliance on Witherly for the plough-
and-
> >furrow evidence, although on your own evidence this townland was a
> >poor runner in the 'battle' compensation grant, and therefore
> >possibly a small player in the fighting (please don't tell me I
have
> >to accept Jones' battle plan in order to interpret the grant this
> >way). I return to the Sheepy placenames as evidence of a history of
> >sheep pasturing in the area Jones proposes for Richard's
encampment.
>
> Bill: My interpretation of Witherley, Ratcliffe, Atterton Drayton
is
> that the area where Jones indicates the battle was cultivated, thus
> conflicts with the earliest reference to Redemore (moor/heath) in
the
> York Records as outlined above.
If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without your
being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell me
if I misinterpret.
as for the conflict with Sponer's tidings to York, I think I pointed
out my feelings on this earlier: ie that the Redemore reference is
valid but not conclusive evidence. It shows that the name Redemore
was associated with 6 roods "in the field of Dadlington". There are
three problems:
1) For Redemore to have so promptly given its name to the site, it
must have been a fairly large feature with a name well used in the
locality. Therefore why have no other references to Redemore in
Dadlington been turned up?
2) The documents talks of the "fields of Dadlington". In an earlier
post you argued that a reference to the fields of Witherley was
evidence of cultivation, therefore ridge and furrow, therefore not a
posssible site
3) The document presumably gives all the information required to
identify the land it refers to: 6 roods known as Redemore in the
fields of Dadlington. Am I wrong to suppose from this that Redemore
in the townland of Dadlington covered an area of 6 roods? Prhaps, but
the problem is that six roods is only 1 1/2 acres and it takes 640
acres to make up a single square mile (I stand to be corrected - I
have had to look this up as I haven't done roods & perches since
junior school). The Dadlington roods, in a nutshell,,do not of
themselves comprise a feature large enough to have given its name to
the battle. My suspicion would be that 6 roods of Redemore lay in the
fields of Dadlington, and the rest belonged to other townland(s).
Which other townlands we don't know: it may have spread out east
to "Jones"'s site, it may have lain in some other direction.
>
> >
> >Incidentally, since we have in the extant account of Crowland a
> >figure (ie the distance between Richard's encampment and Leicester)
> >which is demonstrably incorrect [I have no difficulty in
> >reinterpreting docs. when it is clear they must be incorrect not
> >because they differ from tradition but because they do not square
> >with verifiable facts]
>
> Bill: I am unsure which verifiable facts you are referring.
The distance from Leicester to Merevale.
The 12.3
> miles to Ambion I recall from your previous post. If Crowland can
be
> wrong about the distance, then he could also be mistaken about
Merevale.
> His discussion of the battle is hardly the best we have. If Michael
> Hicks is right he may have been lurking back in Leicester or even
> Nottingham.
Or not even Nottingham. Hicks' argument is that Crowland talks about
Tudor "coming" to Leicester, as if he were approaching the writer
himself. Also, Crowland seems knowledgeable about the events in
Leicester. If he were in Leicester, and employed by the government in
some capacity (as he seems to have been), he is unlikely to have
misheard the name of the rendezvous from both the outgoing AND
incoming armies.
>
> >, I thought today of the likeliest way it had
> >gone wrong. One would be through Crowland's ignorance, which seemed
> >unlikely given that 8 miles is awfully near to Leicester, and far
> >from Merevale (a place of whch a canon lawyer such as the CC must
> >have been aware).
> > The other likely way is dropping or transposing a
> >word or figure from the number. Rendering 18 as 8 wouldn't be at
all
> >unusual from my experience of documents of this period (easy
whether
> >written in words in Latin or as Roman numerals). So where, I
> >wondered, does 18 miles bring us. Just checked on Autoroute.
Answer:
> >Sheepy Magna.
>
> Bill: This is nothing more than speculation it has a certain
> plausibility as to method but it is still just speculation not fact.
Well, talk about the pot! I know it's speculation - what else
tdestination and distance? However, it is a less extreme speculation
than suggesting Crowland mistook both the name of the destination and
the distance. I started, as you did, with the premise that the
placename and distance could not both be correct; and, using my
experience, both as an editor and as a transcriber of late medieval
documents, of the commonest types of error, I suggested that the word
or digit for 'ten' may have been accidentally omitted in the writing
up. It was only on checking my route software that I found this
favoured Jones' interpretation. To suggest the cannon lawyer &
government functionary who wrote this got the whole thing wrong,
distance and destination, is considerably more speculative still.
Perhaps we should remember the warning of Edward de Bono:
intelligence does not of itself make a person more likely to arrive
at the correct conclusion as it endows said individual with an
enhanced capacity to justify prejudiced opinions. We must be on our
guard.
It
> also seems something of a circular argument. What do the original
> manuscripts show, not transcriptions, the original mss?
I don't know, Bill, do I? but this would appear to be clutching at
straws. You are quite correct to point out that transcriptions are
fallible, and I have agreed (if you recall) that those reseaching
this topic should absolutely check the original. But I am not one of
these people, and it is not for me do do so. All I ever asked for was
for both sites (and all minds) to be kept OPEN. I really am
researching something else. As it stands we have only the
transcription, and though mistakes happen we must work with this
until we get better. To completely ignore the grant on the grounds
that there MAY have been a translation problem is worse than
speculative. Again, in my limited experience, omissions in
transcription are common (I have myself encountered some of major
importance in a critical document I recently took the trouble to
view), and transcription errors - ie simple misreadings - are not
uncommon, but the old codgers who translated these documents may have
been shortsighted, and they may have had limited paleography skills,
but they knew their Latin. That they have simply mistranslated the
grant is, I think, not all that likely. So it should definitely be
checked, but until such time we should definitely proceed on the
supposition that what we have is correct.
Marie
<bill@w...> wrote:
> >
> >Another couple of questioins on this:
> >
> >a) Do I assume from the above that Henry's men foraged only on the
> >north side of the road? Why? Were they all left-handers? (sorry for
> >ridiculing unscholarly approach - blame the remains of the Xmas
> >spirit)
>
> Bill: The areas of Warwickshire immediately to the south of Watling
> Street comprise somewhat hilly, wood covered country, not rich
pickings
> for foraging compared to the villages on the Leicestershire. The
relief
> difference is up to 100m and the ground is broken relative to the
> Leicestershire side. The award of compensation to Mancetter is
> interesting as the village is to the south of the road and very
little
> of the township lies to the north of the Roman Road.
>
> Even if I accepted the spill over into Drayton and Atterton I find
it
> hard to encompass Mancetter into the scenario.
>
It doesn't fit in Jones' scenario, but I still don't understand why
you claim that the contemporary evidence has to be tied to his
recently-invented battle plan (to stand your own order of take-up on
its feet). Any movement westward from Merevale is likely to have
included Mancetter since Merevale itself lies south of Watling
Street. Yes, looking at it, these townlands could indeed have been
included in foraging on Watling Street/ Fenn Lanes, but equally if
Tudor and Richard were marching towards each other, Tudor on Watling
Street (towards London), and richard from Leicester on Fenn Lanes (to
intercept him where the roads met), this could have been the site of
the battle. As suggested by the only currently available version of
the compensation grant.
Also, to borrow your own argument, the compensation grant to
Mancetter was the measliest of the lot.
>
> >
> >b) Since you deny that the Athrstone related to crops damaged
during
> >the battle, etc grant Are you proposing that NO crop damage was
> >caused by the battle itself (since there is not other compensation
> >grant for such)? Perhaps you are, since you want uncultivated area
> >for a cavalry charge, but since the battlefield peaople are now
> >talking in terms of up to 20,000 men, and everyone had to have
their
> >crops, I'd take some persuading. Remember, I do not accept that the
> >surviving grant is a fluke survival.
>
> Bill: I am sceptical about the MKJ location, I interpret the grants
> differently to you. In terms of Redemoor there would not be any
crops to
> damage in terms of the moor/heath setting implied by that name. It
is
> conceivable that Richard's army may have damaged crops in moving to
meet
> Tudor, but the latter would be hardly likely to pay for damage done
by
> the enemy.
>
> I do not require uncultivated ground for a cavalry charge, the
argument
> concerns the significance of the earliest references to Redemore
and the
> topographic significance of the name (as per Foss) compared to my
> interpretation that the MKJ site was largely cultivated and
consequently
> does not fit.
>
> On the subject of numbers with Oxford's division being about the
same
> size as Norfolk's this would give about 10,000. Northumberland
never
> committed to battle and the Stanley's only came in towards the end
like
> jackals so the actual combatant number would be much smaller.
>
> >
> >Regarding Katy's post, yes, very good points. I had meant to add
that
> >harvesting time would depend on crop, and a greater variety of
crops
> >would have been grown in a small area then than now. I believe.
> >
> >I should also like answer to Katy's question on the plough and
> >furrow. The permanancy, and ever-increasing depth, of the furrows
is
> >of concern. If they were only equal to, or even smaller than, the
> >moddern furrows, then any post-harvest grazing would surely do for
> >them if the land were not too baked.
>
> Bill: The point is that they were bigger and more substantial than
> modern features, these are features built up over several hundred
years.
> Diomedes' post put it rather better than I could. It also seems
that he
> has conducted some practical kind of experiments in the context of
an
> ECW re-enactment society (which I certainly have not). Post harvest
> grazing does not remove them. Several hundred years of grazing does
not
> remove them!
Yes, many thanks to Diomedes for that most informative post. That has
helped us a lot. What we now need properly established is the exact
extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
>
> >
> >And I come back again to your reliance on Witherly for the plough-
and-
> >furrow evidence, although on your own evidence this townland was a
> >poor runner in the 'battle' compensation grant, and therefore
> >possibly a small player in the fighting (please don't tell me I
have
> >to accept Jones' battle plan in order to interpret the grant this
> >way). I return to the Sheepy placenames as evidence of a history of
> >sheep pasturing in the area Jones proposes for Richard's
encampment.
>
> Bill: My interpretation of Witherley, Ratcliffe, Atterton Drayton
is
> that the area where Jones indicates the battle was cultivated, thus
> conflicts with the earliest reference to Redemore (moor/heath) in
the
> York Records as outlined above.
If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without your
being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell me
if I misinterpret.
as for the conflict with Sponer's tidings to York, I think I pointed
out my feelings on this earlier: ie that the Redemore reference is
valid but not conclusive evidence. It shows that the name Redemore
was associated with 6 roods "in the field of Dadlington". There are
three problems:
1) For Redemore to have so promptly given its name to the site, it
must have been a fairly large feature with a name well used in the
locality. Therefore why have no other references to Redemore in
Dadlington been turned up?
2) The documents talks of the "fields of Dadlington". In an earlier
post you argued that a reference to the fields of Witherley was
evidence of cultivation, therefore ridge and furrow, therefore not a
posssible site
3) The document presumably gives all the information required to
identify the land it refers to: 6 roods known as Redemore in the
fields of Dadlington. Am I wrong to suppose from this that Redemore
in the townland of Dadlington covered an area of 6 roods? Prhaps, but
the problem is that six roods is only 1 1/2 acres and it takes 640
acres to make up a single square mile (I stand to be corrected - I
have had to look this up as I haven't done roods & perches since
junior school). The Dadlington roods, in a nutshell,,do not of
themselves comprise a feature large enough to have given its name to
the battle. My suspicion would be that 6 roods of Redemore lay in the
fields of Dadlington, and the rest belonged to other townland(s).
Which other townlands we don't know: it may have spread out east
to "Jones"'s site, it may have lain in some other direction.
>
> >
> >Incidentally, since we have in the extant account of Crowland a
> >figure (ie the distance between Richard's encampment and Leicester)
> >which is demonstrably incorrect [I have no difficulty in
> >reinterpreting docs. when it is clear they must be incorrect not
> >because they differ from tradition but because they do not square
> >with verifiable facts]
>
> Bill: I am unsure which verifiable facts you are referring.
The distance from Leicester to Merevale.
The 12.3
> miles to Ambion I recall from your previous post. If Crowland can
be
> wrong about the distance, then he could also be mistaken about
Merevale.
> His discussion of the battle is hardly the best we have. If Michael
> Hicks is right he may have been lurking back in Leicester or even
> Nottingham.
Or not even Nottingham. Hicks' argument is that Crowland talks about
Tudor "coming" to Leicester, as if he were approaching the writer
himself. Also, Crowland seems knowledgeable about the events in
Leicester. If he were in Leicester, and employed by the government in
some capacity (as he seems to have been), he is unlikely to have
misheard the name of the rendezvous from both the outgoing AND
incoming armies.
>
> >, I thought today of the likeliest way it had
> >gone wrong. One would be through Crowland's ignorance, which seemed
> >unlikely given that 8 miles is awfully near to Leicester, and far
> >from Merevale (a place of whch a canon lawyer such as the CC must
> >have been aware).
> > The other likely way is dropping or transposing a
> >word or figure from the number. Rendering 18 as 8 wouldn't be at
all
> >unusual from my experience of documents of this period (easy
whether
> >written in words in Latin or as Roman numerals). So where, I
> >wondered, does 18 miles bring us. Just checked on Autoroute.
Answer:
> >Sheepy Magna.
>
> Bill: This is nothing more than speculation it has a certain
> plausibility as to method but it is still just speculation not fact.
Well, talk about the pot! I know it's speculation - what else
tdestination and distance? However, it is a less extreme speculation
than suggesting Crowland mistook both the name of the destination and
the distance. I started, as you did, with the premise that the
placename and distance could not both be correct; and, using my
experience, both as an editor and as a transcriber of late medieval
documents, of the commonest types of error, I suggested that the word
or digit for 'ten' may have been accidentally omitted in the writing
up. It was only on checking my route software that I found this
favoured Jones' interpretation. To suggest the cannon lawyer &
government functionary who wrote this got the whole thing wrong,
distance and destination, is considerably more speculative still.
Perhaps we should remember the warning of Edward de Bono:
intelligence does not of itself make a person more likely to arrive
at the correct conclusion as it endows said individual with an
enhanced capacity to justify prejudiced opinions. We must be on our
guard.
It
> also seems something of a circular argument. What do the original
> manuscripts show, not transcriptions, the original mss?
I don't know, Bill, do I? but this would appear to be clutching at
straws. You are quite correct to point out that transcriptions are
fallible, and I have agreed (if you recall) that those reseaching
this topic should absolutely check the original. But I am not one of
these people, and it is not for me do do so. All I ever asked for was
for both sites (and all minds) to be kept OPEN. I really am
researching something else. As it stands we have only the
transcription, and though mistakes happen we must work with this
until we get better. To completely ignore the grant on the grounds
that there MAY have been a translation problem is worse than
speculative. Again, in my limited experience, omissions in
transcription are common (I have myself encountered some of major
importance in a critical document I recently took the trouble to
view), and transcription errors - ie simple misreadings - are not
uncommon, but the old codgers who translated these documents may have
been shortsighted, and they may have had limited paleography skills,
but they knew their Latin. That they have simply mistranslated the
grant is, I think, not all that likely. So it should definitely be
checked, but until such time we should definitely proceed on the
supposition that what we have is correct.
Marie
Re: Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-09 20:32:46
>>
>It doesn't fit in Jones' scenario, but I still don't understand why
>you claim that the contemporary evidence has to be tied to his
>recently-invented battle plan (to stand your own order of take-up on
>its feet).
Bill: Jones' scenario is his interpretation of the chronicles 'painted'
upon the canvas of the battle locality as he sees it. If his
interpretation of the scenario is faulty equally his pick of location
may be in error. One cannot be considered without the other.
Given some of his supporting evidence is the 'place name' kind such as
'King Dick's Hole', 'Bloody Bank' (burial site - oh no bones found when
it was dug out in the 1770s!) and he places the action north of
Witherley in an area most likely under cultivation, not to mention a
predominantly infantry action in which 'For this reconstruction to be
feasible, the last of the fighting must spill into the vicinity of Fenny
Drayton and Atterton (Jones p156 para 3), a possible shift of at least
1km but possibly as much as 2 or 3km.
We seem to be returning to the same things time and again.
> Any movement westward from Merevale is likely to have
>included Mancetter since Merevale itself lies south of Watling
>Street. Yes, looking at it, these townlands could indeed have been
>included in foraging on Watling Street/ Fenn Lanes, but equally if
>Tudor and Richard were marching towards each other, Tudor on Watling
>Street (towards London), and richard from Leicester on Fenn Lanes (to
>intercept him where the roads met), this could have been the site of
>the battle. As suggested by the only currently available version of
>the compensation grant.
>Also, to borrow your own argument, the compensation grant to
>Mancetter was the measliest of the lot.
Bill: But in the argument presented by Jones and John D Austin, Richard
cannot move down Fenn Lane as he was marching to camp in the vicinity of
King Dick's Hole on a different axis. If they are moving along the axis
of Fenn Lane then the battle site would of necessity have to be pushed
on to the eastern extremity of the grant area and even into the south of
Upton-Shenton townships. Quite plausible but then we are no longer
dealing with Jones' scenario, nor strictly speaking with his site.
One reason Mancetter may have less compensation is that the southern
half of the townland lies in the upland zone, the better/lower land
occurs in the northern part of the parish alongside Atherstone and
Watling Street.
>>
>
>
> What we now need properly established is the exact
>extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
Bill: I agree. There is a paper on aerial archaeology in Leicestershire
by chap called Hartley in a BAR report. This may help. Also W G Hoskins
also published a fair bit on rural Leicestershire. The map I have posted
indicates the two areas of evidence for ridge and furrow. I INTERPRET
that it may have been present between the two localities.
>>
>> >
>> >
>
>If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without your
>being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
>part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell me
>if I misinterpret.
Bill: Essentially that is the gist. I have posted a pdf to the files
section with an annotated extract of an OS map. This summarises MKJ's
data with some points from JDA and with some of my observations. I have
also attached annotated copies of Foss's township boundary map and MKJ's
map. These have some annotations as well. This may help.
>
>as for the conflict with Sponer's tidings to York, I think I pointed
>out my feelings on this earlier: ie that the Redemore reference is
>valid but not conclusive evidence. It shows that the name Redemore
>was associated with 6 roods "in the field of Dadlington". There are
>three problems:
>1) For Redemore to have so promptly given its name to the site, it
>must have been a fairly large feature with a name well used in the
>locality. Therefore why have no other references to Redemore in
>Dadlington been turned up?
Bill: Yes you did point out your feelings earlier and I agree that
Redemore is sparsely documented, I also suspect it may be greater in
extent than the 6 roods in Dadlington. What cannot be avoided is the
Sponer reference and the implications which the name as a piece of
topographic evidence may convey. This is, after all, along with the
Tudor proclamation Sandeford some of the earliest data that we have.
>2) The documents talks of the "fields of Dadlington". In an earlier
>post you argued that a reference to the fields of Witherley was
>evidence of cultivation, therefore ridge and furrow, therefore not a
>posssible site
Bill: Two different pieces of evidence (OK one interpretation) which are
unrelated to each other in terms of an argument?
1) 'fields of Dadlington' is a translation of a phrase in the
Hinckley-Lye agreement IIRC. This is the document which provides Foss
with some evidence of the location of Redemore. Blame the monks not me.
2) The Witherley Fields evidence refers more precisely to Witherley
Fields Farm at c327 987. This farm exhibits a place name of a type
commonly associated with a new farmstead placed within an area
open/common fields subject (usually parliamentary) enclosure. It
indicates a point formerly within the open fields. Blame me for this
interpretation as it is mine.
>3) The document presumably gives all the information required to
>identify the land it refers to: 6 roods known as Redemore in the
>fields of Dadlington. Am I wrong to suppose from this that Redemore
>in the townland of Dadlington covered an area of 6 roods? Prhaps, but
>the problem is that six roods is only 1 1/2 acres and it takes 640
>acres to make up a single square mile (I stand to be corrected - I
>have had to look this up as I haven't done roods & perches since
>junior school). The Dadlington roods, in a nutshell,,do not of
>themselves comprise a feature large enough to have given its name to
>the battle. My suspicion would be that 6 roods of Redemore lay in the
>fields of Dadlington, and the rest belonged to other townland(s).
>Which other townlands we don't know: it may have spread out east
>to "Jones"'s site, it may have lain in some other direction.
Bill: I agree that Redemore may have been more extensive and probably
stretched beyond Dadlington into neighbouring townships. There a problem
with it stretching to Jones' site, as there is evidence of ridge and
furrow around Atterton in Ratcliffe Culey and Atterton townlands. There
is also some ridge & furrow east of Fenny Drayton and Atterton but it is
not on the map in the pdf. Have not really looked to the east yet.
FWIW I suspect that the compensation grant to the townships may document
the move towards a potential battle site in the area of Upton, Shenton
and Dadlington anchored on the line of Fenn Lane. (This may reflect
either foraging or the movement of an army).
If you look at the OS map (around Upton Park) there are lots of small
ponds in a relatively flat area drained by a single tributary of the
Sence and it is broadly contiguous with the 'Dadlington' Redemore. It
would be intriguing if geologically this was similar to the area
identified as Redemore by Foss. I have yet to look at any air photos or
indulge in any landscape investigation in the area.
>>
>> >
>> >
>
>Or not even Nottingham. Hicks' argument is that Crowland talks about
>Tudor "coming" to Leicester, as if he were approaching the writer
>himself. Also, Crowland seems knowledgeable about the events in
>Leicester. If he were in Leicester, and employed by the government in
>some capacity (as he seems to have been), he is unlikely to have
>misheard the name of the rendezvous from both the outgoing AND
>incoming armies.
Bill: Given he is far from an authoritative on the course of the battle
he was not entirely in command of the full picture. Facts are he was a
cleric and a canon lawyer (I will accept that) but not a soldier i.e. he
was not with the army.
Now for speculation. There is no problem with him mishearing the
incoming lot, their rendezvous was Merevale and he could have heard it
from them correctly. He might have got that confused with what he knew
OR thought he knew of Richard's intended movements. The questions which
are unanswerable are whether he assumed Richard headed for Merevale,
whether he knew Richard was heading there or whether he got the distance
Richard intended to travel and got mixed up with the incoming army's
rendezvous? Speculation ended! Crowland as a source is better on some
things than he is on others, the same is true all the chronicles &
sources. Reader beware!
>
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>
>Well, talk about the pot!
>I know it's speculation - what else
>tdestination and distance? However, it is a less extreme speculation
>than suggesting Crowland mistook both the name of the destination and
>the distance. I started, as you did, with the premise that the
>placename and distance could not both be correct; and, using my
>experience, both as an editor and as a transcriber of late medieval
>documents, of the commonest types of error, I suggested that the word
>or digit for 'ten' may have been accidentally omitted in the writing
>up. It was only on checking my route software that I found this
>favoured Jones' interpretation. To suggest the cannon lawyer &
>government functionary who wrote this got the whole thing wrong,
>distance and destination, is considerably more speculative still.
>Perhaps we should remember the warning of Edward de Bono:
>intelligence does not of itself make a person more likely to arrive
>at the correct conclusion as it endows said individual with an
>enhanced capacity to justify prejudiced opinions. We must be on our
>guard.
Bill: You are obviously still getting very cross and I think that maybe
it is time to draw a veil on a discussion in which are unlikely to agree
and which can only be tedious to others.
>
>I don't know, Bill, do I? but this would appear to be clutching at
>straws. You are quite correct to point out that transcriptions are
>fallible, and I have agreed (if you recall) that those reseaching
>this topic should absolutely check the original. But I am not one of
>these people, and it is not for me do do so. All I ever asked for was
>for both sites (and all minds) to be kept OPEN.
Bill: Do you contend that a critical examination of MKJ's site and
scenario is a sign of a closed mind?
>I really am
>researching something else. As it stands we have only the
>transcription, and though mistakes happen we must work with this
>until we get better. To completely ignore the grant on the grounds
>that there MAY have been a translation problem is worse than
>speculative.
Bill: I have never advocated ignoring the grants, I merely have a
different interpretation of their significance than you do.
> Again, in my limited experience, omissions in
>transcription are common (I have myself encountered some of major
>importance in a critical document I recently took the trouble to
>view), and transcription errors - ie simple misreadings - are not
>uncommon, but the old codgers who translated these documents may have
>been shortsighted, and they may have had limited paleography skills,
>but they knew their Latin. That they have simply mistranslated the
>grant is, I think, not all that likely.
Bill: On the translation front, here is the Merevale extract in two
translations. Substantially they are the same but there is subtly
different emphasis despite the apparently same Latin source text:
"ad octo miliaria ab eo opido distantia, juxta Abbathiam de Mirivall''
(quoted from a note in Foss' book)
"On departing from the town of Leicester, he was informed by scouts
where the enemy most probably intended to remain the following night;
upon which, he encamped near the abbey of Mirival, at a distance of
about eight miles from that town."
This is an extract from : Ingulph's Chronicle Of The Abbey Of Croyland
With The Continuations By Peter Of Blois And Anonymous Writers
Translated From The Latin With Notes:Henry T. Riley, Esq., B.A.
"On leaving Leicester, he was informed by scouts where the enemy most
probably intended to spend the next night; upon which, he encamped near
the abbey of Merevale, at a distance of about 8 miles from town."
This is an extract from Continuation of Crowland Chronicle translated by
Michael Bennett in The Battle of Bosworth
I would dearly love to know what the most recent translation (1986: The
Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459-1486, edited by Nicholas Pronay
and John Cox) looks like.
Marie, with recent posts I really think that this discussion has run its
course. In essence we are going in circles. In addition I detect growing
hostility in your posts, perhaps not consciously intended but never the
less perceptible, which suggests to me that it is time that we just
agree to differ and draw a line under the whole business before it gets
out of hand.
For the last time on this matter
Regards
Bill
>It doesn't fit in Jones' scenario, but I still don't understand why
>you claim that the contemporary evidence has to be tied to his
>recently-invented battle plan (to stand your own order of take-up on
>its feet).
Bill: Jones' scenario is his interpretation of the chronicles 'painted'
upon the canvas of the battle locality as he sees it. If his
interpretation of the scenario is faulty equally his pick of location
may be in error. One cannot be considered without the other.
Given some of his supporting evidence is the 'place name' kind such as
'King Dick's Hole', 'Bloody Bank' (burial site - oh no bones found when
it was dug out in the 1770s!) and he places the action north of
Witherley in an area most likely under cultivation, not to mention a
predominantly infantry action in which 'For this reconstruction to be
feasible, the last of the fighting must spill into the vicinity of Fenny
Drayton and Atterton (Jones p156 para 3), a possible shift of at least
1km but possibly as much as 2 or 3km.
We seem to be returning to the same things time and again.
> Any movement westward from Merevale is likely to have
>included Mancetter since Merevale itself lies south of Watling
>Street. Yes, looking at it, these townlands could indeed have been
>included in foraging on Watling Street/ Fenn Lanes, but equally if
>Tudor and Richard were marching towards each other, Tudor on Watling
>Street (towards London), and richard from Leicester on Fenn Lanes (to
>intercept him where the roads met), this could have been the site of
>the battle. As suggested by the only currently available version of
>the compensation grant.
>Also, to borrow your own argument, the compensation grant to
>Mancetter was the measliest of the lot.
Bill: But in the argument presented by Jones and John D Austin, Richard
cannot move down Fenn Lane as he was marching to camp in the vicinity of
King Dick's Hole on a different axis. If they are moving along the axis
of Fenn Lane then the battle site would of necessity have to be pushed
on to the eastern extremity of the grant area and even into the south of
Upton-Shenton townships. Quite plausible but then we are no longer
dealing with Jones' scenario, nor strictly speaking with his site.
One reason Mancetter may have less compensation is that the southern
half of the townland lies in the upland zone, the better/lower land
occurs in the northern part of the parish alongside Atherstone and
Watling Street.
>>
>
>
> What we now need properly established is the exact
>extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
Bill: I agree. There is a paper on aerial archaeology in Leicestershire
by chap called Hartley in a BAR report. This may help. Also W G Hoskins
also published a fair bit on rural Leicestershire. The map I have posted
indicates the two areas of evidence for ridge and furrow. I INTERPRET
that it may have been present between the two localities.
>>
>> >
>> >
>
>If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without your
>being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
>part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell me
>if I misinterpret.
Bill: Essentially that is the gist. I have posted a pdf to the files
section with an annotated extract of an OS map. This summarises MKJ's
data with some points from JDA and with some of my observations. I have
also attached annotated copies of Foss's township boundary map and MKJ's
map. These have some annotations as well. This may help.
>
>as for the conflict with Sponer's tidings to York, I think I pointed
>out my feelings on this earlier: ie that the Redemore reference is
>valid but not conclusive evidence. It shows that the name Redemore
>was associated with 6 roods "in the field of Dadlington". There are
>three problems:
>1) For Redemore to have so promptly given its name to the site, it
>must have been a fairly large feature with a name well used in the
>locality. Therefore why have no other references to Redemore in
>Dadlington been turned up?
Bill: Yes you did point out your feelings earlier and I agree that
Redemore is sparsely documented, I also suspect it may be greater in
extent than the 6 roods in Dadlington. What cannot be avoided is the
Sponer reference and the implications which the name as a piece of
topographic evidence may convey. This is, after all, along with the
Tudor proclamation Sandeford some of the earliest data that we have.
>2) The documents talks of the "fields of Dadlington". In an earlier
>post you argued that a reference to the fields of Witherley was
>evidence of cultivation, therefore ridge and furrow, therefore not a
>posssible site
Bill: Two different pieces of evidence (OK one interpretation) which are
unrelated to each other in terms of an argument?
1) 'fields of Dadlington' is a translation of a phrase in the
Hinckley-Lye agreement IIRC. This is the document which provides Foss
with some evidence of the location of Redemore. Blame the monks not me.
2) The Witherley Fields evidence refers more precisely to Witherley
Fields Farm at c327 987. This farm exhibits a place name of a type
commonly associated with a new farmstead placed within an area
open/common fields subject (usually parliamentary) enclosure. It
indicates a point formerly within the open fields. Blame me for this
interpretation as it is mine.
>3) The document presumably gives all the information required to
>identify the land it refers to: 6 roods known as Redemore in the
>fields of Dadlington. Am I wrong to suppose from this that Redemore
>in the townland of Dadlington covered an area of 6 roods? Prhaps, but
>the problem is that six roods is only 1 1/2 acres and it takes 640
>acres to make up a single square mile (I stand to be corrected - I
>have had to look this up as I haven't done roods & perches since
>junior school). The Dadlington roods, in a nutshell,,do not of
>themselves comprise a feature large enough to have given its name to
>the battle. My suspicion would be that 6 roods of Redemore lay in the
>fields of Dadlington, and the rest belonged to other townland(s).
>Which other townlands we don't know: it may have spread out east
>to "Jones"'s site, it may have lain in some other direction.
Bill: I agree that Redemore may have been more extensive and probably
stretched beyond Dadlington into neighbouring townships. There a problem
with it stretching to Jones' site, as there is evidence of ridge and
furrow around Atterton in Ratcliffe Culey and Atterton townlands. There
is also some ridge & furrow east of Fenny Drayton and Atterton but it is
not on the map in the pdf. Have not really looked to the east yet.
FWIW I suspect that the compensation grant to the townships may document
the move towards a potential battle site in the area of Upton, Shenton
and Dadlington anchored on the line of Fenn Lane. (This may reflect
either foraging or the movement of an army).
If you look at the OS map (around Upton Park) there are lots of small
ponds in a relatively flat area drained by a single tributary of the
Sence and it is broadly contiguous with the 'Dadlington' Redemore. It
would be intriguing if geologically this was similar to the area
identified as Redemore by Foss. I have yet to look at any air photos or
indulge in any landscape investigation in the area.
>>
>> >
>> >
>
>Or not even Nottingham. Hicks' argument is that Crowland talks about
>Tudor "coming" to Leicester, as if he were approaching the writer
>himself. Also, Crowland seems knowledgeable about the events in
>Leicester. If he were in Leicester, and employed by the government in
>some capacity (as he seems to have been), he is unlikely to have
>misheard the name of the rendezvous from both the outgoing AND
>incoming armies.
Bill: Given he is far from an authoritative on the course of the battle
he was not entirely in command of the full picture. Facts are he was a
cleric and a canon lawyer (I will accept that) but not a soldier i.e. he
was not with the army.
Now for speculation. There is no problem with him mishearing the
incoming lot, their rendezvous was Merevale and he could have heard it
from them correctly. He might have got that confused with what he knew
OR thought he knew of Richard's intended movements. The questions which
are unanswerable are whether he assumed Richard headed for Merevale,
whether he knew Richard was heading there or whether he got the distance
Richard intended to travel and got mixed up with the incoming army's
rendezvous? Speculation ended! Crowland as a source is better on some
things than he is on others, the same is true all the chronicles &
sources. Reader beware!
>
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>
>Well, talk about the pot!
>I know it's speculation - what else
>tdestination and distance? However, it is a less extreme speculation
>than suggesting Crowland mistook both the name of the destination and
>the distance. I started, as you did, with the premise that the
>placename and distance could not both be correct; and, using my
>experience, both as an editor and as a transcriber of late medieval
>documents, of the commonest types of error, I suggested that the word
>or digit for 'ten' may have been accidentally omitted in the writing
>up. It was only on checking my route software that I found this
>favoured Jones' interpretation. To suggest the cannon lawyer &
>government functionary who wrote this got the whole thing wrong,
>distance and destination, is considerably more speculative still.
>Perhaps we should remember the warning of Edward de Bono:
>intelligence does not of itself make a person more likely to arrive
>at the correct conclusion as it endows said individual with an
>enhanced capacity to justify prejudiced opinions. We must be on our
>guard.
Bill: You are obviously still getting very cross and I think that maybe
it is time to draw a veil on a discussion in which are unlikely to agree
and which can only be tedious to others.
>
>I don't know, Bill, do I? but this would appear to be clutching at
>straws. You are quite correct to point out that transcriptions are
>fallible, and I have agreed (if you recall) that those reseaching
>this topic should absolutely check the original. But I am not one of
>these people, and it is not for me do do so. All I ever asked for was
>for both sites (and all minds) to be kept OPEN.
Bill: Do you contend that a critical examination of MKJ's site and
scenario is a sign of a closed mind?
>I really am
>researching something else. As it stands we have only the
>transcription, and though mistakes happen we must work with this
>until we get better. To completely ignore the grant on the grounds
>that there MAY have been a translation problem is worse than
>speculative.
Bill: I have never advocated ignoring the grants, I merely have a
different interpretation of their significance than you do.
> Again, in my limited experience, omissions in
>transcription are common (I have myself encountered some of major
>importance in a critical document I recently took the trouble to
>view), and transcription errors - ie simple misreadings - are not
>uncommon, but the old codgers who translated these documents may have
>been shortsighted, and they may have had limited paleography skills,
>but they knew their Latin. That they have simply mistranslated the
>grant is, I think, not all that likely.
Bill: On the translation front, here is the Merevale extract in two
translations. Substantially they are the same but there is subtly
different emphasis despite the apparently same Latin source text:
"ad octo miliaria ab eo opido distantia, juxta Abbathiam de Mirivall''
(quoted from a note in Foss' book)
"On departing from the town of Leicester, he was informed by scouts
where the enemy most probably intended to remain the following night;
upon which, he encamped near the abbey of Mirival, at a distance of
about eight miles from that town."
This is an extract from : Ingulph's Chronicle Of The Abbey Of Croyland
With The Continuations By Peter Of Blois And Anonymous Writers
Translated From The Latin With Notes:Henry T. Riley, Esq., B.A.
"On leaving Leicester, he was informed by scouts where the enemy most
probably intended to spend the next night; upon which, he encamped near
the abbey of Merevale, at a distance of about 8 miles from town."
This is an extract from Continuation of Crowland Chronicle translated by
Michael Bennett in The Battle of Bosworth
I would dearly love to know what the most recent translation (1986: The
Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459-1486, edited by Nicholas Pronay
and John Cox) looks like.
Marie, with recent posts I really think that this discussion has run its
course. In essence we are going in circles. In addition I detect growing
hostility in your posts, perhaps not consciously intended but never the
less perceptible, which suggests to me that it is time that we just
agree to differ and draw a line under the whole business before it gets
out of hand.
For the last time on this matter
Regards
Bill
Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-10 15:29:19
> Your other post makes the Mythe position for Richard's putative
camp 18
> miles from Leicester. Even MKJ admitted that it would have pushed
> Richard's army hard to get there. Equally it would have been a hard
slog
> subsequently for Tudor to have made Leicester on the night of the
22nd
> after having fought a battle and having 15-16 miles to go from
Fenny
> Drayton?
I dealt with this is an earlier post. This is far from being out of
line with marches preceding other Wars of the Roses battle.
Tewkesbury is the worst. According to Kendall's scenario Edward
pressed his men from Sodbury through the night of 2-3 August and all
the next day to camp 3 miles from Tewkesbury on the eve of the
battle - a distance of over forty miles in a single long march.
Perhaps you will tell me that Kendall had it all wrong - I would
defer to you as having far greater military knowledge than myself.
However, it is surely commonsense to say that the distance marched to
battle was often dictated by events. We know that Richard's forces
had ben taken competely by surprise by the speed of Tudor's march and
their sudden approach.
With regard to your last post, one of the things that is making me
frustrated (not hostile) is the level of some of the argument being
brought forward to dismiss the Atherstone/Fenny Drayton site out of
hand. As regards Crowland, having read him (albeit in translation) I
am persuaded by Hicks' argument that he was at Leicester (though I
find Hicks' reliance on the word 'coming' rather weak). Therefore his
mention of Richard heading for Merevale, together with other
contemporary sources to which attention has recently been drawn
indicating that the battle was fought near Coventry, seem to me too
much to dismiss out of hand. The record, it seems to me, is extremely
ambiguous.
It is not even necessary, as I indicated, to suppose that Crowland
was mistaken about the distance to Merevale. I think we do not have
his original draft of the chronicle (I havn't had time to check
this), so that somewhere in the copying the word 'decimo'
before 'octo'could easily have got dropped. As I say, I've come
across this more than once where a document makes more than one
reference to a particular number - a date, say. I know this is
speculation, but at least it does not involve him having got a
totally wrong name in his head, and then a totally wrong distance.
Always keep things simple, that's what I say.
I also cannot accept your position that one cannot have this third
site without Jones' battle scenario; however often you repeat it, it
makes no sense to me. Jones first drew my attention to this evidence,
sure, but I am not relying on him for my own interpretation of it so
his track record is of little interest to me. The documentary
evidence (all of which, as I recognise, you are inclined to dismiss
or interpret differently from myself) was there before Jones wrote
his book; so was Starkey's piece 'Or Merevale?' in the qunicentenary
issue of History Today back in 1985.
However, my main frustration is that however often I repeat that I am
pleading for the possibilities to be kept open, you go on suggesting
my mind is closed. Actually, what really got me was when I
pleaded "for minds to be kept open until investigations are complete.
And for complete investigations!" And your reply included the
immortal: "You are surely not advocating the unqualified acceptance
of any hypothesis without its being put to question and
investigation?" Okay, that did make me want to jump up and down on
the floorboards.
It's a huge pity because you've done sterling work with your aerial
mapping, etc, and it would be nice if all these different things
could be laid on the table and assessed without any that do not
support the Dadlington/Ambien Hill case being ruled inadmissible.
> >Marie: And Sheepy means "island of dry land in marsh where sheep
are
> >grazed". Just what the doctor ordered!
>
> Bill: Apart from the position of the Sheepey villages about 2km
north of
> Ratcliffe Culey. The marshes are presumably those associated with
the
> Sence. This is way outside the area of the proposed battle site and
the
> putative campsite for Richard.
Sorry, my local geography is not good but understanding was that
Jones suggests Richard's camp to have stretched from just north of
Ratcliffe Culey towards Sheepy. Certainly sheepy Magna has been
mentioned a lot in the subsequent debate. In his book Jones says
that "the alternative battle site proposed here stretches out across
the plain east of Atherstone, from the confluence of the rivers Anker
and Sence, ABOVE which Richard's army had gathered, past the villages
of Mancetter and Witherley, where tudor's army swung north ward to
confront him. . . ". My caps. Jones' oft-quoted map shows Richard's
army starting north of the sence and crossing same.
I admit that Jones' map is neither here nor there to me. (In fact, I
like John Gillingham's comment in his Wars of the Roses: 'Many such
maps have been drawn up, but apart from the fun of making them, they
are all quite worthless.') My query really was that, if the villages
on the north side of the Anker/ Sence may have a sheep-farming
history, should we rule out a continuation of this on the south sides
of these brooks without first checking?
>> Bill: But what language is the original text? English, Latin or
Norman
> French? 'At' as you know can denote presence, nearness or relation
> (Chambers). Furthermore the meaning of language does shift with
time, I
> have more experience of this with C17th and C18th documents. Ever
tried
> to read Chaucer in the original? The key really is what is in the
> original text.
>
> >
> >Marie: The Patent Rolls are usually read in the published
> >translation. But if this were my subject of study and I had such a
> >critical doc. I would certainly go and view the original. If this
> >hasn't been done it should have been: it's a question of the
original
> >Latin preposition, isn't it?
>
> Bill: Exactly. It ought to have been done, but I suspect it has
not. I
> have checked back and I cannot find whether the documents are in
the
> Patent Rolls but John D Austin gives the National Archives
references
> E404/79/339 and E404/79/340.
I see Jones also gives the references in his endnotes, and adds "I am
grateful to Dr Sean Cunningham for discussing them with me." Sean
Cunningham, as you probably know, is a Records Manager at the PRO and
the author of "Richard III: A Royal Enigma" (in which discussion of
the subject is based around phorotgraphs of original documents with
transcriptions/ translations opposite). Checking the references on
PROCAT, I see these grants are from the Exchequer records.
Anyway, having got thus far, it occurred to me that the originals may
even be amongst the ducuments reproduced in Cunningham's own book, of
which I have a copy. So I checked. They are!
Both are in English. Judging by the foliation, they are filed
consecutively, the Merevale grant (for great hurts, charges and
losses by the occasion of the great repair and resrt that our people
coming toward our late field made") being followed by the grant to
the 'five towns'(for "losses of their corns and grains by us and our
company at our late victorious field"). I've got my contact lenses
out and homed by shortsighted eyes in on the photos of the documents,
and they do indeed say what Jones & Cunningham say they say.
Cunningham's transcription, as you see, uses modernised spelling, but
if anyone really wants I can make a painstaking letter-by-letter
transcription. Anyhow, it's pages 70-71 if anyone wants a look for
themselves.
I do totally agree that we should wind this up.
Best wishes, and hopefully no hard feeling,
Marie
camp 18
> miles from Leicester. Even MKJ admitted that it would have pushed
> Richard's army hard to get there. Equally it would have been a hard
slog
> subsequently for Tudor to have made Leicester on the night of the
22nd
> after having fought a battle and having 15-16 miles to go from
Fenny
> Drayton?
I dealt with this is an earlier post. This is far from being out of
line with marches preceding other Wars of the Roses battle.
Tewkesbury is the worst. According to Kendall's scenario Edward
pressed his men from Sodbury through the night of 2-3 August and all
the next day to camp 3 miles from Tewkesbury on the eve of the
battle - a distance of over forty miles in a single long march.
Perhaps you will tell me that Kendall had it all wrong - I would
defer to you as having far greater military knowledge than myself.
However, it is surely commonsense to say that the distance marched to
battle was often dictated by events. We know that Richard's forces
had ben taken competely by surprise by the speed of Tudor's march and
their sudden approach.
With regard to your last post, one of the things that is making me
frustrated (not hostile) is the level of some of the argument being
brought forward to dismiss the Atherstone/Fenny Drayton site out of
hand. As regards Crowland, having read him (albeit in translation) I
am persuaded by Hicks' argument that he was at Leicester (though I
find Hicks' reliance on the word 'coming' rather weak). Therefore his
mention of Richard heading for Merevale, together with other
contemporary sources to which attention has recently been drawn
indicating that the battle was fought near Coventry, seem to me too
much to dismiss out of hand. The record, it seems to me, is extremely
ambiguous.
It is not even necessary, as I indicated, to suppose that Crowland
was mistaken about the distance to Merevale. I think we do not have
his original draft of the chronicle (I havn't had time to check
this), so that somewhere in the copying the word 'decimo'
before 'octo'could easily have got dropped. As I say, I've come
across this more than once where a document makes more than one
reference to a particular number - a date, say. I know this is
speculation, but at least it does not involve him having got a
totally wrong name in his head, and then a totally wrong distance.
Always keep things simple, that's what I say.
I also cannot accept your position that one cannot have this third
site without Jones' battle scenario; however often you repeat it, it
makes no sense to me. Jones first drew my attention to this evidence,
sure, but I am not relying on him for my own interpretation of it so
his track record is of little interest to me. The documentary
evidence (all of which, as I recognise, you are inclined to dismiss
or interpret differently from myself) was there before Jones wrote
his book; so was Starkey's piece 'Or Merevale?' in the qunicentenary
issue of History Today back in 1985.
However, my main frustration is that however often I repeat that I am
pleading for the possibilities to be kept open, you go on suggesting
my mind is closed. Actually, what really got me was when I
pleaded "for minds to be kept open until investigations are complete.
And for complete investigations!" And your reply included the
immortal: "You are surely not advocating the unqualified acceptance
of any hypothesis without its being put to question and
investigation?" Okay, that did make me want to jump up and down on
the floorboards.
It's a huge pity because you've done sterling work with your aerial
mapping, etc, and it would be nice if all these different things
could be laid on the table and assessed without any that do not
support the Dadlington/Ambien Hill case being ruled inadmissible.
> >Marie: And Sheepy means "island of dry land in marsh where sheep
are
> >grazed". Just what the doctor ordered!
>
> Bill: Apart from the position of the Sheepey villages about 2km
north of
> Ratcliffe Culey. The marshes are presumably those associated with
the
> Sence. This is way outside the area of the proposed battle site and
the
> putative campsite for Richard.
Sorry, my local geography is not good but understanding was that
Jones suggests Richard's camp to have stretched from just north of
Ratcliffe Culey towards Sheepy. Certainly sheepy Magna has been
mentioned a lot in the subsequent debate. In his book Jones says
that "the alternative battle site proposed here stretches out across
the plain east of Atherstone, from the confluence of the rivers Anker
and Sence, ABOVE which Richard's army had gathered, past the villages
of Mancetter and Witherley, where tudor's army swung north ward to
confront him. . . ". My caps. Jones' oft-quoted map shows Richard's
army starting north of the sence and crossing same.
I admit that Jones' map is neither here nor there to me. (In fact, I
like John Gillingham's comment in his Wars of the Roses: 'Many such
maps have been drawn up, but apart from the fun of making them, they
are all quite worthless.') My query really was that, if the villages
on the north side of the Anker/ Sence may have a sheep-farming
history, should we rule out a continuation of this on the south sides
of these brooks without first checking?
>> Bill: But what language is the original text? English, Latin or
Norman
> French? 'At' as you know can denote presence, nearness or relation
> (Chambers). Furthermore the meaning of language does shift with
time, I
> have more experience of this with C17th and C18th documents. Ever
tried
> to read Chaucer in the original? The key really is what is in the
> original text.
>
> >
> >Marie: The Patent Rolls are usually read in the published
> >translation. But if this were my subject of study and I had such a
> >critical doc. I would certainly go and view the original. If this
> >hasn't been done it should have been: it's a question of the
original
> >Latin preposition, isn't it?
>
> Bill: Exactly. It ought to have been done, but I suspect it has
not. I
> have checked back and I cannot find whether the documents are in
the
> Patent Rolls but John D Austin gives the National Archives
references
> E404/79/339 and E404/79/340.
I see Jones also gives the references in his endnotes, and adds "I am
grateful to Dr Sean Cunningham for discussing them with me." Sean
Cunningham, as you probably know, is a Records Manager at the PRO and
the author of "Richard III: A Royal Enigma" (in which discussion of
the subject is based around phorotgraphs of original documents with
transcriptions/ translations opposite). Checking the references on
PROCAT, I see these grants are from the Exchequer records.
Anyway, having got thus far, it occurred to me that the originals may
even be amongst the ducuments reproduced in Cunningham's own book, of
which I have a copy. So I checked. They are!
Both are in English. Judging by the foliation, they are filed
consecutively, the Merevale grant (for great hurts, charges and
losses by the occasion of the great repair and resrt that our people
coming toward our late field made") being followed by the grant to
the 'five towns'(for "losses of their corns and grains by us and our
company at our late victorious field"). I've got my contact lenses
out and homed by shortsighted eyes in on the photos of the documents,
and they do indeed say what Jones & Cunningham say they say.
Cunningham's transcription, as you see, uses modernised spelling, but
if anyone really wants I can make a painstaking letter-by-letter
transcription. Anyhow, it's pages 70-71 if anyone wants a look for
themselves.
I do totally agree that we should wind this up.
Best wishes, and hopefully no hard feeling,
Marie
Fwd: Re: Bosworth Update MKJ doubts
2005-02-12 00:29:40
---> We seem to be returning to the same things time and again.
Ya do.
>
>> Bill: But in the argument presented by Jones and John D Austin,
Richard
> cannot move down Fenn Lane as he was marching to camp in the
vicinity of
> King Dick's Hole on a different axis.
.
If they are moving along the axis
> of Fenn Lane then the battle site would of necessity have to be
pushed
> on to the eastern extremity of the grant area and even into the
south of
> Upton-Shenton townships. Quite plausible but then we are no longer
> dealing with Jones' scenario, nor strictly speaking with his site.
> Again, I do not see the necessity of tying the two things together.
Were I less circumspect, I would suggest this could be a convenient
way of avoiding discussion of the 'compensation grant' area. I do,
however, believe in your belief in the necessary connection between
Jones' scenario and Henry's grants. But I do not hold these beliefs
myself.
> One reason Mancetter may have less compensation is that the
southern
> half of the townland lies in the upland zone, the better/lower land
> occurs in the northern part of the parish alongside Atherstone and
> Watling Street.
>
>
> >>
> >
> >
> > What we now need properly established is the exact
> >extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
>
>
> Bill: I agree. There is a paper on aerial archaeology in
Leicestershire
> by chap called Hartley in a BAR report. This may help. Also W G
Hoskins
> also published a fair bit on rural Leicestershire. The map I have
posted
> indicates the two areas of evidence for ridge and furrow. I
INTERPRET
> that it may have been present between the two localities.
>
> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >
> >If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without
your
> >being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
> >part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell
me
> >if I misinterpret.
>
>
> Bill: Essentially that is the gist. I have posted a pdf to the
files
> section
Sorry, haven't seen this yet as I'm a complete techno-idiot (though I
did see the ist series OS maps of the area [late 1800s for non-UK
listers] on the Oldmaps site for which you provided link, before it
went offline]. I understand pdf but not how to access "the files
section". Could you provide very simple guide, please?
This really is my last post on this - honest.
Marie
Ya do.
>
>> Bill: But in the argument presented by Jones and John D Austin,
Richard
> cannot move down Fenn Lane as he was marching to camp in the
vicinity of
> King Dick's Hole on a different axis.
.
If they are moving along the axis
> of Fenn Lane then the battle site would of necessity have to be
pushed
> on to the eastern extremity of the grant area and even into the
south of
> Upton-Shenton townships. Quite plausible but then we are no longer
> dealing with Jones' scenario, nor strictly speaking with his site.
> Again, I do not see the necessity of tying the two things together.
Were I less circumspect, I would suggest this could be a convenient
way of avoiding discussion of the 'compensation grant' area. I do,
however, believe in your belief in the necessary connection between
Jones' scenario and Henry's grants. But I do not hold these beliefs
myself.
> One reason Mancetter may have less compensation is that the
southern
> half of the townland lies in the upland zone, the better/lower land
> occurs in the northern part of the parish alongside Atherstone and
> Watling Street.
>
>
> >>
> >
> >
> > What we now need properly established is the exact
> >extent of the area under ridge & furrow.
>
>
> Bill: I agree. There is a paper on aerial archaeology in
Leicestershire
> by chap called Hartley in a BAR report. This may help. Also W G
Hoskins
> also published a fair bit on rural Leicestershire. The map I have
posted
> indicates the two areas of evidence for ridge and furrow. I
INTERPRET
> that it may have been present between the two localities.
>
> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >
> >If I interpret your posts correctly (and it is difficult without
your
> >being able to post a map), you have detected ridge and furrow in a
> >part of the area and extraoplated same over the rest. Please tell
me
> >if I misinterpret.
>
>
> Bill: Essentially that is the gist. I have posted a pdf to the
files
> section
Sorry, haven't seen this yet as I'm a complete techno-idiot (though I
did see the ist series OS maps of the area [late 1800s for non-UK
listers] on the Oldmaps site for which you provided link, before it
went offline]. I understand pdf but not how to access "the files
section". Could you provide very simple guide, please?
This really is my last post on this - honest.
Marie
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