Translated from:

https://mudraya-ptica.livejournal.com/432333.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:St_Michael,_Cornhill David Iliff

I wanted to quickly write about one of the Reno churches mentioned in the book. Well, as usual, yes I got hooked on the name of John Snow Stowe, who described this church. Found out who he actually is.

Turns out he was a poor and illiterate 16th century antiquarian who published and wrote many books, particularly historical chronicles and a detailed description of the City of London.

Poverty is derived from the low rent of the family home and young John's hikes for milk at the nearby monastery farm, and illiteracy from the fact that John has not studied anywhere.

Six shillings a year for rent in wiki-ru turns into a yearly income from Papa John's tallow candle trade.

Perhaps someone else produced the books.

Perhaps he was even a tailor. He was the son of Thomas Stow, a tailor.

Or perhaps John became the tailor. (Wiki.ru refers to the 1911 Britannica.)

It is not clear what he was actually doing, but at the age of 35 he suddenly became acquainted with famous antiquaries, and a year later he had already published a collection of the works of Chaucer. The woorkes of Geoffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whichever have never been in print before.

Next, he took up the Chronicles, about which the information is slightly divergent. Britannica speaks of one collection of chronicles, Wiki speaks of two. Should we assume that new editions have been discovered in a hundred years? And what does "copy" mean according to Britannica? Just a printed copy?

In 1565 followed his Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles, which was frequently reprinted with slight variations during his lifetime. A copy of the first edition is said to have once been preserved in the Grenville Library. The British Museum holds copies of the editions of 1567, 1573, 1590, 1598, and 1604.

Britannica 1911

This was followed in 1565 by his Summarie (or collection) of the English Chronicles (Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles) (in a small octavo format), and in 1566 by the related but different Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles ... Abridged (Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles ... Abridged) (in sextodecimo format).

Both works survived several editions during Stowe's lifetime: editions of Summarie came out in 1566, 1570, 1574, 1575 and 1590 (with additional posthumous editions by Edmund Howes in 1607, 1611 and 1618); and Summarie Abridged: 1567, 1573, 1584, 1587, 1598 and 1604.

wiki (English)

I don't understand.

"Under the patronage of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, Stowe succeeded in publishing Matthew of Westminster's Flores historiarum in 1567, Matthew of Westminster's The World Chronicle in 1571, and Thomas Walsingham's Historia brevis in 1574.

Three Matthews in one line! :)

In 1580 Stowe published his Annales, or a Generate Chronicle of England from Brute to the present yeare of Christ 1580; they were reprinted in 1592, 1601 and 1605, the last edition coming out March 26, 1605, ten days after his death; editions 'supplemented' by Edmund Howes came out in 1615 and 1631."

Britannica 1911

Stowe's most famous work is considered to be A Survey of London (1598), a fundamental work containing information on the history, law, topography, architecture, and customs of the English capital during the reign of Elizabeth I. It is remarkable for the sheer amount of knowledge it contains.

Wiki (English)

The second edition appeared during his lifetime in 1603, the third with additions by Anthony Munday in 1618, the fourth edited by Munday and Dyson in 1633, the fifth with interpolated amendments by John Stipe in 1720, and the sixth by the same editor in 1754. The 1598 edition was reprinted under the editorship of W. J. Thoms in 1842, in 1846, and with illustrations in 1876.

At Parker's request, John compiled a rather large manuscript on the history of Britain, but it has been lost.

Britannica 1911

Stowe was in close contact with many of the leading antiquarians of his time, including Archbishop Matthew Parker, John Jocelyn, John Dee, William Fleetwood, William Lambard, Robert Glover, Henry Savile, William Camden, Henry Ferrers and Thomas Hatcher. ¹

He was an active member of the first Society of Antiquaries, founded around 1586.

He built up an extensive library of manuscript and printed historical sources, which became known to his contemporaries as his "repository," and which he generously made available to others.

Most of Stowe's manuscripts are in the Harley collections at the British Museum, some in the Lambeth Library, fragments of which were published by the Camden Society edited by James Gairdner under the title Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, with Historical Memoranda by John Stowe the Antiquary, and Contemporary Notes of Occurrences written by him, in 1880.

wiki (English)

The articles give quite a few details, such as the addresses of John's houses, his good character, the existence of litigation with his brother over his inheritance, and disputes with a competitor collector-chronicler, though it's not very clear where this information is taken from.

After doing a little research on the archive.org and British Library websites, I found out a few things.

I searched archive.org for "John Stowe" and found 119 copies of books, including:

• 15 belong to the author stow, john, 1525?-1605 (Translator's note: Stowe 1)

• and 16 to the author john stow, but attempts to navigate to this second author lead to the first John Stow. (Translator's note: Stowe 2)

• This Stowe 2 wrote something religious in the mid-19th century. I didn't learn anything else about him.

• Other Stowes are also mentioned in the 19th century: David, Baron, Phineas, for example.

Some of the works authored by 'john stow' actually belong to 'stow, john'. Well, inconsistencies like this are observed in authorship.

Stowe 1 has on his titles list:

• Chaucer, 1561, where he is not the only editor, by the way, (Thynne's edition, with additional poems appended by John Stow;)

• Two-volume Chronicle of the History of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1587, which mentions seven other men as authors;

• Annals, which is Annals of England to 1603, judging by the spelling of the title, without a title page (and misnumbered pages);

• Annales, or, a general chronicle of England 1631;

• Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 1807, Stowe is mentioned among the authors;

• A New and Complete History of the County of York: Illustrated by a Series of ... 1831. Among the many authors mentioned are George Stow, J. Stowe, and the well-known Wenceslaus Hollar;

• Three fifteenth-century chronicles, with historical memoranda by John Stowe, the antiquary, and contemporary notes of occurrences written by him in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1880;

An edition of the Annals is available from the British Library as if it were 1600. (Sort of - because it's in square brackets).

Translator's note: The original author of this article is highlighting some, to me, unknown implication in the fact that the British Library lists this book in square brackets. Possibly, it means the book is catalogued as existing, or thought to be in the British Library collection but cannot be found.

• [The Annales of England, faithfully collected out of the most autenticall Authors, Records ... untill ... 1592. B.L.] [John Stow, 1525?-1605. London : R. Newbery, [1600]

• The survay of London: containing, the originall, antiquitie, encrease, and more moderne estate of the sayd famous citie... 1618;

• The survey of London: contayning the orignall, increase, moderne estate, and government of that city, methodically set downe 1633;

• A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent... being an improvement of Mr. Stow's, and other surveys, by adding whatever alterations have happened in the said cities, &c., to the present year... 1734;

• A survey of London 1842;

• A Survey of London 1876;

• Reflections on the Epistles of st. Paul, and on that to the Hebrews, with Scriptural ... 1847, Oh, no, that's already Stowe 2

• And so is this Thoughts on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By a lay-member of the Church of England [J. Stow]. 1846.

There are still later editions of the London book, but these are not so very interesting.

In the 1842 book the first lines of Stow's biography appear, from the text of which it becomes clear that the information about John's life is taken mainly from the London book itself, where he mentions both the monastery cows and the 6 shillings. Pope is identified as a tailor.

A Survey of London ... New edition, with illustrations, edited by W. J. Thoms. London : Chatto & Windus, 1876.

In the 1876 book of 1876, supplemented by the reprint of 1842, there is also a portrait in addition to a biography. There is also a familiar, lovely picture of Greenwich Castle.

Despite the announced illustrations, there are only two other pictures available besides these two - James-James' palace and some village. All the pictures are on separate sheets.

I don't know, maybe the rest of the pictures were ripped out of the book, or maybe not all of them were scanned, though I doubt it.

The number of pictures is the same in BB as it is in the Archive, and there the copy is from a different library.

The 1734 book, on the other hand, shows somewhat more pictures, both in the text and on the individual pages.

And the pictures are different, I couldn't see Greenwich Castle at first glance. Also, this edition contains three times as many pages (827) as the following (240, 220), and the division into several volumes. There is no mention of the 1842-76 volumes in the titles. Maybe it says something in the text there, but I have absolutely no desire to read the whole thing. Now the later editions are - suddenly! - attracting more interest. :)

1890 Edition contains 470 pages and has no pictures at all. The division into volumes is not mentioned.

1893 Edition repeats 1890.

In the biography the father is still listed as being a tailor.

The 1908 edition, on the other hand, is quite remarkable. First, there are two volumes, four hundred-plus pages each.

Secondly, the edition is styled as 1603, only the font is slightly different and the letters are modern (the letter s, for example).

Third, there is a scholarly biography citing sources, a bibliography of Stowe's publications, lists of documents used, a history of the family name (genealogy), and lists of manuscripts and books that belonged to John and are now stored somewhere else.

And the father and the grandfather finally acquire the profession of candlestick-maker and are quite well-to-do. However, the amount of 6 something is depicted in such a way that I can't understand it. I don't know what it means in the plate either.

Yeah, there's also another portrait that appeared there.

From The Gentleman's Magazine for 1837

Britannica 1911 simply did not keep up with the flight of scientific historical thought between 1893 and 1908. In 1912 an abridged edition of a two-volume book for schoolchildren was already published in 130 pages. I found such a wonderful text about Chronicles:

In 1577 Raphael Holinshed, of whom little is known, published his Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

For the second edition, issued in 1587, the Chronicles were re-edited, modernized, supplemented, and updated by other men, John Hooker, Abraham Fleming, and Francis Tinn, among others.

This was the edition from which Shakespeare drew material for many of his plays, including his treatment of Joan of Arc in Henry VI.

Although Holinshed's standards of historical accuracy are by no means as rigorous as those cherished by modern historians, he often cites his sources, even noting some disagreement between them.

In his description of the war with France he draws heavily on The Union of Two Noble and Bright Notables of Lancaster and York, 1398-1547 (London, 1550) by Halle, with the exception of the material on Jeanne, in which he frequently refers to French sources, though it is clear that he did not hesitate to embellish his account with a patriotic English point of view, while at the same time warning his readers that the French accounts were doubtless partial.

© All rights reserved. The original author retains ownership and rights.