General Notes

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ohlgren/RobinHood/Paston.htm
Richard Call, the Pastons, and the Manuscript Context of Robin Hood and the Potter
(Cambridge, University Library Ee.4.35.1)
Thomas H. Ohlgren
with an Appendix by Lister M. Matheson
excerpt:
Manuscripts do more than simply preserve literary texts. As Nichols and Siegfried remind us, they provide both the material contexts, such as writing materials, ink, script, layout, inscriptions, and gatherings, and also the intertextual contexts, namely the other works with which the text under study was assembled. All of these features in turn may "yield information, over and above that implied in the texts themselves, about the text's audience, its purpose, and even the intention an individual scribe may have had in producing this particular copy."(1) And, as we shall see, new information may also be gleaned about a manuscript's ownership, provenance, and the circumstances of its production and dissemination.

Scholarship on the two earliest Robin Hood poems -- Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter -- has largely ignored their manuscript contexts. (2) With a few exceptions, scholars have not considered the two Cambridge University Library manuscripts, Ms Ff.5.48 ("Monk") and Ee.4.35.1 ("Potter") as sources of information about the production and dissemination of the Robin Hood legend before the advent of printed texts. (3) A fresh examination of the manuscript containing Robin Hood and the Potter is yielding important new information not only about the ownership, locale, date, language and dialect, and provenance of the manuscript but also about the social class of the audience, its ideology, and literary tastes.

Formerly bound with a 14th century copy of the Prick of Conscience (now Ee.4.35.2), the manuscript now consists of twenty-four leaves, measuring 11 x 7¼ inches. Since it was rebound in 1875, it is impossible to determine the original collation. The paper is thick and opaque, and lacks watermarks, which, if present, would aid in dating the paper. At some point the opening folios were disarranged because the original folio 1 is now lost, and the present folio 1 was folio 2. As a result, the first 71 lines of the opening text, the Adulterous Falmouth Squire, are missing (4). As for decoration, the text is unadorned except for: a) on ff. 1a to 4a the initial letter of each line is highlighted in red ink; b) the explicits on ff. 2b and 5a are surrounded by crude frames in red and black ink; and c) there are small decorated initials on ff. 7b, 8a, 9a, 13b, and 22b.

The last page, folio 24b, contains the inscription, Iste liber constat Ricardo Calle, and a nearly full-page merchant's mark. Like a cattle-brand, a merchant's mark uniquely identified a tradesman's goods. They also were used as personal marks or signatures, as witnessed by surviving examples in or on stained glass, monumental brasses, signet rings, and stone capitals, lintels, and fascia. One of the commoner forms is the "reversed 4" design, which F. A. Girling suggests evolved from the symbol of the Agnus Dei. (5) Girling reproduces 130 different variations of the same basic design. Of these the closest examples come from Norwich, Norfolk, ranging in date from 1425 to 1588. While similar in design, each mark is unique and can be used to identify its individual owner. Of particular interest is the mark (p. 13, row one, fifth from the left), dated 1550, belonging to a Henry Bacon. With the exception of the initials HB on either side of the staff, it is identical to the mark in the Cambridge manuscript. A second published source of marks is Edward Elmhirst's Merchants' Marks, which, like Girling's book, reproduces hundreds of examples, noting their owners' names, locations, date, and media. Elmhirst also reproduces Henry Bacon's mark, but this time it is identical to the one in the manuscript (see no. 53 on p. 5). He notes that the mark was carved on Bacon's house in Norwich, and is dated 1566. (6)

Who was Henry Bacon? And what relation, if any, was he to the "Ricardo Calle" of the inscription? Born about 1480 in Framlingham, Suffolk, Henry Bacon was a prominent grocer and gildsman in Norwich. In the 1540s he was active in civic affairs, having served as a councilor, alderman, and auditor of the Gild of St. George. (7) His connection to "Calle" is explained by the fact that he married Alice Call (died 1573), daughter of Robert Call of Framingham. (8) The Call family lived in Framlingham since the early fourteenth century, and many family members were in the trade as grocers. It appears likely that the marriage of Henry Bacon and Alice Call represented the union of two merchant families, symbolized by the combination of the Call family mark with Henry Bacon's initials. (9) Predeceased by her husband, Alice left her house in Norwich (probably the very one with the inscribed merchant's mark) to her fourth daughter, Margaret, whose husband, Nicholas Sotherton, purchased the Call's estate at Little Melton.(10)

As a member of the Call family of grocers, Alice apparently inherited the family's mark, but, it is important to observe, she did not own the Cambridge manuscript. For the owner of the manuscript, we have to turn to another branch of the family, that of Robert's brother Richard Call, who can now be identified as the "Ricardo Calle" of the manuscript inscription. Richard Call (c. 1431 to after 1504) is well-known to readers of the Paston letters as the bailiff or estate manager for John Paston I and his two sons (both confusingly named John) during the last half of the fifteenth century. Call's life and activities are richly documented in 105 Paston letters and papers, including 23 autograph documents: the earliest reference to him dates from July 1453 (Davis #147), and the latest is November 1503 (Davis #845). (11) Born about 1431 at Bakton, Norfolk, Richard was the son of John Call, grocer, from Framlingham, Suffolk. (12) They were small landholders and later in the trade as grocers. Young Richard Call went into service with John Paston I upon the recommendation of the Duke of Norfolk, whose seat was in Framlingham (Davis #65). Call served as a devoted and trusted servant under two generations of Paston patriarchs, John I, and later his two sons John II and John III for nearly half a century. Rising to the position of chief bailiff or estate manager, Call was actively involved in the Pastons' extensive business and legal matters. He negotiated leases and collected rents from tenants (Davis #55, #168); he sold land and woods (Davis #214); he bought and sold commodities and horses (Davis #71, #364); he kept accounts, inventories, and indentures in his own hand (Davis #66, #248, #336); he delivered letters and other documents; he attended various legal hearings on behalf of the family (Davis #155); he transported money and silver to various family members (Davis #237, #319); and he wrote numerous letters on behalf of family members and himself (Davis #56, #156, #417). The family was shocked, however, when they discovered that Call and their daughter, Margery, had secretly exchanged vows, which under church law constituted a legal marriage. John Paston III expressed the family's outrage when he wrote that Call "shold neuer haue my good wyll for to make my sustyr to selle kandyll and mustard in Framly[n]gham" (Davis #332). Although Margery became estranged from her mother and brothers for a time, Call continued to handle some of their business affairs. Richard and Margery had three sons: John, William, and Richard. After Margery's death, at some time before 1482, Call married Margaret Trollopp of Edingthorpe, and had two additional sons Andrew and John. According to a Chancery Proceeding, Call was still alive between 1500 and 1515. (13)