Robert Detobel Deconstructed
seaker
essay "The Shakespeare "Signatures" Deconstructed" is "the best
available [on this subject] online." Under the same topic, LynnE
declares, "Robert Detobel works and researches hard. He
also speaks and writes English better than many here, despite its not
being his first language." Okay, but let's take a closer look.
Detobel's essay was posted over at The Shakespeare Fellowship on
1/12/2004. A two minor questions are in order. Was the essay written
for posting on the Fellowship site or was it written to a journal and
then posted on the site? If the latter, then perhaps things were left
off or did they fall off when posted on the site? The reason for the
question will follow. As for the second question, was the essay
written in German and then translated into English when posted on the
site? Just wondering.
Yes, Detobel had done his research; how he presents his research is the
problem. He is so eager to prove that Shakespeare ". . .was at least
semi-lilliteratre. that is: he could not write.," that he jumps in and
expects his readers to catch up or know what he is writing about. Let
us pause a while, as Detobel likes to do in his essay, and ponder his
claim that Shakespeare could not write. Who says Shakespeare could no
write? Ben Jonson, Leonard Diggs, John Weever, Gabriel Harvey, to
name just a few all refer to Shakespeare as a writer. Yes, I know that
Oxfordians around the world claim that these men didn't know what they
were talking about or were just kidding.
Okay, I've released the pause button. In the first four sections of his
essay, Detobel focuses on signatures written on tabs and on deeds. Yes,
he has done his research, but he doesn't explain why where a signature
is written is important. Finally, he begins the fifth section with
"Something should be said on the system of abbrevation used by
clerks..." Well, it's about time Mr. Detobel! This information should
have appeared earlier on the essay so readers would know why what they
were reading is important. This is an example of asking the reader to
catch up.
I asked if something was left off or fell off when the essay was
posted. I wonder about this when I read, "On March 10, 1613 bought from
Henry Walker a gatehouse at Blackfriars for the amount of ..." Who
bought the gatehouse? The sentence has no subject.
A major problem I have with the essay is that Detobel makes a claim,
but doesn't always support it in the text or in a footnote. He doesn't
support his claim about what "specialists of medieval deeds tell us."
Do all Detobel's readers have knowledge about medieval deeds. He
doesn't support his claim that "Legally, it was useless for William
Jackson and John Jackson to sign on the tab." He offers a quote about
"The Durham husbandman John Taylor," but doesn't footnote it. Detobel
writes, "Current studies on illieracy are using such wills as a measure
for illteracy." Okay, but name a few of these current studies, Mr.
Detobel or at least provide a footnote. How do we know that Mr.
Detobel isn't making this up?
At times when Detobel does footnote a quote, the quote raises
questions. He quotes from Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence's Bacon is
Shakespeare. Now there a unbiased book! Detobel quotes Sir Edward
Maunde Thompson, "Shakespeare decided not to write his full name but to
put a sign indicating the abbreciation, once he had reached the end of
the tab and seen that the space was used up." How does Sir Edward know
what was going on in Shakespeare's mind at the time or at anytime?
Detobel writes, "At this point Shakespeare's superstition for confining
his signatre to the limits of the label comes into play..." How does
Detobel know that Shakespeare was superstitious about this? Detobel
another quotes Sir Edward Thompson, "Shakespeare would have been
suffering from his failure to confine his full name within the
boundries of the tab." What direct proof does the good Sir have about
Shakespeare suffering or is the good Sir making a wild guess or a stab
in the dark? Along the same line, Detobel quotes Samuel Tannenbaum on
what Malone saw. Again, this is another example of something looking
into the mind of the dead!
In the final section of his essay, Detobel writes, "Many wills,
probably the majority, open with a clause about the testator's health."
Again, Detobel offers not support or footnote. How many wills from
Shakespeare's time did Detobel read or study to arrive at his claim?
Dr. Stritmatter says Detobel's essay is the best available online.
After reading the essay, I ask, if this is the best what is the worst?
The essay reminds me of the work of an undergraduate. I'd give it a
Gentleman's C.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
said I found them hard to follow, not knowing English was not his
native tongue. Oxfordians have derided me for this. Glad to find
others find him difficult going.
One question, repeated from another thread where it may have gotten
lost: Did Johnson and Jackson both sign the tabs on the Blackfriars
document that Detobel says a clerk wrote Shakespeare's name on?
--Bob G.
Mouse
This has very little to do with the thesis of the essay.
>
> Okay, I've released the pause button. In the first four sections of his
> essay, Detobel focuses on signatures written on tabs and on deeds. Yes,
> he has done his research, but he doesn't explain why where a signature
> is written is important. Finally, he begins the fifth section with
> "Something should be said on the system of abbrevation used by
> clerks..." Well, it's about time Mr. Detobel! This information should
> have appeared earlier on the essay so readers would know why what they
> were reading is important. This is an example of asking the reader to
> catch up.
>
> I asked if something was left off or fell off when the essay was
> posted. I wonder about this when I read, "On March 10, 1613 bought from
> Henry Walker a gatehouse at Blackfriars for the amount of ..." Who
> bought the gatehouse? The sentence has no subject.
Thanks for proofreading for us. This sentence does indeed contain no
subject, I imagine because Robert D got it verbatim from a document and
forgot to amend it. We'll get to it when we have time.
>
> A major problem I have with the essay is that Detobel makes a claim,
> but doesn't always support it in the text or in a footnote. He doesn't
> support his claim about what "specialists of medieval deeds tell us."
It's always hard to know what to footnote. One doesn't footnote that
which is considered common knowledge. I've done some digging online and
found out that what Robert says is indeed the case. I'm not sure
whether it should be footnoted. It's always a problem for me to decide
what should or should not be. As a result, I tend to over-footnote in
my own work, pages and pages of stuff that no doubt everybody already
knows. :(
> Do all Detobel's readers have knowledge about medieval deeds. He
> doesn't support his claim that "Legally, it was useless for William
> Jackson and John Jackson to sign on the tab." He offers a quote about
> "The Durham husbandman John Taylor," but doesn't footnote it.
Yes, he does. He gives the source immediately above. Will leave it here
for the time being as I'm too busy and short on time. We will return to
it. I'm glad you finally decided to read at least some or most of
something.
Best wishes,
L.
Terry Ross
There is no more reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on
the conveyance for the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or
Johnson's name or Jackson's name to that document. There is no more
reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on the mortgage for
the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or Johnson's name or
Jackson's name to that document. Detobel thinks the Johnson and
Jackson signatures are both authentic; he thinks the Shakespeare
signature must have been done by a law clerk because it includes a "p"
with a bar through the stem that was a common abbreviation for "per"
(it could also stand for "par" or "por" or "pro").
Detobel seems to think that only law clerks ever used this
abbreviation, and that is his sole reason for rejecting the Shakespeare
signatures while accepting the Johnson and Jackson signatures. If
Detobel had bothered to check, he would have seen that this
abbreviation was commonly used in documents that were not penned by law
clerks.
If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
*Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
*Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
"Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
Shakespeare's own handwriting.
Seaker said, "Yes, Detobel had done his research." No, Detobel has
not.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --Bob G.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
I first started corresponding with you and Dave Kathman, I was always
giving anti-Stratfordians more credit than they desrerved--believing
things they said, for instance. What fascinates me about--well,
myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
signatures signed by clerks! Detobel never said they were, but I
assumed that because he argued that the document said seals had been
attached to it but didn't say it had been SIGNED that that would have
to rule out all the alleged signatures as bona fide. It's hard for me
to believe the Jackson and Johnson signatures were genuine but
Shakespeare's not by this reasoning (although it's possible).
The "per" argument never seemed very convincing to me, but--wow--that
the device shows up in so many other places certainly totally kills it.
Thanks for the actual scholarship. But I do think Detobel does a lot
of research. Many Oxfordians do. They don't seem to understand the
difference between quantity and quality, nor--needless to say--the
value of common sense. The latter, more often than not, results in
valid conclusions based on less research, sometimes on no research.
--Bob G.
Terry Ross
> Thanks much for the following, Terry.
You're welcome, Bob.
> As you will remember, back when
> I first started corresponding with you and Dave Kathman, I was always
> giving anti-Stratfordians more credit than they desrerved--believing
> things they said, for instance.
One should never begin by trying to decide whether any particular
antistratfordian claim is important: one should first check to see
whether the claim is correct.
> What fascinates me about--well,
> myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
> fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
> took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> signatures signed by clerks!
If you look at facsimiles of the conveyance and the mortgage (e.g., in
Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*) you will
see that Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document --
but they do NOT all appear to have been written by the same person,
signing all three names on one document (or all six on the two). If we
posit a law clerk who signed all three signatures, then we have to
imagine someone who writes one way when signing as Shakespeare, another
way when signing as Jackson, and a third way when signing as Johnson,
yet who also works to see that the two Johnsons matched each other, the
two Jacksons matched each other, and the two Shakespeares matched each
other.
> Detobel never said they were,
He actually says that he thinks Johnson and Jackson did sign both the
conveyance and the mortgage but that Shakespeare signed neither.
> but I
> assumed that because he argued that the document said seals had been
> attached to it but didn't say it had been SIGNED that that would have
> to rule out all the alleged signatures as bona fide.
He does not know what he is talking about.
> It's hard for me
> to believe the Jackson and Johnson signatures were genuine but
> Shakespeare's not by this reasoning (although it's possible).
>
What "reasoning"?
> The "per" argument never seemed very convincing to me, but--wow--that
> the device shows up in so many other places certainly totally kills it.
Don't take my word for it; the following is from an online course
"English Handwriting 1500-1700":
"p abbreviations: a variety of ornamented p forms implying such
syllables as per, par, pre, prae, pro, etc. In strict usage, there are
important if subtle distinctions in the type of ornament applied to the
p, each of which calls for a different syllabic expansion. The usual
distinctions, imported into English usage from the Latin, depend on the
nature of the crossbar applied to the descender of the p: if the bar is
straight or convex, you are (probably) dealing with 'par' or 'per',
whereas if the bar is concave, you are more likely to be looking at
'pro' or possibly 'pr(a)e'. 'Pre' in the Elizabethan secretary hand was
most often rendered by p joined to a supralineal r loop"
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html
You will see a similar discussion at a site devoted to Scottish
handwriting of the period:
http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/content/default.asp?page=s4_3_8
This information is not hard to find.
> Thanks for the actual scholarship.
It didn't take much effort. I checked the Blackfriars facsimiles in
Schoenbaum and then flipped through the hand D facsimile in the
Riverside Shakespeare looking for "p" abbreviations.
> But I do think Detobel does a lot
> of research.
You really think so? Do you remember a few years ago when he was
convinced that the words "true and perfect copy" on a printed book
meant that the author was dead? Do you think there was much research
behind that brainstorm? Detobel is always looking for cryptic clues to
buttress his Oxfordian beliefs; he then (probably out of ignorance)
distorts the record in order to make his discoveries plausible to the
gullible, such as those that put his essays online at the Shakespeare
[sic] Fellowship site.
> Many Oxfordians do. They don't seem to understand the
> difference between quantity and quality, nor--needless to say--the
> value of common sense. The latter, more often than not, results in
> valid conclusions based on less research, sometimes on no research.
>
Common sense may not be your most reliable guide, but it should tell
you that if Detobel does not know the basics about the topic he is
discussing, he has probably not done his homework.
ben-Jonson
Hi Terry, nice to see you posting again. My understanding of Detobel's
argument is somewhat different than that yours and Seaker's. Before I
offer it, however, I'd like to make on thing crystal clear.
The orthodox case for Shakespearean authorship depends heavily on the
authenticity of these "signatures." If Detobel is right, that these
are the work of a scrivener and not the legal party to the agreement,
then that pretty much destroys the notion of the Stratford man as the
author, or so it would seem to me.
However, the reverse is not so. If Detobel's argument is wrong, so be
it. Its not much skin off my back, or off the back of any other skeptic
of the official view of Shakespeare. If he is wrong, you are still left
with only six signatures, appearing to be written in more than one
hand, on legal documents. Not exactly the harvest one would desire from
the leavings of the world's greatest literary genius, whose young
friend Ben Jonson left literary hundeds of autograph books and dozens
of manuscripts and letters.
Having said that, I'm doubtful of your analysis.
While Detobel does discuss the question of the abbreviation of the
signature, and your response assures me that his discussion is
incomplete and not well argued, I don't believe that's his central
point. His central point, as I understand it, is that none of the
Shakespeare "signatures" on legal documents occur on deeds. They occur
on tabs instead. According to Detobel, it would be unlikely for a party
to deed to sign on the tab but not the deed itself, since it was the
signature on the deed itself that bore the weight of proof that a legal
agreement had in fact taken place.
Detobel: from a technical point of view it did not make much sense to
sign on the tab instead of on the deed itself; the authentication was
much surer on the deed than on the tag....there were good reasons for
not setting a signature on the tab but on the deed. Specialists of
medieval deeds tell us that the space on the tab was often used by the
scrivener to write the names of the sealers. Descriptions of deeds do
not consider names on the tag as signatures, even if someone wrote his
name himself, as William Johnson and John Jackson clearly did in 1613.
But if they signed on the tab in 1613, why on the deed in 1618? Or
rather: if on the deed, where the signature had authenticating power,
in 1618, not on the deed but on the tab in 1613, where the signature
was without authenticating power? Legally, it was useless for William
Johnson and John Jackson to sign on the tab.
Now, I am willing to grant that this point requires further scrutiny
and debate if Detobel's argument is to withstand the rigorous
cross-examination that all such theories should undergo. But an honest
cross-examination must stick to the essentials of the positive case and
show how they are inaccurate and invalid. Instead it seems to me that
you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point. It is germane, moreover,
that Detobel does not limit his analysis to the two Blackfriars deeds
but is able to demonstrate the same pattern ("Shakespeare" written not
on a deed but on a seal) in a third instance:
Detobel: There is a counterpart to the deed of conveyance from the
Combes in 1602, the one authenticated by William Shakespeare. It is
extant. It has the same authenticating clause. So here we may expect to
see Shakespeare's signature, without doubt. However, again we are
disappointed. Lewis writes: "This counterpart has a seal attached to
it; but it is not signed by William Shakespeare. His signature to this
counterpart would not have added to its legal value, since the original
which he possessed was the important part of the document. It was duly
engrossed and was ready for the poet's signature; but he never signed
it, perhaps because he was absent for so long a time..."[5]
Lewis' reasoning seems doubtful. How did John and William Combe's
signatures add to the legal value of the document in Shakespeare's
possession?
> If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
> *Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
> times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
> *Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
> work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
> "Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
> use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
> writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
> strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
> Shakespeare's own handwriting.
Terry, there's a very good reason that the mainstream of Shakespearean
scholarship has never accepted the conclusion that Hand D is in the
hand of the Stratford bard, despite much wishful thinking: Six
signatures, even if they are signatures, do not a sample make. Even if
the theory were valid, you simply don't have the raw materials to make
a case. I venture to suggest that most paleographers would say that
the alleged similarities between the "signatures" and hand D are the
result of the fact that many secretary hands look very much alike.
Witness that only a few days ago, members of this newsgroup were going
gaga over a "Shakespeare Bible" on google and declaring that the
handwriting must be the bard's.
Thus, when you say "generally accepted," it seems to me that you are
skating over very thin ice.
Most informed parties would, I should think, regard W.W. Gregg's
English Literary Autograph as the standard authoritative work on the
handwriting of English literary figures.
Gregg did not include Shakespeare in his book. Why? Because he used a
legal standard of inclusion: He included only writers for whom a
sample of holograph (handwriting + signature) existed.
If you read his introduction, you'll notice that Gregg was resoundingly
criticized by his colleagues for his selection (including Oxford, for
example, but not Shakespeare of Stratford). He didn't budge. He could
tell a hawk from a handsaw.
> Seaker said, "Yes, Detobel had done his research." No, Detobel has
> not.
For once, I have to agree with Seaker. He is at least attempting to be
fair. You seem to be attempting to make a doubtful case appear so
obvious that only an ignoramous would disagree. I'm sure that
Detobel's argument can be improved. Maybe he is even wrong in his
conclusions. God knows, I don't know. But your unwillingness to grant
him the simple dignity he deserves for writing a provocative and
important article (which adjectives apply *even if* he is wrong) seems
like doubtful sportsmanship to me.
Cheers,
Ben-Jonson
ben-Jonson
> > myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
> > fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
> > took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > signatures signed by clerks!
>
>
> If you look at facsimiles of the conveyance and the mortgage (e.g., in
> Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*) you will
> see that Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document --
Hi, again, Terry. I haven't examined Schoenbaum, as I am away from my
library and don't have a copy here, nor Lewis, which I of course don't
own. Therefore I can't say anything about the two signatures of
Johnson and Jackson.
I would think, however, that if they were in fact signatures it should
not be surprising that they appear to be in the same hand. One
puzzling fact of the Shakespeare "signatures" is that they have never
seemed, to many experts, to be a single hand.
> but they do NOT all appear to have been written by the same person,
> signing all three names on one document (or all six on the two).
I'm sorry to sound slow, but I don't understand why this is important.
If we
> posit a law clerk who signed all three signatures,
Is this what Detobel posited? Or are you offering a scenario that is
different than his so that you can knock it down?
My impression is that Detobel would have Jackson and Johnson the
authors of their own signatures, but a scrivener the author of
Shakespeare's -- based on the theory that anyone who could sign his own
name would naturally sign on the deed, not on the tab. Maybe I'm
misunderstanding his argument. If so, please enlighten me.
then we have to
> imagine someone who writes one way when signing as Shakespeare, another
> way when signing as Jackson, and a third way when signing as Johnson,
> yet who also works to see that the two Johnsons matched each other, the
> two Jacksons matched each other, and the two Shakespeares matched each
> other.
Well, I suppose so, under your scenario. But as I said, since you
haven't quoted Detobel -- indeed your authority for this scenario seems
to be none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Grumman, who says that
">> I always
> > *took for granted* that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > signatures signed by clerks!"
Is this a game of telephone, in which the farther we get from the
original utterance the more and more garbled it becomes, or are we on
hlas really attempting to practice appropriate methods of argument and
documentation? If so, I can't tell it from Grumman's wording or from
your response. Grumman assumes something and then you accept it as a
fact, apparently without consulting the original.
Since my interpretation of what Detobel is saying differs from Bob's,
I should think that in order for your conjecture to be a valid
refutation, you would need to clearly show us that that is the scenario
Detobel envisioned. Can you do that? If so, please do.
Finally, you state that
>Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document...
As I mentioned, I can't speak to the question of Jackson and Johnson.
However, one need not go to Schoenbaum or Lewis to see that your
statement regarding the Shakespeare names is, at best, doubtful.
Here, courtesy of the redoubtable Baconian Penn Leary, are the
signatures online:
http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
The two names occurring on the Blackfriars deeds are B and C.
One might ennumerate some obvious differences:
1) B abbreviates William, C does not.
2) In B the h is of a secretary form, in C a blunted italic.
3) In general, the forms of B are secretary and the forms of C are
italic.
4) The a of B has a very long hook on the top of the it, while that C
is hookless.
5) the p of B is distinctly secretary in form, that of C italic.
6) the ultimate r of B is a typical secretary blunt r; it appears that
the r of C is part of one of the notorious abbreviations.
If this is what you call a "strong resemblance," may I politely suggest
that you may wish to hone your paleographical skill. Even if you could
find an expert to agree with your view that the two names are in the
same hand, I can't think that anyone who knew his or her trade would
agree with your opinion that the two samples exhibit a "strong
resemblance."
Cheers,
Ben
andyandy68
> The orthodox case for Shakespearean authorship depends heavily on the
> authenticity of these "signatures."
I always thought the case for Shakespearean authorship depended heavily
on the fact that so many published plays and poems were attributed to
Shakespeare, and that people referred to Shakespeare as a great writer
during his lifetime and after his death, and that the the first folio
said that Shakespeare was the Shakespeare from Stratford (not to
mention the annotations in one of the first folios which clearly links
Shakespeare and the monument in Stratford, see
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/eulogies.html#3), and that he has a
monument in Stratford, and that people actually wrote about seeing his
monument and grave in Stratford, etc, etc etc. Huh. Now, I find out
that the case actually heavily depends on signatures on legal
documents.
I guess I'll just have to rethink the whole thing!
ben-Jonson
> ben-Jonson wrote:
> > The orthodox case for Shakespearean authorship depends heavily on the
> > authenticity of these "signatures."
>
> I always thought the case for Shakespearean authorship depended heavily
> on the fact that so many published plays and poems were attributed to
> Shakespeare, and that people referred to Shakespeare as a great writer
> during his lifetime and after his death, and that the the first folio
> said that Shakespeare was the Shakespeare from Stratford (not to
> mention the annotations in one of the first folios which clearly links
> Shakespeare and the monument in Stratford, see
> http://shakespeareauthorship.com/eulogies.html#3), and that he has a
> monument in Stratford, and that people actually wrote about seeing his
> monument and grave in Stratford, etc, etc etc.
Hi there, Andy Andy Andy. You don't seem to understand the meaning of
"depends" in my post, even though I carefully explained it once. Let me
try again. Of course all the things you cite are elements of the
orthodox case. All of them, for that reason, are dealt with in some
detail by Ogburn and other authorship skeptics, who have examined each
with care and insight.
What I meant, to repeat, is that without the signatures, the rest of
this evidence starts to look like an elephant trying to balance on his
trunk on top of on a highwire. You say he's a class act, but that's
beside the point. If the names *are* written by scriveners, and are
*not* actually signatures, then there is a clear implication to be
drawn. Why would the greatest writer in the history of the English
language need a scrivener to sign his name?
Got it now?
Huh. Now, I find out
> that the case actually heavily depends on signatures on legal
> documents.
> I guess I'll just have to rethink the whole thing!
Yes, you will. You clearly don't understand know how to reason very
well.
andyandy68
>If the names *are* written by scriveners, and are
> *not* actually signatures, then there is a clear implication to be
> drawn. Why would the greatest writer in the history of the English
> language need a scrivener to sign his name?
Because he was so rich and important that he didn't want to waste his
time signing things? Because he had shaky handwriting and it
embarassed him? Because he wasn't there when they were signed? Who
cares why (if) he used a scrivener; the evidence all clearly indicates
that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays and poems.
Or you're just wrong, and the signatures are all fine and by
Shakespeare?
> Got it now?
Sorry, but there really isn't anything there to get.
> > Huh. Now, I find out
> > that the case actually heavily depends on signatures on legal
> > documents.
> > I guess I'll just have to rethink the whole thing!
>
> Yes, you will. You clearly don't understand know how to reason very
> well.
On what are you basing "clearly don't understand know how to reason
very well"? Please point out the flaw in my reasoning.
ben-Jonson
Ho hum. Sorry, but I'm off to dinner. One has to eat sometime, you
know.
andyandy68
That's okay, your responses aren't worth much anyway.
Tom Reedy
news:1151959537.0...@v61g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
> Terry Ross wrote:
>> bobgr...@nut-n-but.net wrote:
>> > Thanks much for the following, Terry.
>>
>>
>> > What fascinates me about--well,
>> > myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
>> > fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
>> > took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
>> > signatures signed by clerks!
>>
>>
>> If you look at facsimiles of the conveyance and the mortgage (e.g., in
>> Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*) you will
>> see that Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
>> document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document --
>
>
> Hi, again, Terry. I haven't examined Schoenbaum, as I am away from my
> library and don't have a copy here, nor Lewis, which I of course don't
> own. Therefore I can't say anything about the two signatures of
> Johnson and Jackson.
>
> I would think, however, that if they were in fact signatures it should
> not be surprising that they appear to be in the same hand. One
> puzzling fact of the Shakespeare "signatures" is that they have never
> seemed, to many experts, to be a single hand.
???????
I know there has been consternation over the differences in the three will
signatures, which has been usually attributed to the fact that Shakespeare
was dying at the time, but I'm wondering exactly who these "many experts"
are.
>> but they do NOT all appear to have been written by the same person,
>> signing all three names on one document (or all six on the two).
>
> I'm sorry to sound slow, but I don't understand why this is important.
>
>
> If we
>> posit a law clerk who signed all three signatures,
>
> Is this what Detobel posited? Or are you offering a scenario that is
> different than his so that you can knock it down?
>
> My impression is that Detobel would have Jackson and Johnson the
> authors of their own signatures, but a scrivener the author of
> Shakespeare's -- based on the theory that anyone who could sign his own
> name would naturally sign on the deed, not on the tab. Maybe I'm
> misunderstanding his argument. If so, please enlighten me.
But they all three signed on the tabs. So if his theory is what you say it
is, then a scrivener signed for Jackson and Johnson, too. Right?
>
> then we have to
>> imagine someone who writes one way when signing as Shakespeare, another
>> way when signing as Jackson, and a third way when signing as Johnson,
>> yet who also works to see that the two Johnsons matched each other, the
>> two Jacksons matched each other, and the two Shakespeares matched each
>> other.
>
> Well, I suppose so, under your scenario.
It is consistent with your explanation of Detobel's theory, also.
> But as I said, since you
> haven't quoted Detobel -- indeed your authority for this scenario seems
> to be none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Grumman, who says that
>
> ">> I always
>> > *took for granted* that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
>> > signatures signed by clerks!"
>
> Is this a game of telephone, in which the farther we get from the
> original utterance the more and more garbled it becomes, or are we on
> hlas really attempting to practice appropriate methods of argument and
> documentation?
I guess I'm gonna have to read the essay. Maybe you should, too.
TR
Ignoto
I guess andyandy is just like all the orthodox scholars for the past
400 years- he doesn't know his logic from his lunch.
Thank st Alban than Dr 'jonson' and prof 'mouse' are here to set things
right- else we'd never know what the 'evidence' really was.
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> > bobgr...@nut-n-but.net wrote:
> > > Thanks much for the following, Terry.
> >
> >
> > > What fascinates me about--well,
> > > myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
> > > fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
> > > took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > > signatures signed by clerks!
> >
> >
> > If you look at facsimiles of the conveyance and the mortgage (e.g., in
> > Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*) you will
> > see that Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> > document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document --
>
>
> Hi, again, Terry. I haven't examined Schoenbaum, as I am away from my
> library and don't have a copy here, nor Lewis, which I of course don't
> own. Therefore I can't say anything about the two signatures of
> Johnson and Jackson.
We can talk about the three pairs of signatures in more detail when you
can look at them again. For now, let's see if you can deal with
Detobel's argument on the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage.
>
> I would think, however, that if they were in fact signatures it should
> not be surprising that they appear to be in the same hand. One
> puzzling fact of the Shakespeare "signatures" is that they have never
> seemed, to many experts, to be a single hand.
They have seemed to many experts to be by a single hand. I am no
expert in this area myself, but neither is Detobel.
>
> > but they do NOT all appear to have been written by the same person,
> > signing all three names on one document (or all six on the two).
>
> I'm sorry to sound slow, but I don't understand why this is important.
>
Detobel argues that Shakespeare's signatures on both the conveyance and
the mortgage were made by a clerk. Since Johnson's and Jackson's
signatures also appear both on the conveyance and the mortgage, Detobel
should either argue that all three were done by a clerk or he should
come up with some special circumstance to explain why Shakespeare's
signatures are different in kind from those of Johnson and Jackson.
Bob though Detobel's point was the former -- that the signatures of all
three men were made by a clerk; in fact, Detobel's point is the latter
-- that the presence of abbreviations used only by law clerks means
that Shkaespeare's signatures were made by a clerk. What Detobel does
not know is that "per" and "par" were commonly abbreviated by a "p"
with a bar through the stem -- this was not, in fact, a habit peculiar
to law clerks (the same is true for the other abbreviations Detobel
seems to think were restricted to law clerks). Therefore Detobel's
basic argument for distinguishing the true signatures of Johnson and
Jackson from the supposedly clerk-penned signatures of Shakespeare
collapses. He is left with two choices: either he can claim that all
three men's signatures were done by a clerk, or he can withdraw his
claim to have shown that Shakespeare's signatures on the Blackfriars
conveyance and mortgage were not genuine.
>
> If we
> > posit a law clerk who signed all three signatures,
>
> Is this what Detobel posited? Or are you offering a scenario that is
> different than his so that you can knock it down?
That is the claim Bob thought Detobel was advancing, and it is a claim
that Detobel could choose to retreat to.
>
> My impression is that Detobel would have Jackson and Johnson the
> authors of their own signatures, but a scrivener the author of
> Shakespeare's -- based on the theory that anyone who could sign his own
> name would naturally sign on the deed, not on the tab.
Johnson and Jackson and Shakespeare signed on the tab, both on the
conveyance and on the mortgage. I have no idea what the basis is for
the "theory that anyone who could sign his own name would naturally
sign on the deed, not on the tab." Detobel himself does not appear to
have looked at a great many documents, and he does not quote any expert
who endorses this "theory." Since Detobel accepts the genuineness of
Jackson's and Johnson's signatures on the tabs of the conveyance and
the mortgage, he should reject his "theory" and accept Shakespeare's
signatures.
> Maybe I'm
> misunderstanding his argument. If so, please enlighten me.
>
I'm surprised that you do not understand Detobel's argument; you were
quoted on this newsgroup as praising it highly.
> > then we have to
> > imagine someone who writes one way when signing as Shakespeare, another
> > way when signing as Jackson, and a third way when signing as Johnson,
> > yet who also works to see that the two Johnsons matched each other, the
> > two Jacksons matched each other, and the two Shakespeares matched each
> > other.
>
> Well, I suppose so, under your scenario. But as I said, since you
> haven't quoted Detobel -- indeed your authority for this scenario seems
> to be none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Grumman, who says that
>
> ">> I always
> > > *took for granted* that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > > signatures signed by clerks!"
>
> Is this a game of telephone, in which the farther we get from the
> original utterance the more and more garbled it becomes, or are we on
> hlas really attempting to practice appropriate methods of argument and
> documentation? If so, I can't tell it from Grumman's wording or from
> your response. Grumman assumes something and then you accept it as a
> fact, apparently without consulting the original.
No, I corrected Bob -- however, I thought it also worth the time to
point out weaknesses in what is an obvious fallback position for
Detobel, should he ever learn that "p" abbreviations were a common
feature in handwriting of the period by people other than law clerks.
>
> Since my interpretation of what Detobel is saying differs from Bob's,
> I should think that in order for your conjecture to be a valid
> refutation, you would need to clearly show us that that is the scenario
> Detobel envisioned. Can you do that? If so, please do.
>
How many different ways can this be put? I corrected Bob. Bob
misunderstood Detobel, and I set him straight. What Bob thought
Detobel had said was not what Detobel said.
>
> Finally, you state that
>
> >Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> > document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document...
>
Finally? I see you snipped my discussion of Detobel's claim that
because Shakespeare's signatures on the Blackfriar's documents contain
abbreviations that were used by law clerks, the signatures could not
have been made by Shakespeare. Here is some of what you snipped, with
a correction:
===============
There is no more reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on
the conveyance for the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or
Johnson's name or Jackson's name to that document. There is no more
reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on the mortgage for
the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or Johnson's name or
Jackson's name to that document. Detobel thinks the Johnson and
Jackson signatures are both authentic; he thinks the Shakespeare
signature must have been done by a law clerk because it includes a "p"
with a bar through the stem that was a common abbreviation for "per"
(it could also stand for "par" or "por" or "pro").
[CORRECTION: "pro" would have been abbreviated by a curl though the
stem]
Detobel seems to think that only law clerks ever used this
abbreviation, and that is his sole reason for rejecting the Shakespeare
signatures while accepting the Johnson and Jackson signatures. If
Detobel had bothered to check, he would have seen that this
abbreviation was commonly used in documents that were not penned by law
clerks.
If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
*Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
*Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
"Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
Shakespeare's own handwriting.
===============
>
> As I mentioned, I can't speak to the question of Jackson and Johnson.
> However, one need not go to Schoenbaum or Lewis to see that your
> statement regarding the Shakespeare names is, at best, doubtful.
We can take that up later, if you like, but the subject for now is
Detobels' actual argument, which you are avoiding. So let us see
whether you agree with Detobel:
1. Do you agree with Detobel that the Johnson and Jackson signatures
are their own? ("From a legal viewpoint, William Johnson and John
Jackson only set their seals to the Blackfriars deeds, but they wrote
their names on the seal-tab in the form of their signatures.")
2. Do you agree with Detobel that the major characteristic
distinguishing the genuine signatures of Jackson and Johnson from the
supposedly clerk-penned signature of Shakespeare is the use of
abbreviations that were peculiar to lae clerks?
("The party who did not sign at all was William Shakespeare; he did not
write his name himself on the tab either; the surname is written by a
clerk with the typical, somewhat arcane clerical abbreviations.")
I think we have to reject Detobel's second point, since the use of such
abreviations was common, and examples could easily have been found by
Detobel if he had only looked. I'm sure you have a Riverside
Shakespeare -- if you look at the Hand D material you will see many
instances of such abbreviations (you will also see a considerable
degree of variation in the formation of letters by a single penman
writing in secretary hand).
At that point Detobel may wish to reconsider his first point and
declare (as Bob had understood him to say) that the Jackson and Johnson
signatures were also done by a clerk -- but we have already seen the
problems with that as a fallback position.
So here is the challenge, Roger -- before we take up the question
whether the Shakespeare Blackfriars conveyance and Blackfriars deed
signatures are so different that they could not have been made by the
same man (the two-clerk theory?) let us see you deal with the points I
have discussed that Detobel actually asserted.
kenkap
you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point."
Terry Ross diverting attention from a major point to "excoriate"
someone on a minor one? No. Couldn't be.
Good to see Terry up to the old tricks.
I think this phrase ben-johnson wrote is most appropriate:
"Now, I am willing to grant that this point requires further scrutiny
> and debate if Detobel's argument is to withstand the rigorous
> cross-examination that all such theories should undergo. But an honest
> cross-examination must stick to the essentials of the positive case and
> show how they are inaccurate and invalid. ...
It is germane, moreover, that Detobel does not limit his analysis to
the two Blackfriars deeds but is able to demonstrate the same pattern
("Shakespeare" written not
on a deed but on a seal) in a third instance: ..."
"Hand D"? Please.You're getting desperate. Argument by assertion does
not suffice.
Ken
Tom Reedy
I'm kind of confused here. Weren't the tabs actually cut from the deed and
threaded through slots in the folded-over deed? Or maybe they weren't,
that's why I'm asking.
Why then did they sign it, I wonder?
It couldn't have been the same reason Detobel gives for Johnson and
Jackson's signing the Blackfriers documents: They were compelled to it
because Shakespeare did not sign, would not sign and could not sign.
>
>> If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
>> *Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
>> times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
>> *Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
>> work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
>> "Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
>> use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
>> writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
>> strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
>> Shakespeare's own handwriting.
>
> Terry, there's a very good reason that the mainstream of Shakespearean
> scholarship has never accepted the conclusion that Hand D is in the
> hand of the Stratford bard, despite much wishful thinking:
Umm, you're wrong there. Read the preface and introduction to Howard-Hill's
*Shakespeare and Sir
Thomas More,* which grew out of the 1983 conference of the Shakespeare
Association of America.
> Six
> signatures, even if they are signatures, do not a sample make. Even if
> the theory were valid, you simply don't have the raw materials to make
> a case. I venture to suggest that most paleographers would say that
> the alleged similarities between the "signatures" and hand D are the
> result of the fact that many secretary hands look very much alike.
> Witness that only a few days ago, members of this newsgroup were going
> gaga over a "Shakespeare Bible" on google and declaring that the
> handwriting must be the bard's.
Huh? Name names. I don't recall any such.
> Thus, when you say "generally accepted," it seems to me that you are
> skating over very thin ice.
>
> Most informed parties would, I should think, regard W.W. Gregg's
> English Literary Autograph as the standard authoritative work on the
> handwriting of English literary figures.
>
> Gregg did not include Shakespeare in his book. Why? Because he used a
> legal standard of inclusion: He included only writers for whom a
> sample of holograph (handwriting + signature) existed.
>
> If you read his introduction, you'll notice that Gregg was resoundingly
> criticized by his colleagues for his selection (including Oxford, for
> example, but not Shakespeare of Stratford). He didn't budge. He could
> tell a hawk from a handsaw.
>
>
>> Seaker said, "Yes, Detobel had done his research." No, Detobel has
>> not.
>
> For once, I have to agree with Seaker. He is at least attempting to be
> fair. You seem to be attempting to make a doubtful case appear so
> obvious that only an ignoramous would disagree. I'm sure that
> Detobel's argument can be improved. Maybe he is even wrong in his
> conclusions. God knows, I don't know. But your unwillingness to grant
> him the simple dignity he deserves for writing a provocative and
> important article
How is it important if it is wrong?
> (which adjectives apply *even if* he is wrong) seems
> like doubtful sportsmanship to me.
One question, Roger. Could you explain what Detobel means by this sentence?
Had Shakespeare intended his clerically abbreviated name as a signature, it
was senseless to put it on the tab where it was without any legal
significance. William Johnson and John Jackson, however, wrote their
signatures on the tab. They were compelled to it because Shakespeare did not
sign, would not sign and could not sign.
Why would Johnson and Jackson be compelled to sign because Shakespeare
didn't?
TR
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ben-Jonson
>
Tom Reedy
non sequiturs and not worth responding to. That the "Fellowship" chose to
publish it unedited says something about its standards.
TR
ben-Jonson
> ben-Jonson wrote:
> >
> > Ho hum. Sorry, but I'm off to dinner. One has to eat sometime, you
> > know.
>
> That's okay, your responses aren't worth much anyway.
To quote an early modern poets (from memory):
He that takes the pain to the pen the book
reaps not the gift of goodly golden muse
but they that gain that who on the gift do look
and by their skill the sweet from sour do chose.
The cherries were delicious,
so sweet and so cold.
andyandy68
>From an early modern rock band (from memory):
I met her at a club in North SoHo,
Where they drink champagne
And it tastes just like cherry cola.
C O L A cola.
Mouse
Now that's funny. ;)
Mouse
seaker
No, no Roger, you are forgetting where you are. This is the HLAS; not
The Shakespeare Fellowship. Over there everyone must bow down to you;
here we say, "Park your butt where you like Doc. Stritmatter. Wanna
beer?"
Terry Ross
Oh please -- the attribution of Shakespeare's works is not centrally
the issue here, unless you are trying to argue that Shakespeare was
completely unable to write, and therefore could not have written the
works commonly attributed to him. Is that your claim? Do you know of
any genuine literary historian who has ever said, "lacking these
signatures we would not know who wrote Shakespeare's works"?
The question whether the signatures were penned by William Shakespeare
does not affect the historical evidence that demonstrates that one and
the same man, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was William
Shakespeare the player, William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and
William Shakespeare the author of the plays. The fact that
Shakespeare's friend (and fellow actor, and sharer in the King's Men,
and co-owner of the Globe) John Hemming was a trustee for Shakespeare
is one minor item in Shakespeare's favor, strengthening even more the
relationship between William Shakespeare and the men who produced and
preserved his plays, but even this minor item would remain even if one
were to decide that a brace of clerks had signed the conveyance and the
deed.
> However, the reverse is not so. If Detobel's argument is wrong, so be
> it. Its not much skin off my back, or off the back of any other skeptic
> of the official view of Shakespeare.
Nobody who is persuaded the work of Looney and Ogburn can justly call
himself a "skeptic," but it is certainly the case that the question of
the validity of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
wrote the works of Shakespeare (for which there is not the least
evidence) or that men from Mars wrote the works of Shakespeare (for
which there is not the least evidence).
> If he is wrong, you are still left
> with only six signatures, appearing to be written in more than one
> hand, on legal documents. Not exactly the harvest one would desire from
> the leavings of the world's greatest literary genius, whose young
> friend Ben Jonson left literary hundeds of autograph books and dozens
> of manuscripts and letters.
Literary history is not done on the basis of what one would desire (in
your case, I imagine, you would desire evidence that Oxford had written
so much as a single line of Shakespeare's works), but on the basis of
what we have and what we can reasonably infer from what we have. There
is considerable honest debate about the inferences, of course, and even
about to some extent about the status of "what we have," but I for one
am glad that Ben Jonson left us such tributes to William Shakespeare,
his friend and competitor (and for a time even one of his bosses).
There isn't space here to quote everything Jonson published about
Shakespeare, or said about the man in conversation, or recorded
privately, but I can quote everything he said about the 17th Earl of
Oxford:
"".
Did you get that, or should I paste it again? OK, here it is again,
because I know how fond you are of Jonson. Here is everything Jonson
ever said about the 17th earl of Oxford:
"".
Here is everything Jonson wrote about the authorship of Shakespeare's
plays when he was NOT discussing his friend Shakespeare:
"".
My, what a remarkable overlap!
>
> Having said that, I'm doubtful of your analysis.
>
> While Detobel does discuss the question of the abbreviation of the
> signature, and your response assures me that his discussion is
> incomplete and not well argued, I don't believe that's his central
> point.
The crucial point is in what respect the signatures of Johnson and
Jackson (which he believes are genuine) differ from the signatures of
Shakespeare on the conveyance and mortgage.
His central point, as I understand it, is that none of the
> Shakespeare "signatures" on legal documents occur on deeds. They occur
> on tabs instead. According to Detobel, it would be unlikely for a party
> to deed to sign on the tab but not the deed itself, since it was the
> signature on the deed itself that bore the weight of proof that a legal
> agreement had in fact taken place.
That is one of Detobel's claims, and so far as I can tell, it is one
that he has made up all by himself. It doesn't take him very far,
because Johnson, Jackson, and Shakespeare all signed on tabs both on
the conveyance and on the mortgage, yet Detobel accepts Johnson's and
Jackson's signatures while rejecting Shakespeare's. The ground for
rejection is the use of abbreviations that Detobel falsely believes
prove that only a clerk could have signed for Shakespeare.
>
> Detobel: from a technical point of view it did not make much sense to
> sign on the tab instead of on the deed itself; the authentication was
> much surer on the deed than on the tag....there were good reasons for
> not setting a signature on the tab but on the deed. Specialists of
> medieval deeds tell us that the space on the tab was often used by the
> scrivener to write the names of the sealers. Descriptions of deeds do
> not consider names on the tag as signatures, even if someone wrote his
> name himself, as William Johnson and John Jackson clearly did in 1613.
> But if they signed on the tab in 1613, why on the deed in 1618? Or
> rather: if on the deed, where the signature had authenticating power,
> in 1618, not on the deed but on the tab in 1613, where the signature
> was without authenticating power? Legally, it was useless for William
> Johnson and John Jackson to sign on the tab.
Roger, how can you quote Detobel's words and still not understand the
import of what he is saying? I don't accept Detobel's opinion that
"legally it was useless ... to sign on the tab" (if this were indeed
the case then Detobel should have been able to find an expert who says
such a thing; all we have is Detobel's own belief, and he is a man who
is very often wrong. That said, even if Detobel were correct on this
point, he would still be stuck with the problem that Johnson and
Jackson and Shakespeare ALL signed on tabs on both the conveyance and
the mortgage, and yet he accepts the genuineness of the Johnson and
Jackson signatures while rejecting the Shakespeare signatures.
>
>
>
> Now, I am willing to grant that this point requires further scrutiny
> and debate if Detobel's argument is to withstand the rigorous
> cross-examination that all such theories should undergo. But an honest
> cross-examination must stick to the essentials of the positive case and
> show how they are inaccurate and invalid. Instead it seems to me that
> you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
> possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point.
It is not a minor point, and it is not something you can wish away. It
is the crucial point in Detobel's analysis of the Blackfriars
documents. What is it that tells him Johnson's and Jackson's
tab-signatures are genuine while Shakespeare's tab-signature is
clerk-work? It is the presence of common abbreviations that Detobel
falsely believes are sure signs of a law clerk's hand. Remove
Detobel's false assumption and you have removed his basis for rejecting
the Shakespeare signatures on the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage.
> It is germane, moreover,
> that Detobel does not limit his analysis to the two Blackfriars deeds
> but is able to demonstrate the same pattern ("Shakespeare" written not
> on a deed but on a seal) in a third instance:
No; here again you misunderstand Detobel.
>
>
> Detobel: There is a counterpart to the deed of conveyance from the
> Combes in 1602, the one authenticated by William Shakespeare. It is
> extant. It has the same authenticating clause. So here we may expect to
> see Shakespeare's signature, without doubt. However, again we are
> disappointed. Lewis writes: "This counterpart has a seal attached to
> it; but it is not signed by William Shakespeare. His signature to this
> counterpart would not have added to its legal value, since the original
> which he possessed was the important part of the document. It was duly
> engrossed and was ready for the poet's signature; but he never signed
> it, perhaps because he was absent for so long a time..."[5]
Roger, take another look -- this is not a case where Shakespeare signed
a tab but where there is no signature at all accompanying Shakespeare's
seal. For the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage, Shakespeare,
Johnson, and Jackson each signed on the tabs where their seals were
affixed. In the Combes, we have seals from John and William Combes
that are signed, and a seal from Shakespeare that was NOT signed.
>
> Lewis' reasoning seems doubtful. How did John and William Combe's
> signatures add to the legal value of the document in Shakespeare's
> possession?
>
Perhaps because signatures on seals were valid? Lewis assumes that all
three signatures would have been on Shakespeare's copy, but we don't
have that.
>
>
>
> > If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
> > *Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
> > times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
> > *Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
> > work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
> > "Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
> > use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
> > writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
> > strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
> > Shakespeare's own handwriting.
>
> Terry, there's a very good reason that the mainstream of Shakespearean
> scholarship has never accepted the conclusion that Hand D is in the
> hand of the Stratford bard, despite much wishful thinking: Six
> signatures, even if they are signatures, do not a sample make.
You are missing the point once again. Detobel's sad argument requires
him to claim that the use of abbreviations such as the "p" with a bar
through the stem for "per" or "par" was something only law clerks did.
He is wrong. Such abbreviations were common, and multiple instances
may be found in the hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More." Whether you
choose to accept the additions as being in Shakespeare's hand is not
the point. The point is that the penman (whether Shakespeare or not)
was using common abbreviations that were not the special province of
law clerks.
Let's come back to Detobel's actual argument, which you are avoiding.
Solet me ask one more time whether you agree with Detobel:
1. Do you agree with Detobel that the Johnson and Jackson signatures
are their own? ("From a legal viewpoint, William Johnson and John
Jackson only set their seals to the Blackfriars deeds, but they wrote
their names on the seal-tab in the form of their signatures.")
2. Do you agree with Detobel that the major characteristic
distinguishing the genuine signatures of Jackson and Johnson from the
supposedly clerk-penned signature of Shakespeare is the use of
abbreviations that were peculiar to law clerks?
("The party who did not sign at all was William Shakespeare; he did not
write his name himself on the tab either; the surname is written by a
clerk with the typical, somewhat arcane clerical abbreviations.")
I think we have to reject Detobel's second point, since the use of such
abbreviations was common, and examples could easily have been found by
Detobel if he had only looked. I'm sure you have a Riverside
Shakespeare -- if you look at the Hand D material you will see many
instances of such abbreviations (you will also see a considerable
degree of variation in the formation of letters by a single penman
writing in secretary hand).
At that point Detobel may wish to reconsider his first point and
declare (as Bob had understood him to say) that the Jackson and Johnson
signatures were also done by a clerk -- but we have already seen the
problems with that as a fallback position.
So here is the challenge, Roger -- before we take up the question
whether the Shakespeare Blackfriars conveyance and Blackfriars deed
signatures are so different that they could not have been made by the
same man (the two-clerk theory?) let us see you deal with the points I
have discussed that Detobel actually asserted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
> The question whether the signatures were penned by William Shakespeare
> does not affect the historical evidence that demonstrates that one and
> the same man, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was William
> Shakespeare the player, William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and
> William Shakespeare the author of the plays. The fact that
> Shakespeare's friend (and fellow actor, and sharer in the King's Men,
> and co-owner of the Globe) John Hemming was a trustee for Shakespeare
> is one minor item in Shakespeare's favor, strengthening even more the
> relationship between William Shakespeare and the men who produced and
> preserved his plays, but even this minor item would remain even if
> one were to decide that a brace of clerks had signed
> the conveyance and the deed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Zigler wrote:
.
> IIRC, Judith put her mark to the document when she was in her
> twenties. Another woman, Lettice Greene(wife of Thomas Greene,
> Shakespeare's "cousin"), signed the document.
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<[Among Thomas Greene's fellow students at the Middle Temple] there was
John Manningham, the now-famous diarist who described a performance of
*Twelfth Night* in the Middle Temple hall on February 2, 1602 and told
a bawdy anecdote about Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Manningham
knew Greene, and quotes him in his diary for February 5, 1603:
.
"There is best sport always when you put a woman on the case."
.
Greene was called to the bar that summer, after which he moved to
Stratford (where he had already represented the town in some
business matters) and became town clerk.>>
.
<<Thomas Greene's Diary records scraps of Shakespeare's talk during a
crisis over land enclosure. He and his brother John, who was also active
at Stratford, were called to the bar; John was a lawyer of Clements Inn.
From the Middle Temple, Greene had been solicitor ofor the Stratford
Corporation, before he served from 1603 to 1617 as borough steward
(by patent) and as town clerk. While waiting for a house, he had
noted in September 1609, 'I mighte stay another yeare at New Place'.>>
. - p.384 _Shakespeare a life_ by Park Honan
---------------------------------------------------------------
. Shakspere was referred to as "GENT"
. meaning: "clerk to the aldermen of G(h)ENT"
----------------------------------------------------------------
. hosier/gauntlet-maker Jacques Coppenole (Ghent.)
----------------------------------------------------------------
. <<Much of Paris flocks to the Palace of Justice
. (i.e., the Paris equivalent of an INN of COURT)
to observe a new mystery play written by Pierre Gringoire.
.
(Gringoire was AN ILLITERATE POET who was
. MENTORed by HERMETIST Don Claude Frollo.)
.
Sadly for Pierre his play is soon upstaged by the arrival of
. a hosier/gauntlet-maker Jacques Coppenole of G(h)ent.
.
When Coppenole is announced as: "clerk to the aldermen of Ghent"
.
he corrects the introduction to: "Jacques Coppenole, hosier.
. A hosier is good enough for me.
.
The archduke has more than once sought his gauntlet in my hose."
.
"Your name?" demanded the usher.
.
"Jacques Coppenole."
.
"Your degree?"
.
"Hosier, at the sign of the 'Three Chains' in Ghent."
.
The usher recoiled. To announce sheriff and burgomaster
was bad enough; but a hosier-no, that passed all bounds!
.
The Cardinal was on thorns. Everybody was staring and listening.
For two whole days had his Eminence been doing his utmost to lick
these FLEMISH BEARS into shape in order to make them somewhat
presentable in public-this contretemps was a rude shock.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
CLERK: Why then, [CUt]bert [CUt]ter, I indict thee by the
. name of [CUt]bert [CUt]ter, for robbing a poor carrier
. the 20 day of May last past, in the FOURTEEN YEAR OF
. THE REIGN of our soVEREign Lord King Henry the fourth,
. for setting upon a poor Carrier upon Gadshill in Kent,
. and having beaten and wounded the said Carrier, and
. taken his goods from him. - _The Famous Victories_
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[CU]ckold, n. [L. CU-CU-lus.] refering to the habit
of the female CU-ckoo to lay her eggs in the nests of other birds.
-----------------------------------------------------------
*ABCDEFGHIJKLM __ L[CU]LIW EREVIV WIZARD EVIL*
*ZYXWVUTSRQPON O[XF]ORD VIVERE DRAZIW VERO*
-----------------------------------------------------------
____ *QUICK nature dyed*
...........................................
*QUICK* , a. [As. cwic, *cwiCU, CUCU* ,
__________________ L. , *VIVERE* to live]
............................................
____ *OUR HENRIES LIVED : VIVERE*
___________ {anagram}
____ *VERO NIHIL VERIUS de VERE*
..................................................
King Henry VI, Part iii Act 3, Scene 3 (Quarto I)
.
OXFORD: From these *OUR HENRIES LIneallie discent*
.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/4260/hvhw.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
___________ *CU-CU-llus* : *A HOOD* (Latin)
------------------------------------------------------------
No one was going to bother to praise Oxford for writing a
silly little Latin preface. They were praising him for writing
*the whole* _Latin Courtier_ (for his *GRAY's Inn* thesis)
(under the *BARTHOLOMEW/GRIFFIN - CLERKE/NOVERINT* pseudonym).
---------------------------------------------------------
This is the technical phraseology referred to by *Thomas NASH* in
his *Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the two UnIVERSities*
. in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have denounced
. the author of Hamlet as one of those who had
.
. "left the trade of *NOVERINT* , whereto they were born,
. for handfuls of tragical speeches"
.
. that is, *an attorney's CLERK* become a poet,
. and penning a stanza when he should engross.
--------------------------------------------------------
www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/
Content_store/Sample_chapter/0631226354/001.pdf
.
<<The first book in which any of Shakespeare's sonnets appeared in
print [was] The Passionate Pilgrim, published by William Jaggard in
either 1598 or 1599. Only fragments of that first edition survive;
the title page is not among them. A second edition followed
in 1599 and a third in 1612, both proclaiming the entire book
to be 'by W. Shakespeare.' Despite that claim, only five of
the twenty verses in the first and second editions can be
attributed to Shakespeare *on the basis of other evidence* :
.
. the two poems that lead off the collection,
.
PP#1) 'When my love swears she is made of *TRUTH* ,
. / I do believe her'
(the poem that became sonnet 138 in the 1609 Quarto) and
.
PP#2) 'Two loves I have, of comfort and despair'
. (sonnet 144 in the 1609 Quarto),
.
. versions of two sonnets (3 & 5) that are incorporated
. into the dialogue of Love's Labour's Lost:
.
PP#3) LONGAVILLE: [Reads]
.Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
.Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
.Vows for thee broke DEsERVE not punishment.
.
PP#5) SIR NATHANIEL [Reads]
.If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
.Ah, nEVER faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!
.Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:
.Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee *like OSIERS BOW'd*
------------------------------------------------------
_________________ [13]---------------[5]
_------- WillS hake spea [r] eAvgP
__------ hilip sHen Cond [e] lWill
----- SlyWi llKe mpeR [i] cBvrb
_----- adgeI ohHe ming [s] ThoPo
. peChr *BEES* tonI [o] hDvke
-------------------------------------------------------------
THESPRIO: You shall know; two lictors two OSIER bundles of twigs.
-------------------------------------------------------------
. (T) HESEINSUINGSONNETSM [r] WHALL
_--- HAPPINESSEANDTHATET [E] RNITI
. EPROMISEDBYOUREVERL [I] VINGP
_- OETWISHETHTHEWELLWI [S] hINGA
____- DVENTURERINSETTINGF [O] rtHTT
____________ [23]-------------------[5]
-----------------------------------------------------------
and a song (PP#17) that likewise figures in that play
.
PP#17)DUMAIN [Reads] On a day--alack the day!--
. [L]ove, whose month is EVER May,
. [S]pied a blossom passing fair
. [P]laying in the wanton air:
. [T]hrough the velvet leaves the wind,
.
The other fifteen selections include, without any attributions,
.
PP#20) Christopher Marlowe's lyric '[Come] live with me
and be my love,' followed by Sir Walter Raleigh's reply,
.......................................................
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is a poem written by the English
poet Christopher Marlowe in the 1590s. It is considered one of the
earliest examples of the pastoral style of British poetry in the late
Renaissance period. The poem was the subject of a well-known "reply"
by Walter Raleigh, called The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.
.......................................................
as well as poems by
.
PP#8) Richard Barnfield (1598) &
PP#7 ?) *Bartholomew GRIFFIN* (1596).>>
--------------------------------------------------------
. *THE GRIFFIN of GRAY's Inn*
http://www.online-law.co.uk/bar/grays_inn/griffin.html
.
<<The arms of the Society are - Sable a *GRIFFIN sergeant*
or, that is a golden griffin standing on a black field.
It is thought to be borrowed from Richard Aungier,
thrice Treasurer of the Inn, at the turn of the 16th
century, and it is a more spectacular heraldic device
than the plain bars of the de GREY arms which were
previously used - they may be seen above the main
entrance to the Treasury Office in South Square.>>
--------------------------------------------------------
<<St. BARTHOLOMEW: patron of VINE-growers, DYERS
. BOOKBINDERS, BUTCHERS, GLOVERS, LEATHER-workers,
. PLASTERERS, SHOEMAKERS, TAILORS, & TANNERS.>>
.
<<In art, Saint Bartholomew is portrayed as a bearded,
. sometimes middle-aged, sometimes venerable man,
with a book and a BUTCHER's knife used for his flaying.
. At times he holds his own flayed skin>>
.
<<His father was a BUTCHER, and I have been told heretofore by some
of the neighbours that when he was a boy he exercised his father's
trade, but when he kill'd a calfe he would doe it in a high style,
and make a speech.>> -- AUBREY, JOHN, 1669-96, Brief Lives
--------------------------------------------------------
. SHOEMAKER son Kit Marlowe born in 1564
BUTCHER, GLOVER, TANNER son SHAKSPEr born in 1564
. NOBLE STONECUTTER son Michelangelo died in 1564
--------------------------------------------------------
Michelangelo's _LAST JUDGEMENT_ contains his own face
on St. BARTHOLOMEW's flayed skin AS A SIGNATURE.
----------------------------------------------------------
. _ULYSSES_
.
He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays,
a SUPER here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face
in a DARK CORNER of his canvas. He has REVEalED it in the sonnets
where there is Will in OVER(pl)US. Like John o'GAUNT his name is
dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a
bend sable a spear or steeled argent, *honorificabilitudinitatibus*
dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country.
What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood
when we write the name that we are told is ours.
............................................................
. h_ o *n* orific
. a_ b *i* litudi
. *n i_ t* atibus
------------------------------------------------------------
. *St.Bartholomew / Griffin's Egg*
------------------------------------------------------------
. Windsor, Berkshire
. http://freespace.virgin.net/david.ford2/windsor.html
.
<<Windsor (meaning "Winch-furnished-Riverbank")is the largest
inhabited castle in the World. Legend says the Round Table stood atop
the motte of the Round Tower. The town is mentioned a couple of times
in Arthurian literature. William the Conqueror picked the site for a
defensive wooden motte & bailey castle, soon after 1066. A couple of
generations later it replaced Old Windsor as a Royal Palace as well.
It was totally rebuilt in stone during the 12th & 13th century
when the castle became more popular with the English Kings.>>
.
The Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle was built by King Henry III
and later enlarged by Edward III, in 1363, as a Canonical
Collegiate Chapel. St.George, the country's new patron saint,
was chosen for the dedication. The Royal Chapel had
.
. a Silver-Gilt Cup in which is kept:
. Part of *the Skull of St. Bartholomew*
.
a Cup made of *a Griffin's Egg* , in which is kept:
Part of the Skull of St. *THOMAS* the Apostle.>>
------------------------------------------------
THE COURTYER OF COUNT BALDESSAR CA-stilio
divided into foure bookes.
.
VERy necessary and profita-
table for *yonge Gentilmen* and Gentil-
women abiding in Court, Palaice
or Place, done into Englyshe
by *THOMAS HOBY*
.
Imprinted at London by wyllyam Seres
at the signe of the Hedg-
*HOGGE* , 1561.
------------------------------------------------
*THOMAS HOBY*
------------------------------------------------
*HOBBY* , n.; pl. {Hobbies}. [OE. hobi; cf. OF. hobe,
hob['e], *F. hobereau a hobby, a species of FALCON* :
OF. hober to move] A small, strong-winged European
*FALCON* {FALCO subbuteo}), formerly trained for hawking.
.
The *HOBBY* is a *FALCON* trained to fly at pigeons & *partridges* .
Hobby-horse is a corruption of Hobby-hause (hawk-tossing), or
throwing off the hawk from the wrist. Hobby is applied to a little
pet riding-horse by the same natural transposition as a mews for
hawks is now a place for horses. (French, hobereau, a hawk.)
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sourcetext.com/lawlibrary/campbell/03.htm
.
In Act I, Sc. 2, [As You Like It] Shakespeare makes the lively
Rosalind, who, although well versed in poesy and books of
chivalry, had probably never seen a bond or a law-paper
of any sort in her life, quite familiar with
the commencement of all deeds poll, which in Latin was,
.
. *Noverint universi per praesentes*
.
. *Noverint universi per praesentes*
. nos *FULCONEM SANDElls* de Stratford
.
. in English, *Be it known to all men by these presents*
...............................................................
Le Beau.: There COMES an old man and his three sons?
.
Cel.: I could match this beginning with an old tale.
.
Le Beau.: *Three proper young men, of excellent growth & presence* ?
.
Ros.: With bills on their *NECKS*?
. *Be it known to all men by these presents*
........................................................
. *Noverint universi per praesentes*
. nos *FULCONEM* Sandells de Stratford
.
November 28, 1582 William Shagspere & Anne Hathwey of Stratford
November 28, 1660 founding FELLOW of the Royal Society
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sourcetext.com/lawlibrary/greenwood/isasp/08.htm
.
<<"Kyd was born to the trade of *NOVERINT* & perhaps
. spent a few years in the office of his father who
. was a scrivener; in A Warning, IV, 4, the indictments of
. Browne, Anne *SANDErs* , and Drury, with their legal jargon,
. point to the probability of their having been drawn up by
one accustomed to copying legal documents. All Kyd's plays,
with the exception of his translation of Garnier's Cornelia,
were issued anonymously, so was A Warning.">>
-------------------------------------------------------
. *NOVERINT UNIVERSI* : *let all men know*
. *L NOVERINT UNIVERSI*
. *TINN: VERO NIL VERIUS*
.
*TINN* : TIN (Norwegian)
*TINN* : sick, unwell (Irish, Gaelic, Scottish)
-------------------------------------------------------
Here is an excerpt from Aubrey in his Nat. Hist. Wilts, Royal Soc.
MS p. 259, an anecdote which cites a story of Sir Thomas More:
.
"... they had on their left arm an armilla of *TINN* printed in some
workes, about four inches long; they could not gett it off. They wore
.
*about their NECKS a great horn of an OXE in a string of bawdrie*,
.
which when they came to an house for almes, they did wind;
and they put the drink given them into this horn,
whereto they did putt a stopple."
--------------------------------------------------------
<< *NOVERINT* derives form the 3rd Person Plural of the
perfect subjunctive tense of the verb NESCERE, 'to know'.
In English it occurs as the opening phrase of writs.
.
. Now then, by extension this English word Noverint has
come to be applied not just to a writ but to the man who
writes it- in short , to any member of the tribe of legal
scriveners.>> - _The Late Mr. Shakespeare_ by Robert Nye
---------------------------------------------------------
"through EVERy art & thrive by none,
. to leave the trade of *NOVERINT* " -- *Thomas NASH*
.
Anglo-Saxon word for SERPENT: *(wi)VERE*
The Hebrew word for SERPENT: *NA(ha)SH* (a.k.a.: BRASS)
---------------------------------------------------------
This is the technical phraseology referred to by *Thomas NASH* in
his *Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the two UNIVERSIties*
. in the year 1589, when he is supposed to have denounced
. the author of Hamlet as one of those who had:
.
. "left the trade of *NOVERINT* , whereto they were born,
. for handfuls of tragical speeches"
.
. that is, an attorney's *CLERK* become a poet,
. and penning a stanza when he should engross.
.
*As You Like It* was not brought out until shortly before the year
1600, so that *NASH's NOVERINT* could not have been suggested by it.
Possibly Shakespeare now introduced the "Be it known to all men,"
. &c., in order to show his contempt for *NASH* 's sarcasm.
.
In Act. II. Sc. 1, there are illustrations which would present
themselves rather to the mind of one initiated in legal proceedings,
than of one who had been brought up as an apprentice to a "lover,
or an assistant to *a BUTCHER or a woolstapler* : for instance,
when it is said of the poor wounded deer, weeping in the stream:
.
. "thou makest a testament
. As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
. To that which hath too much
.
And again where the careless herd, jumping by him without
greeting him, are compared to "fat & greasy citizens," who look
.
"Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there, without pitying
. his sufferings or attempting to relieve his necessities."
.
It may perhaps be said that such language might be used by any man
of observation. But in Act III, Sc. 1, a deep technical knowledge
of law is displayed, howsoever it may have been acquired.
.
The usurping Duke, Frederick, wishing all the real property of Oliver
to be seized, awards a writ of extent against him, in the language
which would be used by the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer:
.
Duke Fred.: "Make an extent upon his house and lands an extendi
facias applying to house and lands, as a fieri facias would apply
to goods & chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum to the person."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nov. 27, 1095 Tues. Pope Urban launches 1st Crusade [ *Templars* ]
Nov. 27, 1582 Tues. Wm Shaxpere & Anna *WHATEley of Temple* Grafton
.
1582. On 27th November a licence was issued in the Registry of the
. Bishop of Worcester authorising the marriage of William Shaxpere
. to Anna WHATEley of Temple Grafton.
.
1582. On 28th November the Bishop of Worcester insisted upon a
. marriage bond exempting him from all liability should
. there be any irregularity in the speedy marriage of
. "William Shagspere and Anne Hathwey of Stratford
. in the Diocese of Worcester. maiden..."
------------------------------------------------------
. [N]over(int) universi
. [N]vero(tin) ni.verius
------------------------------------------------------
. SHAKESPEARE'S MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN
. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/
.
<<Recordings in the Episcopal register at Worcester on the dates of
November 27 & 28, 1582, reveal that Shakespeare desired to marry a
young girl named Anne. There are two different documents regarding
this matter, and their contents have raised a debate over just
whom Shakespeare first intended to wed. Were there two Annes?
Was Shakespeare in love with one but in lust with the other?
Was Shakespeare ready to join in matrimony with the Anne of his
dreams only to have an attack of conscience and marry the Anne
with whom he had carnal relations? To discuss the controversy
properly we should look at the documents in question.
The first entry in the register is the following record of
the issue of a marriage license to one Wm Shakespeare:
.
Anno Domini 1582...Novembris...27 die eiusdem mensis.
. Item eodem die supradicto emanavit Licentia inter
. Wm Shaxpere et Annam *WHATEley de Temple* Grafton.
.
. The next entry in the episcopal register records
. the marriage bond granted to one Wm Shakespeare:
.
*Noverint universi per praesentes* nos Fulconem Sandells de Stratford
in comitatu Warwici agricolam et Johannem Rychardson ibidem agricolam,
teneri et firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin generoso et Roberto Warmstry
notario publico in quadraginta libris bonae et legalis monetae Angliae
solvend. eisdem Ricardoet Roberto haered. execut. et assignat. suis
ad quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter faciend. obligamus nos
et utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid. haered. executor.
et administrator. nostros firmiter per praesentes sigillis nostris
sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. Anno regni dominae nostrae Eliz. Dei
gratia Angliae Franc. et Hiberniae Reginae fidei defensor &c.25.2
The condition of this obligation is such that if hereafter there shall
not appear any lawful let or impediment by reason of any precontract,
consanguinity, affinity or by any other lawful means whatsoever, but
that William Shagspere on the one party and Anne Hathwey of Stratford
in the diocese of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony
together, and in the same afterwards remain and continue like man
and wife according unto the laws in that behalf provided... >>
--------------------------------------------------------------
<<There is an old English word *WHATE* ,
. meaning fortune, fate, or destiny,
. I think that in a desperate moment of inspiration,
. confused before the *CLERK* , Shakespeare reached
. into his heart and came out with the name of that Anne
. who would have been his choice, his fate, his destiny.>>
.
. - _The Late Mr. Shakespeare_ by Robert Nye
----------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Terry Ross
> "Instead it seems to me that
> you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
> possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point."
>
> Terry Ross diverting attention from a major point to "excoriate"
> someone on a minor one? No. Couldn't be.
>
> Good to see Terry up to the old tricks.
>
As usual, Ken, you can be counted on to step in to defend what you do
not understand (or perhaps have not read).
> I think this phrase ben-johnson wrote is most appropriate:
>
> "Now, I am willing to grant that this point requires further scrutiny
> > and debate if Detobel's argument is to withstand the rigorous
> > cross-examination that all such theories should undergo. But an honest
> > cross-examination must stick to the essentials of the positive case and
> > show how they are inaccurate and invalid. ...
>
If you wish to discuss this matter "honestly," Ken, then perhaps you
can tell us whether you agree with Detobel that the tab-signatures of
Jackson and Johnson on the Blackfriars conveyance and on the
Blackfriars mortgage were genuine? Do you agree with him that the
reason to conclude that Shakespeare's tabbed name could not have been
penned by him is that it uses abbreviations that only a law clerk would
have used? These are the essentials of his argument about the
Blackfriars documents. I say that Detobel was wrong about the
abbreviations, and that they were commonly used in non-legal texts, as
Detobel himself could have learned by looking at a few such texts or
even by looking at any primer on Elizabethan handwriting. Where do
YOU stand?
> It is germane, moreover, that Detobel does not limit his analysis to
> the two Blackfriars deeds but is able to demonstrate the same pattern
> ("Shakespeare" written not
> on a deed but on a seal) in a third instance: ..."
>
See my replies to Roger. As you ought to have known if you had read
Detobel's essay (although Roger managed to quote Detobel without
understanding what he was quoting), the "third instance" is a different
kind of case -- one in which Shakespeare's name does NOT appear on the
tab that fixes his seal to the document.
> "Hand D"? Please.You're getting desperate. Argument by assertion does
> not suffice.
>
Ken, let me try to make this easier for you. Detobel's crucial point
for rejecting the Shakespeare signatures on the Blackfriars documents
while accepting those of Johnson and Jackson (which were also written
on tabs) is that the Shakespeare signatures contain "arcane"
abbreviations of the sort one would expect to find used by a law clerk.
Are you still with me? Good.
I contend that Detobel is dead wrong in his argument because the
abbreviations he claims are "arcane" are in fact common in non-legal
writing of the period (I also provided a few links for corroboration of
this point). Hand D is a good text to use for this purpose because
facsimiles of it are readily available (e.g., in the Riverside
Shakespeare). Leave aside for the moment whether Shakespeare wrote the
Hand D additions and just consider the text as a non-legal document.
Nobody has suggested that it was the duty of a law clerk to pen the
Hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More*. Are you still with me? Good.
Now comes the hard part: LOOK FOR YOURSELF. Look at the facsimile of
the Hand D additions, or at the transcript, if the facsimiles are too
hard to read, and you will SEE FOR YOURSELF that there are many
instances of the "arcane" abbreviations that Detobel falsely thought
would only have been used by a law clerk.
I know I'm asking a great deal here, but this one time why not LOOK FOR
YOURSELF? You have a good enough mind and good enough eyes; why not
use them?
John W. Kennedy
The Kinks.
"Old", rather than "North", and "you", rather than "they". In the
absence of information to the contrary, I would also guess that it's
"Soho" (in London), and not "SoHo" (in New York).
--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"
John W. Kennedy
> To quote an early modern poets (from memory):
> He that takes the pain to the pen the book
> reaps not the gift of goodly golden muse
> but they that gain that who on the gift do look
> and by their skill the sweet from sour do chose.
It's bloody Neddie DeVere, Comte de Orazfoute. And it's:
So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden Muse,
But those gain that, who on the work shall look
And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose.
(Drab and ungrammatical by present-day standards, but not so completely
a metrical and syntactic basket case as you have made of it.)
(Query to those more familiar with Drab-age verse: Is "Muse", taken as a
singular proper noun, a usual construction? Are there parallels found
outside of English? Or did Neddie simply Get It Wrong?)
John W. Kennedy
f
> Nobody who is persuaded the work of Looney and Ogburn can justly call
> himself a "skeptic," but it is certainly the case that the question of
> the validity of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
> wrote the works of Shakespeare (for which there is not the least
> evidence) or that men from Mars wrote the works of Shakespeare (for
> which there is not the least evidence).
On the other hand, if one were to judge solely from current claims in
SHAKSPER, one would have to admit that there is considerable evidence
that the works of Shakespeare were written by time-traveling left-wing
American academics from the early 21st century, so completely do the
works reflect the characteristic attitudes of that group.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Zum Eckel find' ich immer nur mich."
-- Quoted by C. S. Lewis, source unknown
Mark Cipra
> ben-Jonson wrote:
>> To quote an early modern poets (from memory):
>
>> He that takes the pain to the pen the book
>> reaps not the gift of goodly golden muse
>> but they that gain that who on the gift do look
>> and by their skill the sweet from sour do chose.
>
> It's bloody Neddie DeVere, Comte de Orazfoute. And it's:
>
> So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
> Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden Muse,
> But those gain that, who on the work shall look
> And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose.
>
> (Drab and ungrammatical by present-day standards, but not so
> completely a metrical and syntactic basket case as you have made of
> it.)
>
> (Query to those more familiar with Drab-age verse: Is "Muse", taken
> as a singular proper noun, a usual construction? Are there parallels
> found outside of English? Or did Neddie simply Get It Wrong?)
I haven't noted the singular Muse before, but it's pretty common to see the
singular stand for the plural for metrical or other poetic reasons (a form
of synecdoche).
Is that what you were asking?
On the other hand, in this construction it could merely be the omission of
the word "a", as well: "gifts of (a) goodly golden Muse".
--
Mark Cipra
"Pile it high, sell it cheap" - Sir Jack Cohen (grocery store
pioneer/magnate)
Play Indiana Jones! Hide the "ark" in my address to reply by email.
Paul Crowley
news:1152013404.5...@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
> The question whether the signatures were penned by William Shakespeare
> does not affect the historical evidence that demonstrates that one and
> the same man, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was William
> Shakespeare the player,
It may not affect "the evidence" (how would it
do that ?) but it certainly affects how we read
it, or understand it.
The Stratman was, highly probably, illiterate.
(Try to remember that his daughters were
illiterate, and literate fathers only have illiterate
daughters under particular circumstances --
such as when they destroy themselves through
drink or drugs, or such like. Being illiterate, he
could not have been an actor, and IF he was a
shareholder, it would only have been as a part
of a front that he was obliged to maintain. In
any case, insofar as he was such a shareholder,
he would probably only be some kind of
nominee -- i.e. only holding them nominally.
More evidence regarding his (il)literacy lies in
those "signatures", and they are relevant to the
whole picture.
> William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and
> William Shakespeare the author of the plays.
Only a total fool could believe that "Will Shake-
speare" is not a made-up name.
> . . . it is certainly the case that the question of
> the validity of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
> wrote the works of Shakespeare
Of course, it does. Once you realise that the
Stratman could not possibly have written them,
and that you (along with your ancestors) have
been fooled all the way down the line, you then
start to find out by whom and why. The true
author was clearly someone close to the monarch
-- for only she (and then her successor) had the
power and the authority (as well as the motivation)
to implement such a wide-ranging cover-up.
Paul.
Terry Ross
> Terry Ross wrote:
> f
> > Nobody who is persuaded the work of Looney and Ogburn can justly call
> > himself a "skeptic," but it is certainly the case that the question of
> > the validity of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
> > wrote the works of Shakespeare (for which there is not the least
> > evidence) or that men from Mars wrote the works of Shakespeare (for
> > which there is not the least evidence).
>
> On the other hand, if one were to judge solely from current claims in
> SHAKSPER, one would have to admit that there is considerable evidence
> that the works of Shakespeare were written by time-traveling left-wing
> American academics from the early 21st century, so completely do the
> works reflect the characteristic attitudes of that group.
>
John, are you referring to the *Merchant of Venice* discussions? If
all the members of SHAKSPER were "left-wing American academics" whose
responses to Shakespeare and each other were determined by "the
characteristic attitudes of that group" then the *MoV* discussions
would have been much shorter.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
John W. Kennedy
Well, without reference to the original documents, I don't know how
seriously the capital "M" is to be taken, but as it stands, the most
obvious interpretation would seem to be that Oxfart was under the
impression that there was a single goddess of poetry /named/ "Muse".
kenkap
delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
disrespectful and done on impulse.
You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
"different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
to prevent fraud. This was done in 1618 but not in 1613. He cites a
consistency in this practice in the examples he uses. And the
inconsistency in Shakespeare's cases along the line. If he is "cherry
picking" evidence, then as you claim it would severely harm his
argument.
Ken
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
John W. Kennedy wrote:
> ben-Jonson wrote:
> > To quote an early modern poets (from memory):
>
> > He that takes the pain to the pen the book
> > reaps not the gift of goodly golden muse
> > but they that gain that who on the gift do look
> > and by their skill the sweet from sour do chose.
>
> It's bloody Neddie DeVere, Comte de Orazfoute. And it's:
>
> So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
> Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden Muse,
> But those gain that, who on the work shall look
> And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose.
>
> (Drab and ungrammatical by present-day standards, but not so completely
> a metrical and syntactic basket case as you have made of it.)
>
> (Query to those more familiar with Drab-age verse: Is "Muse", taken as a
> singular proper noun, a usual construction? Are there parallels found
> outside of English? Or did Neddie simply Get It Wrong?)
He's making his rhyme.
--Bob
Peter Farey
John W. Kennedy wrote:
>
> Mark Cipra wrote:
> >
> > John W. Kennedy wrote:
> > >
> > > ben-Jonson wrote:
> > > >
> > > > To quote an early modern poets (from memory):
> > > > He that takes the pain to the pen the book
> > > > reaps not the gift of goodly golden muse
> > > > but they that gain that who on the gift do look
> > > > and by their skill the sweet from sour do chose.
> > >
> > > It's bloody Neddie DeVere, Comte de Orazfoute. And it's:
> > >
> > > So he that takes the pain to pen the book,
> > > Reaps not the gifts of goodly golden Muse,
> > > But those gain that, who on the work shall look
> > > And from the sour the sweet by skill doth choose.
> > >
> > > (Drab and ungrammatical by present-day standards,
> > > but not so completely a metrical and syntactic basket
> > > case as you have made of it.)
> > >
> > > (Query to those more familiar with Drab-age verse: Is
> > > struction? Are there parallels found outside of
> > > English? Or did Neddie simply Get It Wrong?)
> >
> > I haven't noted the singular Muse before, but it's
> > pretty common to see the singular stand for the plural
> > for metrical or other poetic reasons (a form of
> > synecdoche).
> >
> > Is that what you were asking?
> >
> > On the other hand, in this construction it could merely
> > be the omission of the word "a", as well: "gifts of
> > (a) goodly golden Muse".
>
> Well, without reference to the original documents, I
> don't know how seriously the capital "M" is to be taken,
> but as it stands, the most obvious interpretation would
> seem to be that Oxfart was under the impression that
> there was a single goddess of poetry /named/ "Muse".
I'm not arguing, but who do you think Shakespeare
was addressing in Sonnet 100?
VVhere art thou Muse that thou forgetst so long,
To speake of that which giues thee all thy might?
Spendst thou thy furie on some worthlesse songe,
Darkning thy powre to lend base subiects light.
Returne forgetfull Muse,and straight redeeme,
In gentle numbers time so idely spent,
Sing to the eare that doth thy laies esteeme,
And giues thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise resty Muse,my loues sweet face suruay,
If time haue any wrincle grauen there,
If any,be a Satire to decay,
And make times spoiles dispised euery where.
Giue my loue fame faster then time wasts life,
So thou preuenst his sieth,and crooked knife.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
John W. Kennedy
> John W. Kennedy wrote:
>> SHAKSPER, one would have to admit that there is considerable evidence
>> that the works of Shakespeare were written by time-traveling left-wing
>> American academics from the early 21st century, so completely do the
>> works reflect the characteristic attitudes of that group.
> John, are you referring to the *Merchant of Venice* discussions? If
> all the members of SHAKSPER were "left-wing American academics" whose
> responses to Shakespeare and each other were determined by "the
> characteristic attitudes of that group" then the *MoV* discussions
> would have been much shorter.
It's just that it's reached the point where I want to scream,
"Shakespeare was casually anti-Semitic (but it's not the point of the
play) and he thought dark skin was ugly, and those are both perfectly
normal attitudes for his place and time, so get over it, and get over
yourselves. Portia's a heroine, Shylock's a comic villain [Was it Walter
Kerr who suggested that he owes a debt to Pantalone?], the Prince of
Morocco is a buffoon, the play is a romantic comedy with a 'suspense'
subplot, and you're all nothing but a load of bloody useless sodding
wankers!"
But I mortify this inclination; I wrestle with it, and it lies beneath
my feet!
Thus far.
I suppose it's the same shibbolethic thinking that has, in recent
decades, so damned Jefferson. But, while there can be no doubt that
Jefferson owned slaves, a sufficiently squint-eyed view of Shakespeare
seems to be able to render him 100% "politically correct", and so safe
for consumption by the weak-minded. At least the Ibsen-obsessed teachers
of my youth were, comparatively speaking, honest enough simply to say,
"There was no theatre of importance before Ibsen, Shakespeare being the
'exception that proves the rule'." At least the Bowdlers were honest
enough to admit that they were presenting a falsified text.
Honestly, they're worse than the anti-Stratfordians; the latter mean
only to steal Shakepspeare's body, whereas these "liberals" (God save
the mark!), with their /idées/ /fixes/, want to steal his soul. They
would pluck out the heart of his mystery, run it through their Maytags
on "Hot", with plenty of bleach, and mount it on the wall with a Genuine
Certificate of Inoffensiveness. So what is a poor autodidact with no
diploma to wave in people's faces to do, but reread "Postmodern Pooh"
and whimper one's self to sleep?
--
John W. Kennedy
"Fools to the left of me, [brain-eaters] to the right. I need to find a
real job."
-- "Babylon 5"
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
kenkap wrote:
> Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> disrespectful and done on impulse.
>
> You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
> "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
>
> But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> to prevent fraud. This was done in 1618 but not in 1613. He cites a
> consistency in this practice in the examples he uses. And the
> inconsistency in Shakespeare's cases along the line. If he is "cherry
> picking" evidence, then as you claim it would severely harm his
> argument.
>
> Ken
My non-expert, unresearched view is that Shakespeare et al DID set hand
and seal to the 1613 document, but that the law clerk didn't bother to
say so on the document. My impression of the way human beings operate
is that they do NOT always follow correct form. So minor discrepancies
on legal papers that people like Robert D. make much of are very
common. Consider, for instance, the ones concerned with Will
Shakespeare's marriage. Yes, one would need a fairly large sample of
deeds to determine if this was the case here. There's little point in
a Stratfordians seeking out such a sample for the evidence is extremely
strong that Shakespeare could write. For instance, a monument in his
hometown church refers to "all that he writ" (which I quote without
full orthographic accuracy because that's the way I am). Why put an
obvious lie in such a public monument (in a sacred place)?
--Bob G.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
> a tab but where there is no signature at all accompanying Shakespeare's
> seal. For the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage, Shakespeare,
> Johnson, and Jackson each signed on the tabs where their seals were
> affixed. In the Combes, we have seals from John and William Combes
> that are signed, and a seal from Shakespeare that was NOT signed.
Hmm, by Detobel's reasoning, a clerk should have signed here for
Shakespeare, right?
--Bob G.
Mark Cipra
Nah, I think it's legitimate poetic usage - I certainly didn't take it the
way you did. Anyway, there's plenty wrong with the quatrain without picking
apart its classical scholarship.
John W. Kennedy
In all of these 2nd-person cases, English grammar allows a common noun
without an article. In the other, which is 3rd-person, omission of the
article is a license at best.
Tom Reedy
news:bhvqg.11066$j7.3...@news.indigo.ie...
Err, Crowley, *all* names are made-up.
>
>> . . . it is certainly the case that the question of
>> the validity of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
>> wrote the works of Shakespeare
>
> Of course, it does. Once you realise that the
> Stratman could not possibly have written them,
> and that you (along with your ancestors) have
> been fooled all the way down the line, you then
> start to find out by whom and why. The true
> author was clearly someone close to the monarch
> -- for only she (and then her successor) had the
> power and the authority (as well as the motivation)
> to implement such a wide-ranging cover-up.
You are a fool.
TR
>
>
> Paul.
>
Tom Reedy
news:1152031878.3...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> disrespectful and done on impulse.
>
> You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
> "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
>
> But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> to prevent fraud.
Seals became common because people weren't literate and had to have some way
of authenticating transfers of property. People would have their own
individual seals that were destroyed at their deaths in order to prevent
fraud.
Later on, when literacy increased (although not enough to become common),
signatures were the method used. Illiterate persons would sign with a mark.
"Hand and seal" became so much boilerplate, the way it is today.
If the seal was the authenticating device in early modern times, why then
did all the signatories to the deed use the same seal? I daresay the seal
was witness to the signature (the way a notary seal is used today), *not*
the authenticating device.
> This was done in 1618 but not in 1613. He cites a
> consistency in this practice in the examples he uses.
His universe of examples is so small as to be useless. And quoting unnamed
experts in medieval practice is hardly support for early modern legal
practice.
> And the
> inconsistency in Shakespeare's cases along the line. If he is "cherry
> picking" evidence, then as you claim it would severely harm his
> argument.
He's not "cherry picking," he's just not doing the work to establish what
common practice was.
Detobel's essay is an exercise in wasted time.
TR
Bianca Steele
Now, John! Calm down, and make yourself useful to society.
And they are probably not liberals, but Progressives. They have been
attacking liberals since 1953 if not earlier, and it's high time we
stopped letting the Right lump us together. If there are any of us
left.
--
Bianca Steele
Art Neuendorffer
>>The orthodox case for Shakespearean authorship depends heavily on the
>>authenticity of these "signatures." If Detobel is right, that these
>>are the work of a scrivener and not the legal party to the agreement,
>>then that pretty much destroys the notion of the Stratford man as the
>>author, or so it would seem to me.
Terry Ross wrote:
>
> Oh please -- the attribution of Shakespeare's works is not centrally
> the issue here, unless you are trying to argue that Shakespeare was
> completely unable to write, and therefore could not have written the
> works commonly attributed to him.
Shakespeare was completely unable to write, and therefore could
not have written the works commonly attributed to him since
he was a complete non-entity.
Terry Ross wrote:
>
> Do you know of any genuine literary historian
> who has ever said, "lacking these signatures
> we would not know who wrote Shakespeare's works"?
Genuine literary historians don't make original statements; they
simply repeat what other literary historians have already stated.
-----------------------------------------
THE THIRD BOOKE of Ovids Metamorphosis.
A babling Nymph that *ECHO* hight: who hearing others talke,
By no meanes can restraine hir tongue but that it needes must walke,
Nor of hir selfe hath powre to ginne to speake to any wight,
Espyde him dryving into toyles the fearefull stagges of flight.
This *ECHO* was a body then and not an onely voyce,
Yet of hir speach she had that time no more than now the choyce,
That is to say of many wordes the latter to repeate.
The cause thereof was Junos wrath. For when that with the feate
She might have often taken Jove in daliance with his Dames,
And that by stealth and unbewares in middes of all his games:
This elfe would with hir tatling talke deteine hir by the way,
Untill that Jove had wrought his will and they were fled away.
The which when Juno did perceyve, she said with wrathfull mood,
This tongue that hath deluded me shall doe thee little good:
For of thy speech but simple use hereafter shalt thou have.
The deede it selfe did straight confirme the threatnings that she gave.
Yet *ECHO* of the former talke doth double oft the end
And backe againe with just report the wordes earst spoken sende.
----------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross wrote:
>
> The question whether the signatures were penned by William Shakespeare
> does not affect the historical evidence that demonstrates that one and
> the same man, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, was William
> Shakespeare the player, William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and
> William Shakespeare the author of the plays.
and William Shakespeare the grain horder,
and William Shakespeare the liti-gent,
and William Shakespeare the scribbler.
Terry Ross wrote:
>
> The fact that
> Shakespeare's friend (and fellow actor, and sharer in the King's Men,
> and co-owner of the Globe) John Hemming was a trustee for Shakespeare
> is one minor item in Shakespeare's favor, strengthening even more the
> relationship between William Shakespeare and the men who produced and
> preserved his plays, but even this minor item would remain even if one
> were to decide that a brace of clerks had signed the conveyance and the
> deed.
There are only a few minors item in Shakespeare's favor all told.
> ben-Jonson wrote:
>>However, the reverse is not so. If Detobel's argument is wrong, so be
>>it. Its not much skin off my back, or off the back of any other skeptic
>>of the official view of Shakespeare.
Terry Ross wrote:
>
> Nobody who is persuaded the work of Looney and Ogburn
> can justly call himself a "skeptic,"
We call ourselves enlightened.
Terry Ross wrote:
> but it is certainly the case that the question of the validity
> of the signatures has no bearing either on whether Oxford
> wrote the works of Shakespeare (for which there is not the least
> evidence) or that men from Mars wrote the works of Shakespeare
> (for which there is not the least evidence).
Martians would prove to be more likely
than the illiterate hick from Stratford.
Art Neuendorffer
Spam...@yahoo.com
Terry Ross wrote:
> kenkap wrote:
> > "Instead it seems to me that
> > you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
> > possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point."
> >
> > Terry Ross diverting attention from a major point to "excoriate"
> > someone on a minor one? No. Couldn't be.
> >
> > Good to see Terry up to the old tricks.
> >
>
> As usual, Ken, you can be counted on to step in to defend what you do
> not understand (or perhaps have not read).
And sometimes that which doesn't exist.
Tom Reedy
news:1152055635.4...@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
So what happened to Roger? He seems to have bugged out once the tough
criticism of Detobel started.
Of course, he also could be busy celebrating the 4th.
TR
Mouse
Of course, he could also be in transit from Toronto to Baltimore. It's
rather a long trip by car, often takes about ten hours. He left here
late this morning. We celebrated Canada Day and the Fourth yesterday,
our holiday in arrears, his in advance.
Mouse
>
> TR
Tom Reedy
news:1152057162....@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Thanks, Lynne. I look forward to his replies after he gets home and rested.
How about you, Lynne? Do you also consider Detobel's essay one of the best
available online, as well as provocative and important?
TR
>
> Mouse
>
>
>>
>> TR
>
Mouse
Yes. It might take a while. Hopefully he won't find his apt flooded
out.
>
> How about you, Lynne? Do you also consider Detobel's essay one of the best
> available online, as well as provocative and important?
I said what I think, Tom. I feel Robert researches hard, and I am
impressed by his work ethic and grasp of English.
I believe from other work I've seen of his that he is one of our
brightest lights. Further, I am intrigued by the essay even though it's
clearly a draft, realise it's rather important--especially as Terry is
now criticising it so hard--but I don't really feel qualified to pass
judgement on it at the moment. There are others at the Fellowship,
though, I'm sure, who are more knowledgeable than I in this area, and
who can probably defend it very well. I look forward to the debate.
L.
>
> TR
>
> >
> > Mouse
> >
> >
> >>
> >> TR
> >
Tom Reedy
Well, I suppose you could say the same of Elizabeth Weir.
>
> I believe from other work I've seen of his that he is one of our
> brightest lights.
Oh, I agree completely!
> Further, I am intrigued by the essay even though it's
> clearly a draft, realise it's rather important
Even if it's wrong? (That's what Roger said.)
> --especially as Terry is
> now criticising it so hard
So is that what makes it important?
> --but I don't really feel qualified to pass
> judgement on it at the moment. There are others at the Fellowship,
> though, I'm sure, who are more knowledgeable than I in this area, and
> who can probably defend it very well. I look forward to the debate.
I wonder when it will be forthcoming. You may be looking forward for a long
time.
TR
>
> L.
>>
>> TR
>>
>> >
>> > Mouse
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> TR
>> >
>
Mouse
Well, of course, Tom, as you know, I have all the time in the world.
L.
Tom Reedy
Ah, well, yes, we all do, Lynne. Just ask Art or Crowley. They know how to
make every precious minute count.
TR
Spam...@yahoo.com
Mouse wrote:
>
> > I wonder when it will be forthcoming. You may be looking forward for a long
> > time.
>
> Well, of course, Tom, as you know, I have all the time in the world.
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Paul Crowley
>>> William Shakespeare the Globe-sharer, and
>>> William Shakespeare the author of the plays.
>>
>> Only a total fool could believe that "Will Shake-
>> speare" is not a made-up name.
>
> Err, Crowley, *all* names are made-up.
Did you make up your surname?
Did your parents?
Did you make up your Christian name?
It is always important to try to read for
context. But there's no hope there for
you.
Paul.
seeker
>
> Yes. It might take a while. Hopefully he won't find his apt flooded
> out.
> >
> > How about you, Lynne? Do you also consider Detobel's essay one of the best
> > available online, as well as provocative and important?
>
> I said what I think, Tom. I feel Robert researches hard, and I am
> impressed by his work ethic and grasp of English.
>
> I believe from other work I've seen of his that he is one of our
> brightest lights. Further, I am intrigued by the essay even though it's
> clearly a draft, realise it's rather important--especially as Terry is
> now criticising it so hard--but I don't really feel qualified to pass
> judgement on it at the moment. There are others at the Fellowship,
> though, I'm sure, who are more knowledgeable than I in this area, and
> who can probably defend it very well. I look forward to the debate.
>
> L.
A DRAFT! This DRAFT has been posted on your site Lynne since December
1, 2004, so how long is it going to take the harding working Robert
Detobel to write the final version?
If Roger thinks the DRAFT is the best available online on the subject,
it's clear the great Dr. Stritmatter has very low standards.
This comes as no surprise. After all, you and Roger call your little
Tempest chart an essay.
Why not be honest Lynne and say what Detobel wrote is a DRAFT. Oops,
perhaps I'm to harsh when I ask for honesty from you and Roger. The
title of your site, The Shakespeare Fellowship is a lie. Why not be
honest and call it The Edward de Vere Fellowship or are you worried
that people would ignore the site.
Mouse
Why not do something, ANYTHING, of your own, seaker, instead of
spending the precious days of your life castigating others who have
caused you no harm.
By the way, you appear to have forgotten how to spell your own name.
L.
Mouse
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
BCD
***Or rather:
When shall the laurel and the vocal string
Resume their honours? When shall we behold
The tuneful tongue, the Promethéan band
Aspire to ancient praise? Alas! how faint,
How slow the dawn of Beauty and of Truth
Breaks the reluctant shades of Gothic night
Which yet involves the nations! Long they groan'd
Beneath the furies of rapacious force;
Oft as the gloomy north, with iron swarms
Tempestuous pouring from her frozen caves,
Blasted the Italian shore, and swept the works
Of Liberty and Wisdom down the gulf
Of all-devouring night. As long immured
In noontide darkness, by the glimmering lamp,
Each Muse and each fair Science pined away
The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands
Their mysteries profaned, unstrung the lyre,
And chain'd the soaring pinion down to earth.
Best Wishes,
--BCD
Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
Visit unknown Los Angeles: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal1.html
KCL
Below is the relevant text from your discussion with Roger (if I have
left anything important out, do correct this of course) and below that
a response Herr Detobel sent to me.
>
> Detobel argues that Shakespeare's signatures on both the conveyance and
> the mortgage were made by a clerk. Since Johnson's and Jackson's
> signatures also appear both on the conveyance and the mortgage, Detobel
> should either argue that all three were done by a clerk or he should
> come up with some special circumstance to explain why Shakespeare's
> signatures are different in kind from those of Johnson and Jackson.
>Bob though Detobel's point was the former -- that the signatures of all
> three men were made by a clerk; in fact, Detobel's point is the latter
> -- that the presence of abbreviations used only by law clerks means
> that Shkaespeare's signatures were made by a clerk. What Detobel does
> not know is that "per" and "par" were commonly abbreviated by a "p"
> with a bar through the stem -- this was not, in fact, a habit peculiar
> to law clerks (the same is true for the other abbreviations Detobel
> seems to think were restricted to law clerks). Therefore Detobel's
> basic argument for distinguishing the true signatures of Johnson and
> Jackson from the supposedly clerk-penned signatures of Shakespeare
> collapses. He is left with two choices: either he can claim that all
> three men's signatures were done by a clerk, or he can withdraw his
> claim to have shown that Shakespeare's signatures on the Blackfriars
> conveyance and mortgage were not genuine.
>
> My impression is that Detobel would have Jackson and Johnson the
> > authors of their own signatures, but a scrivener the author of
> > Shakespeare's -- based on the theory that anyone who could sign his own
> > name would naturally sign on the deed, not on the tab.
>
> Johnson and Jackson and Shakespeare signed on the tab, both on the
> conveyance and on the mortgage. I have no idea what the basis is for
> the "theory that anyone who could sign his own name would naturally
> sign on the deed, not on the tab." Detobel himself does not appear to
> have looked at a great many documents, and he does not quote any expert
> who endorses this "theory." Since Detobel accepts the genuineness of
> Jackson's and Johnson's signatures on the tabs of the conveyance and
> the mortgage, he should reject his "theory" and accept Shakespeare's
> signatures.
>
>
> >There is no more reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on
> the conveyance for the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or
> Johnson's name or Jackson's name to that document. There is no more
> reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on the mortgage for
> the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or Johnson's name or
> Jackson's name to that document. Detobel thinks the Johnson and
> Jackson signatures are both authentic; he thinks the Shakespeare
> signature must have been done by a law clerk because it includes a "p"
> with a bar through the stem that was a common abbreviation for "per"
> (it could also stand for "par" or "por" or "pro").
>
> [CORRECTION: "pro" would have been abbreviated by a curl though the
> stem]
>
> Detobel seems to think that only law clerks ever used this
> abbreviation, and that is his sole reason for rejecting the Shakespeare
> signatures while accepting the Johnson and Jackson signatures. If
> Detobel had bothered to check, he would have seen that this
> abbreviation was commonly used in documents that were not penned by law
> clerks.
>
> If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
> *Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
> times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
> *Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
> work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
> "Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
> use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
> writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
> strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
> Shakespeare's own handwriting.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Terry Ross
Robert Detobel: What is stated in the authenticating clause? That the
deeds were sealed. But it is not stated that they were authenticated by
HAND, i.e. signing.
One need not be an expert to see that the clerk deemed the deeds not
signed. Otherwise he would have added "set their hands."
Manuals reveal, and a long analysis of the Antrobus deeds by a
specialist (Pugh) clearly underscores what the manuals reveal: that
clerks customarily used the space on the tag to NOTE the name of the
sealer. The deed of 1618, authenticating clause: "hand and seals."
Pugh, the editor of these Wiltshire deeds from the 14th to the first
quarter of the 17th century, never takes a name on a tag to be a
signature. If he mentions a signature (or a mark), the reference is
always to the surface of the deed, not to the tag.
Note where the signatures are placed. Where were the signatures (of the
Combe brothers) placed in 1602? One above the tag, one beside. These
two characteristics always correlate: you have either authenticating
clause: HAND and SEAL, then the signatures are on the deed, but no
names of parties on the tag (this would have been superfluous, the
sealers were identified by the signature). OR, authenticating clause:
only "set his seal," no signatures on the deed, at best the names of
the sealers on the tag.
For the signatures of Johnson and Jackson, also see Leslie Hotson,
"Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated and Other Essays," London: Hart-Davis,
1949, p. 130 ff.
Some examples from Pugh's edition of the Antrobus deeds:
Number 115:
Signed: per me Roger Tubbe.
Seal: red wax, tag, fragments.
Number 117:
Signed: Thomas Southe, Martha Southe
Seals: (i) and (ii) missing; tags.
Number 144 (September 22, 1609)
Signed: Thomas Waters, by me Robert Waters
Seals: (i) and (ii) missing; tags.
Number 147 (July 1, 1612):
Marked with the mark of Alice Bundye, wife of Robert Bundye
Seal: oval, tag inscribed "Bundie".
Number 147
Seal missing, tag inscribed "Rutt".
[Rutt was the lessee]
Number 151:
Signed: Thomas Bedell.
Seal: red wax; tag: defaced and broken.
Number 151 (November 24, 1613):
Seal missing; on the tag "Master Dawbenye" and "examinatur".
--RD
Best wishes,
KCL
KCL
Here is a response Robert D. sent me to what you posted below:
> One question, Roger. Could you explain what Detobel means by this sentence?
>
> Had Shakespeare intended his clerically abbreviated name as a signature, it
> was senseless to put it on the tab where it was without any legal
> significance. William Johnson and John Jackson, however, wrote their
> signatures on the tab. They were compelled to it because Shakespeare did not
> sign, would not sign and could not sign.
>
> Why would Johnson and Jackson be compelled to sign because Shakespeare
> didn't?
>
> TR
Hypothesis: All the names on the tags of the seals to the Blackfriars
deeds are signatures, both factually and legally.
Why, then, did the clerk forget to add "hand" in the authenticating
clause? Why, then, did Shakespeare, Jackson and Johnson not place their
signatures a bit more upward or sideward, ON THE DEED where it would
have had authenticating power? Sufficient space was left on the deed to
sign.
That there was enough space is proved by the deed of 1618 (transfer of
trusteeship from Hemminges, Jackson and Johnson to Moore and Greene).
There, Jackson and Johnson (and Hemminges) put their signatures NOT on
the tag but above the tag on the deed (the hindrance of 1613,
Shakspere, was absent, dead).
Read the authenticating clause of this deed, it runs "set their HANDS
and seals."
In 1613 Johnson and Jackson factually did sign the deed, but legally
they did NOT. The names written on the tags in 1613 are signatures, the
very same signatures as those NOT written on the tag in 1618.
If one puts his signature on the envelope of a letter of application
but omits it beneath the letter, he has put his signature, but not
signed, the letter. A deed, if signed, had to be signed on the deed.
Sir Edward Maunde Thompson was well aware of this fact when he tried to
identify Hand D as Shakespeare's. Thompson spirits the diffiiculty
away by positing that Shakespeare was haunted by a "superstition" that
he ought to sign on the tag. According to this logic, John Jackson and
William Johnson succumbed to this same "superstition", but in 1613
only, not in 1618.
But in the latter case, being ON THE DEED, they were considered to be
authenticating. In 1613 they were manifestly not so considered, as the
authenticating clause does not mention anything about signing.
The situation in March 1613: The clerk or scribe has to set up a deed.
The form of the deed was to some extent standardized. First "habendum
and tenendum", covenants, warrants, etc. Last of all came the
authenticating clause. To write this clause before the deed was
authenticated, the clerk had to know how the deed would be
authenticated. There is no way he could have known this if he did not
ask the parties how they would authenticate.
So Henry Lawrence, the scribe (whose seal Shakspere used - this was not
infrequent) asks the parties how they want to authenticate, whether by
signing and sealing or only by sealing. The parties cannot have
answered: by signing and sealing. If the parties had so answered the
clerk would then have written: "set their hands and seals." But the
clerk wrote "set their seals."
Hence, the parties must have answered they would authenticate by
sealing only. What then happened is clear enough. The clerk noted
Shaksp's name on the tag, whereas Jackson and Johnson NOTED their names
themselves by means of a signature.
They could have put their signature a little more upward, on the
surface of the deed, above the tag. It would have been easy for them to
do this. That it could have easily been done is proved by the deed of
1618. It is what they did in 1618. Hence, the clause reads "Set their
hands and seals". All parties set their hand, on the deed, and seal.
The parties who were missing in 1619 were Henry Walker, a London
vintner, the seller, and the purchaser, William Shakspere.
That Shakspere was not accustomed to signing is also underscored by the
fact that originally he did not want to sign his will.
--RD
Best,
KCL
lackpurity
MM:
Is it the ol' "Bait and Switch," trick?
Michael Martin
Bianca Steele
Lynne, with the best will in the world, is this a complaint about "'til
the conversion of the Jews"? I truly can't tell where you stand on the
whole "Jews shouldn't even read Christian literature" question (and I
would prefer not to jump to any conclusions). It is obvious that your
upbringing has been different from mine and also that of my mother, my
other relatives, and most of my teachers. I have a great deal of
difficulty figuring out where you stand.
It's come to my attention only recently how difficult many non-Jews
find it to understand what most Jewish people find offensive or
discomfiting about this topic. It can be difficult to explain.
--
Bianca Steele
Terry Ross
> Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> disrespectful and done on impulse.
>
That's very gracious of you (seriously).
> You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
> "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
>
> But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> to prevent fraud.
His guess that departures from the "set hand and seal" formula are
codewords signifying illiteracy is not supported by any expert opinion
in his essay or by the examples he quotes. He thinks he can prove that
Shakespeare was illiterate, and thus incapable of writing anything at
all. His problem is that there is no evidence that Shakespeare was
illiterate (e.g., if the Shakespearean documents had been signed by a
mark rather than a signature, Detobel could at least have had something
to work with). So, Detobel being Detobel, he has to find a code.
Detobel has looked for codewords before (remember his demonstrably
false notion that "true and perfect copy" meant "dead author"?).
It looks as if the desired code this time is supposed to show that
Shakespeare's signatures appeared in a context that was only used for
false signatures that were signed by clerks on behalf of illiterates.
This Detobel has utterly failed to do -- in fact, Detobel's treatment
of the Blackfriars documents is self-refuting, because by the code he
is trying to invent, the Blackfriars signatures of Johnson, Jackson,
and Shakespeare should ALL be regarded the same way. Yet he regards
the Johnson and Jackson signatures as genuine while the Shakespeare
signatures are not, and he has to find some additional reason to reject
the Shakespeare Blackfriars signatures -- hence the bogus argument
about the supposedly arcane legalese abbreviations he sees in
Shakespeare's Blackfriars signatures, which Detobel wrongly takes as a
sure sign that some law clerk did the deed.
Once we recognize that Detobel's grounds for distinguishing the
Blackfriars Shakespeare signatures from those of Johnson and Jackson
has collapsed, where does that leave the rest of Detobel's argument?
The whole thing collapses. Since he accepts the genuineness of
Johnson's and Jackson's signatures on documents that do NOT contain the
"set hand and seal" formula, he cannot continue to claim that the
absence of the "set hand and seal" formula is in and of itself proof
that signatures are not genuine (this would also apply to his analysis
of every other Shakespeare signature on any document that does not have
the "set hand and seal" formula).
So what can Detobel do? Well, he could change his mind about the
genuineness of Johnson's and Jackson's signatures on the Blackfriars
conveyance and mortgage, but I have already outlined a few of the
problems with that tack. What SHOULD he do? That's up to him - but my
advice would be to stop looking for codes of his own inspiration that
he persuades himself mean "dead poet" or "illiterate man" or whatever
other secret meanings hitherto unknown to history he may have stumbled
upon.
I doubt he will want to take my advice on this point, so let me offer
another: he should do his homework. If you are going to make a point
about Elizabethan handwriting, then learn something about it. In the
particular case of the questions about Shakespeare's handwriting there
are excellent places for him to begin. His goal is to reject all of
Shakespeare's signatures, yet he I do not see Jane Cox's name on his
list of sources. Jane Cox (unlike me, and unlike Detobel) was
certainly an expert in Elizabethan documents, and she has suggested
that every one of the six Shakespeare signatures may be suspect
(including those on the will). Clerks signed other people's names to
documents much more frequently than one would have suspected. (This
does not mean that the people whose signatures were penned by clerks
were illiterate, but rather, perhaps, that genuine signatures may have
been less frequently required and less frequently provided than we
might have thought). It bothered Cox that her opinion was seized upon
by some antistratfordians for their own purposes, but the possible
side-show aspect of the response to her hunch was not something that
would cause her to withhold that hunch.
I call Cox's view a hunch (an educated hunch from an expert in the
field) because to my knowledge she never published a fully-developed
argument. She is not the only expert to have weighed in, and her
opinion is certainly an outlier, but it is one that should command some
respect. Of course Detobel should not stop with Cox. I did not see
Giles Dawson on his list of sources, but nobody seriously researching
the topic can overlook Dawson. Dawson not only accepts the usual six
signatures, he also makes a very strong case for the validity of the
Shakespeare signature in the Folger copy of William Lambarde's
*Archaionomia*. Detobel could learn a great deal from Dawson, but
whether he accepts his conclusions or not, he should not (if he wishes
to be taken seriously) ignore Dawson.
> This was done in 1618 but not in 1613. He cites a
> consistency in this practice in the examples he uses. And the
> inconsistency in Shakespeare's cases along the line. If he is "cherry
> picking" evidence, then as you claim it would severely harm his
> argument.
>
I doubt very much whether Detobel's general point about departures from
"set hand and seal" has any validity -- but even if it did, there are
three signatures on the Blackfriars conveyance and three on the
Blackfriars mortgage. Why does he not regard all three as signatures
penned by clerks?
Mouse
Bianca Steele wrote:
> Mouse wrote:
> > Spam...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > Mouse wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I wonder when it will be forthcoming. You may be looking forward for a long
> > > > > time.
> > > >
> > > > Well, of course, Tom, as you know, I have all the time in the world.
> > >
> > > Rather at once our time devour
> > > Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
> >
> >
> > Let us roll all our strength, and all
> > Our sweetness, up into one ball;
> > And tear our pleasures with rough strife
> > Thorough the iron gates of life.
> > Thus, though we cannot make our sun
> > Stand still, yet we will make him run.
>
> Lynne, with the best will in the world, is this a complaint about "'til
> the conversion of the Jews"?
It wouldn't even cross my mind, Bianca.
I truly can't tell where you stand on the
> whole "Jews shouldn't even read Christian literature" question (and I
> would prefer not to jump to any conclusions). It is obvious that your
> upbringing has been different from mine and also that of my mother, my
> other relatives, and most of my teachers. I have a great deal of
> difficulty figuring out where you stand.
On that? I grew up adoring The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. All
the series, in fact. I taught at a Jewish school for a while but felt
very strongly that one cannot understand English literature if one
doesn't understand Christian symbolism and/or allegory, and so I
explained some of it to my students when we were studying a poem in
their anthology called "The Diver," which was a clear allegory of the
crucifixion and resurrection. I felt so strongly about it that I taught
the poem when the principal came in to evaluate my teaching. I shook a
bit. But I hadn't finished by lesson's end, and she asked if she could
come in and hear the rest! I passed and got tenure.
>
> It's come to my attention only recently how difficult many non-Jews
> find it to understand what most Jewish people find offensive or
> discomfiting about this topic. It can be difficult to explain.
It's never been a problem for me. Think, Roger and I have just
completed an essay on The Tempest as a Shrovetide play. A lot of
Christian symbolism there!
I was the only Jewish Child to take RK (Religious Knowledge) in school.
I loved both the Old and New Testaments. Still do, though I have to say
I prefer the New. Like the story better. I cannot imagine how one can
study Shakespeare if one hasn't read the Gospels. I've recently read a
rather interesting book, The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, who is the
religious columnist for The Toronto Star. I found it fascinating, but
it's very controversial, and I'm not sure how much I agreed with. I can
see it being offensive to some Christians. But I did end up thinking of
faith as passing down the ages, with us, Jews or Christians, just the
latest links in the process. That comforted me, and I'd be interested
to know what others here think of it.
And then of course there's My Name is Asher Lev, which is by a Jewish
writer, Chaim Potok, but deals with the problem head on.
Regards,
Lynne
>
> --
> Bianca Steele
KCL
I doubt very much whether Detobel's general point about departures from
> "set hand and seal" has any validity -- but even if it did, there are
> three signatures on the Blackfriars conveyance and three on the
> Blackfriars mortgage. Why does he not regard all three as signatures
> penned by clerks?
>
Here is a response from Robert Detobel. I posted two others on this
thread, under the header Detobel Signatures Essay.
Hi Ken, KC,
Thanks for sending me some of the HLAS posts. However, I don't want
to intervene there myself, but I am prepared to answer some of the
points raised by Terry Ross and others. You can, if you want it, post
this mail entirely or partly.
First, Bob Grumman's reproach of not having quoted the source about
one illiterate Taylor. I apologize for it, but Bob is in an extremely
advantageous position, as the source he most frequently quotes is
himself.
Here it is: Peter Laslett. * The World we lost *, (2nd edition),
London: Methuen, 1971, p. 195. Hope this is satisfactory.
Secondly, Tom Reedy's question about the appending of seals:
Seals were not always appended, they were sometimes pressed on the
deed, but this seems to be a rather later method (see Jenkinson,
Hilary, Sir. * Selected Writings *. Gloucester (Sutton), 1989, p. 28).
Jenkinson has nothing (in that work) on the way seals were appended.
This is explained at length in 2 German manuals (one late in the 19th,
the other early in the 20th century). Briefly, two methods seem to have
prevailed.
Part of the bottom of the deed was cut out, the parchment strip of the
deed was passed through the hole and glued together with the deed. This
was the method used for the Blackfriars deeds. In all probability, the
parchment strip was part of the seal. It seems unlikely that it was the
piece cut out from the bottom of the deed. To glue it together with the
deed, the surface of the parchment strip had to be a little larger than
the hole in the deed.
The other method was to fold the bottom of the deed (technical term,
"plica"), make two small holes in it, through which a cord was
passed and knotted together (more or less the same system as today for
some envelopes).
Re: Abbreviations
I have since long a copy of the chapter "Abbreviations" in L.C.
Hector. * The Handwriting of English documents *. London: Arnold. 1958.
Part of it is on the Web. I thought I indicated this source in the
Fellowship article. [KCL note: he did.]
Part of the book is on the Web.
http://www.bibliographics.com/PALAEOG-lite/HECTOR.htm
Unfortunately, the extract stops just before the pages where the
different "p"-abbreviations are listed. I have to describe them
from page 33.
First, though clerical abbreviations present a fairly regular pattern,
there was not such a thing like standardization. Each clerk could have
his own methods. Moreover, the same clerk could use different signs for
the same abbreviation.
Some years ago I checked these abbreviations against those used by
Richard Collins, the clerk of Stationers' Company from c. 1575 -
ca. 1615 (dates from memory).
Here is Hector:
PRO:
a curl, either through the descender of the "P" or appended to the
descender (generally on the left side). Or through double "p", as
in "propter" (abbreviated: ppt)
PER:
a bar through the descender. The bar is in most cases horizontal,
seldom slightly inclined.
PAR:
not a crossbar as for "per", as Terry writes, but rather a markedly
curved bar, sometimes also a plain flourish.
However, I would not rule out that it was sometimes not abbreviated the
same way as "per". In the Court Books B and C of the Stationers'
Company "parties" (for instance) is abbreviated like "per"
(crossbar through descender). One caveat. I have the printed editions
of the Court Books, not, of course, the handwritten versions. Though
W.W. Greg and William A. Jackson are careful editors, it remains to be
seen whether the crossbar in the printed versions is not owed to
technical printing difficulties. My option, it cannot be more, is that
it was a crossbar like in "per".
PRE:
A kind of "hook" (as was used by scribes for the ampersand)
attached at the head of the "p", sometimes over it.
Two other remarks:
First, regarding the abbreviating of names and signatures. Many
signatures can be seen in the court books, perhaps a hundred, too many
to count, at any rate. In signatures the surname is never abbreviated,
the first name is not infrequently abbreviated. The clerk Richard
Collins sometimes (not often) wrote his own name in abbreviated form
"Coll" with a bar through the double "l". He was so accustomed
to this abbreviation that he sometimes used it even for his signature.
But, attention, even then he wrote his surname in full: Coll [bar
through the double "l"]ins. Here, Terry Ross is certainly overrash.
Writing of names and signing of names are not the same. In by far the
most cases Collins writes his full surname, in signatures always.
I give some instances so that it can be checked rapidly if someone
would want to check it (which, sincerely, I doubt somewhat), always
"Collins".
(N) means name, (S) signature.
Court Book B:
p. 61 22 March 1598 (N)
p. 62 7 August 1598 (N)
p. 67 17 January 1599 (N)
p. 68 5 March 1599 (S)
p. 71 7May 1599 (S)
Court Book C
p. 3 30 May 1603 (S)
p. 5 6 June 1603 (S)
p. 46 3 Feb 1610
p. 48 1 March 1610.
Secondly, regarding Hand D. Terry sees the occurrences of abbreviated
"P" as a coroboration of the traditional view that Hand D is
Shakespeare's. Again, it is not very reasonable to compare signatures
and holographs. Moreover, it can, in my opinion, better serve to
corroborate the opposite view taken by Scott McMillin and others,
namely, that Hand C and Hand D are of one and the same person. As Hand
C is generally recognized as the hand of a scribe...
HLAS has too much insultory ballast. If I wrote directly I would have
to prove not only that I am not an idiot that could neither write nor
read, but also that I am not dead. In both respects I am content to
know myself whether I am or am not.
Best
Robert
Mouse
Very apt: a poet of the Graveyard School. ;) Actually, it's gorgeous. I
love Gothic.
Regards,
Mouse
Terry Ross
Thanks for posting Detobel's response, but I'm afraid it only shows
that he does not know what he is talking about. The issue is the
genuineness of Shakespeare's signatures, not whether the documents on
which they appeared bore the full "set hand and seal" formula. Detobel
himself accepts as genuine the signatures of Johnson and Jackson on the
Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage, which did NOT have the full
formula. So why does he reject the Shakespeare signatures on the same
documents, which, like those of Johnson and Jackson, appear on tabs?
Detobel's response is strangely silent about the "arcane" abbreviations
he sees in the Shakespeare Blackfriars signatures, such as "p" with
a bar through the stem for "per." As I have pointed out (and as he
could easily have learned for himself if he had taken a bit of
trouble), such abbreviations were commonly used in non-legal texts such
as the "Hand D" additions to *Sir Thomas More*; they were not the
special province of law clerks.
Thus his ostensible reason for rejecting Shakespeare's Blackfriars
signatures as genuine while accepting those of Johnson and Jackson must
itself be rejected. In his essay Detobel actually seems somewhat miffed
at Johnson and Jackson, as if somehow intuiting that their signatures
invalidate his entire project:
"Descriptions of deeds do not consider names on the tag as signatures,
even if someone wrote his name himself, as William Johnson and John
Jackson clearly did in 1613. But if they signed on the tab in 1613, why
on the deed in 1618? Or rather: if on the deed, where the signature had
authenticating power, in 1618, not on the deed but on the tab in 1613,
where the signature was without authenticating power? Legally, it was
useless for William Johnson and John Jackson to sign on the tab."
How dare Johnson and Jackson sign their own names! The nerve of some
people!
Now, I am not persuaded that Detobel is correct in his guess that it
was "legally ... useless" for Johnson and Jackson to sign on the tabs,
but whether he is or not, the legal question is not the issue. Johnson
and Jackson are examples of men who did indeed sign their own names on
tabs even when the documents did not have the full "set hand and seal"
formula. Thus Detobel unwittingly refutes himself by presenting
examples showing that a signature on a document in the absence of the
full "set hand and seal" formula is not in and of itself proof -- or
even evidence -- that the signature was put there by a clerk rather
than by the person himself.
Detobel's project is to reject ALL of Shakespeare's signatures on the
ground that they did not appear on documents bearing the "set hand and
seal" formula, and thus were not legally required, and thus were
actually penned by clerks. As we have seen, his premise that the
absence of the full "set hand and seal" formula means that the
signatures must have been made by clerks is one that he himself rejects
in the case of Johnson and Jackson. If he were consistent, he would
also reject it in the case of Shakespeare.
Since there have been quite a few objections to Detobel's essay that
were not part of the post you quoted, it would be best for him (if he
wishes to debate the matter here) to come to this newsgroup himself.
All he needs is an Internet connection.
Bianca Steele
> Bianca Steele wrote:
> > Mouse wrote:
> > > Spam...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > > Mouse wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > I wonder when it will be forthcoming. You may be looking forward for a long
> > > > > > time.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well, of course, Tom, as you know, I have all the time in the world.
> > > >
> > > > Rather at once our time devour
> > > > Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
> > >
> > >
> > > Let us roll all our strength, and all
> > > Our sweetness, up into one ball;
> > > And tear our pleasures with rough strife
> > > Thorough the iron gates of life.
> > > Thus, though we cannot make our sun
> > > Stand still, yet we will make him run.
> >
> > Lynne, with the best will in the world, is this a complaint about "'til
> > the conversion of the Jews"?
>
> It wouldn't even cross my mind, Bianca.
When you are as brief as this, you should not be surprised at being
misunderstood.
>
> I truly can't tell where you stand on the
> > whole "Jews shouldn't even read Christian literature" question (and I
> > would prefer not to jump to any conclusions). It is obvious that your
> > upbringing has been different from mine and also that of my mother, my
> > other relatives, and most of my teachers. I have a great deal of
> > difficulty figuring out where you stand.
>
> On that? I grew up adoring The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. All
> the series, in fact. I taught at a Jewish school for a while but felt
> very strongly that one cannot understand English literature if one
> doesn't understand Christian symbolism and/or allegory, and so I
> explained some of it to my students when we were studying a poem in
> their anthology called "The Diver," which was a clear allegory of the
> crucifixion and resurrection. I felt so strongly about it that I taught
> the poem when the principal came in to evaluate my teaching. I shook a
> bit. But I hadn't finished by lesson's end, and she asked if she could
> come in and hear the rest! I passed and got tenure.
My mother's friend has taught for many years in a Jewish school with a
rather different policy. Halloween and multicultural folk tales are
strictly off limits there.
The idea that other people think God is Three, or that the Koran is
Scripture, etc., is not to be mentioned.
My classmates growing up and in college were generally less open-minded
than you. Most of my English- (and Spanish-) literature teachers were
like us Jewish, and thinking back, they probably avoided asking us to
face explicit Christian symbolism, which they may well have been taught
was not actually present.
>
> >
> > It's come to my attention only recently how difficult many non-Jews
> > find it to understand what most Jewish people find offensive or
> > discomfiting about this topic. It can be difficult to explain.
>
> It's never been a problem for me. Think, Roger and I have just
> completed an essay on The Tempest as a Shrovetide play. A lot of
> Christian symbolism there!
No, for more than thirty years it was never a problem for me, either.
Only once, within a few years of my finishing college and moving to a
new state, did anything remotely relating to it ever come up.
My acquaintances and coworkers invariably accepted from the beginning
that my religion was different from theirs and that it made no
difference in our daily interactions. They (like me) generally had
little interest in religion themselves, knew plenty of Jewish persons
of all stripes (also Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc.), and ignored the
matter totally.
More recently, I have witnessed things said to my mother that were
evidently entirely innocent, by educated people, which should not have
been said without some small awareness that she would hear them
differently.
>
> I was the only Jewish Child to take RK (Religious Knowledge) in school.
> I loved both the Old and New Testaments. Still do, though I have to say
> I prefer the New. Like the story better. I cannot imagine how one can
> study Shakespeare if one hasn't read the Gospels.
I generally agree with you, probably. I do think it would have been
kind of my mother's teachers to have informed the pupils that when they
were led in the Lord's Prayer it was a specifically Christian prayer,
given probably half the class was Jewish and the children of immigrants
who would have had no context to place it in -- and given the First
Amendment and all. If you are saying that having read the New
Testament as a student gives you equivalent understanding to a
Christian, without your being a Christian, I would have to disagree --
just as I could not agree that an "objective," Christian reading of the
Talmud would provide any Christian with an intuitive understanding of
Judaism.
I also like Potok, and have been rereading bits of his novels recently.
The Book of Lights is probably the most congenial to my style of
thinking.
--
Bianca Steele
KCL
get a better perspective on what he wrote, and that I posted elsewhere
on the thread.
Terry Ross wrote:
> KC,
> Thanks for posting Detobel's response, but I'm afraid it only shows
> that he does not know what he is talking about. The issue is the
> genuineness of Shakespeare's signatures, not whether the documents on
> which they appeared bore the full "set hand and seal" formula. Detobel
> himself accepts as genuine the signatures of Johnson and Jackson on the
> Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage, which did NOT have the full
> formula. So why does he reject the Shakespeare signatures on the same
> documents, which, like those of Johnson and Jackson, appear on tabs?
RD: In 1613 Johnson and Jackson factually did sign the deed, but
>Detobel's response is strangely silent about the "arcane" abbreviations
> he sees in the Shakespeare Blackfriars signatures, such as "p" with
> a bar through the stem for "per." As I have pointed out (and as he
> could easily have learned for himself if he had taken a bit of
> trouble), such abbreviations were commonly used in non-legal texts such
> as the "Hand D" additions to *Sir Thomas More*; they were not the
> special province of law clerks.
RD: Re: Abbreviations
http://www.bibliographics.com/PALAEOG-lite/HECTOR.htm
Here is Hector:
> Thus his ostensible reason for rejecting Shakespeare's Blackfriars
> signatures as genuine while accepting those of Johnson and Jackson must
> itself be rejected. In his essay Detobel actually seems somewhat miffed
> at Johnson and Jackson, as if somehow intuiting that their signatures
> invalidate his entire project:
> "Descriptions of deeds do not consider names on the tag as signatures,
> even if someone wrote his name himself, as William Johnson and John
> Jackson clearly did in 1613. But if they signed on the tab in 1613, why
> on the deed in 1618? Or rather: if on the deed, where the signature had
> authenticating power, in 1618, not on the deed but on the tab in 1613,
> where the signature was without authenticating power? Legally, it was
> useless for William Johnson and John Jackson to sign on the tab."
> How dare Johnson and Jackson sign their own names! The nerve of some
> people!
See above.
> Now, I am not persuaded that Detobel is correct in his guess that it
> was "legally ... useless" for Johnson and Jackson to sign on the tabs,
> but whether he is or not, the legal question is not the issue. Johnson
> and Jackson are examples of men who did indeed sign their own names on
> tabs even when the documents did not have the full "set hand and seal"
> formula. Thus Detobel unwittingly refutes himself by presenting
> examples showing that a signature on a document in the absence of the
> full "set hand and seal" formula is not in and of itself proof -- or
> even evidence -- that the signature was put there by a clerk rather
> than by the person himself.
Again, see above.
> Detobel's project is to reject ALL of Shakespeare's signatures on the
> ground that they did not appear on documents bearing the "set hand and
> seal" formula, and thus were not legally required, and thus were
> actually penned by clerks. As we have seen, his premise that the
> absence of the full "set hand and seal" formula means that the
> signatures must have been made by clerks is one that he himself rejects
> in the case of Johnson and Jackson. If he were consistent, he would
> also reject it in the case of Shakespeare.
Disagree, see above. He is consistent.
RD: Two other remarks:
>Since there have been quite a few objections to Detobel's essay that
> were not part of the post you quoted, it would be best for him (if he
> wishes to debate the matter here) to come to this newsgroup himself.
> All he needs is an Internet connection.
RD: HLAS has too much insultory ballast. If I wrote directly I would
Mouse
Bianca Steele wrote:
> Mouse wrote:
> > Bianca Steele wrote:
> > > Mouse wrote:
> > > > Spam...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > > > Mouse wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > I wonder when it will be forthcoming. You may be looking forward for a long
> > > > > > > time.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Well, of course, Tom, as you know, I have all the time in the world.
> > > > >
> > > > > Rather at once our time devour
> > > > > Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Let us roll all our strength, and all
> > > > Our sweetness, up into one ball;
> > > > And tear our pleasures with rough strife
> > > > Thorough the iron gates of life.
> > > > Thus, though we cannot make our sun
> > > > Stand still, yet we will make him run.
> > >
> > > Lynne, with the best will in the world, is this a complaint about "'til
> > > the conversion of the Jews"?
> >
> > It wouldn't even cross my mind, Bianca.
>
> When you are as brief as this, you should not be surprised at being
> misunderstood.
I'm sorry. You're quite right. In fact, I was just completing Neil's
quote. It was from Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," long one of my
favourite poems.
>
> >
> > I truly can't tell where you stand on the
> > > whole "Jews shouldn't even read Christian literature" question (and I
> > > would prefer not to jump to any conclusions). It is obvious that your
> > > upbringing has been different from mine and also that of my mother, my
> > > other relatives, and most of my teachers. I have a great deal of
> > > difficulty figuring out where you stand.
> >
> > On that? I grew up adoring The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. All
> > the series, in fact. I taught at a Jewish school for a while but felt
> > very strongly that one cannot understand English literature if one
> > doesn't understand Christian symbolism and/or allegory, and so I
> > explained some of it to my students when we were studying a poem in
> > their anthology called "The Diver," which was a clear allegory of the
> > crucifixion and resurrection. I felt so strongly about it that I taught
> > the poem when the principal came in to evaluate my teaching. I shook a
> > bit. But I hadn't finished by lesson's end, and she asked if she could
> > come in and hear the rest! I passed and got tenure.
>
> My mother's friend has taught for many years in a Jewish school with a
> rather different policy. Halloween and multicultural folk tales are
> strictly off limits there.
Halloween and Valentine's Day, etc., were definitely off limits where I
taught too. I found that hard. I loved explaining their Pagan origins.
No, but of course, I studied it too. And I've written books about
Christians. Claire by Moonlight, for example, is about a Catholic
Acadian girl. I did loads of research, spoke to priests, even learned
to say the rosary, which almost gave my mother a stroke. I don't
pretend that makes me as knowledgeable as knowledgeable Christians, but
I'm sure I know as much as some. It is the quality of belief that
differs--but I am always respectful of the beliefs of others, though I
have few of my own. Any Catholic who read Claire would not be in the
least offended. Her religion was very important to her, and it's
portrayed that way in the novel.
> just as I could not agree that an "objective," Christian reading of the
> Talmud would provide any Christian with an intuitive understanding of
> Judaism.
>
> I also like Potok, and have been rereading bits of his novels recently.
> The Book of Lights is probably the most congenial to my style of
> thinking.
I know I read that some time in the past as I've read all his books,
but I'm afraid it must have left a dull impression on my brain. :(
L.
>
> --
> Bianca Steele
ben-Jonson
kenkap wrote:
> Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> disrespectful and done on impulse.
>
> "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
>
> But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> to prevent fraud.
I would have to agree with this assesment of what Detobel's primary
point is. He elaborates this further in his book chapter.
This was done in 1618 but not in 1613. He cites a
> consistency in this practice in the examples he uses. And the
> inconsistency in Shakespeare's cases along the line. If he is "cherry
> picking" evidence, then as you claim it would severely harm his
> argument.
>
> Ken
>
> Terry Ross wrote:
> > kenkap wrote:
> > > "Instead it seems to me that
> > > you have ignored Detobel's primary point and excoriated him for a
> > > possibly misplaced emphasis on a minor point."
> > >
> > > Terry Ross diverting attention from a major point to "excoriate"
> > > someone on a minor one? No. Couldn't be.
> > >
> > > Good to see Terry up to the old tricks.
> > >
> >
> > As usual, Ken, you can be counted on to step in to defend what you do
> > not understand (or perhaps have not read).
> >
> >
> > > I think this phrase ben-johnson wrote is most appropriate:
> > >
> > > "Now, I am willing to grant that this point requires further scrutiny
> > > > and debate if Detobel's argument is to withstand the rigorous
> > > > cross-examination that all such theories should undergo. But an honest
> > > > cross-examination must stick to the essentials of the positive case and
> > > > show how they are inaccurate and invalid. ...
> > >
> >
> > If you wish to discuss this matter "honestly," Ken, then perhaps you
> > can tell us whether you agree with Detobel that the tab-signatures of
> > Jackson and Johnson on the Blackfriars conveyance and on the
> > Blackfriars mortgage were genuine? Do you agree with him that the
> > reason to conclude that Shakespeare's tabbed name could not have been
> > penned by him is that it uses abbreviations that only a law clerk would
> > have used? These are the essentials of his argument about the
> > Blackfriars documents. I say that Detobel was wrong about the
> > abbreviations, and that they were commonly used in non-legal texts, as
> > Detobel himself could have learned by looking at a few such texts or
> > even by looking at any primer on Elizabethan handwriting. Where do
> > YOU stand?
> >
> > > It is germane, moreover, that Detobel does not limit his analysis to
> > > the two Blackfriars deeds but is able to demonstrate the same pattern
> > > ("Shakespeare" written not
> > > on a deed but on a seal) in a third instance: ..."
> > >
> >
> > See my replies to Roger. As you ought to have known if you had read
> > Detobel's essay (although Roger managed to quote Detobel without
> > understanding what he was quoting), the "third instance" is a different
> > kind of case -- one in which Shakespeare's name does NOT appear on the
> > tab that fixes his seal to the document.
> >
> >
> > > "Hand D"? Please.You're getting desperate. Argument by assertion does
> > > not suffice.
> > >
> >
> > Ken, let me try to make this easier for you. Detobel's crucial point
> > for rejecting the Shakespeare signatures on the Blackfriars documents
> > while accepting those of Johnson and Jackson (which were also written
> > on tabs) is that the Shakespeare signatures contain "arcane"
> > abbreviations of the sort one would expect to find used by a law clerk.
> > Are you still with me? Good.
> >
> > I contend that Detobel is dead wrong in his argument because the
> > abbreviations he claims are "arcane" are in fact common in non-legal
> > writing of the period (I also provided a few links for corroboration of
> > this point). Hand D is a good text to use for this purpose because
> > facsimiles of it are readily available (e.g., in the Riverside
> > Shakespeare). Leave aside for the moment whether Shakespeare wrote the
> > Hand D additions and just consider the text as a non-legal document.
> > Nobody has suggested that it was the duty of a law clerk to pen the
> > Hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More*. Are you still with me? Good.
> > Now comes the hard part: LOOK FOR YOURSELF. Look at the facsimile of
> > the Hand D additions, or at the transcript, if the facsimiles are too
> > hard to read, and you will SEE FOR YOURSELF that there are many
> > instances of the "arcane" abbreviations that Detobel falsely thought
> > would only have been used by a law clerk.
> >
> > I know I'm asking a great deal here, but this one time why not LOOK FOR
> > YOURSELF? You have a good enough mind and good enough eyes; why not
> > use them?
ben-Jonson
> ben-Jonson wrote:
> > Terry Ross wrote:
> > > bobgr...@nut-n-but.net wrote:
> > > > Thanks much for the following, Terry.
> > >
> > >
> > > > What fascinates me about--well,
> > > > myself, I guess, although I'd say it's more about human
> > > > fallibility--with regard to Detobel's tab hypothesis is that I always
> > > > took for granted that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > > > signatures signed by clerks!
> > >
> > >
> > > If you look at facsimiles of the conveyance and the mortgage (e.g., in
> > > Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*) you will
> > > see that Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> > > document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document --
> >
> >
> > Hi, again, Terry. I haven't examined Schoenbaum, as I am away from my
> > library and don't have a copy here, nor Lewis, which I of course don't
> > own. Therefore I can't say anything about the two signatures of
> > Johnson and Jackson.
>
> We can talk about the three pairs of signatures in more detail when you
> can look at them again. For now, let's see if you can deal with
> Detobel's argument on the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage.
>
> >
> > I would think, however, that if they were in fact signatures it should
> > not be surprising that they appear to be in the same hand. One
> > puzzling fact of the Shakespeare "signatures" is that they have never
> > seemed, to many experts, to be a single hand.
>
> They have seemed to many experts to be by a single hand. I am no
> expert in this area myself, but neither is Detobel.
>
I wonder just who you are counting as "experts" Terry. Can you give us
some names and indicate their area of professional specialization? I
give the name (Wilson Harrison, on whom I relied for my own education
in forensic paleography in my dissertation), and the qualifications of
one such expert in the conclusion of this post. You, of course, will
like his conclusion on the matter of the signatures, but I'm sure you
will be dismayed by his opinions on other matters Shakespearean, since
they go to the heart of the project that you and Dave started -- to
defend the Shakespearean establishmen from the evil depredations of the
anti-Stratfordians -- lo these ten years ago.
And had Harrison read the draft chapter of Detobel's book, and taken
into consideration the devious behavior of the Shakespearean
establishment with respect to the two signatures, I venture to suggest
he may have been less secure in his conclusion about the identity of
the "signatures." Here is how Tannenbaum, undoubtedly an expert in
early modern handwriting, summarized the curious history of "expert"
treatment of exemplar C in 1927:
"This signature... has been more caricatured, more abused, and more
misrepresented than any of the others. Malone gave no facsimile of it
in his An Inquiry, 1796! Richard Grant White omitted it from his table
of Shakspere's "Original Autographs," an omission for which,
considering the gross inaccuracies in his facsimiles, lovers of the
poet ought to be grateful. Halliwell possibly thought so little of it
as a specimen of chirography that he too decided not to let his readers
see it."
If this signature looked so much like B, why did Malone, White, and
Halliwell simply omit it from their samples of Shakespeare's
handwriting?
It would seem that these three saw the discrepancies which I carefully
ennumerated in my post but which you ignored in your response, chosing
instead to hide behind unammed "experts."
> >
> > > but they do NOT all appear to have been written by the same person,
> > > signing all three names on one document (or all six on the two).
> >
> > I'm sorry to sound slow, but I don't understand why this is important.
> >
>
> Detobel argues that Shakespeare's signatures on both the conveyance and
> the mortgage were made by a clerk. Since Johnson's and Jackson's
> signatures also appear both on the conveyance and the mortgage, Detobel
> should either argue that all three were done by a clerk or he should
> come up with some special circumstance to explain why Shakespeare's
> signatures are different in kind from those of Johnson and Jackson.
His reasoning is perfectly clear to me. The reason that Johnson and
Jackson signed is that they could do so. Shakespeare did not sign
because he could not do so. This is the whole point, as I understand
it, of his article. Perhaps the point could be stated more directly
and forcibly to avoid conclusion.
> Bob though Detobel's point was the former -- that the signatures of all
> three men were made by a clerk;
Right.
>in fact, Detobel's point is the latter
> -- that the presence of abbreviations used only by law clerks means
> that Shkaespeare's signatures were made by a clerk.
> What Detobel does
> not know is that "per" and "par" were commonly abbreviated by a "p"
> with a bar through the stem -- this was not, in fact, a habit peculiar
> to law clerks (the same is true for the other abbreviations Detobel
> seems to think were restricted to law clerks).
I've already stated that this is not the only basis for Detobel's
argument, but for some reason you have not acknowledged this. Detobel,
for his part, has replied as follows regarding the technical matter of
the abbreviations:
"Wrong. Terry should have a look into Hector's Old English
Handwriting, chapter "Methods of Abbreviation".
Pro: was abbreviated in different ways. 1) With a flourish at the end
of the descender of "p" 2) a curled sign at the top of the
descender at the left side of the descender 3) a curled stroke through
the middle.
Per: the cross-bar was straight, truly a bar : -
Par: generally crossed by a long curve, but not a straight bar.
Pre: a sign, similar to a hook, at the top, not of the descender, but
of the "p", on the head of the "p".
Therefore Detobel's
> basic argument for distinguishing the true signatures of Johnson and
> Jackson from the supposedly clerk-penned signatures of Shakespeare
> collapses.
I wouldn't think it could collapse on this point. If you can establish
that such abbreviations were frequently used by parties other than
scriveners (which you cannot do on the basis on sample possibly written
by a scrivener), it would undermine, but not disprove, Detobel's
hypothesis.
He is left with two choices: either he can claim that all
> three men's signatures were done by a clerk, or he can withdraw his
> claim to have shown that Shakespeare's signatures on the Blackfriars
> conveyance and mortgage were not genuine.
Once again, Detobel's claim that the name is not an authentic
signature is not based exclusively on the abbreviation. Nor does he
claim, as you incorrectly imply, that such abbreviations were used
*only* by scriveners or law clerks. What he says, Terry, is that the
abbreviation in the name on the Blackfriars deed is an instance of "a
system of abbreviations used by clerks until the Act of 1731" (11) and
concludes that the Shakespeare name was "written by a clerk with the
typical, somewhat arcane clerical abbreviations" (14).
Now, I would be the first to concede that Detobel's phrase "somewhat
arcane clerical abbreviations" is fully deserving of cross examination.
By all means, we ought on hlas to consider the evidence that such
abbreviations were not as arcane as this description implies.
Unfortunately, the proposition that you have offered sufficient
evidence to reach this conclusion, and to justify your disrespectful
excoriation of Herr Detobel, is is simply on its face not so.
It is interesting to note, since we are discussing abbreviations, that
three of the extant "signatures" of Mr. Shakespeare are abbreviated in
some manner, and three are not. The only transparent conclusion
allowable from this pattern of evidence is that someone was capable of
abbreviating the signature, but that if all three are in the same hand,
chose to do so only some of the time. On its face, the variation
supports the raw paleographical data suggesting that the signatures are
not all by the same hand.
In addition to the matter of the abbreviation, Detobel discusses at
some length the long debate over the scruffy nature of the signature
itself, and follows up Malone's observation that the parchment label
was greasy with a plausible theory of why it was (Malone's observation,
it should be stressed, resulted from his attempt to explain the
embarrassingly bad character of the "signature"):
"Why was the..tab greasy?...The only explanation seems to be that the
the name was put on the tab after the wax had been drying up a while.
This would have caused a rough surface not easy to write upon. We may
imagine the clerk seeing that there was no name on the tab writing the
name, thereby using the typical clerical abbreviations" (11).
Logically, of course, it is possible that Mr. Shaksper (to use the
spelling on the document, could just as easily have added the name as
an afterthought. But clearly the surviving evidence illustrates an
pattern of anomolies -- poor signature on unstable substrate and
abbreviation -- that your attempt to scuttle Detobel's theory has not
adressed.
>
>
> >
> > If we
> > > posit a law clerk who signed all three signatures,
> >
> > Is this what Detobel posited? Or are you offering a scenario that is
> > different than his so that you can knock it down?
>
> That is the claim Bob thought Detobel was advancing, and it is a claim
> that Detobel could choose to retreat to.
Nice equivocation Terry. Maybe we could start with you making a
commitment of your own, about what Detobel was advancing, and
supporting your interpretation with quotation or some other form of
evidence. In order to do this effectively to have to reign in your
aggression a bit.
>
> >
> > My impression is that Detobel would have Jackson and Johnson the
> > authors of their own signatures, but a scrivener the author of
> > Shakespeare's -- based on the theory that anyone who could sign his own
> > name would naturally sign on the deed, not on the tab.
>
> Johnson and Jackson and Shakespeare signed on the tab, both on the
> conveyance and on the mortgage. I have no idea what the basis is for
> the "theory that anyone who could sign his own name would naturally
> sign on the deed, not on the tab."
Then I think you've got a lot of gall to accuse Detobel of not doing
his homework.
Detobel himself does not appear to
> have looked at a great many documents,
Just how many have you looked at Terry? I mean, beyond Schoenbaum.
Fifty? Ten? Any?
and he does not quote any expert
> who endorses this "theory."
I'm surprised, once more, Terry, that you can publicly accuse Detobel
of not doing his homework while at the same time not offering any
authoritative testimony to contradict the primary premise of his
investigation. Perhaps the point was not footnoted in Detobel's
article because it is common knowledge among experts in early modern
legal documents.
Here is Jenkinson's explanation of how the role the seal played:
"It is a point rather frequently overlooked that the chief if not the
only purpose of Seals was originally to authenticate: they were the
equivalent of the modern signature at a time when the principals in any
business or administrative action could seldom read and still more
seldom write... but obviously we must expect to find it on the decline
so soon as the art of writing begins to be general in use, that is in
the 16th and 17th centuries."
And Detobel has written:
"Handbooks on sealing confirm Durning-Lawrence's statement that the
tag was the space in which clerks were used to write the name of the
sealer. Experts of deeds do not consider a name on a tag as a
signature. In an edition of Wiltshire conveyance deeds before 1623, the
editor R.B. Pugh never uses the word "signed" in connection with
the tag. A few examples may suffice. Deed 144 (22 September 1609:
"Signed:Thomas Waters, by me Robert Waters. Seals (i) and (ii)
missing; tags." Deed 147 (1 July 1612): "Marked with the mark of
Alice Bundye, wife of Robert Bundye. Seal : oval, tag inscribed:
"Bundie." Deed 156 (29 November 1613): "Seal missing; on the tag
"Master Dawbenye" and "examinatur." The latter addition,
"examined," clearly indicates that it was the clerk who used the
tag for some notes, especially for tracing the name of the sealer."
Since Detobel accepts the genuineness of
> Jackson's and Johnson's signatures on the tabs of the conveyance and
> the mortgage, he should reject his "theory" and accept Shakespeare's
> signatures.
He is under no obligation to accept your conclusion. Based on his book
chapter, as well as his posted article, I would say that he knows more
about the issues in question than you do. Some of his inferences
doubtless require testing for verification or modification. You, of
course, have never had to modify any position you've taken, and perhaps
that accounts for the superiority of your responses.
There are many reasons, including those already stated, to believe
that the name Shakespeare on the tab may the work of a clerical scribe.
1) He failed to sign the 1602 indenture with John Combe.
2) Curiously, neither of the two Blackfriars documents states that it
was signed by the parties, but only "sealed." Signing was not the same
as sealing. The typical deed between literate parties was
authenticated by the phrase "signed and sealed." Why the ommission of
the customary language on these deeds? and the failure of all three
parties to "sign" on the deed. Notes Detobel: "the signatures of John
Jackson and William Johnson...were of no better use than to demonstrate
that they *could* sign their name and had developed a characteristic
signature. As for "authenticating value," the names had none. Without
any legal consequence, they could have left it to the clerk to note
their names. Why then did they not place it a little above or to the
right of the tag? On the deed it would have acquired authenticating
power....The only possile answer seems to be that neither Jackson nor
Johnson could sign on the deed because the principal party, Shakespere,
could or would not."
3) In his chapter Detobel details previously unconsidered
contradictions in the legal language of the two extant copies of the
Shakespeare will that support the doubts raised by the above facts.
>
> > Maybe I'm
> > misunderstanding his argument. If so, please enlighten me.
> >
>
> I'm surprised that you do not understand Detobel's argument; you were
> quoted on this newsgroup as praising it highly.
Terry, it's a curious hiccup in your personality, this sort of
personal attack: why is it, after all, that when anyone who doesn't
agree with you offers you a common ground for discussion, you throw it
back in the person's face with this sort of contemptuous sneer? I
I'm quite confident that I understand Mr. Detobel's argument at least
as well as you do. Quite probably, you understand some things I have
not. That I undersand some things you do know want to, I am certain.
And I stand by my praise. If Detobel's article was not a serious and
impressive piece of analysis you would not have come out of your long
sleep to try to critique it. My endorsement does not depend on Detobel
being correct in every particular or even -- I know you will try to
exploit this statement but please try to restrain yourself -- him being
necessarily correct in his conclusion that the name on the 1612 deed is
written by a scrivener. It depends on his persuasive identification of
some basic and important questions that are now being discussed on this
newsgroup.
You recently sat by in silence while some of your fellow Stratfordians
on this newsgroup went gaga over an ebay hoax, allowing some of them to
possibly throw away an impressive sum of money on an absurdly false
pretense, and said nothing. But when it comes to Detobel's article,
you're in fine form with all the usual sneers. Eventually people see
those contradictions, Terry.
As a one-time friend, I would urge you to drop this sort of debating
tactic. It makes you appear rigid and disrespectful, and weakens your
presentation of your case on its merits.
>
> > > then we have to
> > > imagine someone who writes one way when signing as Shakespeare, another
> > > way when signing as Jackson, and a third way when signing as Johnson,
> > > yet who also works to see that the two Johnsons matched each other, the
> > > two Jacksons matched each other, and the two Shakespeares matched each
> > > other.
> >
> > Well, I suppose so, under your scenario. But as I said, since you
> > haven't quoted Detobel -- indeed your authority for this scenario seems
> > to be none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Grumman, who says that
> >
> > ">> I always
> > > > *took for granted* that Detobel considered Jackson's and Johnson's
> > > > signatures signed by clerks!"
> >
> > Is this a game of telephone, in which the farther we get from the
> > original utterance the more and more garbled it becomes, or are we on
> > hlas really attempting to practice appropriate methods of argument and
> > documentation? If so, I can't tell it from Grumman's wording or from
> > your response. Grumman assumes something and then you accept it as a
> > fact, apparently without consulting the original.
>
> No, I corrected Bob
Ah yes, I see that you did. Good for you.
-- however, I thought it also worth the time to
> point out weaknesses in what is an obvious fallback position for
> Detobel, should he ever learn that "p" abbreviations were a common
> feature in handwriting of the period by people other than law clerks.
For all I know, it maybe true that "p" abbreviations were a common
feature in Elizabethan writing of people other than law clerks.
However, I am doubtful if you have demonstrated that claim in your
post. Your evidence seems to consist of a couple of websites, on which
we learn that the forms are widely attested (but with the specification
that would really be required to substantiate your point), and the
example of hand D in Sir Thomas More. Unless you can prove that hand D
is not that of a scrivener, this example in itself doesn't substantiate
than *anyone* other than scriveners used it. M
ore importantly, as I've said at least twice already, I don't think
this is not the fundamental basis for Detobel's argument, so even if
you are correct on that point, you have only weakened his argument, not
disproven it. But since you began with the premise that Detobel had not
done his homework, and that you are the expert here, you probably won't
be able to see the fallacies of your own reasoning very well.
>
> >
> > Since my interpretation of what Detobel is saying differs from Bob's,
> > I should think that in order for your conjecture to be a valid
> > refutation, you would need to clearly show us that that is the scenario
> > Detobel envisioned. Can you do that? If so, please do.
> >
>
> How many different ways can this be put? I corrected Bob. Bob
> misunderstood Detobel, and I set him straight. What Bob thought
> Detobel had said was not what Detobel said.
Halleluiah.
>
> >
> > Finally, you state that
> >
> > >Jackson's, Johnson's, and Shakespeare's signatures on one
> > > document strongly resemble their signatures on the other document...
> >
>
> Finally? I see you snipped my discussion of Detobel's claim that
> because Shakespeare's signatures on the Blackfriar's documents contain
> abbreviations that were used by law clerks, the signatures could not
> have been made by Shakespeare.
Yes, and I explained why. I've reiterated that explanation several
times here. I don't know about you, but sometimes readers don't enjoy
reading and rereading things.
Here is some of what you snipped, with
> a correction:
>
> ===============
>
> There is no more reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on
> the conveyance for the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or
> Johnson's name or Jackson's name to that document. There is no more
> reason to think a clerk signed Shakespeare's name on the mortgage for
> the Blackfriars Gatehouse than that he signed or Johnson's name or
> Jackson's name to that document. Detobel thinks the Johnson and
> Jackson signatures are both authentic; he thinks the Shakespeare
> signature must have been done by a law clerk because it includes a "p"
> with a bar through the stem that was a common abbreviation for "per"
> (it could also stand for "par" or "por" or "pro").
>
Detobel suggested in the quote above that you are wrong about the
technical details here. He cited his authority. What is yours?
> [CORRECTION: "pro" would have been abbreviated by a curl though the
> stem]
>
> Detobel seems to think that only law clerks ever used this
> abbreviation, and that is his sole reason for rejecting the Shakespeare
> signatures while accepting the Johnson and Jackson signatures. If
> Detobel had bothered to check, he would have seen that this
> abbreviation was commonly used in documents that were not penned by law
> clerks.
"seems" is an interesting word choice. I quoted above what he actually
says on this point. I agree with you when you question how unusual such
abbreviations may have been. I can't agree with you when you sneer
about what a bad researcher Detobel is. He's a far better researcher
and scholar than many loyal Stratfordians.
>
> If you can get your hands on a facsimile of the "Hand D" additions to
> *Sir Thomas More*, you will see that this abbreviation is used several
> times (e.g., for the first syllable of "parsnips"). The additions to
> *Sir Thomas More* in hand D are generally accepted as Shakespeare's
> work, and a good (if not compelling) argument can be made that the
> "Hand D" additions are in Shakespeare's own hand. If it were true that
> use of the cross-bar "p" for "per/par/por" was extremely unusual in
> writing by people other than law clerks, then Detobel would have
> strengthened the argument for the Hand D additions' being in
> Shakespeare's own handwriting.
Terry, you've got a lot of nerve to complain about my snippings, and
then snip my response to you on this point. You do great damage to your
credibility to claim that "the additions...in hand D are generally
accepted as Shakespeare's work." Unless you employ a highly
idiosyncratic, "Rossean" definition of "generally accepted, " it's
simply not true. Yes, some Shakespeareans do think hand d is the
bards. Many do do not. Some of the reasons why many do not agree were
stated in the portion of my post that you conveniently clipped just
before accusing me of clipping *your post*, even though unlike you I
actually addressed the clipped material in my response.
I won't bother to repeat myself about why your speculations about hand
D are unwarranted and unproductive for you. Those interested can see my
original post.
> ===============
>
> >
> > As I mentioned, I can't speak to the question of Jackson and Johnson.
> > However, one need not go to Schoenbaum or Lewis to see that your
> > statement regarding the Shakespeare names is, at best, doubtful.
>
> We can take that up later, if you like, but the subject for now is
> Detobels' actual argument, which you are avoiding.
Terry, Terry, Terry. Anyone who reads this exchange can see that I
have not avoided Detobel's argument in the least. What I have done is
to let Detobel speak for himself, and to defend him on those points on
which it is clear that he deserves a defense.
I'm sure that it would be more convenient to you if I did with Detobel
as you do with so many orthodox authorities: treat them like idols who
can do no wrong. Sorry. That's not my cup of tea, Terry. I stand by my
statement that the tone of your attack on Mr. Detobel has been
ungracious and inaccurate, even if you have, as I readily concede, made
some valid points of criticism.
So let us see
> whether you agree with Detobel:
>
> 1. Do you agree with Detobel that the Johnson and Jackson signatures
> are their own? ("From a legal viewpoint, William Johnson and John
> Jackson only set their seals to the Blackfriars deeds, but they wrote
> their names on the seal-tab in the form of their signatures.")
It would certainly appear so. Both of them, incidentally, have fluid,
graceful handwriting.
>
> 2. Do you agree with Detobel that the major characteristic
> distinguishing the genuine signatures of Jackson and Johnson from the
> supposedly clerk-penned signature of Shakespeare is the use of
> abbreviations that were peculiar to lae clerks?
> ("The party who did not sign at all was William Shakespeare; he did not
> write his name himself on the tab either; the surname is written by a
> clerk with the typical, somewhat arcane clerical abbreviations.")
No. Actually, I would say that the chief distinguishing feature is the
very "reticent" form of the name on the page. Detobel, following
Malone, has suggested that this is a consequence of the poor condition
of the tab. This could be correct. And I would have to concede that
the condition of the signature would on its face value actually tend to
undermine Detobel's argument, since one would assume that a scrivener
would have a more accomplished hand. However, the condition of the tab
at the time of inscription may account for the poor condition, even if
the name is in the hand of a scribe.
> I think we have to reject Detobel's second point, since the use of such
> abreviations was common, and examples could easily have been found by
> Detobel if he had only looked. I'm sure you have a Riverside
> Shakespeare -- if you look at the Hand D material you will see many
> instances of such abbreviations (you will also see a considerable
> degree of variation in the formation of letters by a single penman
> writing in secretary hand).
I'd be happier if you supplied some evidence for this beyond hand D.
One apple does not an orchard make, especially if its a pippin.
> At that point Detobel may wish to reconsider his first point and
> declare (as Bob had understood him to say) that the Jackson and Johnson
> signatures were also done by a clerk -- but we have already seen the
> problems with that as a fallback position.
I'll leave that up to him.
> So here is the challenge, Roger -- before we take up the question
> whether the Shakespeare Blackfriars conveyance and Blackfriars deed
> signatures are so different that they could not have been made by the
> same man (the two-clerk theory?)
Terry, what you're trying to do here is very typical. I have never said
that I was convinced that Detobel's argument was correct. I have and do
state that he deserves a respect you have routinely failed to accord
him. I don't know why you can't bring yourself to do that, but your
failure to do so reflects poorly on you.
Nor have I offered a "two clerk" theory. That is your own construct,
foisted on me. What I have done is to explain clearly, in two ways now
(empirical and historical), why your own description that the two
signatures are self-evidently of the same hand is, at the very best,
doubtful.
Possibly they are by two different clerks. Possibly one is by the
Stratford burgher and the other is by a scribe. Possibly they are both
in the hand of your hero, and the differences are the result of what
paleographers call "natural variation," and are not, as it seems more
likely to me, an instance systematic variation diagnostic of two
different hands.
I understand that many so-called "experts" agree with you the two must
be by the same man. After all, examples of Shakespeare's handwriting
are so rare that we need every one we can get, right?
If you want, perhaps we could together submit both Blackfriars
"signatures" to several experts of our own chosing. I'd be glad to put
up some money and come up with a couple of experts and you could do the
same. Then we could make their judgements known to the world.
Here is how Dr. Wilson R. Harrison, one of Scotland Yard's leading
forensic document examiners, accounts for the "poor quality of the
handwriting" in the Shakespeare signatures:
"When Shakespeare left London for Stratford to spend his last years in
retirement...he may well have been a man in decline in both mental and
physical powers...If Shakespeare was suffering some complaint in
1612--at about the time he apparently gave up his literary work --
which affected the nervous control of his fingers, this would explain
why he foudn it so much easier to write [William] than [Shakespeare]."
Incidentally, Harrison did some outside reading while working on the
Shakespeare signatures:
"I also dipped into Shakespearean scholarship -- and was disgusted. I
expected to find that contemporary documents had been treated in the
same scientific manner as the Mozart manuscripts and that some reliance
could be placed on the theories which have grown up around the life of
W.S. As far as I can tell, the vaguest suppositions of one writer are
quoted by those whom come after as fact, and that his 'life story as
generally received consists of fables."
He said he "could quite understand...why some people have doubted
whether the signatures were written by one man" -- which he concluded
they were.
(quoted from Ogburn 1991, 121).
Go ahead, Terry. Explain to us why Harrison wasn't an
"anti-Stratfordian." He certainly didn't endorse many of your
illusions.
Best Regards,
your neighbor,
Bass
Bianca Steele
> No, but of course, I studied it too.
I did not mean to insult you. I am sure you are respectful towards
your characters and their backgrounds.
>And I've written books about
> Christians. Claire by Moonlight, for example, is about a Catholic
> Acadian girl. I did loads of research, spoke to priests, even learned
> to say the rosary, which almost gave my mother a stroke. I don't
> pretend that makes me as knowledgeable as knowledgeable Christians, but
> I'm sure I know as much as some. It is the quality of belief that
> differs--but I am always respectful of the beliefs of others, though I
> have few of my own. Any Catholic who read Claire would not be in the
> least offended. Her religion was very important to her, and it's
> portrayed that way in the novel.
--
Bianca Steele
ben-Jonson
Wow. BCD. You can say that again. Who is that?
ben-Jonson
> kenkap wrote:
> > Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> > delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> > disrespectful and done on impulse.
> >
>
> That's very gracious of you (seriously).
>
> > But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> > practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> > to prevent fraud.
>
> His guess that departures from the "set hand and seal" formula are
> codewords signifying illiteracy is not supported by any expert opinion
> in his essay or by the examples he quotes.
Terry, I've clipped out the rest of your response, not because I'm
trying to conceal it from anyone -- I assume anyone who reads this
thread has access to the full glory of your reasoning -- but because
this response so perfectly illustrates the way you undermine the
conventions on which reasoned discourse should presume.
Where does Detobel say that the "departures from the "set hand and
seal" formula are codewords signifying illiteracy." Instead of
respecting what he *has* written, you invent something that you wish he
had written because it makes him sound sillier than you.
*Codewords*? Come off it.
Ken is explaining Detobel's primary point to you and you still pretend
to not get it. Geeze.
Just so you know, I'm signing off on this round. You can reply to my
posts if you like, but I probably won't be responding any further at
this time. I think I've explained my position clearly in my detailed
response to you (just above), and have many other projects at hand,
including a long overdue response to Ignoto on the subject of Ben
Jonson's logic.
Best of luck with everything.
gangleri
> I wonder just who you are counting as "experts" Terry. Can you give us
> some names and indicate their area of professional specialization? I
> give the name (Wilson Harrison, on whom I relied for my own education
> in forensic paleography in my dissertation), and the qualifications of
> one such expert in the conclusion of this post. You, of course, will
> like his conclusion on the matter of the signatures, but I'm sure you
> will be dismayed by his opinions on other matters Shakespearean, since
> they go to the heart of the project that you and Dave started -- to
> defend the Shakespearean establishmen from the evil depredations of the
> anti-Stratfordians -- lo these ten years ago.
You're too generous!
These guys couldn't care less about the facts of the matter insofar as
the Shakespeare Authorship Issue is concerned.
Their bread is buttered on the Stratfordian side - to be milked for all
its worth.
Expose the Stratfordian as an illusion - and their intellectual capital
is gone!
Tom Reedy
news:1152120988.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Hi Tom,
>
> Here is a response Robert D. sent me to what you posted below:
>
>> One question, Roger. Could you explain what Detobel means by this
>> sentence?
>>
>> Had Shakespeare intended his clerically abbreviated name as a signature,
>> it
>> was senseless to put it on the tab where it was without any legal
>> significance. William Johnson and John Jackson, however, wrote their
>> signatures on the tab. They were compelled to it because Shakespeare did
>> not
>> sign, would not sign and could not sign.
>>
>> Why would Johnson and Jackson be compelled to sign because Shakespeare
>> didn't?
>>
>> TR
>
> Hypothesis: All the names on the tags of the seals to the Blackfriars
> deeds are signatures, both factually and legally.
>
> Why, then, did the clerk forget to add "hand" in the authenticating
> clause? Why, then, did Shakespeare, Jackson and Johnson not place their
> signatures a bit more upward or sideward, ON THE DEED where it would
> have had authenticating power? Sufficient space was left on the deed to
> sign.
I would suggest you find other deeds written up by the same lawyer and see
what the ordinary practice of that office was.
>
> That there was enough space is proved by the deed of 1618 (transfer of
> trusteeship from Hemminges, Jackson and Johnson to Moore and Greene).
>
> There, Jackson and Johnson (and Hemminges) put their signatures NOT on
> the tag but above the tag on the deed (the hindrance of 1613,
> Shakspere, was absent, dead).
>
> Read the authenticating clause of this deed, it runs "set their HANDS
> and seals."
>
> In 1613 Johnson and Jackson factually did sign the deed, but legally
> they did NOT.
You need to find some corroborating evidence for your opinion.
> The names written on the tags in 1613 are signatures, the
> very same signatures as those NOT written on the tag in 1618.
>
> If one puts his signature on the envelope of a letter of application
> but omits it beneath the letter, he has put his signature, but not
> signed, the letter. A deed, if signed, had to be signed on the deed.
> Sir Edward Maunde Thompson was well aware of this fact when he tried to
> identify Hand D as Shakespeare's.
This is your fantasy, unless you can come up with some type of reference.
I don't see where Thompson addresses this at all. On page 5, Thompson
writes, " . . . it is evident that he imagined, as a layman might imagine,
that he was obliged, in each case, to confine his signature within the
bounds of the parchment lable which is inserted in the foot of the deed to
carry the seal, and not to allow it to run over on to the parchemnt of the
deed itself."
This is Thompson's fantasy, and he has no more evidence for it than you do
for your fantasy. As a matter of fact, Thompson should have looked at the
other two signatures and thought of thier implications for his theory.
Your fantasy is that "A deed, if signed, had to be signed on the deed. Sir
Edward Maunde Thompson was well aware of this fact . . . ."
> Thompson spirits the diffiiculty
> away by positing that Shakespeare was haunted by a "superstition" that
> he ought to sign on the tag. According to this logic, John Jackson and
> William Johnson succumbed to this same "superstition", but in 1613
> only, not in 1618.
>
> But in the latter case, being ON THE DEED, they were considered to be
> authenticating. In 1613 they were manifestly not so considered, as the
> authenticating clause does not mention anything about signing.
I contacted a lawyer acquantance of mine and explained the nature of this
dispute. Here's what he said:
"I think you win. By 1613, most seals were used to authenticate and give
the 'seal' of official approval. I will see if I can find a real legal
historian for you as my expertise in this area is merely avocational."
I'll keep you posted. In the mean time, you might want to talk to an actual
lawyer or historian and see what they say.
In addition, the Harvard Law School Web site says, "A written record of the
transfer of land was not required in England until the seventeenth century,
but the value of possessing such a record became increasingly apparent
throughout the later Middle Ages," and "By the 17th century custom (if not
law) dictated that not only seals but signatures must appear on every
charter."
I hardly think that a Web site is authoritative, but it at least indicates
that practices were changing and a hard-and-fast rule such as you imagine
would not be the case.
>
> The situation in March 1613: The clerk or scribe has to set up a deed.
> The form of the deed was to some extent standardized. First "habendum
> and tenendum", covenants, warrants, etc. Last of all came the
> authenticating clause. To write this clause before the deed was
> authenticated, the clerk had to know how the deed would be
> authenticated. There is no way he could have known this if he did not
> ask the parties how they would authenticate.
>
> So Henry Lawrence, the scribe (whose seal Shakspere used - this was not
> infrequent)
You don't "use" someone else's seal. The seal was used to authenticate the
signature, much in the same way a notary seal is used today.
> asks the parties how they want to authenticate, whether by
> signing and sealing or only by sealing. The parties cannot have
> answered: by signing and sealing. If the parties had so answered the
> clerk would then have written: "set their hands and seals." But the
> clerk wrote "set their seals."
Your scenario is the sheerest fantasy. The document would have been written
out before the parties even came together to finalize it. The clerk wouldn't
have asked the parties how they wanted to authenticate the document and then
written it out while they waited. As you say, the form of the deed was
somewhat standardized, with only the names and the property description and
the terms differing from similar transactions.
>
> Hence, the parties must have answered they would authenticate by
> sealing only. What then happened is clear enough.
It is incredible to me that you really believe this.
> The clerk noted
> Shaksp's name on the tag, whereas Jackson and Johnson NOTED their names
> themselves by means of a signature.
And here's where you're supposed to answer my question, but for some reason
you haven't, so I'll repeat it:
From your essay: Had Shakespeare intended his clerically abbreviated name as
a signature, it was senseless to put it on the tab where it was without any
legal significance. William Johnson and John Jackson, however, wrote their
signatures on the tab. They were compelled to it because Shakespeare did not
sign, would not sign and could not sign.
Why would Johnson and Jackson be compelled to sign because Shakespeare
didn't?
>
> They could have put their signature a little more upward, on the
> surface of the deed, above the tag. It would have been easy for them to
> do this. That it could have easily been done is proved by the deed of
> 1618. It is what they did in 1618. Hence, the clause reads "Set their
> hands and seals". All parties set their hand, on the deed, and seal.
>
> The parties who were missing in 1619 were Henry Walker, a London
> vintner, the seller, and the purchaser, William Shakspere.
>
> That Shakspere was not accustomed to signing is also underscored by the
> fact that originally he did not want to sign his will.
I don't know where you get all these fantasies, but they're pretty typical
of antiStratfordian "research."
TR
>
> --RD
>
> Best,
> KCL
>
LynnE
Hi Terry,
Since I have quite a few objections to Dave's essay "Dating the
Tempest," which is posted on your website, it would be best for him (if
he wishes to debate the matter here, which he has done a thousand times
before but not with me) to come to this newsgroup himself. I'm sure he
has an internet connection.
And it would be much easier for Dave to discuss his essay with me than
for Robert to discuss his essay with you, for both dave and you are in
the majority here.
Love and stuff,
Mouse xxx
BCD
> BCD wrote:
> > ***Or rather:
> >
> > When shall the laurel and the vocal string
> > Resume their honours? When shall we behold
> > The tuneful tongue, the Promethéan band
> > Aspire to ancient praise? Alas! how faint,
> > How slow the dawn of Beauty and of Truth
> > Breaks the reluctant shades of Gothic night
> > Which yet involves the nations! Long they groan'd
> > Beneath the furies of rapacious force;
> > Oft as the gloomy north, with iron swarms
> > Tempestuous pouring from her frozen caves,
> > Blasted the Italian shore, and swept the works
> > Of Liberty and Wisdom down the gulf
> > Of all-devouring night. As long immured
> > In noontide darkness, by the glimmering lamp,
> > Each Muse and each fair Science pined away
> > The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands
> > Their mysteries profaned, unstrung the lyre,
> > And chain'd the soaring pinion down to earth.
> >
> > Best Wishes,
> >
> > --BCD
> >
>
> Wow. BCD. You can say that again. Who is that?
***Mark Akenside, from the lengthy *The Pleasures of Imagination*
(1744). Rich! Time perhaps for a revival of interest in Akenside.
Best Wishes,
--BCD
Tom Reedy
news:1152126736....@v61g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
> kenkap wrote:
>> Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
>> delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
>> disrespectful and done on impulse.
>>
>
> That's very gracious of you (seriously).
>
>> You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
>> "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
>>
>> But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
>> practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
>> to prevent fraud.
>
> His guess that departures from the "set hand and seal" formula are
> codewords signifying illiteracy is not supported by any expert opinion
> in his essay or by the examples he quotes. He thinks he can prove that
> Shakespeare was illiterate, and thus incapable of writing anything at
> all. His problem is that there is no evidence that Shakespeare was
> illiterate (e.g., if the Shakespearean documents had been signed by a
> mark rather than a signature, Detobel could at least have had something
> to work with). So, Detobel being Detobel, he has to find a code.
> Detobel has looked for codewords before (remember his demonstrably
> false notion that "true and perfect copy" meant "dead author"?).
>
> It looks as if the desired code this time is supposed to show that
> Shakespeare's signatures appeared in a context that was only used for
> false signatures that were signed by clerks on behalf of illiterates.
Earlier this year I spent quite some time in the British Archives going
through Court of Requests depositions from about 1550 until about 1640. I
saw plenty of marks made by illiterates, but (although I did not examine
them all minutely) I never saw one case that the clerk that took the
deposition signed for an illiterate deponent.
> This Detobel has utterly failed to do -- in fact, Detobel's treatment
> of the Blackfriars documents is self-refuting, because by the code he
> is trying to invent, the Blackfriars signatures of Johnson, Jackson,
> and Shakespeare should ALL be regarded the same way. Yet he regards
> the Johnson and Jackson signatures as genuine while the Shakespeare
> signatures are not, and he has to find some additional reason to reject
> the Shakespeare Blackfriars signatures -- hence the bogus argument
> about the supposedly arcane legalese abbreviations he sees in
> Shakespeare's Blackfriars signatures, which Detobel wrongly takes as a
> sure sign that some law clerk did the deed.
All he would have had to do is look at the signature on the Belott-Mountjoy
deposition. Shakespeare used the same abbreviation, and this time he had
plenty of room to write.
Jane Cox was an assistant keeper of records for the British Public Records
Office. I don't know that that makes her an expert in Elizabethan
handwriting, although I would hope that she was competent in reading it. She
is mainly known as a genealogist, and she wrote several guides to
researching genealogy in the PRO (now the National Archives).
> Clerks signed other people's names to
> documents much more frequently than one would have suspected.
Again, I would like to see some examples of this. I know that the copies of
wills in the probate records were written by clerks, and they would write
out the name as a signature, but as far as a clerk "supplying" a signature
on the original will itself, I haven't seen any examples. But I've seen lots
of marks attested to by witnesses.
TR
Tom Reedy
In that case, how about the Belott-Mountjoy deposition signature as a
comparison?
> Moreover, it can, in my opinion, better serve to
> corroborate the opposite view taken by Scott McMillin and others,
> namely, that Hand C and Hand D are of one and the same person. As Hand
> C is generally recognized as the hand of a scribe...
"generally recognized?" I fear we're not just arguing different
interpretations here, but different definitions of words.
>
> HLAS has too much insultory ballast. If I wrote directly I would have
> to prove not only that I am not an idiot
You're right. Best to stick to the Fellowship, where that is not required.
TR
Tom Reedy
news:1152141572.4...@v61g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
Well, too bad, Lynne. Looks like you can stop waiting.
TR
Tom Reedy
http://www.poemhunter.com/mark-akenside/biography/poet-3005/
Mouse
O good. I'll go back to my knitting.
Mouse
Unknown
wrote:
SNIP
>I've recently read a
>rather interesting book, The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, who is the
>religious columnist for The Toronto Star. I found it fascinating, but
>it's very controversial, and I'm not sure how much I agreed with. I can
>see it being offensive to some Christians. But I did end up thinking of
>faith as passing down the ages, with us, Jews or Christians, just the
>latest links in the process. That comforted me, and I'd be interested
>to know what others here think of it.
That pre-existing legends might accrue around Jesus over time
strikes me as quite possible. That he never existed at all? I don't
know about that. But I agree it's an interesting book.
- Gary
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Mouse
Tom or Terry,
To change the subject a little:
I've been trying to follow the argument although my head is a little
fuzzy this evening. I wonder if you could help me out.
The two Blackfriars signatures are items b and c on this site:
http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
I'm no expert on Elizabethan writing, but they do not look at all like
the same hand to me. Roger has given reasons why he believes they are
not, as follows:
1) B abbreviates William, C does not.
2) In B the h is of a secretary form, in C a blunted italic.
3) In general, the forms of B are secretary and the forms of C are
italic.
4) The a of B has a very long hook on the top of the it, while that C
is hookless.
5) the p of B is distinctly secretary in form, that of C italic.
6) the ultimate r of B is a typical secretary blunt r; it appears that
the r of C is part of one of the notorious abbreviations.
I would add further, as a rank amateur, the whole cast of signature c
looks very different from that of signature b. If we add d, page 1 of
his will, I see what looks like yet another hand. To take just one
example, the m in William. It is entirely different from the m in
example b. I've always been puzzled by the signatures. Could one or
both of you please explain why they are, in fact, made by the same
hand?
Feeling very open-minded about things so far, and more than willing to
hear what you have to say.
Mouse
Mouse
(gkay) wrote:
> On 5 Jul 2006 12:34:31 -0700, "Mouse" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca>
> wrote:
>
> SNIP
>
> >I've recently read a
> >rather interesting book, The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, who is the
> >religious columnist for The Toronto Star. I found it fascinating, but
> >it's very controversial, and I'm not sure how much I agreed with. I can
> >see it being offensive to some Christians. But I did end up thinking of
> >faith as passing down the ages, with us, Jews or Christians, just the
> >latest links in the process. That comforted me, and I'd be interested
> >to know what others here think of it.
>
> That pre-existing legends might accrue around Jesus over time
> strikes me as quite possible.
Me too. I liked that part of his thesis.
>That he never existed at all? I don't
> know about that.
I have always believed in a historic Jesus. Harpur's arguments did not
persuade me otherwise.
L.
kenkap
"ben-johnson" who, as I, have been in touch with Robert. I don't have
that much to add. I have to agree with "Ben" that imo you are
misrepresenting the argument. There is no "code" but a consistent set
of circumstances. Robert has diligently gone through the usages of the
time, provided detail data, and expert testimony as you asked. You have
provided nothing in return except argument from assertion and obscuring
what is anomalous behavior. (Which incidentally seems to run through
all of "Shakespeare's" records-such as the bizarre dedication to and
circumstances surrounding the publication of the Sonnets.)
Here is Detobel's last communication which I will pass on.
"Jackson and Johnson's signatures are validated by the deed of 1618
(which Ross seems not to have seen)." (in other words the signatures on
the tab match the signatures on the deed.)
Ask him if he has seen that deed.
Moreover, Leslie Hotson found two other instances, a signature of
Johnson and Jackson each. Tell Ross he should read that article.
(Apparently they match also)
I'll give you the exact reference later."
And Detobel's position is NOT that the law clerk signed for all three.
Only for Shakspere. And there is no clear signature sample for him
(Shakspere) to compare against as there is with the other two.
IMO it is up to you now to find a sufficient record set of men who
clearly left behind examples of legible, literate signatures who
deferred only to the 'Set seal" pattern, consistently in their life, to
even begin to "deconstruct" this argument.
Your response here is moving into the strange territory of writers and
educated men you ventured into as a distraction when dealing with Pat
Dooley.
Ken
Terry Ross wrote:
> kenkap wrote:
> > Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my flippancy. I tried to
> > delete the post afterward but could not as I thought the tone was
> > disrespectful and done on impulse.
> >
>
> That's very gracious of you (seriously).
>
> > You raise important questions, especially as to a clerk writing in
> > "different styles". I will answer soon to the best of my ability.
> >
> > But I will say this. Detobel's primary point is that the customary
> > practice among literate people was to set "hand and seal", apparently
> > to prevent fraud.
>
> His guess that departures from the "set hand and seal" formula are
> codewords signifying illiteracy is not supported by any expert opinion
> in his essay or by the examples he quotes. He thinks he can prove that
> Shakespeare was illiterate, and thus incapable of writing anything at
> all. His problem is that there is no evidence that Shakespeare was
> illiterate (e.g., if the Shakespearean documents had been signed by a
> mark rather than a signature, Detobel could at least have had something
> to work with). So, Detobel being Detobel, he has to find a code.
> Detobel has looked for codewords before (remember his demonstrably
> false notion that "true and perfect copy" meant "dead author"?).
>
> It looks as if the desired code this time is supposed to show that
> Shakespeare's signatures appeared in a context that was only used for
> false signatures that were signed by clerks on behalf of illiterates.
> This Detobel has utterly failed to do -- in fact, Detobel's treatment
> of the Blackfriars documents is self-refuting, because by the code he
> is trying to invent, the Blackfriars signatures of Johnson, Jackson,
> and Shakespeare should ALL be regarded the same way. Yet he regards
> the Johnson and Jackson signatures as genuine while the Shakespeare
> signatures are not, and he has to find some additional reason to reject
> the Shakespeare Blackfriars signatures -- hence the bogus argument
> about the supposedly arcane legalese abbreviations he sees in
> Shakespeare's Blackfriars signatures, which Detobel wrongly takes as a
> sure sign that some law clerk did the deed.
>
> (including those on the will). Clerks signed other people's names to
> documents much more frequently than one would have suspected. (This
kenkap
> and seal to the 1613 document, but that the law clerk didn't bother to
> say so on the document. My impression of the way human beings operate
> is that they do NOT always follow correct form. So minor discrepancies
> on legal papers that people like Robert D. make much of are very
> common. Consider, for instance, the ones concerned with Will
> Shakespeare's marriage. Yes, one would need a fairly large sample of
> deeds to determine if this was the case here. There's little point in
> a Stratfordians seeking out such a sample for the evidence is extremely
> strong that Shakespeare could write. For instance, a monument in his
> hometown church refers to "all that he writ" (which I quote without
> full orthographic accuracy because that's the way I am). Why put an
> obvious lie in such a public monument (in a sacred place)?
>
> --Bob G.
This is joke, right?
Ken
Tom Reedy
news:1152152849.9...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> (gkay) wrote:
>> On 5 Jul 2006 12:34:31 -0700, "Mouse" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>> SNIP
>>
>> >I've recently read a
>> >rather interesting book, The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, who is the
>> >religious columnist for The Toronto Star. I found it fascinating, but
>> >it's very controversial, and I'm not sure how much I agreed with. I can
>> >see it being offensive to some Christians. But I did end up thinking of
>> >faith as passing down the ages, with us, Jews or Christians, just the
>> >latest links in the process. That comforted me, and I'd be interested
>> >to know what others here think of it.
>>
>> That pre-existing legends might accrue around Jesus over time
>> strikes me as quite possible.
"Might?" I thought it was an accepted fact. And adaptation of pagan rituals
and holidays were actively encouraged, weren't they? Or is that just legend?
TR
Tom Reedy
<snip> (You should learn how to do that, Lynne.)
> Tom or Terry,
>
> To change the subject a little:
>
> I've been trying to follow the argument although my head is a little
> fuzzy this evening. I wonder if you could help me out.
>
> The two Blackfriars signatures are items b and c on this site:
>
> http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
>
> I'm no expert on Elizabethan writing, but they do not look at all like
> the same hand to me. Roger has given reasons why he believes they are
> not, as follows:
>
>
> 1) B abbreviates William, C does not.
If you look at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16055/16055-h/16055-h.htm, you
can see why one is abbreviated and the other is not. B is on one line, C is
on two lines.
> 2) In B the h is of a secretary form, in C a blunted italic.
Look at the English secretary alphabet on John Baker's page at
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/collier2.htm. You will see that the h is
Eng. sec.
> 3) In general, the forms of B are secretary and the forms of C are
> italic.
Actually, I would say the forms of B are cursive, while the forms of C are
printed. And the s of B is italic.
If you can get a good reproduction, B is much more fluid than that page
makes it seem to be (See
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/CD56275D-8B86-4A7A-A709-7D14EE69D78C/0/LH_CL_GL_manuscripts.pdf).
As a matter of fact, all of the signatures are more fluent than the
reproductions on that page, but especially that of the Belott-Mountjoy
deposition.
> 4) The a of B has a very long hook on the top of the it, while that C
> is hookless.
I agree with this one.
> 5) the p of B is distinctly secretary in form, that of C italic.
No, both are secretary. Again, see the chart on John's page.
> 6) the ultimate r of B is a typical secretary blunt r; it appears that
> the r of C is part of one of the notorious abbreviations.
"Blunt r?" I'm not following you here. The secretary r most often looks like
an upside-down modern cursive r. I can't even tell what letter the last
letter of C is.
>
> I would add further, as a rank amateur, the whole cast of signature c
> looks very different from that of signature b.
The W, the m, the S appear similar, and the slant and shading are similar,
but yes, there are inconsistancies. I believe one is cursive and the other
is almost, but not quite printed in order to get it in a small space.
> If we add d, page 1 of
> his will, I see what looks like yet another hand.
It looks to me like the writing of a child just learning to write cursive or
the very slow writing of a very sick old man.
> To take just one
> example, the m in William. It is entirely different from the m in
> example b. I've always been puzzled by the signatures. Could one or
> both of you please explain why they are, in fact, made by the same
> hand?
Probably not. I'm sure the reason they have been accepted as by the same
hand is because they are signatures of the same person, which seems like a
circular argument, but makes sense when you realize there's no reason why
they would be written by someone else.
The only one that seems to be of a free nature is A, the Belott-Mountjoy
deposition. and there are characteristics of that signature that match all
the others, except maybe for D.
> Feeling very open-minded about things so far, and more than willing to
> hear what you have to say.
Signatures change over the years, as can be seen by most people's
handwriting. None of Shakespeare's signatures, except possibly the
*Archaionomia* signature (which, if genuine, as I believe it is, adds more
words to the roster of autograph words: "This to be kept for the impression
is [] nor like to be renewd."), were written when he was an active
playwright.
TR
>
> Mouse
t...@nj.net
> Bianca Steele wrote:
> > Mouse wrote:
> > > Bianca Steele wrote:
> > > > Mouse wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Lynne, with the best will in the world, is this a complaint about "'til
> > > > the conversion of the Jews"?
> > >
> > > It wouldn't even cross my mind, Bianca.
> >
> > When you are as brief as this, you should not be surprised at being
> > misunderstood.
>
> I'm sorry. You're quite right. In fact, I was just completing Neil's
> quote. It was from Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," long one of my
> favourite poems.
Which is where the line about the conversion of the Jews comes from:
" ... I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews."
Spam...@yahoo.com
Mouse wrote:
> In fact, I was just completing Neil's
> quote. It was from Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," long one of my
> favourite poems.
Had I known it would have triggered such posts from the Biancabot, I
wouldn't have posted it. :-(
Terry Ross
Thanks for your multiple postings from Detobel's responses, but if he
wants to engage on this matter, he really should show up here himself.
I see that he did get around to discussing the abbreviations, and since
that is one of the crucial weaknesses of his case, I was interested to
see what his response would be. Readers will recall that according to
Detobel's essay, the presence of such abbreviations in Shakespeare's
signatures is proof that they were written by a law clerk because such
abbreviations were "arcane" -- not the sort of thing one would find in
just any old text. I pointed out that the abbreviations were not at
all "arcane" but were commonly used by people who wrote non-legal
texts, and offered the Hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More* as an
excellent counter-example. Detobel in his response continues to refer
to "clerical abbreviations." Once again he misses the point -- the use
of such abbreviations were NOT a clerical specialty.
Detobel does offer one refinement in his response.
> Many
> signatures can be seen in the court books, perhaps a hundred, too many
> to count, at any rate. In signatures the surname is never abbreviated,
> the first name is not infrequently abbreviated.
"Perhaps a hundred" signatures is a rather small sample, but I would
not at all be surprised to find that in any sample, first names are
much more commonly abbreviated than last names. Detobel does have one
example of a person who used an abbreviation in his last name:
> The clerk Richard
> Collins sometimes (not often) wrote his own name in abbreviated form
> "Coll" with a bar through the double "l". He was so accustomed to this
> abbreviation that he sometimes used it even for his signature.
> But, attention, even then he wrote his surname in full: Coll [bar
> through the double "l"]ins.
It's very kind of Detobel to offer this exception. Collins sometimes
abbreviates his own name (but then completes it); Detobel's explanation
is that Collins "was so used to this abbreviation." In that case one
would expect to find that if Shakespeare sometimes abbreviated his
name, he too must have been used to abbreviations. Recall what Detobel
still does not understand: the use of such abbreviations as a "p" with
a bar through the stem for "per" or "par" was NOT something confined to
law clerks but was common practice in non-legal texts as well. The
person who penned the hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More* was another
person who was "accustomed to ... abbreviation[s]."
Although Detobel in his exhaustive search of "perhaps a hundred"
signatures did not notice any abbreviated last names, if we search
beyond the limits of what Detobel considers "too many to count," can we
find any instances where people abbreviated their own last names in
signatures? Well, actually, yes -- and in the very first place I
looked. I don't have ready access to facsimiles or transcriptions of
other letters of conveyance and mortgages, but I do own a copy of
Foakes and Rickert's transcription of Henslowe's Diary. Most of the
writing in the Diary is by Henslowe, but there are a number of other
different hands in the book. Henslowe records payments or loans made
by himself or the company, and in many cases the borrower signed his
name in the book, and in some cases the last name was abbreviated. I
give some instances below, with page references for anyone who wishes
to check.
Edward Alleyn often signed as a witness to such transactions. Alleyn
commonly signed "EAlleyn" but on one occasion he abbreviated his last
name, signing "EAlley" with a superscript bar instead of the final "n"
[Foakes and Rickert, page 74].
Thomas Chaloner signed his name "Thoms Chalonr" with a bar over the
last letters of "Thoms" and a superscript "r" as an abbreviation for
the last syllable of "Chaloner" [Foakes and Rickert, 43].
In November of 1599, the playwright John Daye signed one entry "J D."
[Foakes and Rickert, 62]; while in another he wrote his name as
"Joh.Day." [Foakes and Rickert, 62] (I'm using periods for what appear
to be medial dots after the abbreviations of each name) and then signed
"John Day." [Foakes and Rickert, 62] (again, my period after "Day"
represents a medial dot). Later in the same month he signed "John
Daye" [Foakes and Rickert, 64]. So here we have a playwright with a
very short first name and a short last name who sometimes abbreviates
either or both names even in signatures.
Kenricke Williams generally signed his name "KenricKe Williams, but on
one occasion he signed "KenricKe Willas," with a bar over the last
letters to indicate the missing letters [Foakes and Rickert, 186].
There may be others in Henslowe that I have missed (I just flipped
through, looking for signatures that the editors considered authentic
and that employed abbreviations), but these four should be enough to
make the point. While abbreviated first names are certainly more
common than abbreviated last names in the autograph signatures in
Henslowe's Diary, it is not that hard to find several examples of the
kind of thing Detobel insists NEVER happened.
So where does that leave Detobel's argument? Still dead, I'm afraid.
Recall his "reasoning" -- he accepted the signatures of Johnson and
Jackson on the Blackfriars conveyance and mortgage as authentic even
though he does not believe they were legally required in the absence of
the full "set hand and seal" formula, and he can't imagine why those
crazy boys would do something so extreme.
Detobel initially rejected Shakespeare's Blackfriars signatures on the
grounds that they use "arcane" abbreviations that were only used by
clerks. As we have seen, Detobel is wrong -- such abbreviations were
often used by non-clerks, such as the penman (whether Shakespeare or
not) of the Hand D additions to *Sir Thomas More*. On sees such
abbreviations in Henslowe's Diary, and not only in the parts written by
Henslowe himself.
Detobel now wishes to reject Shakespeare's signatures because such
abbreviations NEVER occur in the last name of a signature, unless the
signer is used to such abbreviations -- and even then, the abbreviated
name will be completed after the abbreviation. As is predictably the
case with Detobel, he did not look very hard to find counterexamples to
what he wised to believe, but in a few minutes flipping through a
transcript of Henslowe I found four men who sometimes abbreviated their
last names in their signatures. I have no doubt that all four men were
used to such abbreviations, because such abbreviations were common at
the time, even among those who were not law clerks. If Detobel had
done his homework, he would not have written what he wrote.
kenkap
the more well respected books are The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty and
Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price. Both were featured in the movie
"The God THat Wasn't There". I don't fully accept their argument, but
the parallels of Christian doctrine which emerged that are based on
other religions of the time, particularly Mithraism (Dec 25 was
MIthras' birthday) are striking.
Whoever Jesus was, he became absorbed into a much larger
mythological-deification framework in a relatively short time that
mirrored many aspects of the pagan religions of the period.
The Gnostics seem to me closer to the truth.
Ken
Mouse
Tom Reedy wrote:
> "Mouse" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:1152152849.9...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > (gkay) wrote:
> >> On 5 Jul 2006 12:34:31 -0700, "Mouse" <lynnek...@sympatico.ca>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> SNIP
> >>
> >> >I've recently read a
> >> >rather interesting book, The Pagan Christ, by Tom Harpur, who is the
> >> >religious columnist for The Toronto Star. I found it fascinating, but
> >> >it's very controversial, and I'm not sure how much I agreed with. I can
> >> >see it being offensive to some Christians. But I did end up thinking of
> >> >faith as passing down the ages, with us, Jews or Christians, just the
> >> >latest links in the process. That comforted me, and I'd be interested
> >> >to know what others here think of it.
> >>
> >> That pre-existing legends might accrue around Jesus over time
> >> strikes me as quite possible.
>
> "Might?" I thought it was an accepted fact.
This is very different, Tom. He shows, for example, that much in the
Gospels was first in the Horus myth, etc. The book is worth a read.
Interestingly, I thought it very much paralleled non-Stratfordian
argument about Shakespeare in some places. The fact that he at the end
feels Jesus didn't exist paralleled in my mind those non-Strats, one or
two of them here, who feel that WS of Stratford didn't exist either. I
bought some of Harpur's argument; I couldn't buy that conclusion.
>And adaptation of pagan rituals
> and holidays were actively encouraged, weren't they? Or is that just legend?
Nope.
L.
Mark Cipra
> There is a movement to demonstrate that Jesus was not hisorical. Two
> of the more well respected books are The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty
> and Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price. Both were featured in the
> movie "The God THat Wasn't There". I don't fully accept their
> argument, but the parallels of Christian doctrine which emerged that
> are based on other religions of the time, particularly Mithraism (Dec
> 25 was MIthras' birthday) are striking.
>
David Ulansey's "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" is a good resource
for those interested in this aspect of the subject.
I was in a scandalous revue last December ("Holiday Hotline"). In one skit
(written by Michael Sepesy) Mithras called the Hotline to complain ...
MITHRAS: December 25th is the birthday of someone very special and
people forget that.
RENE: Yes, the Christ child --
MITHRAS: No. Not him. Me. It's my birthday. The mighty god Mithras.
RENE: What?
MITHRAS: Mithras? God of the sun? See. You don't even know who I am.
Nobody believes in me. It was my birthday first. That other guy's a
copycat.
RENE: I'm going to hang up now.
MITHRAS: I'm born of a virgin, he's born of a virgin. I heal the sick,
he heals the sick. I have twelve disciples and a last supper, he has twelve
disciples and a last supper. It's an awfully big coincidence, that's all
I'm saying. This guy needs to find his own material. (RENE hangs up.) See.
Nobody cares anymore.
[snip]
--
Mark Cipra
"Pile it high, sell it cheap" - Sir Jack Cohen (grocery store
pioneer/magnate)
Play Indiana Jones! Hide the "ark" in my address to reply by email.
Mouse
I'm glad you did. And Bianca asked interesting questions.
L.