Dame Juliana Berners, O.S.B. | |
|---|---|
 Purported image of Dame Juliana Berners, O.S.B. (1904) | |
| Born | ca. 1388 |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation(s) | Nun and Writer |
| Notable work | The Boke of Saint Albans |
Juliana Berners, O.S.B. , (or Barnes or Bernes) (born 1388), was an English writer on heraldry, hawking and hunting, and is said to have been prioress of the St Mary of Sopwell, near St Albans in Hertfordshire.
Very little is known about Juliana Berners, and that which is known cannot be verified with certainty. She was the author of treatises on field sports, such as hunting, and many people credit her with the entirety of The Boke of Saint Albans. A facsimile of The Boke of Saint Albans, published in 1810 by Joseph Haslewood, contains an introduction which examines the authorship of the book and the biography of Juliana Berners. Unfortunately, this introduction is largely speculative. [1]
Based on her last name, scholars suggest that she was either the daughter of the courtier Sir James Berners or wife to the lord of the manor of Julians Barnes. [2] Whatever family she came from, it is likely that she was high-born and well-educated. It is generally believed that she entered the monastic life and became the prioress of Sopwell Nunnery near St Albans. [3] How and when she joined the nunnery is unknown.
Since she was most likely brought up at court, she no doubt hunted and fished with other fashionable court ladies. [2] After she adopted the monastic life, she probably retained her love of hawking, hunting and fishing, and her passion for field sports, [4] which led her to write her treatise on hunting and perhaps others. These treatises are remarkable in the fact that they are some of the earliest extant writings of their kind, as well as in their vision and insight. They include remarks on the virtues of environmental conservation and on etiquette for field sports, concepts which would not become commonly accepted for hundreds of years after the publication of these treatises. [3]
Though so little is known about her life, and her claim to the authorship of The Boke of Saint Albans cannot be absolutely verified, numerous women's fly-fishing clubs in Europe and the United States are named for Berners. She is remembered as one of the first authors (of either sex) to write on angling. [3]
The first and rarest edition of The Boke of Saint Albans was printed in 1486 by an unknown schoolmaster at St Albans. It has no title-page. The only clue to the authorship of the Treatise, and the only documentary evidence of her, is an attribution at the end of the original 1486 book that reads: "Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng." Her name was changed by Wynkyn de Worde to "Dame Julyans Bernes." There is no such person to be found in the pedigree of the Berners family, but there is a gap in the records of the priory of Sopwell between 1430 and 1480. De Worde's edition (fol. 1496), also without a title page, begins:
This present boke shewyth the manere of hawkynge and huntynge: and also of diuysynge of Cote armours. It shewyth also a good matere belongynge to horses: Wyth other comendable treatyses. And ferdermore of the blasynge of armys: As hereafter it maye appere.
This edition was adorned by three woodcuts, and included a Treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle, not contained in the St Albans edition. [5]
When Joseph Haslewood published a facsimile of Wynkyn de Worde's edition with a biographical and bibliographical notice, examined with the greatest care the author's claims to figure as the earliest woman author in the English language. He assigned to her little else in the Boke except part of the treatise on hawking and the section on hunting. [1] It is stated at the end of the Blasynge of Armys that the section was "translatyd and compylyt", and it is likely that the other treatises are translations, probably from the French.
Only three perfect copies of the first edition are known to exist. A facsimile, entitled The Boke of St Albans, with an introduction by William Blades, appeared in 1881. During the 16th century the work was very popular, and was many times reprinted. It was edited by Gervase Markham in 1595 as The Gentleman's Academie. [5]
The Treatise on Fishing, which was added to the 1496 edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde, is the earliest known English language work on fly fishing. More than 150 years later it was an influence on Izaak Walton, another English writer, when he wrote The Compleat Angler . [6] [3]
An older form of the treatise on fishing was edited in 1883 by T. Satchell from a manuscript in possession of Alfred Denison. This treatise probably dates from about 1450, and formed the foundation of that section in the book of 1496. [7]
In linguistics, a collective noun is a word referring to a collection of things taken as a whole. Most collective nouns in everyday speech are not specific to one kind of thing. For example, the collective noun "group" can be applied to people, or dogs, or objects.
Wynkyn de Worde was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognised as the first to popularise the products of the printing press in England.
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival and livelihood.
Sopwell Priory was a Benedictine nunnery founded around 1140 on the site of an ancient hermitage in Sopwell, Hertfordshire, England. After the Dissolution, the priory was torn down and a Tudor manor house constructed in its place.
A mess of pottage is something immediately attractive but of little value taken foolishly and carelessly in exchange for something more distant and perhaps less tangible but immensely more valuable. The phrase alludes to Esau's sale of his birthright for a meal ("mess") of lentil stew ("pottage") in Genesis 25:29–34 and connotes shortsightedness and misplaced priorities.
William of Wallingford was the 47th abbot of St Albans Abbey. He was a Benedictine monk at Holy Trinity Priory, Wallingford, Berkshire, England and like John of Wallingford and Richard of Wallingford, moved from this cell of St Albans Abbey to the abbey itself. He was a favourite of John Stoke, 44th abbot of St Albans, also from Wallingford. On his deathbed in 1451, Stoke was supposed to have given William and Thomas Wallingford, his senior chaplain, charge over 1000 marks but after his death they could only account for 250 marks. The abbot John Wheathampstead who succeeded Stoke suspected the two over the money. Nevertheless, William of Wallingford was later appointed abbot in 1476, after the death of William Albone, apparently for his financial acumen, at a time when the abbey was in debt. William of Wallingford managed to get rid of the debt whilst also spending on the abbey. He built the high altar known as the Wallingford Screen at a cost of £733 and completed the chapter house. The statues on it were destroyed during the Dissolution but were replaced in Victorian times.
A fishing float or bobber is a lightweight buoy used in angling, usually attached to a fishing line. Angling using a float is sometimes called float fishing.
St Albans High School for Girls is a selective, private day school for girls aged 4 – 18 years, which is affiliated to the Church of England and takes girls of all faiths or none. There are approximately 328 pupils in the preparatory school with 900 in the senior school and 186 sixth formers.
Berners Roding is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Abbess, Beauchamp and Berners Roding and the Epping Forest District of Essex, England. The village is included in the eight hamlets and villages called The Rodings. Berners Roding is 6 miles (10 km) west from the county town of Chelmsford. In 1931 the parish had a population of 81.
This general annotated bibliography page provides an overview of notable and not so notable works in the English language regarding the sport of fly fishing, listed by year of first publication. Although not all the listed books are devoted exclusively to fly fishing, all these titles contain significant fly fishing content. The focus of the present page is on classic general texts on fly fishing and its history, together with notable public or university library collections dedicated to fly fishing.
Fishing is a prehistoric practice dating back at least 70,000 years. Since the 16th century, fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish, and since the 19th century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.
Dog types are broad categories of domestic dogs based on form, function, or style of work, lineage, or appearance. Some may be locally adapted dog types that may have the visual characteristics of a modern purebred dog. In contrast, modern dog breeds strictly adhere to long-established breed standards,[note 1] that began with documented foundation breeding stock sharing a common set of inheritable characteristics, developed by long-established, reputable kennel clubs that recognize the dog as a purebred.
Favorite Flies and Their Histories - With many replies from practical anglers to inquiries concerning how, when and where to use them-Illustrated by Thirty-two colored plates of flies, six engravings of natural insects and eight reproductions of photographs is a fly fishing book written by Mary Orvis Marbury published in Boston in April 1892 by Houghton Mifflin. It was considered by most fly fishers as the standard reference on flies in its era.
Richard Whitford was a 16th century English Catholic priest known as an author of many devotional works.
Rache, also spelled racch, rach, and ratch, from Old English ræcc, linked to Old Norse rakkí, is an obsolete name for a type of hunting dog used in Great Britain in the Middle Ages. It was a scenthound used in a pack to run down and kill game, or bring it to bay. The word appears before the Norman Conquest. It was sometimes confused with 'brache', which is a French derived word for a female scenthound.
Joseph Haslewood was an English writer and antiquary. He was a founder of the Roxburghe Club.
The St Albans Press was the third printing press set up in England, in 1479. It was situated in the Abbey Gateway, St Albans, a part of the Benedictine Monastery of St Albans. The name of the printer is unknown, only referred to by Wynkyn de Worde in a reprinting of one of the St Albans books as 'Sometime schoolmaster'. He has sometimes been identified as John Marchall, master of St Albans School; however, a passage written by Worde in 1497 implies that the printer was deceased, and Marchall is known to have lived until 1501. Recent research has produced the name John Haule as a possible candidate for the Schoolmaster Printer. He presented the school with its first printed textbook, the Elegantiolae, which was the first book printed at the press, and he was a printer, probably in St Albans in 1479.
The Book of Saint Albans, originally Boke of Seynt Albans, is the common title of a book printed in 1486 that is a compilation of matters relating to the interests of the time of a gentleman. It was the last of eight books printed by the St Albans Press in England. It is also known by titles that are more accurate, such as The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms. The printer is sometimes called the Schoolmaster Printer. This edition credits the book, or at least the part on hunting, to Juliana Berners as there is an attribution at the end of the 1486 edition reading: "Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng".
Thomas Coleman Ivens was an English reservoir fly angler and author.
Rev. Nathaniel Crynes (1685/6-1745), was an English antiquary, physician and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford.
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