‘What Makes a Londoner?’ Public Engagement Events
Rebecca Menmuir and Caroline Spearing write about their recent Public Engagement project
What makes a Londoner? Is it being born in earshot of the Bow Bells, or living in a particular postcode? Is it the length of time spent in London – a month, year, decade, or lifetime? Is it knowing the street and Tube shortcuts to work or the pub? Or is it less chronological or geographical, and more a state of mind: a London spirit, pride, or affinity? And what makes someone identify as a Londoner before English, British, European, or another heritage or identity?
A series of events throughout 2024 aimed to explore what makes a Londoner today by reflecting on London and Londoners throughout history, particularly in the Renaissance and Reformation (for our purposes, c. 1500–1700). Researchers Rebecca Menmuir and Caroline Spearing with the Society for Neo-Latin Studies (SNLS) teamed up with Charlotte Gauthier and Susy Rodriguez at St Bartholomew the Great Church in Smithfield; with a Public Engagement Grant from the Institute of Classical Studies and National Lottery Heritage funding, we developed and ran a walking tour, a talk, and a concert, which would illuminate the architecture, the literature, and the music which made up London.
We all wanted to broaden access and participation to our related areas: the SNLS promotes the study of Neo-Latin in the academic and public spheres; Rebecca and Caroline’s research intersects with premodern Latin and London history; and Bart’s hosts a varied calendar of events promoting their heritage, especially during their flagship year of 2023 to mark 900 years since their foundation in 1123.
With the SNLS we had already had great enjoyment and success developing tours on ‘Early Modern Latin in London’ and the life and works of Giordano Bruno; the fascinating history of St Bartholomew and Smithfield made it a perfect area to explore. Early Modern London was a period rich in diversity – trade, multilingualism, community-building, migration, and so on – but also rife with historical schisms, dissent, protest, and persecution. The varied tapestry of the lives of these Londoners who lived throughout the Renaissance and Reformation is still visible in the surviving architecture, music, and writing of the period, much of which St Bartholomew preserves and conserves. Moreover, Latin as a spoken and studied language was woven into religious, trade, literary, and even domestic life, even as English was the undisputed vernacular. We hoped that exploring this turbulent time through the lives of Londoners and Latin of the period would prompt reflections on ‘being a Londoner’ throughout history and today.
The Walking Tour
The walking tour presents an Early Modern London which is simultaneously familiar and foreign to the London of today. In many ways things were different in the sixteenth century, where our tour begins. The population of Inner London in the 1550s was 50,000, compared to the 3.4 million of 2024. The streets were radically different, not yet having endured the massive destruction and rebuilding which the Great Fire of 1666 was to effect. And John Stowe, in his Survey of London (1598), describes the pastimes of everyday Londoners: the cock-fighting, shooting, bear- and bull-baiting, and ‘exercises of warlike feats on horseback’ seem a far cry from the London of today. And yet even here there are parallels: that population of 50,000 was to quadruple to 200,000 by 1600, and complaints of overcrowding and congestion were met with royal proclamations banning building on Fleet Street (which were summarily ignored). Stowe also describes the young scholars of the London schools flocking to the fields to play ball games, not unlike an after-school 5-a-side team. And Samuel Pepys, that inveterate documenter of London life, spends a night at the theatre on September 1st 1666, after which;
… the play being done, we to Islington, and there eat and drank and mighty merry; and so home singing, and, after a letter or two at the office, to bed.
His account comes just the day before the Fire was to break out on September 2nd.
Our tour, then, explored a London which was both like and unlike our own today, and we aimed to highlight a diversity of Londoners whose lives were like and unlike our own. One example here may suffice. At Holy Sepulchre Church (St Sepulchre-without-Newgate), we meet the fascinating figure of John Ascham, sixteenth-century scholar and tutor of the future Elizabeth I. Ascham is buried here, alongside other figures caught up in the turbulence of the century: John Rogers, vicar of Holy Sepulchre between 1550–53 who was the first English Protestant to be executed as a heretic under the reign of Mary I for his part in translating William Tyndale’s Bible into English; and Thomas Culpeper, beheaded in 1541 for confessing to intentions of committing adultery with Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife. The story of Ascham, in contrast, tells us much about life, learning, and literature in the period. He corresponded frequently with the German scholar Johannes Sturm, especially throughout the 1550s. In one such letter, on April 4th, 1550, Ascham spends many pages praising Sturm and the Germans, after which he says:
Et haec de te ac tuis, nunc pauca de nobis ac nostris… Nobilitas in Anglia nunquam magis erat literata. Illustrissimus rex noster Eduardus, ingenio, industria, constantia, eruditione, et suam aetatem, et aliorum fidem longe superat…
Thomae Mori filiabus innumerae nunc honoratae feminae in omni literarum genere praestant. Inter quas tamen universas veluti sidus quoddam, non tam claritate generis quam splendore virtutis et literatum, sic eminet illustrissima domina mea, D. Elizabetha regis nostri soror, ut in tanta eius iuste commendandae varietate, labor mihi non quaerandae laudis, sed statuendi modi propositus esse videatur…
Aristotelica laus in eam tota transfusa est. Nam κάλλος in illa, μέγεδος, σωϕροσύυη καί ϕιλοεργία omnia summa. Ex anno decimo sexto nonnihil excessit, tanta in hac et aetate gravitas, et celsitate comitas inaudita est.
These words I have written about you and yours; now a little about us and ours… The nobility in England was never more literate. Our most illustrious King Edward, by his talent, industry, constancy, and learning far surpasses his own years and the devotion of other men…
We now have many honourable women who surpass the daughters of Thomas More in all kinds of learning. Amongst them the shining star, not so much for her brightness as for the splendour of her virtue and her learning, is my lady Elizabeth [the future Elizabeth I]. Her light is so radiant that to commend her great versatility properly I have difficulty not in finding something to praise, but in setting limits for it…
All the qualities Aristotle praises have flowed into her: beauty, stature, prudence, and industry, all of the highest order. She has just passed her sixteenth birthday, and her seriousness and gentleness are unheard of in those of her age and rank.
Ascham, naturally, is unlikely to be anything but effusively complimentary about some of the most powerful people in England, especially since his encomium to Elizabeth’s learning is surely also praise to his own teaching, given that he was her tutor. Here is England in a renaissance of classical learning.
The tour explores many other Londoners connected to the area in the period. The Protestant preacher Anne Askew is a particularly important figure, and we would like to develop further tours exploring the London lives of Early Modern women.
Having run these tours throughout July, August, and September, we hope to continue them through the autumn and from Spring 2025 onwards (weather permitting).
After one of our tours, on Saturday 10th August, we invited attendees inside St Bartholomew the Great church, where Charlotte Gauthier led a talk and tour inside the church. She told us more about some figures we had already met who had strong links with the church, such as Richard Rich, who acquired St Bartholomew after the Dissolution and personally tortured Anne Askew. We invited residents of Mildmay Ward to attend, where they learnt more about their local area, which had been owned by St Bartholomew, and the area’s namesake, Walter Mildmay, whose tomb can be found inside the church.
The Concert
The walking tours were complemented by a concert on Wednesday 18th September. The choir of St Bartholomew the Great, directed by Rupert Gough and with the addition of lutenist James Bramley, performed a selection of sacred and secular music which evoked both the religious upheavals and the vibrant cosmopolitanism of the period. Enhanced by readings from a range of contemporary writers, the hauntingly beautiful setting of St Bartholomew’s church provided a very special opportunity for reflection on early modern London lives.
The concert opened with a group of secular pieces, including two compositions attributed to Henry VIII, the part-song Pastime with Good Company and the instrumental solo Taunder Naken. A madrigal by Thomas Weelkes (?1576-1623), Thule, the Period of Cosmography reminded listeners of the widening geographical horizons that characterised the period, while Fine Knacks for Ladies by John Dowland (1563-1626) powerfully conjured up the miscellany of goods found in the pack of a travelling pedlar – ‘pins, points, laces, and gloves.’ Nicholas Spearing provided an animated reading of the contract between company and audience from the opening of Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (1614).
The second group of pieces evoked the religious upheavals of the mid-sixteenth century. Gavanndra Hodge gave a moving rendition of the ballad composed by the Protestant martyr Anne Askew (d. 1546); a particular musical highlight was an extract from William Mundy’s rarely-performed Vox patris caelestis, probably written for the coronation of Mary I in 1653.
After the interval, the concert resumed with an exploration of confessional division under Elizabeth I. Works for the Chapel Royal by the crypto-Catholics Thomas Tallis (1505-85) and William Byrd (1540-1623) contrasted with an exquisite Litany of the Blessed Virgin by the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion (1540-81), beautifully read by Daniel Margolin, KC. We concluded with a group of pieces from the troubled years of the civil wars, culminated in two works composed for the coronation of Charles II in 1661, I Was Glad by Henry Purcell (1659-95) and a setting of Zadok the Priest by Henry Lawes (1595-1662).
The concert was livestreamed and recorded: you can find the recording on St Bartholomew the Great’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIrNbXlYT5g&t=351s).
What Makes a Londoner?
What, then, constitutes being a Londoner? We discussed this at length with many of the individuals who attended these events. The answer is complex and different for everyone, but in our evaluation sessions some common threads emerged, particularly a sense of pride (whether longstanding or ignited by the tour) to live in London. One who attended felt “connected to ancestors”, “in awe of London’s history”, and, especially, “grateful for 21st century hygiene”! Here is a selection of other responses:
[To be a Londoner is] “To live in a multi-cultured, diverse, dynamic, city which is constantly changing & evolving. A melting pot. The tour has reminded me that the city was ever thus.”
[To be a Londoner is] “Resilient, energetic. Part of a multicultural society -> I always thought this about modern Londoners but hadn’t appreciated that we are not a new phenomenon!”
“London to me has always been a multicultural city. London is a city with so much history… I am proud to be a Londoner.”
“I felt today’s talk has reignited my love of the City of London.”
[To be a Londoner is] “Recognising the beauty of London is a hodge podge of human successes, failures, colours, noise, contradictions, smells, sounds – always moving forward, occasionally backward – a real Londoner sees the multiple layers of the city.”
[To be a Londoner is] “Resilience… desire to survive!”
We are extremely grateful to the Institute for Classical Studies for their generous funding, which helped make all these events free of charge for participants. We were able to print booklets with transcriptions and translations of the Latin discussed, as well as information about each piece chosen for the concert. We were moreover able to offer free teas, coffees, and refreshments for those who came to the walking tour and talk which constituted our ‘evaluation day’.
Dr Rebecca Menmuir is a Darby Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford, working on the medieval reception of Ovid. Email: rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
Dr Caroline Spearing is an Honorary Research Fellow in the English Department at the University of Exeter, working on the Latin poetry of seventeenth-century English poets. Email: c.j.spearing@exeter.ac.uk.
Please contact Rebecca or Caroline to be notified of future events.
Links:
The Society for Neo-Latin Studies: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/snls/
St Bartholomew the Great: https://www.greatstbarts.com/