If MS francais 1 was the Bible stored in the large chest in the Welles family chapel at Hellowe, what may have been its path after the 1430 inventory was taken? How did the Welles-Ros Bible come into the possession of Louis de Bruges? In considering these questions, one may begin by reviewing the final complex chapters of the Welles barony's history.

The Welleses’ loyalty to the House of Lancaster would have significant consequences for the family and their patrimony during the three decades of dynastic and social conflict later dubbed the Wars of the Roses (1455–85). A supporter of the Lancastrian king Henry VI and his queen Margaret of Anjou, Lionel, 6th Baron Welles was killed in the Battle of Towton (29 March 1461), the Yorkist victory that secured the English throne for Edward IV (r. 1461–70, 1471–83), and was posthumously attained by Parliament. Lionel's son Richard switched sides twice. He began his career as a supporter of Lancaster, earned a pardon from Edward IV, and attained all of the Welles lands in 1465 and the baronial title in July 1467. Subsequently, he and his son Robert allied themselves with George, Duke of Clarence, Edward IV's brother, and with the duke's father-in-law, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, both of whom had switched their own loyalties to the Lancastrians.

IN WAGNER'S DAY philosophy was not the specialized and even arcane practice it is today. Members of the educated public—not as large a group as it is now, but not at all negligible—aspired to stay up to date with important philosophical ideas and systems. In Germany, especially, philosophy was a normal topic in drawing rooms, coffee houses, and even taverns, and there was an entire genre of “popular philosophy” books; Haydn, who was no intellectual, owned one of those. There was nothing unusual or surprising in Wagner's interest, then. He stood out only through his seriousness and abilities.

Interest in philosophy was broad because philosophical ideas and systems met a widespread and genuine need. For more than a millennium and a half European civilization had been held together by an intricate weave of stories, images, and explanations that centered on the tenets of the Catholic church. That was the foundation for the sense people made of their own lives and of the public life of what people tended to call “Christendom.” It hardly eliminated conflict, but it provided a common basis for arguing over significant issues. All parties shared the assumption that some resolution could be achieved, if not through human sagacity and agency then through the providential designs of an all-powerful and beneficent deity. That pleasant illusion did not survive the shock of the Reformation, the hardening of intellectual positions with the Counter- Reformation, and, worst of all, the endless and brutal wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which had roots in environmental and economic crises as well but were carried out under the banner of religion. After this “European Crisis of Conscience” Christendom looked like a phantasm, not a reality.

Political Reaction

Following the failed revolutions in Prague and across Europe, a strong reaction ensued, deepening the pain as people became more aware of their aspirations and more vocal about their demands for freedom. At the 1848 Austrian Constitutional Assembly in Kroměříž, the Czechs sought federalization, but their efforts were thwarted by the Viennese camarilla, which imposed a centralized, absolutist constitution. Newspapers were confiscated, and freedom of speech and assembly were restricted. The stifling of social life, crucial for cultural development, soon followed. Outspoken politicians like Havlíček faced persecution, while others were forced into exile. In this oppressive atmosphere, literature, music, and art inevitably suffered, creating a sense of decay that lingered for the next decade. It was amid this desolate climate that Smetana's career took a new direction.

Smetana Establishes a Music Institute

In July 1848, upon returning to Prague from his parents’ residence to prepare for the opening of his music institute, Smetana found a largely depopulated city. Yet his resolve remained unshaken, unaffected by the political turmoil or initial challenges he faced. When he announced the establishment of his institute through a customary bilingual public notice, he outlined its core principles: “Instruction will extend beyond the fundamentals of music to encompass theory in all its facets, including composition, harmony, and counterpoint, form and aesthetics, advanced piano technique, the appreciation of musical works and their artistic performance.” This program unmistakably reflected Proksch's influence.

In his Commentaria/Lectura (completed just before 1271), Cardinal Hostiensis glossed canon five of the Fourth Lateran Council. He noted that legates used ‘vestibus rubeis, palefredo albo freno et calcaribus deauratis, et similibus’. This statement has been subject to different interpretations, and thus requires a detailed discussion. All scholars agree that ‘vestibus rubeis’ refers to red clothing or garments (and that ‘similibus’, i.e., ‘similar things’, tells us little more). The disagreements are about the passages ‘palefredo albo freno’ and ‘calcaribus deauratis’. There are two different interpretations: that of Karl Rues, and that of Figueira, Salminen, and Rennie.

Rues interprets the passage ‘palefredo albo freno’ as two separate things, ‘a white horse’ and ‘reins’, respectively. The others interpret it as ‘a horse with white reins’. Both interpretations have their merits, and there are no compelling internal or grammatical reasons to favour one above the other: only circumstantial evidence provides some clues.

“The most horrible fate ever to strike a composer overtook Smetana at the age of fifty,” writes Smetana's first biographer Teige.1 Despite Dr. Zaufal's exhaustive efforts, employing every known medical intervention of that time to alleviate his suffering, the illness persisted. Concerned friends, urging him to seek assistance abroad, prompted Smetana to consult foreign physicians. In a gesture of support, Countess Elizabeth Kaunitz, Smetana's former pupil, organized a private concert at her palace on February 23, 1875. Many of his aristocratic pupils participated for his benefit.2 Three days earlier, he had completed his symphonic poem Šárka and in a bid to gather additional funds for his trip, held a concert featuring the premiere of Vltava on April 4, 1875.

On April 18, 1875, accompanied by his close friend Václav Juda Novotný (1849– 1922), then editor of Dalibor, Smetana departed from Prague. Originally from Jindřichův Hradec, Novotný came to Prague with the intentions of studying history but was influenced by Ambros to focus on music. He also studied voice with Pivoda, violin with Bennewitz, and theory with Blažek. Novotný composed songs, collected and harmonized folk songs, and translated over a hundred opera libretti from various languages into Czech. Regrettably, he often made drastic adaptations, notably after Smetana's death, when he modified The Brandenburgers, Dalibor, and, most drastically, The Two Widows. Although well-intentioned, his renditions often ventured into the realm of questionable taste. Remaining an unwavering supporter of Smetana, Novotný assumed the role of music critic for Pokrok and later Hlas národa, in addition to his work for Dalibor. Novotný and Smetana often met at musical gatherings hosted by Procházka, and in one reminiscence, Novotný provided a detailed description of Smetana's appearance during that era. According to Novotný, Smetana was short, had long hair slicked straight back, a volatile temperament, and a love for humor.

Abdelazer, or The Moor's Revenge Z570 Purcell wrote a song, ‘Lucinda is bewitching fair’, and theatre airs* for a revival of Aphra Behn's bloody tragedy set in fifteenth-century Spain. The play was produced at Drury Lane* probably on 25 March 1695, with Jemmy Bowen* singing the song on stage. The airs were printed in 1697 in A Collection of Ayres* with the overture placed first and the other movements reordered, but an early manuscript (the violin book GB-Lbl, Add. MS 35043) preserves the order as played in the theatre – followed in PS 16. Benjamin Britten’s* Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Variations and Fugue of a Theme of Purcell, Op. 34, 1945) made famous the Third Act Tune Z570/2, a rondeau* in hornpipe* rhythm. However, the First Act Tune Z570/8, another hornpipe, was more popular at the time: its tune, entitled ‘The hole in the wall’, was given a country dance* choreography and was printed in all editions of The Dancing Master from 1698. BalSta, PlaDan, PriPur.

Academy of Ancient Music The Academy was founded in 1726 as the Academy of Vocal Music by professional musicians including the composers J.C. Pepusch and Maurice Greene, with Bernard Gates (1686–1773) and Henry Needler (1685–1760) leading its singers and orchestra. The last two had Purcellian connections. As a Chapel Royal choirboy, Gates would have known Purcell, while Needler, an accountant, had been taught the violin by John Banister* junior and ‘the principles of harmony’ by ‘Purcell’ – presumably Daniel Purcell* or Henry's son Edward. Following the notorious quarrel in 1731 over Bononcini's plagiarism of a madrigal by Lotti, and the subsequent departure of Greene and others to found the rival Apollo Academy, its name was changed to the Academy of Ancient Music. Under the direction of Pepusch and his successor Benjamin Cooke it focussed on old music, including Purcell, though it was never exclusively antiquarian, performing much modern Italian concerted music.

7 January. Omitted writing for ten days … I find my journal has dwindled down to a very meagre outline lately. … This year begins well in every respect; all of us in good health and happy; business flourishing; nothing to annoy us. My journey to Lisbon is more talked of and perhaps to take place in February; though I have not much heart for it. My Sister has asked Eliza to go to Hampstead during my absence, but it seems hardly practicable with all the children. Very cold.

9 January. … my Sister dined with us … she seems to have persuaded Eliza that she can go to Hampstead with the children while I am out. I have been fretting myself about the extent of our engagements with Hinck, who takes a great deal of accommodation in return for the profit we get from him; we must endeavour to reduce it if possible. William sent us a turkey which like some story I have read troubled us with thinking who we should ask to eat it; at last we have settled to have it comfortably to our own dinner without considering ourselves bound to give a party which we should not otherwise have done. … The coldest day.

His journal is more and more neglected with frequent gaps and perfunctory entries: ‘sometimes I am too lazy to fetch it up to write, sometimes I think I have nothing to set down; if I am out of sorts about anything I do not like to write; and it seems quite useless to force oneself to it’ (22 January).

Following the recomposition of Bodley 851 undertaken in Chapter 1, this chapter begins where Bodley 851 began, with the only two texts transcribed by Scribe B into the oldest remaining material portion of the manuscript (Part II, fols. 78r–81v). Scribe B copied what survives as a partial text of Walter of Wimborne's Ave virgo mater christi (“Hail virgin mother of Christ”) and a scribal copy of the anonymous De coniuge non ducenda (“On the necessity of avoiding marriage”). I ask how the unique material affiliation between the Ave virgo and the De coniuge might reveal concomitant literary, historical, and cultural affiliations between these two poems. I argue that the convergence of the Ave virgo and the De coniuge in quire ix reveals a refracted perspective on misogamist discourse otherwise unavailable to modern scholarship oriented around familiar categories of genre, authorship, topic, and theme. I examine Scribe B's surviving texts in order to pose a straightforward but difficult question of interpretation: how might the modern literary critic go about reading these two poems – and only these two poems – together, comparatively, as interlocutors rather than in isolation?

The Ave virgo and De coniuge together provide a single window into two familiar, but not often combined, currents of medieval thought, bringing together devotion and prejudice in one cultural complex at once easy to acknowledge and difficult to describe.

This appendix provides a comparison of the adventus instructions of the Gilbertine and Cistercian orders by presenting the respective instruction texts in parallel. It also discusses one other item related to the instructions. The italics indicate differences between the two texts.

“The American Revolution was a legal, as well as a political revolution”, is how Erwin C. Surrency, founder of the American Legal History Journal, phrased it. The year 1776 spiralled into a whirlpool of blood, sea salt and independence that not only washed up on the global shores but was knitted into the maritime fabric of the law. The events ripped apart families as it stitched together new ideas and diverging concepts of loyalty. British and ‘patriot’/‘rebel’/American forces clashed not only on land but also at sea. While many consider the ocean a lawless space, maritime and naval warfare had a legal framework on which its players were supposed to base their actions, just as there was on land. This framework was not simply provided by the strategies and policies of politicians and military men, but it was reflected in the courts of law. Americans had no national navy upon the outbreak of hostilities, instead turning to privateering. Privateers were not national naval vessels, but private ships and their crews that had obtained licences to capture enemy vessels. To distinguish them from illegal pirates, they had to follow rules concerning how, when and whom to capture, as well as bringing the captured vessels into ports where the legality of captures was verified. These admiralty or vice-admiralty court processes enabled them to legally receive shares in the ‘prizes’ they had made, making privateering an act of national defence including a financial incentive for the individuals involved. Hulbert states that this “other half of the story – that is, what happened once the prize was brought to port and before a Court of Admiralty – could be just as perilous, uncertain, and complicated as the endeavour to capture an enemy vessel”.