London in 1660 was compact, with countryside within walking distance of Axe yard. It could be that Pepys doesn't comment on the countryside because it is so familiar to him. He makes frequent trips to Hinchingbroke and studied at Cambridge so is presumably familiar with the route. As we know "familiarity breeds contempt". As for the weather: "February fill-dyke" was what my grandparents called it. The wettest time of the year, not the gentle showers of April, but cold biting rain, often sleet, that stings your eyes, makes your head and face ache and soaks you to the bone. Foul weather indeed.
The Naughty Mr Lucy Pepys only seems to meet Lucy when he is at the Pierces'. So Lucy is either a lodger or a close friend of Mr & Mrs Pierce. Sam thinks Mr Lucy is being over-familiar with Mrs Pierce ("very free") as she lay in bed, and gives the impression of being taken aback. After all, both Lucy and Mrs Pierce are married and her husband is still present but about to leave on a long journey. Is Mr Lucy someone you would leave alone with your wife, having read Sam's comments of Jan 24th?
Bait. The use of the word "bait" for a meal taken while working/travelling was current among coal miners from the north east of England certainly in the 1980's, and probably still.
If the diary was for himself, it is perhaps understandable the he doesn't name his wife. He only has the one and is not likely to need reminding of her name. "my wife" is quicker to write than "Elizabeth" even in shorthand. Similarly he usually refers to "My lord" rather than Sir Edward Montague.
Loathe as I am to disagree with Latham, I would question the statement that cattle were killed off in Autumn. Autumn, harvest time, is a time of plenty. Cattle, fowl and swine were traditionally killed in midwinter when forage was getting scarce. Thus the midwinter or Yule festival, to take advantage of the glut of meat. Preserved food would then last almost to Easter, (Lent) when people would fast until the new season's meat became available (lamb, chicken, veal, etc.) By Pepys time, husbanding cattle by storing winter feed was probably becoming more common, especially to feed the better off in the cities throughout the year. If the less well off ate meat at all in late winter, then it would have been preserved by salting or smoking.
This from a site - http://ingeb.org/songs/godsaveo.h… - about the British national anthem ("God save the King/Queen") "According to the French encyclopaedia, Quid, the music is by Giam Battista Lulli (Jean-Baptiste Lully in the French form). It was loosely based on a hymn sung when the (French) king arrived at an event, Domine Salvum Fac Regem." Though that was composed in 1686 so couldn't be the song Pepys was singing. Strange coincidence though
Comparing Shakespeare's and Pepys' use of English... Isn't this comparing apples and oranges? Shakespeare was writing in verse, telling stories for the theatre, Pepys was reporting daily happenings. This is like saying that there has been a huge change in English since Victorian times based only on comparing Gilbert & Sullivan's operettas (which I find unintelligable) with Alistaire Cooke's diaries! Yes, there were changes between Shakespeare and Pepys, but the major changes in English took place before Shakespeare. Compare another poet, John Donne (1572-1631), with Shakespeare:
First line Canterbury tales for comparison: (C 1400) That it was May thus dremed me In time of love and jollite That al thyng gynneth waxen gay For there is neither busk nor hay
First line Twelfth Night: (1601) If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.
First line of Donne's The Flea: (1635) Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
First Line of Pepys' Diary: 1660 Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe Yard having my wife, and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three.
The language, to me, changes little between the two poets, in fact Shakespeare sounds more modern than Donne, but there is a difference between the poetry and the prose of Pepys, based purely on the phrasing. Anyway, there is more of modern English from Shakespeare than from Pepys. Take away "And so to bed" and what can you quote from the diaries? Whereas from Shakespeare: seven ages of man, all that gitters is not gold, There are more things in heaven and Earth, much ado about nothing, once more into the breach, If you prick us do we not bleed?, The course of true love never did run smooth, forget and forgive, a rose By any other name would smell as sweet, etc, etc, etc... Let us not, in enjoying the simple clear prose of Pepys forget that he is writing a language that Shakespeare helped to form. (Descends from soapbox)
To boot: This phase is used in everyday British English exactly as Pepys uses it, i.e. meaning "besides, as well, additionally" I hadn't realised that it is only used in legal/fiscal circles in the American English.
A little more money trivia: 1.5d is always pronounced three- ha'pence, and was 1/8th of a shilling; 1.25d would be said penny-farthing; 1.75d penny-three-farthing. a 240d pound is actually very useful for traders. It has factors of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24... whereas the 100p pound only has: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25... This makes it easier to divide into smaller units and matches well with imperial units of measure like 12" = 1', 16oz = 1lb, 8pts = 1 gal. For example, if silk is 3s per yard, than 4'4" is 4s4d. With a 100p pound the buyer would need to buy either 4' (=20p) or 4'6" (22.5p) to get a reasonable match between whole inches and monetary units. This is a little contrived, but illustrates the point. Naturally, with a metric measuring system, then a metric monetary system makes more sense.
Re: thou "By this time, the word ‘thou’ in daily speech was associated almost exclusively with Quakers”. Around London perhaps. Thee and thou (or thah in local dialect) were still in common use in the 1960/70’s in the north of England around Notts, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. (Not currently a quaker stronghold) They were used as in Shakespeare’s time for friends, family, children and inferiors, thus the exclamation from someone who thought they were being spoken to disrespectfully: “Don’t you thee and thah me!” The same distinction in second person pronouns exists in modern French and German with tu/vous and du/sie.
I think the dialogue from Romeo and Juliet illustrates both meanings in a typical Shakespearean word play. Sampson says he will "take the wall" i.e. stand in the way, of the Montagues. Gregory then puts down Sampson by turning his boast around, saying that only "the weak go to the wall". Pepys was using the first meaning, but apparently it is the second one which has survived until now.
Very good points, but I wonder if we are not still projecting 21st century thinking onto 17th century mores. Pepys may have been "only a servant" when he married, but we know he was educated at St Pauls and Cambridge in an age when education, especially tertiary, was reserved for the rich and powerful. This suggests that being Montagu's servant was just an "apprenticeship" for his later role. I think that the term "clerk" is also burdened with modern prejudice. Pepys at 26 was earning L50 p.a. which seems a huge amount considering my mother earned L90 p.a. as a nurse about 285 years later in 1945. (inflation since the war makes modern comparisons less illustrative) All of this suggests to me that Samuel was a good catch (financially) for Elizabeth. He may have put off marriage until his career path was established, but the same constraints weren't necessary for a young woman of modest means marrying a man with prospects. Was he really "penniless" as Warner suggests? Even now, the age of consent is 14 in modern countries like Canada, Austria and Italy. Living in countries like the UK and US where the norm is 16-18 we may lose sight of the fact that Pepys was most likely not doing anything distateful, unusual or amiss in marrying a 14 year old. We also have to be careful with - probably true - statistics like sexual maturity having started earlier since some time in the 19th century. That doesn't tell us what haapened between the 17th and 19th. The general health, (plagues aside) of the British working classes plummetted during the industrial revolution, when the economy changed from rural to urban, and only started to recover when the Victorians (late 19th C) realised that cleaning up urban squalor, providing sewers and hospitals, and educating the population in basic hygiene kept the work force working longer. It is likely that this urban poverty caused a postponement of the age of menstruation, just as anorexia does today. I see no evidence so far in the diary that Samuel and Elizabeth were malnourished!. (Sorry this is so long)
I would suggest that Tomalin is being more realistic than Warner. Don't forget that Shakespere wrote of Romeo and Juliet (13 years old) being sexually active in their early teens also suggesting that "... younger than you, / Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, / Are made already mothers" Why would the age of sexual maturity have risen so much in a hundred years? Pepys has a well paying job for his age when the diary starts, and well able to support a household.
Re: Passing on the right... If you pass someone on their right, and they on yours, then you are walking on the left side of the path. Traditionaly, (until Napoleon's time) everyone rode or drove on the left also (even American colonialists) so that they passed sword-hand to sword-hand. It also made it more convenient to shake hands on horseback, for the less defensive/beligerent. There is a story (apocryphal?) that Napoleon made his armies march on the right so that from afar, his enemies thought he was retreating when he was actually advancing. This then became the norm for continental Europe and for revolutionary America.
Re: LSD Hmmm.. this looks familiar. Didn't I say something similar only a few days ago against the 4th Feb entry? I also pointed out that florins were Victorian and Guineas arrived three years after the diary entry, so not really relevant. I agree with Derek that we should have a knowledge base (but would anyone read it before posting?) Just my three-pennorth. (= 3d = 1.25p = 2c - worth)
Re: Seems rather rich to allow “buttocks” and “turd” … Even in modern British English, buttocks and turd are acceptable, if crude, whereas arse and shit would not be used in polite conversation. Sadly the “dumbing down” of the language and the huge increase in everyday profanity means this is probably the last generation where this will be the case.
When I gave the meaning of half a crown for the 4th February I wasn't sure that the term was used in Pepys time, well today he lost half a crown at cards. The half crown coin lasted right up until decimalisation. (not much use for 12.5 new pence coin afterwards, though at 30d or 1/8 of a pound it was quite useful)
Re: "time-honored way of killing a chicken " I worked on a chicken farm in my teens and never used an axe to kill a chicken. "Necking" was the way I was taught by the old boys who had done it all their lives. The usual way was to just pull on the head until the neck snapped, for tough old birds and turkeys, the bird was slung over the back and head and feet pulled forward using the back as leverage to snap the neck. In the slaughter houses, though, the birds were hung up by their feet, stunned and their throats slit while their hearts still pumped to remove the blood from the flesh. I didn't eat chicken or eggs for about 20 years after leaving that job.
Comments
First Reading
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
London in 1660 was compact, with countryside within walking distance of Axe yard. It could be that Pepys doesn't comment on the countryside because it is so familiar to him. He makes frequent trips to Hinchingbroke and studied at Cambridge so is presumably familiar with the route. As we know "familiarity breeds contempt".
As for the weather: "February fill-dyke" was what my grandparents called it. The wettest time of the year, not the gentle showers of April, but cold biting rain, often sleet, that stings your eyes, makes your head and face ache and soaks you to the bone. Foul weather indeed.
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Ah, great minds think alike Derek! We both posted about the same time.
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
The Naughty Mr Lucy
Pepys only seems to meet Lucy when he is at the Pierces'. So Lucy is either a lodger or a close friend of Mr & Mrs Pierce. Sam thinks Mr Lucy is being over-familiar with Mrs Pierce ("very free") as she lay in bed, and gives the impression of being taken aback. After all, both Lucy and Mrs Pierce are married and her husband is still present but about to leave on a long journey. Is Mr Lucy someone you would leave alone with your wife, having read Sam's comments of Jan 24th?
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Bait.
The use of the word "bait" for a meal taken while working/travelling was current among coal miners from the north east of England certainly in the 1980's, and probably still.
About Birthdays
Grahamt • Link
If the diary was for himself, it is perhaps understandable the he doesn't name his wife. He only has the one and is not likely to need reminding of her name. "my wife" is quicker to write than "Elizabeth" even in shorthand. Similarly he usually refers to "My lord" rather than Sir Edward Montague.
About Beef
Grahamt • Link
Loathe as I am to disagree with Latham, I would question the statement that cattle were killed off in Autumn. Autumn, harvest time, is a time of plenty. Cattle, fowl and swine were traditionally killed in midwinter when forage was getting scarce. Thus the midwinter or Yule festival, to take advantage of the glut of meat. Preserved food would then last almost to Easter, (Lent) when people would fast until the new season's meat became available (lamb, chicken, veal, etc.)
By Pepys time, husbanding cattle by storing winter feed was probably becoming more common, especially to feed the better off in the cities throughout the year. If the less well off ate meat at all in late winter, then it would have been preserved by salting or smoking.
About Tuesday 21 February 1659/60
grahamt • Link
This from a site - http://ingeb.org/songs/godsaveo.h… - about the British national anthem ("God save the King/Queen")
"According to the French encyclopaedia, Quid, the music is by Giam Battista Lulli (Jean-Baptiste Lully in the French form). It was loosely based on a hymn sung when the (French) king arrived at an event, Domine Salvum Fac Regem."
Though that was composed in 1686 so couldn't be the song Pepys was singing. Strange coincidence though
About Sunday 12 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Comparing Shakespeare's and Pepys' use of English...
Isn't this comparing apples and oranges? Shakespeare was writing in verse, telling stories for the theatre, Pepys was reporting daily happenings. This is like saying that there has been a huge change in English since Victorian times based only on comparing Gilbert & Sullivan's operettas (which I find unintelligable) with Alistaire Cooke's diaries!
Yes, there were changes between Shakespeare and Pepys, but the major changes in English took place before Shakespeare. Compare another poet, John Donne (1572-1631), with Shakespeare:
First line Canterbury tales for comparison: (C 1400)
That it was May thus dremed me
In time of love and jollite
That al thyng gynneth waxen gay
For there is neither busk nor hay
First line Twelfth Night: (1601)
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
First line of Donne's The Flea: (1635)
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
First Line of Pepys' Diary: 1660
Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe Yard having my wife, and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three.
The language, to me, changes little between the two poets, in fact Shakespeare sounds more modern than Donne, but there is a difference between the poetry and the prose of Pepys, based purely on the phrasing.
Anyway, there is more of modern English from Shakespeare than from Pepys. Take away "And so to bed" and what can you quote from the diaries? Whereas from Shakespeare:
seven ages of man, all that gitters is not gold, There are more things in heaven and Earth, much ado about nothing, once more into the breach, If you prick us do we not bleed?, The course of true love never did run smooth, forget and forgive, a rose By any other name would smell as sweet, etc, etc, etc...
Let us not, in enjoying the simple clear prose of Pepys forget that he is writing a language that Shakespeare helped to form. (Descends from soapbox)
About Monday 13 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
To boot:
This phase is used in everyday British English exactly as Pepys uses it, i.e. meaning "besides, as well, additionally"
I hadn't realised that it is only used in legal/fiscal circles in the American English.
About Currency units
Grahamt • Link
A little more money trivia:
1.5d is always pronounced three- ha'pence, and was 1/8th of a shilling; 1.25d would be said penny-farthing; 1.75d penny-three-farthing.
a 240d pound is actually very useful for traders. It has factors of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24... whereas the 100p pound only has:
1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20, 25...
This makes it easier to divide into smaller units and matches well with imperial units of measure like 12" = 1', 16oz = 1lb, 8pts = 1 gal. For example, if silk is 3s per yard, than 4'4" is 4s4d. With a 100p pound the buyer would need to buy either 4' (=20p) or 4'6" (22.5p) to get a reasonable match between whole inches and monetary units. This is a little contrived, but illustrates the point. Naturally, with a metric measuring system, then a metric monetary system makes more sense.
About The new Background Info section
Grahamt • Link
Thanks Phil. This whole project is something that could only be done on the web. The fact that it is done so well is a real bonus.
About Saturday 11 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Re: thou
"By this time, the word ‘thou’ in daily speech was associated almost exclusively with Quakers”. Around London perhaps. Thee and thou (or thah in local dialect) were still in common use in the 1960/70’s in the north of England around Notts, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. (Not currently a quaker stronghold) They were used as in Shakespeare’s time for friends, family, children and inferiors, thus the exclamation from someone who thought they were being spoken to disrespectfully: “Don’t you thee and thah me!”
The same distinction in second person pronouns exists in modern French and German with tu/vous and du/sie.
About Wednesday 8 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
I think the dialogue from Romeo and Juliet illustrates both meanings in a typical Shakespearean word play.
Sampson says he will "take the wall" i.e. stand in the way, of the Montagues.
Gregory then puts down Sampson by turning his boast around, saying that only "the weak go to the wall".
Pepys was using the first meaning, but apparently it is the second one which has survived until now.
About Elizabeth Pepys (wife, b. St Michel)
Grahamt • Link
Very good points, but I wonder if we are not still projecting 21st century thinking onto 17th century mores. Pepys may have been "only a servant" when he married, but we know he was educated at St Pauls and Cambridge in an age when education, especially tertiary, was reserved for the rich and powerful. This suggests that being Montagu's servant was just an "apprenticeship" for his later role. I think that the term "clerk" is also burdened with modern prejudice. Pepys at 26 was earning L50 p.a. which seems a huge amount considering my mother earned L90 p.a. as a nurse about 285 years later in 1945. (inflation since the war makes modern comparisons less illustrative)
All of this suggests to me that Samuel was a good catch (financially) for Elizabeth. He may have put off marriage until his career path was established, but the same constraints weren't necessary for a young woman of modest means marrying a man with prospects. Was he really "penniless" as Warner suggests?
Even now, the age of consent is 14 in modern countries like Canada, Austria and Italy. Living in countries like the UK and US where the norm is 16-18 we may lose sight of the fact that Pepys was most likely not doing anything distateful, unusual or amiss in marrying a 14 year old.
We also have to be careful with - probably true - statistics like sexual maturity having started earlier since some time in the 19th century. That doesn't tell us what haapened between the 17th and 19th. The general health, (plagues aside) of the British working classes plummetted during the industrial revolution, when the economy changed from rural to urban, and only started to recover when the Victorians (late 19th C) realised that cleaning up urban squalor, providing sewers and hospitals, and educating the population in basic hygiene kept the work force working longer. It is likely that this urban poverty caused a postponement of the age of menstruation, just as anorexia does today. I see no evidence so far in the diary that Samuel and Elizabeth were malnourished!.
(Sorry this is so long)
About Elizabeth Pepys (wife, b. St Michel)
Grahamt • Link
I would suggest that Tomalin is being more realistic than Warner. Don't forget that Shakespere wrote of Romeo and Juliet (13 years old) being sexually active in their early teens also suggesting that "... younger than you, / Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, / Are made already mothers"
Why would the age of sexual maturity have risen so much in a hundred years?
Pepys has a well paying job for his age when the diary starts, and well able to support a household.
About Wednesday 8 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Re: Passing on the right...
If you pass someone on their right, and they on yours, then you are walking on the left side of the path. Traditionaly, (until Napoleon's time) everyone rode or drove on the left also (even American colonialists) so that they passed sword-hand to sword-hand. It also made it more convenient to shake hands on horseback, for the less defensive/beligerent.
There is a story (apocryphal?) that Napoleon made his armies march on the right so that from afar, his enemies thought he was retreating when he was actually advancing. This then became the norm for continental Europe and for revolutionary America.
About Monday 6 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Re: LSD
Hmmm.. this looks familiar. Didn't I say something similar only a few days ago against the 4th Feb entry? I also pointed out that florins were Victorian and Guineas arrived three years after the diary entry, so not really relevant.
I agree with Derek that we should have a knowledge base (but would anyone read it before posting?)
Just my three-pennorth. (= 3d = 1.25p = 2c - worth)
About Tuesday 7 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Re: Seems rather rich to allow “buttocks” and “turd” …
Even in modern British English, buttocks and turd are acceptable, if crude, whereas arse and shit would not be used in polite conversation.
Sadly the “dumbing down” of the language and the huge increase in everyday profanity means this is probably the last generation where this will be the case.
About Monday 6 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
When I gave the meaning of half a crown for the 4th February I wasn't sure that the term was used in Pepys time, well today he lost half a crown at cards. The half crown coin lasted right up until decimalisation. (not much use for 12.5 new pence coin afterwards, though at 30d or 1/8 of a pound it was quite useful)
About Saturday 4 February 1659/60
Grahamt • Link
Re: "time-honored way of killing a chicken "
I worked on a chicken farm in my teens and never used an axe to kill a chicken. "Necking" was the way I was taught by the old boys who had done it all their lives. The usual way was to just pull on the head until the neck snapped, for tough old birds and turkeys, the bird was slung over the back and head and feet pulled forward using the back as leverage to snap the neck.
In the slaughter houses, though, the birds were hung up by their feet, stunned and their throats slit while their hearts still pumped to remove the blood from the flesh.
I didn't eat chicken or eggs for about 20 years after leaving that job.