Sunday 6 October 1661
(Lord’s day). To church in the morning; Mr. Mills preached, who, I expect, should take in snuffe [anger] that my wife not come to his child’s christening the other day. The winter coming on, many of parish ladies are come home and appear at church again; among others, the three sisters the Thornbury’s, a very fine, and the most zealous people that ever I saw in my life, even to admiration, if it were true zeal. There was also my pretty black girl, Mrs. Dekins, and Mrs. Margaret Pen, this day come to church in a new flowered satin suit that my wife helped to buy her the other day.
So home to dinner, and to church in the afternoon to St. Gregory’s, by Paul’s, where I saw Mr. Moore in the gallery and went up to him and heard a good sermon of Dr. Buck’s, one I never heard before, a very able man. So home, and in the evening I went to my Valentine, her father and mother being out of town, to fetch her to supper to my house, and then came Sir W. Pen and would have her to his, so with much sport I got them all to mine, and we were merry, and so broke up and to bed.
28 Annotations
First Reading
Josh • Link
"the most zealous people that ever I saw in my life, even to admiration, if it were true zeal."
How would Anglican zeal, true or feigned, have demonstrated itself at this period? Cries of "Amen!" or Visitations of the Spirit (real or assumed), such as are known among the Pentecostals and others here in the American South, don't seem the thing.
Glyn • Link
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Back on St Valentine's Day, he chose Martha Castle (the daughter of Sir William Batten) to be his Valentine. Now the Penns and the Pepys are being neighbourly when she's been left by herself in her parents' house while they are away, perhaps at their family home in Walthamstow, north-east London. I don't know where Mr Castle is, but I'm getting the distinct impression that women were more liberated in the 17th century than their great-granddaughters were to be.
Hmm - a Buck, a Moose and the traveling Thornberrys - I feel a cartoon coming on
Glyn • Link
Um, forget the Moose, I misread Moore.
vicente • Link
Glyn asks " I don't know where Mr Castle is ?:
When castling, you simultaneously move your king, and a rook. Rook moves to the other side of the king.
http://www.chessvariants.com/d.ch…
vicente • Link
Seems like the Reverend is in a tiff or snit because of the slight[no gifte]."...should take in snuffe [anger] that my wife not come to his child's christening the other day…”
The uppers are back in town after the summer gambolling in the countryside even tho it be wet.
“…many of parish ladies are come home and appear at church again…”
Ah! the eye be twitching again, no need to go to the teatro now with all this entertainment for Free [must curb expenses?]
“…and so broke up and to bed….”???
vicente • Link
if Sam had gone to Evelyn's Sunday service ,Sam would have to contemplate the following: J E heard "... 3 john 3. 13: I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee: ..."
http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:80…
Orrin • Link
Josh, as a Canadian Anglican (That's an Episcopalian to you Yanks, just in case you didn't know.), I agree that calling out a hearty "Amen!" during the sermon does seem out of place these days.
But my mother was raised in a low Anglican household in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She told me a tale once of how she was in church listening to a sermon. (This would have been in the 1920s.) As the minister was in full fleg, a little old lady in the audience was moved enough by the Spirit, to call out "Amen!"
To which the minister stopped, cocked his ear, and cried happily, "Ah-hah! I'm reaching someone."
I don't think this would have happened in a high Anglican church, but in any case, it certainly has seemed to have seeped out of the Anglican/Episcopalean churches in N. America.
Kind of a pity, really.
Second Reading
Bill • Link
"should take in snuffe [anger] that my wife not come"
SNUFF ...
5 Resentment expressed by snifting; perverse resentment
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.
Bill • Link
"three sisters the Thornbury’s"
Mr. Thornbury was yeoman of the wine cellar to the king. See ante, April 23, 1661.
---Wheatley, 1899.
Gilbert Thornborough: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Bill • Link
"and the most zealous people that ever I saw in my life, even to admiration, if it were true zeal"
I see SP as expressing a little disapproval here. Zeal can be a good thing, of course, but until recently zeal was most often associated with puritans.
Chris Squire UK • Link
OED has:
‘snuff, n.2 < snuff v.2 . .
1. a. An (or the) act of snuffing, esp. as an expression of contempt or disdain.
1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Pref. sig. *iiijv, Other (perchaunce) with a proude snuffe will disdaine this litle.
. . 1629 J. Gaule Distractions 198 Nought but a glance, a puffe, a snuffe, a frown.
1809 B. H. Malkin tr. A. R. Le Sage Adventures Gil Blas II. iv. viii. 181 That hound-like snuff at an ill construction, with which the devil has armed the noses of the most charitable.’
‘snuff, v.2
. . 7. To express scorn, disdain, or contempt by snuffing; to sniff. Freq. const. at a thing or person. Now rare or Obs.
. . 1643 Lismore Papers (1888) 2nd Ser. V. 139 Being snuffed at by some great ones, none of the rest wold signe . .
1674 J. Bunyan Christian Behaviour in Wks. (1852) II. 568 It argueth pride when..thou snuffest and givest way to thy spirit to be peevish . . ‘
Terry Foreman • Link
"morning; Mr. Mills preached, who, I expect, should take in snuffe [anger] that my wife not come to his child’s christening the other day."
His daughter Anna had been baptised on 3 )ctober. (L&M note)
Terry Foreman • Link
"many of parish ladies are come home and appear at church again; among others, the three sisters the Thornbury’s,"
L&M note Mrs Thornbury had been one of the godparents.
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir Richard Fanshawe, British Envoy at Lisbon, to Lord Sandwich
Written from: Lisbon
Date: [6 October 1661 N.S.]
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 73, fol(s). 592
Document type: Holograph
Rejoices at the good news sent from Tangier [i.e. in his Lordship's letter written at sea, off Tangier] ... for "the surrender of the place ... is as much overvalued in caballs here, as undervalued in England."
Adds some advices with relation to the Algerines, &c. ...
[26 October/6 September [sic: the writer, in his haste, reversing his figures]
FROM:
Carte Calendar Volume 32, June - December 1661
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Edward Edwards, 2005
Shelfmark: MS. Carte Calendar 32
Extent: 464 pages
https://wayback.archive-it.org/or…
@@@
Sadly Sandwich's letter to Fanshaw is not included in the Carte files.
Amb. Sir Richard Fanshaw - https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
San Diego Sarah • Link
A Tangier update, adapted from
ENGLAND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN : A STUDY OF THE RISE AND INFLUENCE
OF BRITISH POWER WITHIN THE STRAITS -- 1603-1713
By JULIAN S. CORBETT
VOL. II
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1904
https://archive.org/stream/englan…
NOTE: I have corrected the scanning errors and up-dated content.
Spain was especially anxious — with cause — about the Plate fleet, and also about Gibraltar. Before she knew she could rely on a Dutch squadron, a message was sent to the Indies to divert the flota away from Cadiz and order it to Coruna instead, while (at the cost of dislocating the military operations against Portugal) large reinforcements were put onto the Rock.
As yet, nothing was done openly on either side.
Vice Adm. John Lawson was still operating before Algiers, blockading the port and playing havoc on its shipping with his cruisers.
All September, 1661, De Ruyter, in accordance with his secret orders, lay about Cape St. Vincent to cover the Plate fleet, while Sandwich remained in the Tagus honoring the new Queen of England and gracing the marriage celebrations.
In the first days of October, 1661, an alarm reached Sandwich that a combined Dutch and Spanish fleet was off Tangier. He now had 10 sail under his orders, and in the midst of the marriage festivities he suddenly put to sea and sent forward a despatch vessel to Algiers to summons Lawson to his aid.
28 FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE STRAITS 1661
A week later Sandwich was before Tangier, but there was no sign of an enemy. In 5 days Lawson appeared.
Tangier was still safe, but the situation was as strained as ever.
De Ruyter had moved down to the Straits.
Lawson, on his way from Algiers, had spoken with De Ruyter off Malasfa. The Dutch admiral informed him that he was there to make war on the corsairs. As a matter of fact, although De Ruyter had no intention of leaving the Straits until further orders, he really was -- for the moment -- devoting his attention to the Barbary pirates.
By the end of September, 1661, De Ruyter had been told the Plate fleet was safe in Coruna, and he at once deployed his squadron in the business upon which it had ostensibly come out.
Lawson was engaged in the same quest, and with ‘rough ingenuity' asked De Ruyter to communicate his private signal that they might co-operate more easily. De Ruyter, too old a hand to be drawn in by such a confidence trick, refused, and with this information Lawson had joined Sandwich at Tangier. 1.
1 Vie de De Ruiter, p. 1(58.
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION
Clearly Lawson and Sandwich thought De Ruyter was not to be trusted, and for all of October and November 1661 they lay where they were, watching, with a division continually out in the 'Gut' of the Straits.
Their force was not strong, nor were their stores plentiful, and as the weeks passed without any news of Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough and the Tangier regiment having sailed, Sandwich grew anxious.
TO BE CONTINUED
Coruna, northern Spain https://www.britannica.com/place/…
Tangier https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
De Ruyter https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Lawson https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Peterborough https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The marriage celebrations https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Cape St. Vincent https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Lisbon and the Tagus River https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Algiers https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Gibraltar https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The Straits https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl… -- none of my searches identified "the Gut"
Malasfa -- I wonder if this means Malaga? Google sends me to Malaysia!
Eric the Bish • Link
" ... heard a good sermon of Dr. Buck’s, one I never heard before, a very able man."
It is not unknown for clergy to re-use a well crafted sermon, and that is how I first read this entry, but on reflection the meaning must be that Pepys had not heard Dr Buck preach before. This appears to be James Buck, who was a learned man and an excellent preacher, but who was amongst those criticised in 1672 for his absence from St. James Garlickhythe - either because of the Great Fire, five years before, or because he held more than one living - thus providing the opportunity for nonconformism to flourish by depriving the local people of his good preaching - see link here: https://web.archive.org/web/20241….
San Diego Sarah • Link
That's a fascinating thesis, Eric the Bish. Thanks for the lead, and thank you, Way-Back Machine, for keeping it available to us all for ever. I've got it bookmarked for further consultation.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... Mrs. Margaret Pen, this day come to church in a new flowered satin suit that my wife helped to buy her the other day."
Lady Penn must still be away. Young Peg and Elizabeth splurged on a flowered satin suit -- how very un-Puritan!
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... in the evening I went to my Valentine, her father and mother being out of town, to fetch her to supper to my house, ..."
That's a better attitude then Pepys had at the time:
"So up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry."
Which made me question just how merry 'very merry' really was.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
LKvM • Link
It was kind of Sam to invite left-alone Martha, his begrudged Valentine, over for dinner. She and Elizabeth were neighborly, going shopping together, so it made sense to include her.
San Diego Sarah • Link
LKvM, you are combining Martha Batten and Peg Penn -- no doubt friends, as they are both currently unmarried teenage girls living in the Navy compound. Martha was Pepys' Valentine, and Peg had the satin suit.
@@@
"a little old lady in the audience was moved enough by the Spirit, to call out "Amen!" ... I don't think this would have happened in a high Anglican church, ..."
You're right, it would not have happened. Women were not permitted to speak (or sing) in an Anglican church at this time.
Women who did were Nonconformists -- and, worse, Quakers, who are being imprisoned by the hundreds by Charles II's regime at this time -- and even they got into trouble with the Nonconformist men in the New World (where they had gone to supposedly enjoy the freedom of religion) for expressing opinions.
An example of an inspired New England preacher is Anne Hutchinson, who was excommunicated in Boston for holding services and having (inconvenient) opinions about the universality of God's love. See
https://www.britannica.com/biogra…
I'm sure there are 1660 English examples, but I haven't remembered one to post about right now.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Now I remember -- filed under the castrati.
The biblical instruction for the silencing of women in church comes from the New Testiment: 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy:
The apostle Paul's famous dictum "Mulier taceat in ecclesia" (women are to be silent in church).
This instruction is found at:
I Corinthians 14:34-35: "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
I Timothy 2:11-12: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
The "market" for castrati was created by the need for young male choiristers to sing those inspiring high notes, which is competently fulfilled by women today But St. Paul and St. Timothy clearly said women must be silent, and in the 17th century that was the law.
Furthermore, a woman should “be busy at home … and … be subject to their husband, so that no one will malign the word of God” (Titus 2:4-5).
This makes sense, because “the husband is the head of the wife” (Ephesians 5:23).
While the woman “rises while it is yet night, and provides food for her household … her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.” (Proverbs 31:15-23).
[SO ELIZABETH MISSING SUNDAY MORNING SERVICES IS FOLLOWING BIBLICAL TEACHINGS! - SDS]
Back to the castrati:
A castrato is a male singer with a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or alto voice. From about 1550 to the late 19th century, most were created by castrating boys before they reached puberty. This prevented their vocal cords from lengthening and their voice from deepening. With the lung capacity and muscular strength of an adult male and the vocal range of a prepubescent boy:
... his voice develops a range, power and flexibility quite different from the singing voice of the adult female, but also markedly different from the higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male. Some castratos were males who were born with an endocrinological condition that prevented them from sexually maturing.
The term castrato was often used to indicate the high register created by the young men who sang the castrato style. The typical register of a castrato was above that of a 'normal' soprano or alto voice, resulting in the creation of a temporary range in Italian music.
In Italy, where most of the castrations occurred, boys were generally drugged with opium. They were soaked in a hot tub until barely conscious before the operation. One source estimates that the fatality rate due to the amputation procedure was about 80%. Another estimates a death rate of 10% to 80% depending upon the skill of the practitioner.
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION:
Among the survivors, the vast majority did not become professional singers because their voice was not of sufficiently high quality.
J.S. Jenkins writes: "Boys were castrated between the ages of 7 and 9 years, and underwent a long period of voice training. A small number became inter- national opera stars, of whom the most famous was Farinelli, whose voice ranged over 3 octaves."
Obviously the boys were not old enough to give informed consent.
Castrati were first used:
Late 1550s in the chapel choir of the Duke of Ferrara.
1574 in the court chapel at Munich.
1599 in the Sistine Chapel.
1610 in Württemberg.
1637 in Vienna.
1640's in Dresden.
Pope Sixtus V issued a Papal Bull in 1589 which approved the recruitment of castrati for the choir of St. Peter's Basilica. Castrati were later widely employed by opera companies.
http://www.religioustolerance.org…
And Wikipedia:
The practice reached its peak in 17th and 18th century opera. In Naples it is said that several barbershops had a sign that castration was performed there. However, this cannot be confirmed.
The male heroic lead would often be written for a castrato singer (E.G. in Handel's operas). When these operas are performed today, a woman (cross-dressing in a so-called trouser role) or a counter-tenor takes the roles. However, some Baroque operas with parts for castrati are so complex they cannot be performed today.
Castration was by not a guarantee of a promising career. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries approximately 1% of fully or partially castrated boys developed into successful singers.
In the 17th century, Queen Christina of Sweden was so enamored of the voices of the castrati that she temporarily halted a war with Poland so she could borrow the castrato Ferri from the Polish king for a 2-week command performance.
The Catholic Church's position on castrati:
According to Rotten.com, in the late 16th century:
Pope Clement VIII became smitten with the sweetness and flexibility of their voices. ... While some Church officials suggested it would be preferable to lift the ban on women singers than to continue endorsing the castration of little boys, the Pope disagreed, quoting St. Paul, ... since it was illegal to perform castrations, ... all castrati presenting themselves for the choir claimed to have lost their genitals through tragic 'accident'.
After the Pope’s official acceptance of castrati, the number of these 'accidents' increased dramatically. Parents seeking upward mobility towed their little lads down to a barber/butcher who separated them from their testicles for a fee. The church simultaneously created a market for castrati by hiring them for its church choirs. By about 1789, there were more than 200 castrati in Rome's chapel choirs alone.
Prohibited women from speaking or singing in church had truly inhumane results.
Mountain Man • Link
We are fortunate to have recordings of the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, from about 1902, and these can be found easily on YouTube. Musicologists regard Moreschi as being a "degenerate" castrato in the sense that his style of singing was not that of the eighteenth century and before. Also, he sang mostly nineteenth century music and not Bach or Mozart, and even recorded Tosti's "Ideale." But nonetheless, we can get some idea from the recordings. The sound is quite different from the countertenors of today. Please keep in mind that these are primitive early recordings which captured high voices, including most sopranos, very poorly and distorted their resonances. The actual sound is not pleasant to modern ears, but we can learn a lot from the recordings.
Dorset Richard • Link
San Diego Sarah said:
“‘So up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry.’
“Which made me question just how merry 'very merry' really was.”
I think Sam’s too jealous to indulge in wife-swapping; look at his reaction a few weeks ago to the man with feathers!
I wouldn’t be surprised if it went on; this is the era of the Earl of Rochester. But it’s something I’d associate more with the aristocracy than the middle classes.
Stephane Chenard • Link
And it's been nearly a week since the entourages of the ambassadors of France and Spain had their bloody encounter in London, to Sam's great boyish entertainment. In Fontainebleau today, Louis XIV had his full briefing, conceivably including the report by John Evelyn which Charles had, just four days ago, instructed him to rush to St. Albans, the English ambassador in Paris.
King Louis seems to have gone fairly ballistic about it, and "had word sent on the instant" [envoya, sur le champ, dire] to the Spanish ambassador in Paris, count Fuensaldaña, "to be gone from this kingdom" [qu'il sortit de ce royaume]; to the marquess de la Fuente, who was on his way to replace him, that he stay out; and to the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Caracena, that his visa (his "Passeport") was revoked - an annoyance, as he has orders to repair a.s.a.p. to Spain on a new assignment against Portugal, and will now have to go by boat (tho', French roads being what they are, that may be quicker). This will be publicized, as part of a dispatch dated October 20 (new style) in the French Gazette to appear next week (on the 22nd, new style), so we're meant to know.
Not so incendiary as long as it only impacts their lordships the ambassadors, but, more ominously, Louis also recalls his delegation at the conference which, post-Treaty of the Pyrénées, was in charge of drawing the border between France and Spain.
Prelude to war? We'll see. Louis takes the pain of sending an envoy to London, the "sieur du Cateux" (huh?) to personally inform Charles II. So, Sam and most Englishmen may prefer Spain to France, but apparently that's not how the chips are falling.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Fastinating, Stephane. And Dorset Richrd -- that hadn't even occurred to me! 8-)