English Reformation and Early Type

Today's class introduced you to the English Reformation and also gave you a chance to try reading "black-letter" type from the early sixteenth century.

I looked over the biographies of Edward VI on the Biographic database that LMU links to. It says that Edward caught measles and/or smallpox, recovered but was weak, and then eventually died of tuberculosis. So now we know.

Here are today's lecture notes:
Henry VIII and the making of English identity
* Henry VIII was the second son of Henry VII. His older brother died before their father, so Henry became king, and married the woman who had been engaged to his brother, Catherine of Aragon.
* Henry and Catherine had one daughter, Mary Tudor. Henry and Cath had no more kids and H sued for divorce. The pope refused to grant this. In 1534, H declared himself the head of the church of England and married his paramour, Anne Boleyn. Their baby was Elizabeth Tudor. H had all the monasteries dissolved in one of the biggest land-grabs in English history.
* H had Anne executed on suspicious of infidelity (treason, if you’re married to the king). He then married Jane Seymour, who had Edward Tudor.
* Henry (after 3 other marriages but no more kids) died in 1547. Edward became Edward VI as a boy. His main advisor was the Protector, who supported much more radical reform of the English Church (under H, it was pretty close to Catholicism)
* Edward died in 1553. His older sister, Mary succeeded him. She was Catholic. The Church of England returned to Catholicism, and she had several Protestant “martyrs” (or, if you like, “heretics”) killed. She is now called “Bloody Mary” (not to be confused with Mary, Queen of Scots, by the way, who is a different person).
* Mary wasn’t well, either (probably had cancer). She died in 1558. Her sister, Elizabeth took the throne and England was Protestant again. This wavering back and forth produced something of an identity crisis, and, once the country had settled itself with a Protestant monarch, they felt a need to differentiate themselves from “non-English” identity categories. The origin of English “national identity” is often located at this time.

English typography of the early 16th century.
Remember, the early sort of type (now called black-letter) is not identical to modern characters in several ways (some of which continued in early modern roman type). Let’s get ourselves accustomed to reading some of it in the original.
* “s” at the start of a word is above the line of writing, with a long vertical stroke hooked to the right at the top. It can easily be mistaken for an “f”. We can also sometimes see a long S in words “foulneffe”
* U and v are often interchangeable, with V at the start of a word and u in the middle (although this is not necessarily consistent). A lower case v can be closed at the top, with a stroke angling up from the left
* Y and I are interchangeable in some instances, as are I and J
* R after vowels or other (orthographically) round letters can be written “upside down” in the “rounded r” form
* Ink can often smudge a page, and letters can be worn and have missing bits or odd appearances.