{"id":8876,"date":"2021-05-12T15:56:56","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T14:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potbanks.wordpress.com\/?p=8876"},"modified":"2021-05-12T15:56:56","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T14:56:56","slug":"elias-ashmole-as-a-source-of-staffordshire-and-peake-lore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2021\/05\/12\/elias-ashmole-as-a-source-of-staffordshire-and-peake-lore\/","title":{"rendered":"Elias Ashmole as a source of Staffordshire and Peake lore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Staffordshire sections from Tobias Churton’s book The Magus of Freemasonry: the mysterious life of Elias Ashmole, scientist, alchemist, and founder of the Royal Society<\/em>…<\/p>\n

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Following the Royalist defeat at Worcester in July 1646, Parliamentary officers ordered Elias Ashmole to keep out of London […] he returned to the area of Shallowford in Staffordshire, near the Bishop of Lichfield\u2019s palace at Eccleshall, about twenty miles northwest of [his home place of] Lichfield. <\/p>\n

Ashmole was a friend of Izaak Walton [who was of like mind, and had retreated to the same area …] They were certainly friends by the time of the 1676 edition of Walton\u2019s world-famous The Compleat Angler<\/em> … To those who are familiar with his references, Walton\u2019s work, apparently devoted to the harmless pastime of angling, reads like a covert message to depressed Royalists and dispossessed Anglican clergymen throughout the country. […] The book\u2019s message can be read as \u201cBe calm, contemplate the waters;
\nreceive inspiration therefrom: all troubles will pass.\u201d Or, as Walton himself recommended, \u201cStudy to be quiet.\u201d <\/p>\n

The \u201ctroubles\u201d referred to by Walton derived from the puritanical, repressive, anti-ecclesiastical, and generally hot-headed manifestations of Cromwell\u2019s [Puritan] government. […] In his letter to Barlow, Walton notes that he is himself \u201cnot suspected,\u201d to the extent that he can even attend a \u201cfanaticall meeting\u201d of Puritanical activists […] The violence [of the Puritans] extended beyond stones, lead roofs, and church bells. [This point refers to the fact that the puritans were busy destroying Lichfield cathedral with its three magnificent spires]. On August 2, 1652, Ashmole went “to heare the Witches tryed, and tooke Mr Tradescant with me.” […] In the event, six witches were hanged […] <\/p>\n

[Returning from the trials] On August 19, 1652, Ashmole \u201centered Lichfield about sunset.\u201d Against the reddish skyline he would have seen the silhouettes of two spires, the third truncated at its base, having crashed through the roof. According to local historian Howard Clayton\u2019s Loyal and Ancient City<\/em>, after the Parliamentarian destruction of 1646, \u201cCenturies of religious custom disappeared and the Cathedral Close became for 14 years a place of ruin, inhabited by squatters and haunted by owls at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September, Ashmole \u201ctook a Journey into the Peake [Peak District], in search of Plants and other Curiosities.\u201d Ashmole\u2019s \u201cNoates<\/em>\u201d* of his journey contain short entries of peculiar words, sayings, rhymes, miners\u2019 language and customs, cookery recipes, people, inscriptions, and sights. For example, a Staffordshire oatcake was called a \u201cBannock\u201d consisting of oatmeal and barley, baked on a griddle. \u201cA Spider is called an Aldercrop.\u201d [a folk preservation of the Old English word at(t)orcoppa<\/em> and the Middle English attercop<\/em>]<\/p>\n

He mentions a man called \u201cWagge\u201d from the moorland village of Wetton who \u201cis Staffordshire Astrologus<\/em>,\u201d a fellow astrologer. At Dove Bridge (near Uttoxeter), Ashmole actually participated in a magical \u201cCall,\u201d or invocation of spirits. \u201cI came to Mr: Jo: Tompson, who dwells neare Dove Bridge. He used a Call, and had responses in a soft voyce.\u201d Ashmole inquired of the spirit concerning the health of his friend Dr. Thomas Wharton, who was poorly. \u201cHe told me Dr: Wharton was recovering from his sickness, and so it proved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incidentally, at nearby Great Haywood, Tolkien later caught a similar spirit-of-place. As he stood on the long bridge there, listing to the “wistful murmuring” of possibly-spirits beneath it (Lost Tales II<\/em>).<\/p>\n

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* – “Noates in my Peake Journey<\/em>“, printed in the five volume Elias Ashmole, 1617-92<\/em>, aka Elias Ashmole: His Autobiographical and Historical Notes<\/em>. Vol. 2 seems to be the target that contains the “Noates in my Peake Journey<\/em>“. Archive.org has another volume, but Vol. 2 is not there or on Hathi. The hardback set only has one library copy for the whole of the UK university system. <\/p>\n

There are three “Noates” of interest according to The Antiquary<\/em> via Google Books. None has been digitized and placed online by the Bodleian.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ashmole MS 1137 is said to be a copy by an engraver, the original being lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Staffordshire sections from Tobias Churton’s book The Magus of Freemasonry: the mysterious life of Elias Ashmole, scientist, alchemist, and founder of the Royal Society… Following the Royalist defeat at Worcester in July 1646, Parliamentary officers ordered Elias Ashmole to keep out of London […] he returned to the area of Shallowford in Staffordshire, near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}