The Ordinances of the Hatmakers: The Bilingual Format in Context

The fact that the Ordinances were drawn up in two languages, English and Dutch, tells its own story about the Hatmakers’ attachments to new and old cultural identities, and we should begin by putting the bilingualism of the manuscript in the right perspective. The Statutes contain twenty-seven articles. Except for the last three, which are in English only, they were all drawn up in two languages, with a Dutch version of every article following the English-language version. The organisation is most easily illustrated with an image of the manuscript.

This page shows the last two lines of article 18, in English, followed by the Dutch-language version of this same article. Then comes, in English, article 19, ‘Item, it is established and ordeyned’, followed by the version in Dutch, ‘Item, dat is versament ende geordinert’. The standard use of alternate red and blue Lombardic capitals to mark textual divisions gives a familiar look to the page, but in fact the phenomenon shown here, Middle English alternating with Middle Dutch, is unique for the period.

The surviving ordinances of English craft and religious associations are, as a rule, monolingual. The earliest ones were written in Latin or French, but from the mid-fourteenth century onwards some crafts had written rules in English.1 Caroline M. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 207. When, in 1388, all guilds were ordered to present information about their organisation to Chancery for inspection, 75% (of 500) were in Latin, 9% in French, and 12% in English (with the remaining 4% being in a combination of languages).2 Caroline M. Barron and Laura Wright, ‘The London Middle English Guild Certificates of 1388–9’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 39 (1995), 108–45. By the time the Hatmakers drew up their statutes, however, English had become the norm, as is shown by the fact that a number of crafts took the trouble of having their original ordinances translated into English. Thus in 1509 the Vintners paid ‘John Devereux Scryvener’ five shillings for ‘translatyng of oure Corporacion out of frenshe in to Engllische’ plus a further six shillings and eight pence for ‘writing of the boke’.3 Cited by Malcolm Richardson, Middle-Class Writing in Late Medieval London (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 48. It was the custom to read guild ordinances aloud on special days when all members of the guild were assembled, so the written language of the Ordinances was also a spoken one on these occasions.

Where guild ordinances are bilingual, that bilingualism takes a very different form from the one that we find here. Not uncommonly, guild ordinances themselves were in the vernacular but had a preamble and sometimes also a postamble in Latin. For instance, the Rules and Ordinances of the Craft of Shearmen of London from 1452 are written in English, except for a preface and epilogue which state that they were written by the scribe and notary public, Thomas Marvyell, and submitted for approval and registered in the Court of the Commissary of the Bishop of London.4 Henry Charles Coote and John Robert Daniel-Tyssen, ed., Ordinances of Some Secular Guilds of London, from 1354 to 1496 (London: Nichols, 1871), pp. 47–56. The Ordinances of the Fullers of Bristol from 1407 have a similar structure: they begin with a Latin preamble written on behalf of the Mayor of Bristol, then follow the ordinances in the vernacular, though in this case that vernacular is still Anglo-French.5 Lucy Toulmin Smith, ed., English Gilds: The Original Ordinances of More than One Hundred Early English Guilds, EETS, original series 40 (London: Trübner, 1870), pp. 283–86. Sometimes the Latin preamble contextualises the Statutes, as in case of the Ordinances of the Tailors of Norwich, which explain in Latin that the document was drawn up in response to the order of Parliament in 1388 that all guilds should make returns in writing (in scriptis) and that this guild was founded in 1350. Then, under the rubric Ordinacio, follow the guild’s Statutes, in English.6 Smith, English Gilds. pp. 33–36. The shift from Latin coincides with a change in hand, probably because the Latin was written by a professional scribe and official, while the English ordinances themselves were written by a ‘craftsman-turned-clerk’. We borrow this term from Matthew Davies, who has discussed the ways in which documents of this type came into being.7 Matthew Davies, ‘“Writying, making and engrocyng”: Clerks, Guilds and Identity in Late Medieval London’, in Medieval Merchants and Money: Essays in Honour of James L. Bolton, ed. Martin Allen and Matthew Davies (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2016), pp. 21–41. Many guilds and fraternities, including the Dutch Hatmakers,8 See articles 8, 9, 11, and 14 in the Hatmakers’ Guild Ordinances (below in Part II), which mention a ‘clerke’. had a designated clerk among their members, whose duties normally included the writing down of guild regulations.9 Frances Consitt, The London Weavers’ Company, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), I, 18. Others outsourced the writing of these documents to professionals literati, to notaries and scriveners. Finally, by the late fifteenth century, many craftsmen could also turn their hand to the craft of writing. The multiplicity of scenarios raises issues that anyone interested in the handwritten language of these documents has to confront. Whose writing and whose language are we in fact reading? Were they competent in both languages? Were they writing their own words or copying those of others?

We shall return to these questions in our examination of the language and handwriting of the Ordinances of the Hatmakers shortly, but the question of what language ordinances were composed in is raised with special force by confraternities that consisted wholly or mainly of aliens. Some of the Ordinances of the alien confraternities that were based in London have survived; others, including those of the Dutch-speaking Fraternity of the Holy Trinity, which also met at Blackfriars, have not.10 For full discussion and editions of the alien confraternities’ ordinances, see Justin Colson, ‘Alien Communities and Alien Fraternities in Later Medieval London’, London Journal 35 (2010). As has already been remarked, the Ordinances of alien associations that do survive – those of the Fraternity of the Holy Blood of Wilsnack, the Fraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and the Fraternity of St Katherine – are unlike those of the Dutch Hatmakers in that they are not craft ordinances but, rather, the rules and regulations of religious fraternities. They are also unlike those of the Hatmakers in that they are basically monolingual.

The Fraternity of the Holy Blood of Wilsnack probably catered for German speakers (Wilsnack was a popular pilgrimage destination in Northern Germany), but the statutes were drawn up in English and then officialised by a notary public, John Ecton, who added a Latin preamble and postscript. Because the fraternity changed premises – from the Crossed Friars to Austin Friars – the Statutes were actually drawn up twice, in 1459 and again in 1491. The Latin paratext from the first version, dated 1459, sheds some light on the textual history of this document. For after recording where the document was written (Thames Street, London) and which of the brothers witnessed it, John Ecton goes on to say that the ordinances and founding principles had been read out and shown to the Brotherhood in English (in vulgari Anglicano) and form the contents of the paper document (papyri cedula) that now follows. The English statutes follow, and in the Latin codicil John Ecton declares that the English document was drawn up by someone else and in a different location, but that he witnessed it and also checked it over, being personally responsible for an emendation in the text: Et constat michi de Rasura harum dictionum ‘and shall pay’ in undecima linea a capite (‘The correction “and shall pay” at the erasure of these words, eleven lines from the heading, is mine’).11 The Latin text was edited by Coote and Daniel-Tyssen, Ordinances, p. 62; Colson provides a translation.

Of the two other alien confraternities of London with surviving ordinances, one that also met, as did the Dutch Hatmakers, at the Dominican church of Blackfriars was the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, founded in 1503. The spectacularly beautiful literary remains of this confraternity are now Oxford, Christ Church, MS 179, datable to 1517.12 The manuscript has been digitised. See ‘Christ Church MS 179’, Bodleian Library <https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/6d9e0fdf-ec06–4d46–952f-e1f1c15198aa/>. Translations from the original are based on our own transcription. The book opens with what is presumably a copy or recreation of the original petition to Henry VII for the foundation of the confraternity, on the initiative of aucuns voz subiects de la nacion de France habitantz en cestuy votre Royaulme (fol. 2r). According to the petition, the fraternity had support from an influential insider at Henry’s court, the chronicler Bernard André, tutor to Henry VII’s son, Arthur, and author of a Latin life of Henry VII. The handwriting exudes quality and privilege, and so do the manuscript illuminations which were executed by a group of Dutch artists known as the ‘Masters of the Dark Eyes’.13 Klara H. Broekhuijsen-Kruijer, The Masters of the Dark Eyes: Late Medieval Manuscript Painting in Holland (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009). It is a fine example of what Maurits Smeyers called the Ghent-Bruges style, which was now being exported abroad by international artists and scribes commissioned to provide wealthy patrons a touch of Burgundian-Habsburg class and splendour.14 Maurits Smeyers, Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid-16th Century (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 423. The language of the Statutes of this order, French and only French, reflects both the nationality of its membership and its exclusivity.

The Ordinances of another alien group, the Fraternity of St Katherine, from 1495, provide a closer parallel to our manuscript.15 Citations are from Colson, ‘Alien Communities’, pp. 133–36. The preamble states that the fraternity was ‘founded and ordenyd by Duychmen iiijxx yeres passed [i.e. 1415] in the Crosse Fryers in the City of London’. Thirty-eight members (including the masters) are named and, although the names are anglicised as usual, the Dutch origins of most of them is clear, e.g. ‘Gerard Wygarson’ (Gerard Wijgartsen), ‘John Vansanton’ (Jan van Santen), ‘Poles Huysman’ (Pouwels Huisman), and so on. The whole document is in English, including the preamble and postamble, which name the scribe as ‘Richard Bloodywell Doctor of Lawe and Commissary of London’, one of the most important diocesan officials. For our purposes, the most interesting thing about the document is the appendix that has not survived but that is mentioned by the Commissary. In addition to the regulations in the English document, the brothers and sisters of the fraternity professed themselves bound to obey ‘all other ordenaunces, actis, constitucions and rules made among the saide Bretherhed by theyre owne free willis and conscensions specyfyed and declared in Dych tong whereof a copy in cedule to these presentis is annexed’. The Statutes of the Fraternity of St Katherine, in other words, were once bilingual, though it is also clear that the Dutch ‘cedule’ was not a translation of the English ordinances but an appendix to it. Justin Colson assumes that, because they were not translated, the Dutch text had no legal value,16 Colson, ‘Alien Communities’, p. 121. but the Commissary thought otherwise, because he goes on to confirm the fines stipulated in the Dutch document (‘the paynes therin comprysed and written’) and stipulates that half the amount of the fine is for the fraternity’s own coffers and the other half for the building work at St Paul’s.

The Ordinances of the Dutch Hatmakers are to our knowledge the only extant guild statutes that were drawn up in a bilingual format, and indeed the document appears to be the earliest example of a bilingual English-Dutch text. It is true that there exist, from the late fifteenth century, some official Dutch records that survive in manuscript with English translations. The grant of a house by the town of Antwerp to the English Merchant Venturers from 1474, the Privileges granted to English Merchants by the Lord of Bergen-op-Zoom in 1480, and a few texts of this sort, can be found in a manuscript, now in the archives of the Mercers’ Company, that was copied in London around 1485. In this manuscript, copies of the Dutch originals are preceded by translations into Middle English.17 Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, ed., The Book of Privileges of the Merchant Adventurers of England, 1296–1483 (London: British Academy, 2009). However, the situation here is quite different. The documents were first issued in Dutch, and only later translated into English. The priority of the Dutch in these cases is apparent from the quality of the translation, which sticks so closely to the Dutch original that the English is at times barely comprehensible without knowledge of Dutch. Compare, for instance, the following Dutch sentence with its translation:

The statutes of the Hatmakers present a different case. We are not dealing with a document that was originally written in one language and later translated, but rather with one that seems to have been drawn up bilingually from the start.