Commonplace books were a successful form of writing for women in the seventeenth-century. Their varied nature allowed for creativity, and a wide collection of different genres of writing emerged from them. Commonplace book writing differs from journalistic writing in that it maintains a type of theme throughout; while there were no hard-and-fast rules regarding a “proper” commonplace book, there was a certain structure and level of organization that took place among the bound manuscripts. Categories of writing in such books would include favored quotes, letters, poems, bible verses, recipes (culinary, medical, or both), and, perhaps most importantly, original writings. Surviving literary pieces that were written in this fashion serve as a useful tool for modern literary scholars to learn about how women of the seventeenth-century contributed to literary culture. Furthermore, physical details of such pieces reveal information about seventeenth-century women themselves, including the freedoms their writing provided them and the restrictions their writing suffered from. Modern studies of commonplace books consider factors such as handwriting, pagination, collation, content, and audience to determine details about the author’s status and person.
Victoria E. Burke, a prominent figure in the modern ongoing study of women’s manuscripts, endorses codicology (the physical examination of manuscripts, including watermarks, collation, and binding) as an informative method to learn about the historical background of the author1 . The conclusions we can draw from the manufactured quality of the books are helpful in narrowing down where an author might have lived or what their socioeconomic situation was. It is likely that any woman who had the skills to write in a commonplace book had a notable degree of privilege; it must be remembered that “a major disadvantage presented by [such handwritten] material is that it is not representative of women as a whole but only that élite minority who had learned to write”2 . Women were also largely unable to learn Latin, which excluded them from the academic, theological, and professional discourses3 . Lady Mary Wortley Montague, a prominent English aristocrat and writer of the time, has made many scholars smirk in bemusement with her written account of speaking Latin in front of her fiancé and leaving him amazed, “as if he had heard a piece of wax work talk!”4 .
Keeping this information in mind, scholars can deduce specific information about the women writers’ degree of privilege and recognition by the physical makeup of their books. An example of this is the case of Esther Inglis, a woman of the artisan class who was granted the honor of presenting her manuscripts to Prince Henry. There is reason to believe that her work, a volume of Psalms in Latin verse, was intended for a royal audience because it was so ornately decorated; according to Burke, the volume was “exquisitely bound in red velvet, and embroidered with silver and white thread and seed pearls”5 . In the case of Jane Cavendish, the daughter of the First Duke of Newcastle, the pages and binding of her volume also suggest that her writing was a luxurious product. The flag watermarks of her pages, combined with the gilt stamped goatskin binding, imply that her book was a work of value more than a product of private reflection6 . The flag watermarks that imply the paper was imported from Italy, which would have been considerably more expensive to ship than the typical French paper of English writers7 . The careful and beautiful craftsmanship further confirms that the product came from a family of wealth and influence; furthermore, considering her father’s political status, it is possible that the volume was intended for a royal audience, similar to Inglis’s. As a whole, the very makeup of these books shows the amount of opportunities women who were able to write were given.
Unfortunately, because seventeenth-century Europe was generally not accustomed to female writers, the freedoms granted by commonplace books were met with a fair share of limitations for the female authors. There are several clear instances of censorship (or in the least, restriction) present in the physical qualities of the commonplace books, such as handwriting and pagination. If a manuscript is not autograph and it was written by a scribe, there is a possibility that the text was mediated in some fashion8 . To return to Jane Cavendish, there is evidence that suggests her manuscript was compiled by her father’s secretary, John Rolleston9 . In such instances, it would not have been uncommon for the scribe to “quietly [regularize] spellings and [alter] words where he saw fit” when jotting down the musings of Lady Jane10 . In a similar case, there is evidence that the commonplace books of Anna Ley were not entirely written in her handwriting. There are clear alterations to a number of her poems that are written in her husband Roger’s hand, which, according to Burke, “[suggests] his control over the order of the presentation, and perhaps also some of their content”11 .
One of the more scandalous instances of censorship in women’s manuscripts of this period is the autobiography of Anne Halkett. Her book, which is largely regarded as a reflective and religious text, is famously missing pages throughout the volume. It is clear that these pages have been removed due to both the obviously missing content and the misnumbered pagination12 . The accepted reason for this sloppy removal is that the pages contained details of Halkett’s relationship with Joseph Bampfield, “the deceitful royalist spy to whom she was secretly engaged to for several years”13 . The censorship of her autobiography has become a favored subject of modern, feminist scholars who view her situation as a case of dishonest slander and sexism. There is reason to believe that her omitted pages contained sexual details or ideas otherwise ill-favored by the Church, and, for this reason, she was not permitted to share her own life experience in her own personal account. Ellen Moody, one of these feminist scholars, believes that it is “an anachronistic and sexist failure of imagination is responsible for the insistent reading of Halkett’s story as a confessional romance with a happy ending”, and she argues that such censorship and misframing can alter the public’s perception of a person as a whole14 . Her studies reveal that a significant amount of manuscripts hint toward a tension among women and their ability to comment on their own sexuality; considering what is known about the status of women in the seventeenth-century, it can be assumed that such women’s stories were not properly heard15 .
A similar attitude is revealed in Sarah Heller Mendelson’s studies of female manuscripts, where she remarks that “it is impossible to estimate how many diaries and occasional memoirs were either saved or destroyed because of the nature of their subject matter”16 . It is logical to assume that so much Christian devotional texts from women in the seventeenth-century still exist today because their content was agreeable to such a wide audience. Some Englishmen thought the act of female writing and publishing alone was a sign of sexual transgression17 . The national attitude toward “modesty and silence” among women also created a strain of self-censorship among female writers18 . According to Mendelson, it was not uncommon for a woman to shield her work from an outside audience entirely by writing in a personal shorthand19 20
This historical context makes these women’s manuscripts and commonplace books so extraordinary. Evidence of their place in history can be found, as mentioned above, in their literal physical qualities. The rarity of women having the skills needed to write makes their impressive literary accomplishments all the more significant. Furthermore, we have excellent samples of writing that have survived a period of instinctive censorship. The commonplace book was an important tool not only for the collective of literary thoughts and ideas but for the budding history of women’s literacy itself.
1 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1668. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
2 Mendelson, Sarah Heller. “Stuart women’s diaries and occasional memoirs.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 137. Print. Back to text.
3 Crawford, Patricia. “Women’s published writings 1600-1700.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 161. Print. Back to text.
4 Crawford, Patricia. “Women’s published writings 1600-1700.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 161. Print. Back to text.
5 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1669. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
6 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1669. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
7 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1669. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
8 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1672. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
9 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1672. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
10 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1672. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
11 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1673. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
12 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1670. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
13 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1670. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
14 Moody, Ellen. “A hole in the manuscript big enough to put your finger through:' the misframing of Anne Murray Halkett's autobiography.” 1 April 2006. Web. 16 Nov. 2015 Back to text.
15 Moody, Ellen. “A hole in the manuscript big enough to put your finger through:' the misframing of Anne Murray Halkett's autobiography.” 1 April 2006. Web. 16 Nov. 2015 Back to text.
16 Mendelson, Sarah Heller. “Stuart women’s diaries and occasional memoirs.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 139. Print. Back to text.
17 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1668. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
18 Burke, Victoria E. “Let’s Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth-Century Women’s Manuscripts.” Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 1668. Web. 29 Oct. 2015. Back to text.
19 Mendelson, Sarah Heller. “Stuart women’s diaries and occasional memoirs.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 138. Print. Back to text.
20 Mendelson, Sarah Heller. “Stuart women’s diaries and occasional memoirs.” Women in English Society, 1500-1800. Ed. Mary Prior. Routledge, 1985. 138. Print. Back to text.