This year marks the 570th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, on 29 May 1453. The city at the Bosporus, on the border between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, bridging Europe, Asia Minor and the Balkans, was originally called Byzantium. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, but according to legend it was founded in 667 BC.

 Constantine the Great from the Synopsis of Histories (Eastern Mediterranean, 1574): Harley MS 5632, f. 2v

The city was already an important trading and military centre, but its significance rose when, on 11 May, AD 324, Emperor Constantine the Great selected it to be the new capital of the reunited Roman Empire, and called it the New Rome. Six years later, to honour the emperor, it was renamed Constantinople after him. From the 5th century onwards, Constantinople was enriched with enormous fortifications, churches and monasteries, and the world-renowned imperial library.

A view of Constantinople from Mandeville’s Travels (Bohemia; 1st quarter of the 15th century): Add MS 24189, f. 9v

Despite the tumult after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Constantinople remained the seat of the Emperor of the East and the centre of the political, religious and intellectual life of the Byzantine Empire for many centuries. Admired and envied by the West, it was visited by travellers, kings and pilgrims. In 1204, the Crusader army, originally destined for Palestine, turned against the city, occupied and sacked it, and made it the capital of the Western Emperor of Constantinople for the next half century.

A golden bulla of Baldwin II, the last Western Emperor of Constantinople (Biervliet, 1269): Add Ch 14365, obverse

Although it was retaken by the Palaeologan dynasty in 1261, Constantinople never regained its previous status. From the 14th century, it faced the rising Ottoman Empire in an ever-weakening state. Sultan Mehmed II arrived at the gates of the city in April 1453 and started besieging the city.

The Emperor Constantine XI tried to secure help from the West, but the timing was very unfortunate. Europe was riven by warfare: the Hundred Year War was consuming France and England, Spain was involved in the last phase of the Reconquista, and the Holy Roman Empire was divided by internal wars. Apart from some volunteers and assistance from Venice, Genoa and the Pope, the Emperor was left on his own against the formidable  army of the Sultan. The British Library holds eye-witness accounts of what happened next, one of which is inserted in a 16th-century chronicle now attributed to Macarius of Melissa.

A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the final speech of Emperor Constantine XI (Venice, 16th century: Add MS 36539, f. 79r

This manuscript records the Emperor's final speech to his army on the night of the fateful battle. According to the author, who was present, Constantine declared:

‘My noble peers, illustrious generals, noble fellow-soldiers, you know well that the hour has come and that the enemy of our faith wishes to hem us in more cruelly with every means … Into your hands I give this most illustrious and renowned city, the Queen of Cities and your homeland … There is no time to say more to you. I only entrust my humble sceptre to your hands. Brothers and fellow-soldiers, be prepared for battle in the morning with grace and courage …'

The battle started around midnight on 29 May. The defenders were able to hold the walls for a while but when the general of the Genoan troops was wounded by an arrow, its defence was shaken. Parts of the army started to flee and the emperor was apparently left on his own. Chronicles from both East and West all agree that Constantine fought hard in the battle.

A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the last words of the Venetian soldiers witnessing the fall of Constantinople (Venice, 16th century): Add MS 36539, f. 85r

Some hours later the defence collapsed completely. Macarius noted the last words of the Venetian soldiers upon seeing the fall of the city: ‘Shudder Sun and groan Earth, the city is taken’. The Sultan then entered the city and a desperate search to find the emperor began. Eventually Constantine who identified under a heap of corpses by the imperial eagle embroidered on his shoes.

Detail of a grant by Sultan Mehmed II to the Genoese inhabitants of Galata, with the sultan’s monogram and the beginning of the Greek text (1 June 1435): Egerton MS 2817

A few days later, Sultan Mehmed II was in Constantinople when he issued one of his first edicts from his new capital, ensuring the trading rights of the Genoa merchants of Galata. The siege put an end to a long period in the history of this great city. No longer Byzantium or Constantinople, it started a new life as Istanbul.

 

Peter Toth

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Exactly a thousand years ago, on 28 May 1023, Lupus – ‘The Wolf’ – died in York. Lupus was the punning Latin name used by the prolific writer, cleric and royal adviser, Archbishop Wulfstan.

At the end of his entry on Wulfstan in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Patrick Wormald wrote that research on Wulfstan’s manuscripts in the twentieth century had transformed him ‘from just another doubtless worthy Anglo-Saxon prelate into one of the half dozen most significant figures even in the crowded and dramatic history of eleventh-century England’. Settling on a list of the other five most significant figures is a distracting little game.

Wulfstan called himself Lupus (‘The Wolf’): Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 110r

Wulfstan, who had been bishop of London from 996 to 1002, became bishop of Worcester from 1002 to 1016 and archbishop of York from 1002 until his death in 1023. He had been a leading religious and political figure in the turbulent reign of King Æthelred the Unready (r. 978–1016). Although the Danish conquest of England by Cnut in 1016 saw a turnover in the English nobility, Wulfstan remained both a key royal adviser and archbishop of York under the new regime. He drafted laws for Cnut, as he had for Æthelred, and introduced reforms of both church and lay society.

Wulfstan’s own handwriting survives in a number of manuscripts, and a Latin poem praising him in one such volume (Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV), is thought to be in his own hand. The poem mentions Wulfstan’s name admiringly in each verse. It includes the line, Est laus wulfstano mea pulchritudo benigno pontifici cui sit dominus sine fine serenus ([This poem’s] beauty is praise for the kind Bishop Wulfstan, my Lord be endlessly merciful to him).

A poem praising Wulfstan, apparently written in his own hand: Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 148v

While no contemporary biographical account of Wulfstan’s life survives to set alongside the poem, we can reconstruct his life and career from his other works and from the manuscripts that he annotated. They show him to be a busy, restless figure, collecting legal, liturgical and instructional texts for use in the many crises of his day.

Wulfstan’s ‘letter-book’ (also Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV), compiled when he was Archbishop of York, includes a collection of letters written around two hundred years previously by the royal adviser and abbot, Alcuin (d. 804). Alcuin had sent advice to the English archbishops and to King Æthelred of Northumbria (r. 774–779, 789–796). He warned of the perils of sin, which he believed had led to Viking raids as divine punishment for the wickedness of the English. As Wulfstan was adviser to his own King Æthelred during another period of Danish invasion, he doubtless recognised the analogies between Alcuin’s times and his own.

The opening of Wulfstan’s letter book: Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 114r

Wulfstan took these lessons to heart in his own time and drew upon Alcuin in his most famous work, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English when the Danes were persecuting them most). In this barnstorming speech, he warned the people that they could lose their kingdom unless they repented from sin:

Leofan men, gecnawað þæt soð is. Ðeos worold is on ofste, and hit nealæcð þam ende, and þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse. And swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan ær antecristes tocyme yfelian swyþe, and huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic and grimlic wide on worolde.

Beloved men, recognise what is true: this world is in haste and approaches its end; and therefore, in this world things always worsen the longer they last. And so, it must by necessity deteriorate greatly before the coming of the Antichrist, because of the people sins, and indeed it will then be terrible and grim widely in the world. 

The Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf to the English): Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 110r

This manuscript also contains law-codes, drafted by Wulfstan for Æthelred and Cnut. It includes the earliest surviving copy of laws (known as I–II Cnut) issued in Cnut’s name at a meeting at Winchester around 1020 or 1021. These laws are the most extensive record of law in England before the Norman Conquest. They drew on earlier English kings’ law-codes, and this copy, made in the third quarter of the 11th century, is now bound with copies of earlier law-codes that Wulfstan used and annotated.

A law-code of King Cnut drafted by Wulfstan: Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r

We can see other aspects of Wulfstan’s activities in one of his own liturgical books (Cotton MS Claudius A III). This is a pontifical, a service book for the rites performed by a bishop. Wulfstan included in it Latin and Old English versions of an Æthelred law code that he had drafted. He seems to have added in his own hand the names of King Æthelred and himself between the lines of the text.

A law-code of King Æthelred drafted by Wulfstan, with the added names of King Æthelred and Wulfstan: Cotton MS Claudius A III, f. 35r

In other manuscripts, Wulstan’s annotations show him minutely changing the wording of his own sermons, as well as correcting and supplementing the texts of others. He also oversaw the compilation of the first cartulary gathering together evidence of gifts of property to the cathedral priory of Worcester and leases of its land.

Copies of leases in the first cartulary of Worcester: Cotton MS Tiberius A XIII, f. 87v

The manuscripts linked to Wulfstan reveal the multifaceted role of an early medieval bishop, responsible for pastoral care in his diocese and for the education and disciplining of the clergy, managing property, participating on the national stage as a major voice at the royal council and advising on the spiritual welfare of the kingdom.

Although Wulfstan died in York on 28 May 1023, he was buried, in accordance with his wishes, in the fenland abbey at Ely.

Claire Breay

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The British Library's project devoted to Medieval and Renaissance Women has now reached its successful conclusion. Funded through the generosity of Joanna and Graham Barker, we have digitised a grand total of 93 volumes, 219 charters and 25 rolls that are connected with the lives of European women between the years 1100 and 1600.

A chirograph of Fredescendis, abbess of Maubeuge, granting land to Guarin, abbot of Vicogne (between 1129 and 1151): Add Ch 1390

All the items can now be viewed online. We hope that you enjoy exploring them, for your own research or pleasure, or simply to gain an insight into the daily lives, achievements and struggles of these women. The manuscripts that we have digitised cover topics such as female health, the education of women, their business dealings and female spirituality, including personal and communal religious experiences.

Hildegard von Bingen, Liber divinorum operum (late 15th century): Add MS 15418, f. 7r

The full lists of all the items in Medieval and Renaissance Women are available in two formats, as a PDF or as an Excel document. They can be downloaded from the following links: please note, the Excel format cannot be downloaded on all web browsers.

 

PDF: Download Medieval_and_renaissance_women_digitised_vols_mar_2023

PDF: Download Medieval_and_renaissance_women_digitised_charters_rolls_may_2023

Excel: Download Medieval_and_renaissance_women_digitised_vols_mar_2023 

Excel: Download Medieval_and_renaissance_women_digitised_charters_rolls_may_2023 

 

For more details, see our blogposts on the manuscript volumes and on the charters and rolls.

In addition to digitising all of these manuscripts, rolls and charters, we have taken the opportunity to enhance our catalogue records. We were also joined on a six-month placement by Paula Del Val Vales, a PhD student at the University of Lincoln, who shared with us her expertise, and in return she gained experience of cataloguing, promoting and researching our collections. As part of our project, Paula has created new people pages and collection items for the British Library's webspaces, as listed here:

Birgitta of Sweden and Revelations of Birgitta of Sweden

Eleanor of Castile and Wardrobe Account of Eleanor of Castile

Eleanor de Montfort and Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort

Ippolita Maria Sforza and Cicero's De Senectute written by Ippolita Maria Sforza

Empress Matilda and Embroidered Seal-Bag of Empress Matilda

 

Cicero, De senectute, written by Ippolita Maria Sforza (1458): Add MS 21984, f. 3r

So, to conclude our project, let's remember the names of some of the women we've encountered during Medieval and Renaissance Women. Some of them are relatively well-known, while in other cases their names are preserved only in a single, ephemeral document or a chance inscription. Their fates and fortunes may be imperfectly understood, but at least their names are preserved for posterity.

Anne de Bretagne; Beatrice Malherbe; Catherine of Siena; Dorothy, abbess of the Poor Clares without Aldgate; Elizabeth of Katzenelenbogen; Fredescendis, abbess of Maubeuge; Gunnilda atte Denne; Hildegard von Bingen; Ismania, widow of Laurence Berkerolles; Julian of Norwich; Kunegunde; Jane Lumley; Margaret, Archduchess of Austria; Nicolosa Sanuta; Odelina de Trachy; Petronilla of Nereford; Margaret de Quincy; Rohais, countess of Lincoln; Sibylla Frances of Dunwich; Tomasina de Damis; Violante of Aragon; Ela, countess of Warwick; Alix, countess of Eu; Ymelda; Zuliana, nun of Santa Caterina, Brescia

 

The will of Gunnilda atte Denne (1318): Add Ch 17295

 

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