On Friday evening, I spoke at the Readers Research: Blacks in Renaissance Britain event at the British Library, along with Open University graduate Michael Ohajuru  (you can read his highly complimentary version of events here). The event was chaired by Dr. Caroline Bressey of the UCL Equiano Centre. 

It was quite a thrill to be speaking at the British Library, a place I have made regular pilgrimages to for many years now. I even spent some time there helping to catalogue some watercolours of animals in the first Indian zoo in Barrackpore back in 1999.  But I digress...

Michael spoke first, and I was very jealous of his excellent presentation skills and all the lovely pictures he had to illustrate his talk, which was on the black magus he had found in a rood screen painting of The Adoration of the Magi (c.1520) in the V&A, which was probably made in Devon.  In fact, he very effectively compared it with other rood screen images he had found in Devon, and traced the journey of the black magus image from Cologne to Bruges, Alsace and Devon. You can read a transcript here and download his  presentation.  One of the most interesting images for me was of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI's entrance into Sicily in 1191, heralded by black trumpeters, as it reminded me of the long tradition of royal musicians to which John Blanke, Henry VIII's 'black trumpet' , who I am speaking about on Tuesday at Peckham Library, belonged. 

My only real criticism was that Michael didn't really differentiate between  Europe and England, with statements such as "Blacks were seen legally as slaves and culturally as barbarians." Whereas my research has show that Africans were not slaves in England at this time. He quotes  "the chronicler of an English voyage to Guinea" in 1554 (Robert Gainsh) as describing "A people of beastly living, without god, lawe, religion or common wealth". However, that same voyage brought five Africans back to London, who admittedly were described as "slaves" in the text, but  were not treated as  such, but only kept here only long enough to learn some English, after which they were returned to Guinea to act as interpreters and trade factors. The only record we have of their experience is brief but evocative: "some were tall and strong men, and could wel agree with our meates and drinkes" although "the coulde and moyst ayer dooth sumwhat offende them". Looking out the window today, I can imagine why they might have found the London air objectionable! Though, at least according to the Cartwright judgement of 1569, "the air of England is too pure an air for slaves to breath in". 

My own talk is a bit of a blur now (Michael seems to remember it better!).  Basically I shared some documents I'd found in the Lansdowne Manuscripts, a collection held by the British Library.  A letter written by the Mayor of Bristol, William Hopkins to the Privy Council in 1590 (two years after the Armada battle and at the height of the war with Spain), and an attached set of accounts written by his Chamberlain, regarding a prize ship that had been brought into Bristol by her Majesty's (Elizabeth I's) pinnace The Charles (captain Jonas Bradbury). There were 32 Spanish or Portuguese and 135 Africans on board the prize ship.  Using the documents, I explained why they were on the ship, what happened to them during their stay in Bristol, and the significance of the fact that they were sent back to  Spain within the week. 

The conversation and Q&A afterwards was wide-ranging: from Hollywood swashbucklers to Moorish Spain via Caspar Van Senden.  Perhaps the most philosophical question came from a gentleman from Ghana: why do we always view Africa as peripheral to Europe, perhaps Europe is in fact peripheral to Africa? This is a matter of perspective I suppose. One book I've read that tries to address this is David Northrup's Africa's Discovery of Europe (Oxford, 2002).  I think I'll read it again!

The event was recorded, and we're hoping it will be available as a podcast in due course.  

Our talks were actually the first in a Readers' Research series- which seems a great idea. Often I look around  (and I think  Dr. Bressey made this point too) and wonder what the studious-looking people around me are studying. On the ocassions when I have managed to strike up a conversation, it has always been interesting. So anything that encourages us to interact and gives us more reason to hang out in the BL's many cafés, seems like a good idea! The fact that Michael and I, not exactly wallflower types, actually both discovered the material we presented in summer 2008 but never met until last autumn shows how much more could be done to forge connections between readers.

 If you're kicking yourself that you didn't make it, or were turned away (we sold out!), then please come along to one of my upcoming talks at Peckham Library on Tuesday or The National Archives on Friday 16th November. 

Just back from a great talk by my friend Dr. Kathy Chater, who I've mentioned here before. She told us some of the fascinating stories she'd uncovered in the Old Bailey court records.  You can now check them out yourself online: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ 

But back in 2000, when Kathy began her research, she had to go through the cases on microfilm, scanning the pages for mention of black people. I sympathise as I've spent plenty of time doing the same with parish registers! The advantage of this over the modern keyword search is that you get a feel for the source and the context- Kathy noted how other people were treated in court, so was able to understand the black experience better.  

One of the great things about the Old Bailey records is that they're verbatim accounts of what was said in court, so you really hear people's voices coming through.  One memorable quote came from Ann Duck, who is recorded as shouting during an assault: "Hamstring the dog that he may never run after me again!", another one that made us laugh was the woman who testified "he put his impudence into me"!

Chater concluded that black people in the long 18th century were pretty law- abiding, as she's found less than 200 of them appearing in some 54,000 trials. There were still some juicy stories to be told however- of highwaymen and footpads, theft, rape and murder.  I was reminded of how extreme and sometimes gruesome 18th century punishments could be (see Hogarth's print above). We also learnt of Thomas Latham,  possibly the first black police constable (c.1746). The case is copied on the excellent Black Presence website, here: http://www.blackpresence.co.uk/black-people-at-the-old-bailey/

Anyway, I'm not going to try to recount every case here. You'll have to look for them yourself on the amazing Old Bailey website, or check out Kathy's book, now in paperback.