Biography of John Stow (1525-1605)
(Graduate Student Project)
In the introduction to his 1971 critical edition of A
Survey of London, Charles Lethbridge Kingsford alludes to Stow’s description of himself as “the
first painful searcher into the reverend antiquities of London” and also
describes Stow as a “citizen of long
descent” (1.vii). Stow’s grandfather, Thomas Stow, was a Tallow Chandler who was prosperous enough to
leave to his son, also named Thomas
Stow, £20 and the family business.
John Stow was the eldest of seven
children. His memories of his childhood are replete with the names of the
streets and sites in the area in which he was raised. His ancestors were
buried at St. Michael, Cornhill.
Stow’s grandfather and father in
turn both supplied this church with lamp oil and candles (Kingsford 1.vii). His father lived on Throgmorton Street near the modern
Drapers’ Hall where the younger
Stow saw “his father’s garden […]
encroached for the making of Thomas
Cromwell’s pleasure-grounds” (Kingsford 1.viii). Stow’s
numerous written representations of charitable acts may stem from his
childhood memories of seeing two hundred people served “bread, meat and
drink” everyday at Cromwell’s gate.
Other memories include fetching “many a halfpennyworth of milk hot from the
kine” in Goodman’s Fields (Kingsford 1.viii).
Stow never mentions his education,
but Kingsford concludes that it “must have been tolerable for his time and
station. However, [Stow’s] description of how in his youth he had yearly
seen on the eve of St. Bartholomew the scholars of divers grammar-schools
repair unto the church yard of St.
Bartholomew hardly suggests that he took part in their exercises”
(Kingsford 1.viii). Stow did not take up his family’s
business, but rather apprenticed and was admitted to the Merchant Taylors’ Company in 1547. He “was a
working tailor” for almost thirty years (Kingsford 1.viii). He was a “member of the Yeomanry of the
Company […], but was never admitted to the Livery” (Pearl v). His home and business were “by the well
within Aldgate between Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street” (Kingsford 1.viii). According to Kingsford, Stow “must have prospered fairly […because] he took
his brother Thomas to be his
apprentice” (1.viii-ix) and had enough
money to purchase an assortment of manuscripts and books.
Over the next fifteen years, he appears to have educated himself in Latin,
poetry, and the antiquities (Kingsford
1.ix). His first publication in 1561 was The
workes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed, with divers addicions whiche
were never in printe before (STC 5076). Subsequent publications included the Chronicles of England (STC 23333) in 1580 and the Annales of England (STC
23334) in 1592. A Survey of London was published
in 1598 (STC 23341) and a second,
longer edition in 1603 (STC 23343).
Anthony Munday published expanded
editions in 1618 and 1633. John
Strype published a folio edition in 1720 (Beer). For more information on the printing history
of A Survey, see the forthcoming essay by Paisley
Mann, to be published on this site.
For many years prior to publishing A Survey of
London, Stow had an ongoing
dispute with Richard Grafton, the
author of Abridgement of the Chronicles of
England. They criticized each other’s work and Stow, though lauded as the better chronicler, seemed
unable to let go of his grievances against Grafton (Kingsford 1.xii).
Kingsford suggests that, as a self-taught man, he was jealous of the more
educated chroniclers of his time (1.xii).
Kingsford also proposes that this rivalry may have been exacerbated by
trouble in Stow’s personal life
stating that his “literary pursuits may have put him out of sympathy with
his commercial kinsfolk” and that “there may have been some religious
difference, for John was inclined to
favour old beliefs, whilst his mother appears to have been Protestant” (1.xiii). The family discord seems to
have reached its climax when Stow,
critical of his brother’s ill-advised marriage, called Thomas’s wife a harlot. On hearing this, Thomas convinced his mother to change
her will. She decided to leave Stow
only £5 when the other children received £10. Stow urged his mother to reinstate his share and is
said to have appealed, “I wax old and decay in my occupation and have a
great charge of children, and a wife that can neither get nor save” (1.xv). His mother died without making
the change. Kingsford suggests the sensational details of the family dispute
are “of the greatest value for the light […they shed] on other incidents in
Stow’s career, and for its
explanations of some allusions in his writings” (1.xv).
In 1569, Stow was implicated in the
circulation of a manifesto published by the Spanish ambassador against Elizabeth I (Beer). Stow
admitted that he had been lent two copies and had made one for himself, but
he was not circulating them publicly. He was not charged. Circumstances
suggest that his brother may have been the informant. This incident may also
have led to “Stow […being] reported
to the Queen’s Council for having many “dangerous books of superstition”
(1.xvi) and the subsequent search
of his house. Although Stow’s
collection included a diverse range of subject matter only a small portion
were described by the searchers as “phantasticall popishe bokes.”
Nevertheless, the report concluded, “his bokes declare him to be a great
favourer of papistrye” (qtd. in Kingsford
1.xvii).
Though the Privy Council did not pursue the matter any further, Stow never seemed able to pardon anyone
who had grieved him. According to Kingsford, he never ignored an opportunity
to reveal an error in his former rival Grafton’s work or to “point […out] the moral of his brother’s
inequity” (1.xviii). For example, A Survey includes an account of a “false accuser of
his elder brother […] hanged” (1.xix)
for his dishonesty. Kingsford proposes that Stow’s excessive bitterness was a manifestation of the real
danger of being suspected of “popish inclinations” (1.xix). In turn, he may have “triumphed over his
enemies” (1.xix) because of his
associations with and recognition by other noted antiquaries of the period.
He belonged to the Society of Antiquaries, whose members counselled and
helped each other. He shared with Holinshed “diverse rare monuments, ancient writers and necessary
register books” (1.xxi) from his
extensive collection.
Though his writing had given him friendship and renown, he is reported to
have spent his later life with very little income. The Merchant Taylors’ Company established small
pensions for less fortunate members and Stow received such a pension (Kingsford 1.xxiii; Beer).
Stow, however, continued to
complain about a
lack of money, a complaint endorsed by a number of contemporaries. Edmund Howes [Stow’s literary executor
(Pearl vi)] wrote that Stow never rode but travelled on foot
as he visited old buildings and searched for historical records, while Ben Jonson remarked that when he and
Stow were walking together, they
met two lame beggars whom Stow asked
whether they would take him into their order. (Beer)Stow’s “financial problems resulted
from his difficulties in earning an adequate living from book sales and from
his failure to attract a sufficiently generous patron” (Beer). However, the ample inheritance Stow left his wife and daughters and
the “mural monument of Derbyshire marble and alabaster” Stow’s widow had built near his burial site “in the
parish church of St Andrew
Undershaft” suggest that Stow overstated his poverty (Beer).
After Stow’s death, his contemporary
and literary executor, Edmund Howes,
observed that Stow “was tall of
stature, lean of body and of a pleasant and cheerful countenance, sober,
mild and courteous. […] He never tried to flatter, only to speak the truth”
(qtd. in Pearl v-vi). Although Howes understood Stow to be an agreeable, well mannered,
unpretentious, and honest man, historians Ian Archer and Patrick Collinson
believe the reliability of Stow’s
chronicles to have been compromised by his effusive and discriminatory
nostalgia. However, despite Stow’s
tendency toward wistful recollections, Archer still values his “celebration
of the City, [… because Stow also]
voices his anxieties about the changes he has witnessed within his lifetime,
changes which offended […] his social ideals […] of the harmoniously
functioning body politic of mutually interdependent social groups all aware
of their place in the hierarchy and their responsibilities towards others”
(19). Collinson, however, judges
Stow’s nostalgia to be
“selective” (28) and cites omissions
that may not have agreed with Stow’s
vision of an ideal community. One of the most striking omissions is that of
London’s theatres. In the 1598 publication, Stow briefly mentions that “Stage playes, hath beene vsed
Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and Histories, both true and fayned: For
the acting whereof certaine publike places haue beene erected” (qtd. in Collinson 31). In the 1603 publication,
however, the passing reference to the playhouses of the Curtain and the Theatre were removed (Collinson
31).
Despite identifiable imperfections, Stow’s “district-by-district perambulation of the boundaries and
monuments of the wards, liberties and suburbs of London” and his exposition
of “the traditional practices and values of the citizen class” (Manley 36) remains an admired work
central to scholarship on early modern London. Stow provides not only an extensive account of
London’s physical setting and population, but also vital insights into a
society in the midst of immense change as the institutions and values of the
late medieval period responded to early modern capitalism.
Sources
- Archer, Ian. "John Stow's Survey of London: The Nostalgia of John Stow." The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576-1649. Ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 17-34. Print. [Added 13 May 2010 by DJ.]
- Beer, Barrett L. "Stow [Stowe], John (1524/5–1605)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Web. http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/article/26611. [Added 13 May 2010 by DJ.]
- Collinson, Patrick. "John Stow and Nostalgic Antiquarianism." Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-1720. Ed. J.F. Merritt. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 29-51. [Added 13 May 2010 by DJ.]
- Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge. Introduction and Notes. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. By John Stow. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Rpt. N.p.: Elibron Classics, 2001.
- Manley, Lawrence. "John Stow's Survey of London: Of Sites and Rites." The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576-1649. Ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 35-54. Print. [Added 13 May 2010 by DJ.]
- Pearl, Valerie. Introduction. A Survey of London. By John Stow. Ed. H.B. Wheatley. London: Everyman's Library, 1987. v-xii. [Added 13 May 2010 by DJ.]
- STC. Abbreviation for A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640. Comp. by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave. 2nd. ed. rev. and enl. 3 vols. Begun by W. A. Jackson and F. S. Ferguson; completed by Katharine F. Pantzer. London: Bibliographical Society, 1976-1991. [Added 19 May 2010.]
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.