Finsbury Field Author Kate Casebeer Encoder Kate Casebeer Guest Editor Ian MacInnes Markup Editor 2017-04-28 Janelle Jenstad Proofreader 2017-04-28 Katie Tanigawa Geo-Coordinate Researcher2019 Lucas Simpson Data Manager Tye Landels Junior Programmer Joey Takeda Programmer Martin Holmes Associate Project Director Kim McLean-Fiander Project Director Janelle Jenstad The Map of Early Modern Londonhttp://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/includes.xmlVictoria, BC, Canada
Department of English P.O.Box 3070 STNC CSC University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada V8W 3W1
2016University of Victoria978-1-55058-519-3 Janelle Jenstad london@uvic.ca

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 Provider: University of Victoria Database: The Map of Early Modern London Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8" TY - ELEC A1 - Casebeer, Kate ED - Jenstad, Janelle T1 - Finsbury Field T2 - The Map of Early Modern London ET - 7.0 PY - 2022 DA - 2022/05/05 CY - Victoria PB - University of Victoria LA - English UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/FINS2.htm UR - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/xml/standalone/FINS2.xml ER - Casebeer, Kate. Finsbury Field. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 7.0, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 05 May 2022, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/FINS2.htm. Casebeer, Kate. Finsbury Field. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 7.0. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed May 05, 2022. mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/FINS2.htm. Casebeer, K. 2022. Finsbury Field. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London (Edition 7.0). Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/editions/7.0/FINS2.htm.

Finsbury Field is located in northen London outside the London Wall. Note that MoEML correctly locates Finsbury Field, which the label on the Agas map confuses with Mallow Field (Prockter 40). Located nearby is Finsbury Court. Finsbury Field is outside of the city wards within the borough of Islington (Mills 81).

 Lucas Simpson Lucas Simpson LS

Research Assistant, 2018-2021. Lucas Simpson was a student at the University of Victoria.

 Kate LeBere Kate LeBere KL

Project Manager, 2020-2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019-2020. Research Assistant, 2018-2020. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English at the University of Victoria in 2020. She published papers in The Corvette (2018), The Albatross (2019), and PLVS VLTRA (2020) and presented at the English Undergraduate Conference (2019), Qualicum History Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet during the Russian Cultural Revolution. During her time at MoEML, Kate made significant contributions to the 1598 and 1633 editions of Stow’s Survey of London, old-spelling anthology of mayoral shows, and old-spelling library texts. She authored the MoEML’s first Project Management Manual and quickstart guidelines for new employees and helped standardize the Personography and Bibliography. She is currently a student at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.

 Joey Takeda Joey Takeda JT

Programmer, 2018-present. Junior Programmer, 2015-2017. Research Assistant, 2014-2017. Joey Takeda was a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of English (Science and Technology research stream). He completed his BA honours in English (with a minor in Women’s Studies) at the University of Victoria in 2016. His primary research interests included diasporic and indigenous Canadian and American literature, critical theory, cultural studies, and the digital humanities.

 Katie Tanigawa Katie Tanigawa KT

Project Manager, 2015-2019. Katie Tanigawa was a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria. Her dissertation focused on representations of poverty in Irish modernist literature. Her additional research interests included geospatial analyses of modernist texts and digital humanities approaches to teaching and analyzing literature.

 Tye Landels-Gruenewald Tye Landels-Gruenewald TLG

Data Manager, 2015-2016. Research Assistant, 2013-2015. Tye completed his undergraduate honours degree in English at the University of Victoria in 2015.

 Kim McLean-Fiander Kim McLean-Fiander KMF

Director of Pedagogy and Outreach, 2015–2020. Associate Project Director, 2015. Assistant Project Director, 2013-2014. MoEML Research Fellow, 2013. Kim McLean-Fiander comes to The Map of Early Modern London from the Cultures of Knowledge digital humanities project at the University of Oxford, where she was the editor of Early Modern Letters Online, an open-access union catalogue and editorial interface for correspondence from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. She is currently Co-Director of a sister project to EMLO called Women’s Early Modern Letters Online (WEMLO). In the past, she held an internship with the curator of manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, completed a doctorate at Oxford on paratext and early modern women writers, and worked a number of years for the Bodleian Libraries and as a freelance editor. She has a passion for rare books and manuscripts as social and material artifacts, and is interested in the development of digital resources that will improve access to these materials while ensuring their ongoing preservation and conservation. An avid traveler, Kim has always loved both London and maps, and so is particularly delighted to be able to bring her early modern scholarly expertise to bear on the MoEML project.

 Janelle Jenstad Janelle Jenstad JJ

Janelle Jenstad is Associate Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and PI of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. She has taught at Queen’s University, the Summer Academy at the Stratford Festival, the University of Windsor, and the University of Victoria. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media (Routledge). She has prepared a documentary edition of John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Renaissance and Reformation,Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Early Modern Literary Studies, Elizabethan Theatre, Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism, and The Silver Society Journal. Her book chapters have appeared (or will appear) in Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society (Brill, 2004), Shakespeare, Language and the Stage, The Fifth Wall: Approaches to Shakespeare from Criticism, Performance and Theatre Studies (Arden/Thomson Learning, 2005), Approaches to Teaching Othello (Modern Language Association, 2005), Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2007), New Directions in the Geohumanities: Art, Text, and History at the Edge of Place (Routledge, 2011), Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter, 2016), Teaching Early Modern English Literature from the Archives (MLA, 2015), Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana, 2016), Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota, 2017), and Rethinking Shakespeare’s Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018).

 Martin D. Holmes Martin D. Holmes MDH

Programmer at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre (HCMC). Martin ported the MOL project from its original PHP incarnation to a pure eXist database implementation in the fall of 2011. Since then, he has been lead programmer on the project and has also been responsible for maintaining the project schemas. He was a co-applicant on MoEML’s 2012 SSHRC Insight Grant.

 Ian MacInnes Ian MacInnes IM

Ian MacInnes (B.A. Swarthmore College, Ph.D. University of Virginia) is the director of pedagogical partnerships (US) for MoEML. He is Professor of English at Albion College, Michigan, where he teaches Elizabethan literature, Shakespeare, and Milton. His scholarship focuses on representations of animals and the environment in Renaissance literature, particularly in Shakespeare. He has published essays on topics such as horse breeding and geohumoralism in Henry V and on invertebrate bodies in Hamlet. He is particularly interested in teaching methods that rely on students’ curiosity and sense of play.

Click here for Ian MacInnes’ Albion College profile.

 Kate Casebeer Kate Casebeer KMC

Student contributor at Albion College in Spring 2015, working under the guest editorship of Ian MacInnes.

 Roger Acheley Roger Acheley Sheriff Mayor

Sheriff of London 1504-1505. Mayor 1511-1512. Member of the Drapers’ Company. Buried at St. Christopher le Stocks.

MASL Charles I Charles I King of England King of Scotland King of Ireland the Martyr 1600/01 1649/50

King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1625-1649.

ODNB Wikipedia William fitz-Stephen William fitz-Stephen 1162/63-1174/75

Biographer and clerk.

ODNB Wikipedia Henry VIII Henry VIII King of England King of Ireland 1491-07-07 28 January 1547/48

King of England and Ireland 1509-1547.

ODNB Wikipedia Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood 1573/74 1641/42

Playwright and poet.

EB ODNB Wikipedia James VI and I James VI I King of Scotland King of England King of Ireland 1566/67 1625/26

King of Scotland 1567-1625. King of England and Ireland 1603-1625.

ODNB Wikipedia William Shakespeare William Shakespeare 1564/65 1616/17

Playwright and poet.

EB ODNB Wikipedia John Stow John Stow 1524/25-1525/26 1605/06

Historian and author of A Survey of London. Husband of Elizabeth Stow.

MoEML ODNB Wikipedia Sir George Barne Sir George Barne Sheriff Mayor 1500/01 1558/59 1545/46-1553/54

Sheriff of London 1545-1546. Mayor 1552-1553. Member of the Haberdashers’ Company. Buried at St. Bartholomew by the Exchange. Not to be confused with Sir George Barne.

MASL ODNB Wikipedia Sir Ralph Josselyn Sir Ralph Josselyn Mayor Sheriff

Sheriff of London 1458-1459. Mayor 1464-1465 and 1476-1477. Member of the Drapers’ Company. Buried at St. Swithin, London Stone.

MASL Lady Kate Percy Lady Kate Percy

Dramatic character in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I.

 Sir Harry Percy Sir Harry Percy Hotspur

Dramatic character in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I.

 Thomas Fauconer Thomas Fauconer Sheriff Mayor

Sheriff of London 1403-1404. Mayor 1414-1415. Member of the Mercers’ Company. Builder of Mooregate.

MASL Worshipful Company of HaberdashersHaberdashers’ Company

The Haberdashers’ Company was one of the twelve great companies of London. The Haberdashers were eighth in the order of precedence established in 1515. The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers is still active and maintains a website at http://www.haberdashers.co.uk/ that includes a history of the company and history of their hall.

The coat of arms of the Haberdashers’ Company, from Stow (1633). [Full size image]
Honourable Artillery Company

The Honourable Artillery Company was a guild of archers in early modern London. Note that archery was considered to be a form of artillery in early modern usage.

 Born digital. Ayme for Finsburie archers. Or An alphabetical table of the names of euerie marke within the same fields. By E.B. 1601. Frontispiece. Baker, Richard. A chronicle of the Kings of England. London, 1643. Wing B501. Bevington, David. Henry IV, Part 1. Enyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Henry-IV-Part-1. Brome, Richard. A Mad Couple Well-Match’d. Five New Playes. London: Humphrey Moseley, Richard Marriot, and Thomas Dring, 1653. Sig. A5v-H2r. Remediated by Richard Brome Online. Fisher, F.J. London and the English Economy, 1500–1700. Ed. P.J. Corfield and N.B. Harte. London: Hambledon, 1990. Print. Fitter, R.S.R. London’s Natural History. London: Collins, 1953. Print. Heywood, Thomas. An hundred epigrammes. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1550. STC 926:08. Longman, Charles James, and Henry Walrond. Archery. London, 1894. Print. Mills, A.D. Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Remediated by Oxford Reference. Prockter, Adrian, and Robert Taylor, comps. The A to Z of Elizabethan London. London: Guildhall Library, 1979. Print. [This volume is our primary source for identifying and naming map locations.] Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London. 6 vols. London, 1878. Remediated by British History Online. Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. See also the digital transcription of this edition at British History Online. London

The city of London, not to be confused with the allegorical character (London).

(LOND5.xml) The Wall

Originally built as a Roman fortification for the provincial city of Londinium in the second century C.E., the London Wall remained a material and spatial boundary for the city throughout the early modern period. Described by Stow as high and great (Stow 1:8), the London Wall dominated the cityscape and spatial imaginations of Londoners for centuries. Increasingly, the eighteen-foot high wall created a pressurized constraint on the growing city; the various gates functioned as relief valves where development spilled out to occupy spaces outside the wall.

(WALL2.xml) Mallow Field Information is not yet available. (MALL1.xml) Finsbury Court Information is not yet available. (FINS1.xml) Islington Information is not yet available. (ISLI1.xml) Moorfields

A low-lying marshy area just northeast of Moorgate and on the way to the Curtain, Moorfields was home to a surprising range of activities and accompanying cultural associations in early modern London. Beggars and the mentally ill patients of neighbouring Bethlehem Hospital often frequented the area. Some used the public space to bleach and dry linen, and the Honorable Artillery Company also used it as an official training ground. Moorfields was even a popular suburban destination for ice skating when its water froze during the winter. Moorfields was generally full of noysome waters (Stow 2:77) until 1605–1607, when it was successfully drained, levelled, and beautified with tree-lined pedestrian pathways. At this point, it transformed into a fashionable place for the genteel to see and to be seen. The history of Moorfields provides insight into social, political, environmental, and medical issues in early modern London.

(MOOR1.xml) Moorgate

Moorgate was one of the major gates in the Wall of London (Sugden). It was situated in the northern part of the Wall, flanked by Cripplegate and Bishopsgate. Clearly labelled as More Gate on the Agas map, it stood near the intersection of London Wall street and Coleman Street (Sugden; Stow 1598, sig. C6v). It adjoined Bethlehem Hospital, and the road through it led into Finsbury Field (Rocque) and Mallow Field.

(MOOR2.xml) St. Bartholomew the Less

St. Bartholomew the Less, formerly the chapel of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, was refounded as a parish church in 1547. It has been on its present site in Smithfield since 1184. John Lyly and Thomas Bodley are buried in the church.

(STBA4.xml) St. Paul’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Cathedral was—and remains—an important church in London. In 962, while London was occupied by the Danes, St. Paul’s monastery was burnt and raised anew. The church survived the Norman conquest of 1066, but in 1087 it was burnt again. An ambitious Bishop named Maurice took the opportunity to build a new St. Paul’s, even petitioning the king to offer a piece of land belonging to one of his castles (Times 115). The building Maurice initiated would become the cathedral of St. Paul’s which survived until the Great Fire of London.

(STPA2.xml)

Our editorial and encoding practices are documented in detail in the Praxis section of our website.

Author A person or organization chiefly responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of a work, usually printed text. This term may also be used when more than one person or body bears such responsibility. MoEML uses the term author to designate a contributor who is wholly or partly responsible for the original content of either a born-digital document, such as an encyclopedia entry, or a primary source document, such as a MoEML Library text. Data manager A person or organization responsible for managing databases or other data sources. MoEML uses the term data manager to designate contributors who maintain and manage our databases. They add and update the data sent to us by external contributors or found by MoEML team members. They also monitor journals and sources regularly to ensure that our databases are current. Geographic information specialist A person responsible for geographic information system (GIS) development and integration with global positioning system data. MoEML uses the term geographic information specialist to designate a contributor who has georeferenced a dataset (or data within the dataset) or added geo-coordinates to a historical map. Markup editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. MoEML uses the code mrk both for the primary encoder(s) and for the person who edits the encoding. MoEML’s normal workflow includes a step whereby encoders check each other’s work. We use the term encoder to designate the principal encoder, and markup editor to designate the person who checks the encoding. Project director A person or organization with primary responsibility for all essential aspects of a project, or that manages a very large project that demands senior level responsibility, or that has overall responsibility for managing projects, or provides overall direction to a project manager. MoEML’s Project Director directs the intellectual and scholarly aspects of the project, consults with the Advisory and Editorial Boards, and ensures the ongoing funding of the project. Proofreader A person who corrects printed matter. MoEML uses the term proofreader to designate a contributor who checks a transcription against an original document, or a person who corrects formatting and typographical errors in a born-digital article. Note that we use the term markup editor to designate a person who proofreads and corrects encoding. Programmer A person or organization responsible for the creation and/or maintenance of computer program design documents, source code, and machine-executable digital files and supporting documentation. MoEML uses the term programmer to designate a person or organization responsible for the creation and/or maintenance of computer program design documents, source code, and machine-executable digital files and supporting documentation. Research team head A person who directed or managed a research project. MoEML uses the terms research term head and assistant project manager interchangeably. Guest editor MoEML uses the term Guest Editor in two ways: (1) an instructor who participates in our Pedagogical Partnership and edits content generated by their students; and (2) a contributor who solicits, coordinates, and edits a number of entries written by other contributors. Removed old geo coordinates now superceded by GeoJSON. Added GeoJSON auto-generated from old geo coordinates.Reformatted GeoJSON geo elements because the coordinates were reversed. Added abstract, verified info, and published. Changed calendar value from "julian" to "julianSic" using XSLT. Added Kate Casebeer’s content. Unassigned article and released it back into pool of potential pages. Added sourceDesc information for born-digital documents. Standardized respStmts for JENS1, MCFI1, and HOLM3 and added TAKE1 as Junior Programmer. Assigned this page to Ian MacInnes, Professor of English, Albion College, imacinnes@albion.edu. In Summer 2015, his summer research and scholarship undergraduate students will research and write an article on this site. Added XInclude for listPrefixDef in the header. Fixed erroneous status attribute on revisionDesc, changing it from stub to empty. Added global publicationStmt through XInclude. Eliminated superfluous catRef elements from the header. Added catRef elements based on the place/type values in the document. Put change elements inside revisionDesc into the correct (latest first) order. Added profileDesc containing document type information expressed in catRef elements. Converted @rend to @style, through XSLT transformation. Added front element with docTitle as part of a normalization process. This will be used as the definitive page title on rendering. Various updates and fixes made through XSLT, to standardize and normalize encoding practices. Finsbury Field
Finsbury Field

Location: "geometry": { "type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[ [-0.087021,51.522145], [-0.081083,51.521982], [-0.080424,51.523696], [-0.080389,51.526978], [-0.087656,51.525612], [-0.087021,51.522145] ]] }

Location

Finsbury Field is located in northen London outside the London Wall. Note that MoEML correctly locates Finsbury Field, which the label on the Agas map confuses with Mallow Field (Prockter 40). Located nearby is Finsbury Court. Finsbury Field is outside of the city wards within the borough of Islington (Mills 81).

Maps

Finsbury Field was most easily recognized on maps by its windmills. Three windmills are depicted on the Agas map and are mentioned in the 1567 survey of the Manor of Finsbury (Fisher 58). The earlier Copperplate Map depicts only two windmills but in much greater detail. Fisher describes the Copperplate Map windmills: We can see the ladder providing access and the long tail pole used to turn the mill into the wind. The presence of a hooded sack-hoist indicates that the mill was used for grinding corn and not for draining the surrounding marsh. These windmills were situated on bone heaps (Fisher 58).

Name and Etymology

Previous spellings for Finsbury are given as Vinisbir (1231), Finesbury (1254), Fynesbury (1294), and Fynnesbury (1535) (Mills 81). Other spellings included Finesbury Field, Fynesburie Fyeld, Fensbery, and Fynnesburie Fielde. According to A.D. Mills, Finsbury originally meant manor of a man called Finn, from an Old Scandinavian personal name and Middle English bury (Mills 81-82). Finsbury Field was also occasionally known as High Field and Medow Ground.

Significance

Finsbury and Moorfield were both part of a large fen, not drained until 1527 (Thornbury 196). Previously, the area was popular with the London youth for use as a skating ground in winter (Fitter 51). Stow gives us a description of the winter recreation from Fitzstephen’s account of London:

When the great fenne or Moore, which watereth the wals of the Citie on the North side, is frozen, many yong men play vpon the yce, some striding as wide as they may, doe slide swiftly: others make themselues seates of yce, as great as Milstones: one sits downe, many hand in hand doe draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall togither: some tie bones to their feete, and vnder their heeles, and shouing themselues by a little picked Staffe, doe slide as swiftly as a bird flieth in the ayre, or an arrow out of a Crossebow. Sometime two runne togither with Poles, and hitting one the other, eyther one or both doe fall, not without hurt: some breake their armes, some their legges, but youth desirous of glorie in this sort exerciseth it selfe agaynst the time of warre. Many of the Citizens doe delight themselues in Hawkes and houndes, for they haue libertie of hunting in Middlesex, Hartfordshire, all Chiltron, and in Kent to the water of Cray. Thus farre Fitzstephen of sportes. (Stow 35)

This is one of the first recorded instances of ice skating.

History

Moorgate was built into the city wall in 1414 by order of Lord Mayor Thomas Falconer so Londoners could more easily access this recreational area. Stow records that in 1477 Mayor Ralph Joceline had the area searched for clay in order to repair the city wall, by which means this field was made the worse for a long time (Stow 2:76). Stow also describes the clearing of the gardens in 1498 in order to create a field for archery. Dikes were added and the ground leveled in 1511 under Lord Mayor Roger Acheley for even more ease of passage. Protector Somerset was notably welcomed in Finsbury Field by the Lord Mayor in 1548. In the early sixteenth century, trees were planted and gravel walks created for the public. In 1665, Finsbury Field was used as a burial ground for dissenters, as well as plague victims. After the Great Fire, many homeless Londoners camped there.

Textual and Literary References

The numerous mentions of Finsbury Field reveal a variety of uses. There are occasional remarks about the windmills: In his sixth yeer, Sir George Barnes Major of London, gave a Windmill in Finsbury-field to the Haberdashers of London, the profits thereof to be destributed to the poor of that Company; also to Saint Bartholamews the little, certaine Tenements to the like use (Baker 87). One play refers to the Battle of Finsbury Field: as never was Citizen beaten, since the great Battaile of Finsbury-Field (Brome sig. B6v). A Heywood epigram describes a fox in Finsbury Field that ſate in ſyght of certayne people, / Noddyng, and blyſſing, ſtaryng on poules ſteeple, from which we can discern that Finsbury was a good place from which to observe the city (Heywood sig. A5r). Finsbury is also mentioned in Shakespeare’s <ref type="bibl" target="#BEVI7">Henry IV, Part One</ref>, when Hotspur complains that Kate, givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths / As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury (Shakespeare 3.1.1797-1798). We can infer that, as Finsbury was a popular recreational area on the northern edge of London, ordinary citizens might spend a day’s outing there. Hotspur seems to imply that those who never travel farther are parochial, unsophisticated, and common.

Archery

The activity for which Finsbury Field was most popular, however, was archery. Figures depicting archers can be seen on both the Agas Map and the Copperplate Map. Finsbury Field was well known for archery, and there are records of the field being used for this purpose as far back as 1498, when the Lord Mayor allocated eleven acres there for public archery. A short book called Ayme for Finsburie Archers was published in four editions from 1590 to 1628. The editions listed alphabetically the names of the marks, as well as their distances for one another. The opening of the 1601 edition gives a sense of how popular the sport was at the time: Shooting in the long bow being of it selfe very laudable, and our English nation in all ages surpassing therein all others And yet (a matter to be lamented) this laudable exercise of late dayes hath become cold in this land, famous London retaining the most ardent desire to maintaine the same, as appeareth by the daily concourse of Citizens most especially in that choice place Finsburie (E.B. sig A2). A series of rules are then given for proper use of the course, followed by the list of marks, or targets. Early modern recreational archery differed most obviously from modern practice in that rather than hitting a target at close range, early archers attempted to outdo each other by landing their arrows closest to a distant wooden, and later stone, mark. The archer who hit closest to the mark won the honor of choosing the next mark. These marks were three to four feet tall and were given a variety of names, such as Bush by the Swan, Sir Rowland, and Star (E.B. sig 1). Each mark had a slot in the top to hold an emblem to distinguish it from the others. The earliest map of these marks, which can been seen below, dates from 1594 and depicts 94 marks.

The popularity of Finsbury Field and the surrounding fields as a place for archery was not always well received by property owners in the area. Several conflicts arose over the years when owners tried to close off their land, and there are several reports of angry citizens tearing down hedges and filling ditches in an attempt to take back the fields for the purpose of practicing archery. The citizens appear to have had the support of the king: statutes were passed in the reign of Henry VIII and subsequently directing that the fields should be available for practice (Longman and Walrond 166).

1595 marked the end of the inclusion of archery in military training, and archery declined rapidly in early seventeenth century. The crown attempted to preserve the practice. King James declared that Finsbury Fields were protected for archery in 1605, and Charles I decreed that archery should be practiced on Sunday afternoons after divine service.

In 1641, the Honorable Artillery Company (HAC) took management of Finsbury. HAC replaced the wooden marks with ones made of stone. One of the privileges of the HAC was that an archer would not be responsible for accidentally shooting anyone while practising if they yelled faste before firing. However, the popularity of archery continued to decline and only 21 Finsbury Marks remained by 1737. Finsbury Fields are now home to Finsbury Square, developed in 1777. After 1786 nothing further was done to preserve the marks. There is currently only one remaining Finsbury Mark, titled Scarlett, on display in Armory House.