'The Description of Essex,' by John Norden, 1594

Abstract

The original contribution made by John Norden the elder (i548-1625) to county mapping a d to rep esentational t chnique i English cartography suggests that the discovery of a hitherto unknown manuscript by him deserves record. Unlucky in his lifetime, Norden was pursued after his death by ill fortune in the disappearance of a number of his topographical works. The * historical and chorographical descriptions/ and maps, of five counties, which he is known or suspected to have surveyed are lost; his account of another county is known only in a printed edition of the eighteenth century; the manuscripts of four county maps, which exist in printed versions, have disappeared.z Norden's survey of Essex is relatively well documented. Two manuscripts of his description of this county, each accompanied by a map, have been preserved, together with an abridged description, also with a map. Of his 'Speculi Britanniae Pars: an Historicall and Chorographicall Description of the County of Essex/ Norden dedicated manuscript copies, dated 1594, to Lord Burghley and the Earl of Essex. In the following year Norden presented to the Queen a manuscript volume containing shorter descriptions, with maps, of five counties (including Essex) and three islands. Burghley's copy, preserved at Hatfield House (and here referred to as H), was printed in 1840 2; that of the Earl of Essex (E) is now Add. MS. 33769 in the British Museum, and the Queen's (Q) is Add. MS. 31853. To these may be added the recently discovered manuscript (Essex Record Office: D/DMs Pi), which seems to be an earlier version nearer to Norden's field survey, in time of composition and in form, than the fair copies hitherto known. The new survey was found in the manuscripts of Hervey St. John Mildmay of Hazelgrove House, Somerset, which were deposited a few years ago in the Somerset Record Office. A selective list of deeds had been compiled by the Historical MSS. Commission,3 but the printed report makes no mention of the Norden MS. The Hervey-Mildmay branch of the Mildmay family was originally seated at Marks in Romford, Essex, and the section of the collection representing their archives was transferred in 1955, through the good offices of Mr. I. P. Collis, County Archivist of Somerset, to the Essex Record Office, which had received the MSS. of the main branch of the Mildmays in 1940 from the Chelmsford and London family solicitors. Comparison of the Mildmay manuscript (here cited as M) with the others throws some light on the relationship between Norden's successive versions and on his selec? tion of material for them. Both the 'description' and the map are fair copies, but the minor slips and blemishes on the map presumably led him to reject it, and in redrawing to adopt a larger scale affording marginal space for slightly more elaborate decoration and for tables. Its dedication shows that Norden intended his work for presentation, in the first instance, to Burghley, and that H was therefore written before E. M is undated, but internal evidence points to its completion in 1594.4 The dedicatory epistle offers further evidence of Norden's poverty and need for patronage at this date: