Elizabeth Lucar
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Elizabeth Lucar (née Withypoll; 1510 – 29 October 1537) was an English calligrapher. In addition to her calligraphic skills she was fluent in Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and was an accomplished musician, needleworker and algorist. A member of a prominent and wealthy mercantile family holding royal favour and civic office, her marriage united common interests within the
Company of Merchant Taylors ] The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors is one of the 110 Livery company, livery companies of the City of London. The Company, originally known as the ''Guild and Fraternity of St John the Baptist in the City of London'', was founded prio ...
.


Epitaph

Elizabeth Lucar was born and died in London and is largely known from an inscription on her tomb in
St Laurence Pountney St Laurence Pountney was a Church of England parish church in the Candlewick ward of the City of London. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and not rebuilt. History The church stood on the west side of what is now Laurence Pountney ...
church, London, written or commissioned by her husband Emanuel Lucar (1494–1574). This was recorded by
John Stow John Stow (''also'' Stowe; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English historian and antiquarian. He wrote a series of chronicles of English history, published from 1565 onwards under such titles as ''The Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles'', ''The C ...
.
"Every Christian heart seeketh to extoll
The glory of the Lord, our onely Redeemer:
Wherefore Dame Fame must needs inroll
Paul Withypoll his childe, by love and Nature,
Elizabeth, the wife of Emmanuel Lucar,
In whom was declared the goodnesse of the Lord,
With many high vertues, which truely I will record. She wrought all Needle workes that women exercise,
With Pen, Frame, or Stoole, all Pictures artificiall,
Curious Knots or Trailes, what fancy would devise,
Beasts, Brids, or Flowers, even as things naturall:
Three manner hands could she write, them faire all.
To speake of Algorisme, or accounts, in every fashion,
Of women, few like (I thinke) in all this Nation. Dame Cunning her gave a gift right excellent,
The goodly practice of her Science Musicall,
In divers tongues to sing, and play with Instrument,
Both Viall and Lute, and also Virginall;
Not onely upon one, but excellent in all.
For all other vertues belonging to Nature,
God her appointed a very perfect creature. Latine and Spanish, and also Italian,
She spake, writ, and read, with perfect utterance;
And for the English, she the Garland wan,
In Dame Prudence Schoole, by Graces purveyance,
Which cloathed her with Vertues, from naked Ignorance:
Reading the Scriptures, to judge light from darke,
Directing her faith to Christ, the onely Marke."
"The said Elizabeth deceased the 29 day of October An. Dom. 1537. Of yeares not fully 27: This Stone, and all hereon contained, made at the cost of the said Emanuel Merchant-Taylor." After the destruction of St. Laurence Pountney church in the
Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
of 1666, the brass plate inscription was moved to St. Michael, Crooked Lane.


"Curious Calligraphy"

In a work published in 1904, D.N. Carvalho referred to an essay on the subject of calligraphy written by Elizabeth Lucar in 1525, at the age of 15, entitled ''Curious Calligraphy''. This, he claimed, was the first English essay on that subject, and this claim has been repeated elsewhere. However, the work is not extant and ''Curious Calligraphy'' is nowhere else cited. The term 'calligraphy' itself appears anachronistic for English usage of that date. Ballard, in his 1752 Memoir of Elizabeth Lucar, does not mention an essay but described her as 'a curious calligrapher'. It is possible that Carvalho, reading the line of her epitaph 'She wrought all Needle workes that women exercise', interpreted it to mean 'she wrote (of) all needle workes'. The duality of meaning of 'wrought' and 'wrote' has been recognized elsewhere, but in either sense, that line may only mean that she herself delineated the patterns which she afterwards rendered in needlework. The line 'Three manner hands could she write, them faire all' does however indicate that she could write beautifully in three different scripts.


Reformist connections

Elizabeth Lucar's date of death is noted (as an interpolation) in the Calendar of the 15th-century
Book of Hours The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscrip ...
known as ''The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours''. A closely similar text is annotated into the Calendar of a 1535 printed copy of William Marshall's ''Prymer'' (which incorporated English texts of the Psalms translated from
Martin Bucer Martin Bucer ( early German: ''Martin Butzer''; 11 November 1491 – 28 February 1551) was a German Protestant reformer based in Strasbourg who influenced Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican doctrines and practices. Bucer was originally a me ...
's Latin, disguised by being printed parallel with the
Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
Latin). The textual identity of the inscriptions in these two calendars indicates that they belonged to someone deeply interested in Reformation psalm-readings to whom Elizabeth was well-known. Elizabeth's father Paul Withypoll's patronage of religious art is illustrated by the ''Withypool Triptych'', a devotional painting of the Virgin and child with Saints Catherine and Ursula, including a portrait of Paul Withypoll. An attendant female figure is shown playing the lute. This masterpiece was commissioned by Paul from the Italian artist Antonio Solario and completed in 1514.


Family

Elizabeth was the daughter of Paul Withypoll (c.1485–1547), Master Merchant Taylor, Alderman and M.P. for London and his wife Anne, daughter of Robert Curzon of
Brightwell, Suffolk Brightwell is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district, in the English county of Suffolk. It has a church called St John The Baptist. For transport there is the A12 road nearby. It is near the large town of Ipswich. Adjacent parish ...
. Paul was the third son of John Withypoll of
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and his wife Alyson, daughter and heiress of John à Gaunt of
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
; that John Withypoll of Bristol was the son of Robert Withypoll of Wythipool in Shropshire, origin of the surname. Elizabeth was the sister (possibly the only sibling?) of Edmund Withypoll, M.P., who, after their father had purchased the site of the Holy Trinity Priory of
Augustinian canons Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by ...
in
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
, built Christchurch Mansion as a private house there in 1548–50. Edmund Withypoll of Ipswich and his wife Elizabeth Hynde had 18 children (several of whom did not survive infancy) to whom Elizabeth was aunt. In 1532 Elizabeth received a bequest of £50 from her extremely wealthy uncle Robert Thurne or Thorne, merchant of London and Bristol (who had married her aunt Ellen Withypoll). The Thorne and Withypoll families (between whom there were older ties of kinship) were engaged in an international trading syndicate and were conspicuous collectors of precious objects. Elizabeth married Emanuel Lucar (born Bridgwater, Somerset, 1494, died London 1574), the great-grandson of Richard Lucar, Steward to the Duke of Exeter in the time of
Henry VI of England Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, he succeeded to the English thron ...
(brother of William Lucar, Forester of the Forest of Exmoor to Henry VI), from John Lucar of Bridgwater, son of John Lucar of Wythecomb. Elizabeth's children – Emanuel, Henry, Mary, Jane, and another daughter – and those of her husband's second wife Joan Turnbull or Trumball are shown in the 1568 Herald's Visitation of London. A painted portrait of Elizabeth Lucar is referred to in the will of Emanuel Lucar.Bradford, 'Emanuel Lucar and St. Sepulchre's', p. 25; Will of Emanuell Lucar, Gentleman and Merchant Tailor of London (P.C.C. 1574).


Heraldry

The following arms are recited for Elizabeth in the 1568 Visitation: Quarterly. 1 & 4, Per pale or and gules, three lions passant in pale within a bordure counterchanged. 2. Azure, three bars or, over all or a bend engrailed gules three pheons argent. 3. Azure, a cross moline between four crosses patté or.


Legacy

Lucar's name is one of 999 on the " Heritage Floor" of
Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...
's Dinner Party, an epic feminist art installation that narrates the history of women in western civilization from prehistory to the twentieth century.


References


External links


Project Continua: Biography of Elizabeth Lucar
Project Continua is a web-based multimedia resource dedicated to the creation and preservation of women’s intellectual history from the earliest surviving evidence into the 21st Century. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucar, Elizabeth 1510 births 1537 deaths English calligraphers 16th-century women artists 16th-century English writers 16th-century English women writers Artists from London Women calligraphers