Talk:Jewel Tower

Expansion...

I've gone through and given the article a thorough scrub and expansion; it should cover the current literature now fairly comprehensively. It may need a copyedit though. Hchc2009 (talk) 13:41, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Lethal fish

I am rather fond of the story about William Usshborne's death and the monks' reaction, and I was happy to see it mentioned in the article. However, the passage reads "while eating a fish from a pond in the palace", and I wonder whether this is due to vagueness on the source's part or conscious rejection of an interesting detail: a couple of my books specifically attribute the death to a pike caught in the Jewel Tower's moat, and therefore in Abbey lands. It's the kind of coincidence that would make a particularly strong impression upon the monks, and I'm curious to see whether there are authorities refuting this version of events. Waltham, The Duke of 21:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Ashbee is very specific in his use of the words "pond" and "fishpond" rather than "moat" in his translation, although he doesn't give the original Latin version. The moat was permanently connected to the Thames, though, so I'd imagine it wouldn't have been very suitable as a fishpond for pike etc. Hchc2009 (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I see. I now notice that the article doesn't actually mention it, but the moat does seems to have been used as a fishpond. I can only find these two examples now, though I think I've read it somewhere else as well.

• Field, John (2002). The Story of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. London: Politico's Publishing; James & James Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 978-1904022145. The Tower encroached on monastic ground and was flanked on three sides by a moat, used as a fishpond by William de Huseeborne, Keeper of the Privy Palace, whose sudden death caused delight among the aggrieved Benedictine monks, and was attributed by them to his being poisoned by a pike caught in their territorial waters.
• Goodall, John (2000). "The Medieval Palace of Westminster". In Riding, Christine; Riding, Jacqueline (eds.). The Houses of Parliament: History, Art, Architecture. London: Merrell Publishers. p. 58. ISBN 978-1858941127. This [the Jewel Tower] was built on land appropriated from the abbey at the edge of the Privy Garden – a private garden adjacent to the royal apartments – and was intended to serve as a store for the king's plate and jewels. It was a small consolation to the irate Westminster monks that one of Edward's keepers of the Privy Palace subsequently choked to death on the bone of a pike caught in the moat surrounding the tower.

Waltham, The Duke of 22:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Elsewhere, Ashbee translates the original 15th-century Latin as "here he made a garden with a pond in which to keep live fish [perhaps the Jewel Tower moat?]". Stepping into speculation and OR (!), I'm pretty sure that the Black Book is using a word like piscina or vivarium here, rather fossa, though, otherwise the translation would look rather different. How about we add in a footnote noting that the pond could possibly have been the moat? Hchc2009 (talk) 07:24, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

NB: I wonder if the mouth of the moat, where it met the Thames proper, wouldn't have been good territory for a pike... Relatively slow water, but good for ambushing other fish? Hchc2009 (talk) 07:27, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I lost the message I was preparing yesterday, so here's a new one:

• I know nothing about fishing, I'm afraid. I don't even eat fish as often as I'd like, which is sad.
• Your idea about the translation makes sense. (Funny fact: piscina has crossed from Italian into modern Greek as the word for "swimming pool".) However, even though the original source does not allow us to definitively state the moat is the fish pond in question, some writers (and apparently English Heritage itself, judging from the photograph of a sign outside the Jewel Tower I encountered some time ago) believe it to be the moat. After all, it makes sense: whatever fish ponds existed in the Privy Garden must have been within the palace's grounds; only the Jewel Tower and its moat were in monastic lands. So yes, I like the footnote idea, which is appropriate for a sourced, interesting and relevant piece of reasonable conjecture.
• I'd actually seen the linked page before reading your comment above, and returned here to admit that things were not as certain as I'd thought. I was actually kicking myself for not thinking to visit the EH website the day before, especially considering my current pursuits. (I've digged up an old draft I started on the Old Palace of Westminster some years ago and kind of rushing to finish it and put it on-line, preferably before 16 October. It's not moving fast enough. That clock tower that is mentioned in passing here? It's actually rather important, and there's too much confusion about it in the sources for my liking; many writers conflate it with an older clock tower which it seems to have replaced, and which was probably in the same location. It's madness, I tell you.)

Waltham, The Duke of 10:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

NB: done. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:59, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

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