The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Bede died as he had lived, freely sharing all he had, and singing praises to God.
Bede, a monk at the monastery of St Paul in Jarrow, did as much as any prince to make England. Two centuries before the Kingdom came into being, his History of the English Church and People (?731) had begun to create the common English faith, culture and purpose that a united nation would need. His death in 735 was witnessed by his student Cuthbert, who later wrote to his friend Cuthwine about it.
Cracking down on benefit claimants and migrant workers didn’t make Godfrey Bertram as popular as he expected.
In Guy Mannering, King George III has been pleased to appoint Godfrey Bertram, Laird of Ellangowan, to the magistrates’ bench. (“Pleased! I’m sure he cannot be better pleased than I am.”) The Laird at once gave up good-humoured tolerance and began sweeping the idle into work, the sick from their beds, and the ragged from the streets.
One of China’s greatest poets reflects on silence, on speech, and on a song in the heart of a friend.
Po Chu-i or Bai Juyi (772-846) was a career bureaucrat in the Chinese government, national and regional, whose abilities and frank criticisms brought a head-spinning series of promotions and demotions. He is also one of China’s best-loved poets. Below are three of his many short poems, one playful, one protesting, and one a thoughtful tribute to his closest friend.
William the Conqueror’s chaplain used to tell this story to those who doubted his master’s claim to the English crown.
In 1063, against the advice of King Edward the Confessor, Harold, son of Earl Godwin, crossed the Channel to Normandy. There, young Duke William welcomed him with a degree of warmth that was faintly troubling. William made of Harold his especial friend, and shared with him his ambition to be named Edward’s heir. Would Harold help him? William asked, and Harold mumbled something vague.
The honours that come from God and those that come from men need to be put in the right order.
Mencius (?371-?289) or ‘Master Meng’ spent his career advising Chinese regional governments on public policy during a low-point in the Zhou Dynasty. Regional barons squabbled, taxed cruelly and chopped off heads, and all was flattery, corruption and ambition. Mencius saw no hope for the State in institutional reforms: each man must undertake his own personal reformation.
In 1381, young King Richard II was faced with a popular uprising against tax rises.
After the Black Death wiped out nearly three-quarters of England’s population in the 1340s, fit working men were scarce, and wealthy landowners had to bid for every labourer’s favour. The Government hurriedly capped wages and banned labouring men from buying luxury food or clothing. Astonishingly, London then raised taxes to pay for the faltering Hundred Years’ War.