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Dame Juliana-Did She or Didn't She?
By Alayne Meeks
Dame Juliana-Did She or Didn't She?
By Alayne Meeks
When Jon Bowman won the Dame Juliana Award at the annual dinner this year, I wondered who Dame Juliana was whose name graced this highly respected award. When our newsletter editor, Dougald Scott, asked the same question and asked me if I wanted to write about Dame Juliana, I jumped at the chance and here is what I've found.
Dame Juliana Berners' name appeared on the Boke of St. Albans or the Second Book of St. Albans, written in England in 1486. A 1496 edition spells her name as Bernes. The book was divided into three sections: hawking, hunting, and heraldry and Dame Juliana's name was associated with the hunting section. This book became so popular that it was reprinted in the same year by a different press where an extra section was added entitled, Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle, which has been assumed to be the first book on rod and fly fishing. Information on the flyleaf of an early copy of the 1486 Boke says, "Dame Juliana was Lady Prioresse of Sopwell, a Nunnery neere St. Albons."
John Bale writes an eloquent biography of Dame Juliana in his 1559 book, Account of the Lives of the most Eminent Writers of Great Britain, citing the Dame as "an illustrious female, eminently endowed with superior qualities both mental and personal." But Bale's work omitted the one fact that had been mentioned in the first accounting of Dame Juliana, her post as abbess of Sopwell. And Bale cites no sources for any of his biography, leaving some with the idea that this information about Dame Juliana is more fiction than fact. This idea may be further enhanced by the knowledge that Bale was a historian and writer of fiction, a radical evangelical preacher in London whose nickname was "Bilious Bill." Was Bale a creator of history or folklore about Dame Juliana?
John Hawkins gave the legend tremendous impetus, in his popular 1760 edition of the Complete Angler. In his introductory essay, Life of Mr. Isaac Walton, Hawkins describes the author of the Treatyse as: 'Dame Julyans Bernes, prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, near St. Alban's; a lady of noble family, and celebrated for her learning and accomplishments, by Leland, Bale, Pits, and others...'" But I was expecting to find more and varied information on Dame Juliana, at least information that wasn't under question. There appears to be no other in depth work on the life of Dame Juliana, no information able to answer any deeper questions about this woman whose name graces awards and fly fishing clubs.
Michael Quinion, once a BBC studio manager who currently writes for the web site, "World Wide Words" and provides citations and advice for the Oxford English Dictionary says the Book of St. Albans "is almost certainly a compilation of earlier works, probably written originally in French." Quinion also refers to Dame Juliana as "semi-mythical." "The best comment on this 'did she?' 'didn't she?' argument lies with an extract from a letter - quoted here - from a Dr GW Goodall to a Miss Harrington following some correspondence about the Treatyse which was published in The Sunday Times of 14 December, 1950: 'By the way, the dame (or whoever wrote the book) does not claim to have written it, but to have compiled it. And it is clear from the book itself, that the compiler must have had access to other writings on fishing. But while it has not been shown that Dame Juliana did write or compile the book, it has not been shown that she did not.'"
So Dame Juliana's name links us to a past that saw the written beginnings of a sport we continue to enjoy today. And while there is question of authorship by some, what does it really matter? There has been a controversy surrounding the authoring of Shakespeare's writings for ages, but Will's name will continue to grace those works as Dame Juliana's will continue to be connected to the first fly fishing writings. Did she or didn't she? I leave it to you.