“The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses”, by Richard Barber

 

208 pages, The Folio Society 

So, it turns out that The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses by Richard Barber is in fact the second book I’ve read on this interesting family, the first being Blood and Roses: One Family’s Struggle and Triumph During the Tumultuous Wars of the Roses by Helen Castor (reviewed on October 5^th, 2013). This, of course, is an edition from the Folio Society, so it’s bound beautifully and is printed on extra-special paper. So it’s a better read. Obviously. That, and the fact that its written by Richard Barber, who happens to be one of Britain’s leading authorities on medieval history. But just who were the Pastons, anyway? Well, as the subtitle states, they were an English family who, between 1426 and 1485 (that would be the Wars of the Roses), established themselves as a family of consequence, both in their native Norfolk and within court circles. Because so many of their letters have survived, they have come down to us as a unique repository of information about these wars that did so much to rip apart and destroy England over the course of the 15^th Century.

Just like Castor in Blood and Roses, Barber in The Pastons relies on “The Paston Letters” for his primary source; these Letters refer to the correspondence, state papers and other important documents that were shared between members of this family of Norfolk gentry and their large circle of allies and acquaintances between 1422 and 1509. These papers were acquired from the estate of William Paston, 2^nd Earl of Yarmouth (and the last of the Pastons) by the antiquary Francis Blomefield in 1735. From there, they were obtained by Thomas Martin, an antiquarian and lawyer, in 1752. On Martin’s death in 1771 some of the papers passed into the hands of John Ives, while many others were purchased by John Worth, a chemist, whose executors sold them in 1774 to Sir John Fenn, yet another antiquarian, who was the first to publish them after this convoluted trail of ownership. Without question, all of these men did future historians a great service by preserving these papers, as they offer a brilliant insight into the blood feud known as the Wars of the Roses from a family that lived a fought through it.

For the Pastons were in the thick of it, make no mistake, and Barber uses his expertise in this area to set their correspondence in their proper context as we follow this family through their triumphs and tragedies. The urgency – and, often, the violence – of their preoccupations come to us across the centuries as if they happened yesterday: their courtships, their estates, their cupboards; their properties, their cases, their alliances. This is more than just a collection of the Pastons correspondence, for Barber weaves their story together using their own words as bridges from their time to ours. A wonderful addition to anyone’s library of Medieval England in general and the Wars of the Roses specifically.