Translations of the Sibyls' Prophecies of the Birth of Christ

Language: English

Context and purpose

This twelve-leaf vellum presentation manuscript was prepared by Jane Seager for Elizabeth I in 1589. It contains eleven English poems: ten prophecies of the birth of Christ, each attributed to a different sibyl (fols. 1v-11r) and a final poem in Seager's own voice (fol. 11v) expressing her wish that she might, like a latter-day sibyl, predict happiness for Elizabeth. The manuscript opens with Seager's prose dedication to the Queen (fol. 1r). Each of the sibyls' prophecies is unrhymed apart from a closing couplet, whilst the final poem to the Queen rhymes abbacddcee(10).

The precise source for Seager's texts of the sibyls' prophecies has not yet been identified. The form her work takes - pithy verse prophecies assigned to individual sibyls - belongs to an extensive Europe-wide tradition, in which short sibylline texts are often presented alongside visual images and/or descriptions of the sibyls. Probably the most influential printed book in this tradition was Filippo Barbieri's Duodecim Sibyllarum vaticinia (1481) (de Clercq 1978-8; 1981; Wind, 274-5, n.2). At the time Seager was writing, the sibyls, together with texts of their supposed prophecies of Christ's birth, were a popular topic for wall decoration in England and Scotland (Bath 2003).

Seager's manuscript, written out in calligraphic italic script and decorated with gilt ruling and capitals, contains facing-page transcriptions of the sibyls' prophecies into charactery, a form of shorthand invented by Dr. Timothy Bright, whose book on the subject appeared one year before Seager's text (Bright 1588; Westby-Gibson 1888; Kraner 1931; Brewerton 2002). The presentation of Seager's manuscript to Elizabeth may have been connected with Bright's preferment to a clerical appointment in 1590. The use of charactery in the manuscript is probably connected with the Renaissance debate about the means by which the sibyls recorded their prophecies--whether on leaves, orally, and/or in hieroglyphic inscriptions. Seager prepared her manuscript one year after the Armada, in the wake of a keen interest both in prophecies of all kinds and of secret writing systems (Bull; Dobin).

The manuscript's use of unusual forms of visual signifiers links it to the work of Jane Seager's distinguished brother, Sir William Segar , herald, portrait painter and author of books on chivalry and heraldry. (And Henry Woudhuysen has pointed out that Jane's handwriting is very similar to Sir William's ((Woudhuysen 1999, 74)).) A second brother, Francis Segar also painted (Piper 1957). The painted decoration on the glass binding of Jane Seager's manuscript shows that she painted as well (Intriguingly, the painting on the binding shares stylistic elements with a a portrait of John Colet, now at Mercers' Hall, for which an unspecified "Segar" was recorded as having been paid in 1585/6 (Grossmann 1950, 211-2).

The complete text of Seager's manuscript (including the shorthand translations) is printed with an analysis of Seager's use of Bright's shorthand in Kraner.