Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
“Fortunate Art”: Short-Writing by Ministers and Sermon Notetakers in Colonial New England
Presentation #1 Abstract
Following the publication of Timothie Bright’s Characterie: An Art of shorte, swifte and secrete writing by Character in 1588, a spate of books on shorthand appeared in England. This technology echoed long-forgotten methods which had developed centuries before, while providing fresh techniques for composing and recording spoken speech. From their very beginnings these new systems proved especially applicable to religious purposes, though they also found academic, legal, and governmental applications. Clergy from those centuries left hundreds of “short-writing” manuscripts which are as yet untranscribed.
This paper will describe the principles behind “short-writing” as exemplified in two major systems in use in the era under consideration: John Willis’ cipher system (The Art of Stenography, 1602) and Thomas Shelton’s code system (Short-Writing, the Most Exact Method, 1626). The presentation will consider some of the challenges in transcribing extant notes into English, and will pay special attention to two previously unreadable coded systems the author has solved: the 18th century MSS of the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell of Monterey, MA (1716-1784), and the 17th century idiosyncratic notes of a lay notetaker, John Pynchon of Springfield, MA (1625?-1703).
At-A-Glance Bios- Presenter #1
I am an independent scholar, educated at Carleton College and Harvard University. In my retirement I have focused on early New England history, and in particular the Puritan enterprise in Massachusetts. My books included Damnable Heresy: William Pynchon, the Indians, and the First Book Banned (and Burned) in Boston (2015), and Good and Comfortable Words: The Coded Sermon Notes of John Pynchon and the Frontier Preaching Ministry of George Moxon (2017), both published by Wipf & Stock.
Recommended Citation
Powers, David M., "“Fortunate Art”: Short-Writing by Ministers and Sermon Notetakers in Colonial New England." Paper presented at the Conference on Sermon Studies: "," , October 2019.
https://mds.marshall.edu/sermon_conference/2019/presentations/2
“Fortunate Art”: Short-Writing by Ministers and Sermon Notetakers in Colonial New England
Following the publication of Timothie Bright’s Characterie: An Art of shorte, swifte and secrete writing by Character in 1588, a spate of books on shorthand appeared in England. This technology echoed long-forgotten methods which had developed centuries before, while providing fresh techniques for composing and recording spoken speech. From their very beginnings these new systems proved especially applicable to religious purposes, though they also found academic, legal, and governmental applications. Clergy from those centuries left hundreds of “short-writing” manuscripts which are as yet untranscribed.
This paper will describe the principles behind “short-writing” as exemplified in two major systems in use in the era under consideration: John Willis’ cipher system (The Art of Stenography, 1602) and Thomas Shelton’s code system (Short-Writing, the Most Exact Method, 1626). The presentation will consider some of the challenges in transcribing extant notes into English, and will pay special attention to two previously unreadable coded systems the author has solved: the 18th century MSS of the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell of Monterey, MA (1716-1784), and the 17th century idiosyncratic notes of a lay notetaker, John Pynchon of Springfield, MA (1625?-1703).
