by June Davey

The Boke of St Albans (Westminster, 1496), British Library, C.11.b.5, on display at the Medieval Women: In Their Own Words Exhibition (c) British Library.

History is riddled with enigmas and one is the intriguing character of Dame Juliana (de) Berners, to whom the authorship of at least part The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms, otherwise knows as the Boke of Saint Albans is attributed.  This treatise on falconry, hunting and heraldry was first published in 1846 by the Schoolmaster Printer of St Albans. At the end of the section on hunting appears the attribution ‘Dam Julyans Barnes’. This section is written in verse in the first person narrative, and it adopts the voice of a woman addressing a child or children. A famous reprint of the Boke by Wynkyn de Worde that includes an additional, important, treatise on fishing reiterates the attribution to Juliana Barnes or Berners, as do other versions; over time the attribution extended to the entire work.

But who was Juliana and was she indeed the author of all or part of his work?

West Horsley Place (c) West Horsley Place Trust, reproduced with permission.

16th-century sources identify her as the daughter of James de Berners (1361-88), a favourite of Richard II, and Lord of the Manor of West Horsley in Surrey and Berners Hall in Essex. Three writers, John Bale, (1495-1563), Raphael Holinshed (c.1525-c.1580) and Gervase Markham (c.1568-1637), offer pictures of Juliana as a beautiful, spirited lady who loved outdoor pursuits, such as fishing, hawking and hunting. The following century, in a 1610 edition of the Boke of St Albans. William Burton (1575–1645) claimed Juliana Berners was prioress of Sopwell Priory, near St Albans.   The rank of a prioress was equivalent to that of an Abbot, and a  lady of her rank would have had considerable influence.  It is interesting to compare Juliana with Chaucer’s Madame Eglantine, the Prioress, travelling to Canterbury, richly clad in elegant gowns and jewellery, with her ‘smale houndes’ (The General Prologue, line 146).

Historians and literary scholars from the Victorian period through to the 21^st century have questioned her authorship of such works, and even her existence, but this arguably reflects attitudes of condescension towards the medieval period. Writers of this later period comment that no such person as Juliana appears in the family tree of the West Horsley Manor de Berners family, and there are no records of a Juliana Berners having been prioress at Sopwell or elsewhere. However women were often omitted from genealogies and the Sopwell Priory records from 1435-1480 (which includes the period when Juliana would have been Prioress) have not come down to us.  

Perhaps the ‘male gaze’ of later periods has a problem with women relishing country sports, but it was not unusual for women of that time to engage in such outdoor pursuits. Pictures in many Books of Hours (such as the 14th century Taymouth Hours) show women pursuing such activities. Juliana’s expert  advice on angling was the first to appear in print. It is not too prejudiced to say that when historical sources are examined, the versions of earlier writers, working so much closer to the life of Dame Juliana, and imbued with more understanding of the medieval period, appear more convincing.

Further Reading

1. Edition

Hands, Rachel, English Hawking and Hunting in ‘The Boke of St. Albans’: A facsimile edition of sigs. A2-F8 of “The Boke of St. Albans” (1486), (London: Oxford University Press, 1975).

2. Secondary Sources

Boffey, Julia, ‘Berners [Bernes, Barnes], Juliana (fl. 1460), Supposed Author and Prioress of Sopwell’ in  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (23 Sep. 2004); Accessed 24 Feb. 2025. https://www-oxforddnb-com.surrey.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-2255.

Brown, Jennifer N., ‘Berners, Dame Juliana, Book of Hunting’ in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women’s Writing in the Global Middle Ages, ed. Michelle M. Sauer, Diane Watt and Liz Herbert McAvoy (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham: 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_108-1